I was Flying, so my Wordless Wednesday is a tad birt late

Euro Disneyland 2008

From Here on Out.....

....it's Wordless Wednesdays for me!

I haven't participated yet, having just discovered the concept this morning.

But it's a plan, nonetheless!

Photos Prises Samedi Soir

Lucie et Fabrice

Aude, Justine, Marie, Aurore, et Lucie

Long road to here - Metro

Long road to here - Metro

Long road to here

Ashton Shurson - The Daily Iowan

Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Metro

Media Credit: Julie Brayton/The Daily Iowan

Wayne Ford has always taken necessary precautions for the "controversy that has always stayed with him."

Back in the late 1960s at Rochester Junior College in Minnesota, Ford started carrying a gun on top of some towels in his gym bag after he received a threatening message.

Ford had walked into a restroom and saw "We're going to kill the nigger Wayne Ford" scrawled on the wall near the toilet.

"I'm from the inner city, so when I saw that, I started carrying a gun to school," Ford said. "I went to school every day - had the gun right there looking at me. So if someone tried to kill me, I would hope to get off six shots."

Rep. Ford, D-Des Moines, took a long and rough road before making it in the Statehouse, but every bump along the journey has shaped who he is today.

His struggle started in 1951 in Washington, D.C. His mother, a passionate woman from North Carolina, traveled to the capital to give birth to Ford, who then stayed and was raised by his aunts.

His father was married to another woman, and Ford cites this as the reason he was sent to Washington.

"I had a situation in which I was living with my aunts, so I always felt as though I had to prove myself," he said in his deep booming voice. "I always felt as though I would do anything for attention. So because of that, that lead me to do some juvenile crimes earlier in my life."

Throughout elementary school and middle school, Ford was pulled out of school for fighting his teachers. He was only 14 years old when he robbed his first bus with his gang.

Although his social life was surrounded by prostitutes, drug dealers, and thugs, his football abilities kept him at Ballou High School.

Ford was one of the youngest players, at age 15, to be an all-conference football player. He played for the school's football team and at 17 years, Ford received a football scholarship from Rochester Junior College in 1969.

"I was blessed with natural strength," Ford said as he imitated a body-builder pose.

But in high school, strength and football playing skills were all Ford had going for him. He didn't have enough credits to graduate, and he left high school at 17, with an eighth-grade reading level and with the stigma of being the "most likely to not succeed" in his yearbook.

"Look at me now," Ford said in triumph, although he admits that he's still upset by what his peers thought of him.

Lacking a degree but with his football skills and "the gift of the gab," Ford enrolled in Rochester Junior College.

He said he turned his life around during his three years at Rochester.

He was going to be sent to a local high school to learn how to read, but instead, an English professor at the college invested extra time in him and ignited a love for books in him.

He received another football scholarship from Drake University in Des Moines and finally wore a cap and gown for the first time in 1974 - an achievement he still smiles widely about today. He received a degree in education.

After graduation, he started involving himself in Des Moines' minority community.

In 1976, Ford became the Iowa minority-education coordinator for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. He later held the "Concerned Citizens for Minority Affairs" forum in 1984, with the help of Des Moines community leader Mary Campos, which evolved into the Brown and Black Presidential Forum - now recognized as the oldest minority presidential forum in America.

"Anybody running for president - this is way before Obama - had to deal with minority issues," Ford said emphatically. "I did that."

Campos said she appreciated Ford's sincere interest in the community.

"I'm very proud to work with him," she said. "We present a united front and work on a united front."

During the late-70s, his son Ryan - who is now a deputy editor of The Source Magazine - was born, and he started his first job "working with the people" at a nonprofit organization, Great Opportunities.

After the program lost funding, he started his own nonprofit in 1985, Urban Dreams, a United Way agency that refers locals with problems to the appropriate help. It was first located at the intersection of Forest and Sixth Avenue in Des Moines - once rated one of the most volatile corners in the state.

April Galler, 22, who has worked at Urban Dreams since November 2004, credits the job as changing her life. The information and referral specialist, she was first a volunteer, then hired as a full-time employee after she found out she was pregnant.

"If I wasn't working here, I'd be at the club, smoking, drinking," Galler said. "If it wasn't for [Ford], I wouldn't be the person I am today."

When Zachary Wilson, the Urban Dreams executive director, applied for his job, Ford assumed the recent graduate from Virginia was black. They spoke on the phone several times before meeting in person.

And despite being a minority leader, Ford didn't hold Wilson's skin color against him.

"He's there to raise the minority community," Wilson said. "But he's there to raise up the community as a whole."

Since eighth grade, despite the trouble he got in, Ford has known how his life was going to unfold, he said. The students in his class were required to write their own obituaries, and he said he'd be in the Midwest, work in politics, and be in charge of a community center.

"God has given me the vision and been my support all the way," Ford said. "In my life and where I've been, you couldn't do what I've done and not have a strong spiritual belief."

On top of running a presidential forum and a nonprofit, Ford started a consulting firm, Wayne Ford and Associates, in 1992. The company advises businesses on hiring minorities.

In 1996, Ford was elected Iowa representative for House District 71, and he is now the longest serving black legislator in the state's history.

He is working on an autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill: An Urban Dream, but he is waiting to end it until he sees the outcome of the 2008 elections. He added that a sitcom based on his relationship with his son, Ryan, is also in the works.

Ford has also been married to his third wife, Romonda Belcher Ford, for more than three years now. He credits her for mellowing out his normal overly energetic self.

"He allowed me to see the innocence of him," said Belcher Ford, who added that one of his weaknesses is not letting people get to know the real Wayne Ford.

In Ford's cluttered and award-decorated office at Urban Dreams, he said Iowa has had a fairly liberal legacy toward black residents, and he hopes it continues today.

"I believe now, when Gov. Chet Culver won Iowa, when we talk to prison officials, we are doing things about it," Ford exclaimed with happiness. "Other states are not, we are. So my greatest thing about black history is [Iowa] was doing things in the country before other people understood black people."

E-mail DI reporter Ashton Shurson at:
ashton-shurson@uiowa.edu

---

Wayne Ford
Born: Dec. 21, 1951
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Education: Bachelor of Science education degree from Drake University
Participated in: The Brown and Black Presidential Forum, Urban Dreams, and Wayne Ford and Associates; he is also an Iowa legislator

From Father to Son, Last Words to Live By - From the New York Times

January 1, 2007

An Appreciation

From Father to Son, Last Words to Live By

By DANA CANEDY

He drew pictures of himself with angel wings. He left a set of his dog tags on a nightstand in my Manhattan apartment. He bought a tiny blue sweat suit for our baby to wear home from the hospital.

Then he began to write what would become a 200-page journal for our son, in case he did not make it back from the desert in Iraq.

For months before my fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, kissed my swollen stomach and said goodbye, he had been preparing for the beginning of the life we had created and for the end of his own.

He boarded a plane in December 2005 with two missions, really — to lead his young soldiers in combat and to prepare our boy for a life without him.

Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, “I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.

The journal will have to speak for Charles now. He was killed Oct. 14 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Charles, 48, had been assigned to the Army’s First Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. He was a month from completing his tour of duty.

For our son’s first Christmas, Charles had hoped to take him on a carriage ride through Central Park. Instead, Jordan, now 9 months old, and I snuggled under a blanket in a horse-drawn buggy. The driver seemed puzzled about why I was riding alone with a baby and crying on Christmas Day. I told him.

“No charge,” he said at the end of the ride, an act of kindness in a city that can magnify loneliness.

On paper, Charles revealed himself in a way he rarely did in person. He thought hard about what to say to a son who would have no memory of him. Even if Jordan will never hear the cadence of his father’s voice, he will know the wisdom of his words.

Never be ashamed to cry. No man is too good to get on his knee and humble himself to God. Follow your heart and look for the strength of a woman.

Charles tried to anticipate questions in the years to come. Favorite team? I am a diehard Cleveland Browns fan. Favorite meal? Chicken, fried or baked, candied yams, collard greens and cornbread. Childhood chores? Shoveling snow and cutting grass. First kiss? Eighth grade.

In neat block letters, he wrote about faith and failure, heartache and hope. He offered tips on how to behave on a date and where to hide money on vacation. Rainy days have their pleasures, he noted: Every now and then you get lucky and catch a rainbow.

Charles mailed the book to me in July, after one of his soldiers was killed and he had recovered the body from a tank. The journal was incomplete, but the horror of the young man’s death shook Charles so deeply that he wanted to send it even though he had more to say. He finished it when he came home on a two-week leave in August to meet Jordan, then 5 months old. He was so intoxicated by love for his son that he barely slept, instead keeping vigil over the baby.

I can fill in some of the blanks left for Jordan about his father. When we met in my hometown of Radcliff, Ky., near Fort Knox, I did not consider Charles my type at first. He was bashful, a homebody and got his news from television rather than newspapers (heresy, since I’m a New York Times editor).

But he won me over. One day a couple of years ago, I pulled out a list of the traits I wanted in a husband and realized that Charles had almost all of them. He rose early to begin each day with prayers and a list of goals that he ticked off as he accomplished them. He was meticulous, even insisting on doing my ironing because he deemed my wrinkle-removing skills deficient. His rock-hard warrior’s body made him appear tough, but he had a tender heart.

He doted on Christina, now 16, his daughter from a marriage that ended in divorce. He made her blush when he showed her a tattoo with her name on his arm. Toward women, he displayed an old-fashioned chivalry, something he expected of our son. Remember who taught you to speak, to walk and to be a gentleman, he wrote to Jordan in his journal. These are your first teachers, my little prince. Protect them, embrace them and always treat them like a queen.

Though as a black man he sometimes felt the sting of discrimination, Charles betrayed no bitterness. It’s not fair to judge someone by the color of their skin, where they’re raised or their religious beliefs, he wrote. Appreciate people for who they are and learn from their differences.

He had his faults, of course. Charles could be moody, easily wounded and infuriatingly quiet, especially during an argument. And at times, I felt, he put the military ahead of family.

He had enlisted in 1987, drawn by the discipline and challenges. Charles had other options — he was a gifted artist who had trained at the Art Institute of Chicago — but felt fulfilled as a soldier, something I respected but never really understood. He had a chest full of medals and a fierce devotion to his men.

He taught the youngest, barely out of high school, to balance their checkbooks, counseled them about girlfriends and sometimes bailed them out of jail. When he was home in August, I had a baby shower for him. One guest recently reminded me that he had spent much of the evening worrying about his troops back in Iraq.

Charles knew the perils of war. During the months before he went away and the days he returned on leave, we talked often about what might happen. In his journal, he wrote about the loss of fellow soldiers. Still, I could not bear to answer when Charles turned to me one day and asked, “You don’t think I’m coming back, do you?” We never said aloud that the fear that he might not return was why we decided to have a child before we planned a wedding, rather than risk never having the chance.

But Charles missed Jordan’s birth because he refused to take a leave from Iraq until all of his soldiers had gone home first, a decision that hurt me at first. And he volunteered for the mission on which he died, a military official told his sister, Gail T. King. Although he was not required to join the resupply convoy in Baghdad, he believed that his soldiers needed someone experienced with them. “He would say, ‘My boys are out there, I’ve got to go check on my boys,’ ” said First Sgt. Arenteanis A. Jenkins, Charles’s roommate in Iraq.

In my grief, that decision haunts me. Charles’s father faults himself for not begging his son to avoid taking unnecessary risks. But he acknowledges that it would not have made a difference. “He was a born leader,” said his father, Charlie J. King. “And he believed what he was doing was right.”

Back in April, after a roadside bombing remarkably similar to that which would claim him, Charles wrote about death and duty.

The 18th was a long, solemn night, he wrote in Jordan’s journal. We had a memorial for two soldiers who were killed by an improvised explosive device. None of my soldiers went to the memorial. Their excuse was that they didn’t want to go because it was depressing. I told them it was selfish of them not to pay their respects to two men who were selfless in giving their lives for their country.

Things may not always be easy or pleasant for you, that’s life, but always pay your respects for the way people lived and what they stood for. It’s the honorable thing to do.

When Jordan is old enough to ask how his father died, I will tell him of Charles’s courage and assure him of Charles’s love. And I will try to comfort him with his father’s words.

God blessed me above all I could imagine, Charles wrote in the journal. I have no regrets, serving your country is great.

He had tucked a message to me in the front of Jordan’s journal. This is the letter every soldier should write, he said. For us, life will move on through Jordan. He will be an extension of us and hopefully everything that we stand for. ... I would like to see him grow up to be a man, but only God knows what the future holds.

One. Word.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.
For.
Each.
Question.

Not as easy as you might think.

1. Where is your cell phone? Bed
2. Your significant other? Anxious
3. Your hair? Short
4. Worst bad habit? Food
5. Favorite food? Potatoes
6. Your favorite thing? Camera
7. Your dream last night? Nada
8. Your favorite drink? Pibb
9. Your dream/goal? Morgan
10.The room you're in? Bed
11. Your ex? Waste
12. Your fear? Heights
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? California
14. Where were you last night? Home
15. What you're not? Fearless
16. Muffins? Blueberry
17. One of your wish list items? Flash
18. Where you grew up? Northfield
19. The last thing you did? Pack
20. What are you wearing? Black
21. Your TV? News
22. Your pets? Four
23. Your computer? Precious
24. Your life? Long
25. Your mood? Pensive
26. Missing someone? Totally
27. Your car? Sold
28. Something you're not wearing? Socks
29. Favorite Store? Target
30. Your summer? Humid
31. Love someone? Yes
32. When is the last time you laughed? Lunch
33. Last time you cried? Weeks
34. Who will/would re-post this? Hmmmm

Laughing in Spite of Himself

Fabrice Has Lost 17 Kilos So Far

Newsy News and My Thoughts on France

I really don't want to live in this country and can't wait to go home. The past nine months here have been rather unpleasant. France has changed a lot in the eighteen years I didn't come here, and not for the better.

Sarkozy is, as The Economist put it, France 's Chance. But I don't know if even he can pull off the kind of fundamental change that is needed to turn this country around. It's sad, but true. And, since I do not HAVE to live here, I can, THANK GOD, go home.

I am going to sound terribly prejudiced and even racist (against the French), but I can't help but be shocked, appalled, and entirely discouraged by what I have seen here these past months. The problems are multitude, but, while trying to keep my emotional response to this country out of it, can be outlined as follows:

1. The average French person is relatively uneducated and closed-minded. The people who have been here for generations, appear to be of the belief that life owes them certain things: a job, a home, etc. The jobs aside, even people who have never worked a day in their lives believe they are entitled to government subsidies for housing, food, etc. In addition to having a minimum wage, the unemployed are provided a sort of living wage, even if they make no effort whatsoever to get a job. France has been having economic problems for as long as I can remember. When we were in Pau in 1977, I remember people already complaining about the economic situation. The right wing blames the left, and vice versa. Besides the French people's illusions of entitlement, so much money is spent on welfare, without actually helping people or encouraging them to work that it is pitiful.

Crime is rampant. All over the place. To the extent that people will ride up on motorcycles in rush hour traffic, smash out your window, and steal whatever is on your car's seat. Women don't carry purses with zipper compartments for fear of them being opened on the subway or the street. The same goes for backpacks. Okay, they carrying them, backwards, and hugged tightly to the chest.

A nation ruled by law and order is beyond comprehension here. France is, basically, in a constant state of seige. It's "us vs. them," "good vs. bad," "black vs. white." If irritated or upset, instead of seeking change in a proactive, productive manner, people prefer rioting. And their hatred of the police is worse than their hatred of each other. There are some places where Fabrice, as a motorcycle cop whose responsibilities include escorting ambulances to hospitals, and his colleagues are not allowed to go. The time it would take to escort an ambulance out of the projects, the cops would be showered with rocks, molotov cocktails, etc. So the government has decided it is better to send the ambulances in, alone. The cops meet up with them in safer neighborhoods and take the escort on from there.

2. French school children are required to decide what they want to do professionally speaking when they are 16 or 17 years old. They are then educated accordingly, and stuck in the paths that their teenage selves choose, for the rest of their professional lives. Diplomas are required to work as accountants or teachers or doctors, of course, but also to be a waitress or a cashier or a janitor. The educational and professional development "system," if you can call it that, is inefficient and archaic, at best.

3. Immigration is a problem here. Much, MUCH more so than in the US . Much more so, even, than in CA. The interesting thing is that the problem is not so much the immigrants but the French. In addition to knowing that they are entitled to everything they believe they are entitled to, they also believe that all immigrants are illegals, that immigrants are the reason for the country's economic problems, that immigrants commit all of the crimes, steal all of the jobs, and waste the government's money. Now, granted, some of the government's money is spent stupidly to pay for many, many immigrants to stay home without having to work, have access to free healthcare, etc. You see, immigrants have the same rights as the French in this realm. And, once one member of a family is here legally, that person can bring in his or her family members, and they, too, can stay, legally, not work, go to school, etc.

I am all for universal healthcare, or something along the lines of MinnesotaCare, a state-subsidized health insurance program via which the un- or under-employed are able to obtain appropriate healthcare in exchange for the payment of a premium, the amount of which is determined according to household income.

I believe in social justice, in helping immigrants and homeless people, etc. But, I do not believe in giving and giving and giving, without ever getting anything in return. The welfare-to-work programs in the US are not such a bad thing.

The "native" French will go on and on about the government and the immigrants, the Arabs and the blacks, the Jews and the Eastern Europeans. It is all somebody else's fault. So they rant and rave and piss and moan and complain and complain and complain. Those of them that bother, work. And, at the end of the work day, they go home, close the shutters tight, turn on the television, and complain about how awful things are.

In other words, it is far, far easier to lock ones self away from the culture's problems, literally, complain about how terrible it is, and do absolutely nothing to improve things.

4. The country is dirty. The cities are dirty. People and their homes are clean. Workplaces are dirty. It's part of the hiding away at home and pretending that the entire world's problems are someone else's fault, I think. People litter without a care. They dump their garbage along the roadsides. They basically don't give a damn about their country or their communities. The lack of community involvement, therefore, logically, engenders a lack of commitment or investment into local communities. That same investment is even more lacking at regional or national levels. If people are not involved or invested, they have no pride in where they live, and therefore, do nothing to maintain it or clean it or keep it safe. And then, you see, the attitude is, "if 'they' aren't going to do something about it, then why should I?"

5. The president could have, conceivably, done something to change things. Had he wanted to. Had the population allowed him to. But the Constitution itself is flawed in that it does not allow for the promulgation of any law that the Constitutional Council deems unconstitutional. It's rather the Catch 22, doncha' know.

So it's a hell of a lot easier for everybody to keep complaining, for nobody to do anything, to go home, close your shutters, and pretend that the country is not caught in an irreversible process of self-destruction.

I could go on, and on, and on.

I wish I knew Sarkozy. I have ideas for fixing things. But I am sure that my ideas are "tainted" by the American system. A system that has many faults, I know, but that is more logical, more efficient, and more productive than the ad hoc socio-cultural processes that exist here. And the American system is my only real frame of reference.

I honestly do not believe that France can be saved. I am not the only one. I truly think that it will take a sort of revolution, or civil war, or some other form of violent upheaval to get France to look at itself in the mirror and try to make a difference.

I have not wanted to be here since at least July. Fabrice is disheartened with anti-cop sentiment, and even more so, with anti-cop violence. But he wants to stay a cop and he likes the US .

The green card process usually takes a long time. But it doesn't take nearly as long if the American member of the marriage is living abroad. And it does not take nearly as long if the alien member of the marriage exercises certain professions. Law enforcement is included in the said professions.

So, I applied for a green card for Fabrice on November 30. The process generally takes about two years if done from the United States , and at least 9 months if done here. And, you can't start the process at all until the American spouse has been in France for six months. And working. Not studying. Not staying home. So I could not file the petition until November 16. Like I said, I did it n November 30, and Fabrice had his green card in the mail on January 14. It took six weeks. Six weeks!!! We were prepared for it to take a lot longer. Like it usually does. Even the personnel at the embassy, people who came to recognize us because so little time transpired between each of the steps of the process, said that they had never seen any spousal green card application be processed so quickly.

Every once in a while, even the most unlucky person in the world has good things happen!

Fabrice needed to immigrate within six months of January 14, or start the process over. The Social Security Administration said it can take up to three weeks to issue an SSN and card, so he went last week to get that process underway. Fabrice has to work until the last week of February. Then they owe him four months' overtime. So he is going on leave of absence on July 1. We are leaving by the end of the month, and that way he will be able to work when we get to the US and he will still be paid, here, for a few months.

According to a F**book application, I was Joan of Arc???

I think, not!

I never, ever dream of conquests, armor, fighting horseback riding, sword fights or masses of people.

Oh well!!

You were Joan of Arc in a past life!

Of all of your past lives, Joan was your most prominent. If your dreams are ever filled with faint visions of conquests, armor, fighting, horseback riding, sword fights, masses of people, and quiet studying, these are glimpses into a world once occupied by your 'vessel'. Cherish your past life and invigorate your current one knowing that you embody greatness in all that you do.

Pour Mon Père

Plus l’offenseur m’est cher, plus je ressens l’injure.

~ Racine

Je connais trop d'hommes pour ignorer que souvent l'offensé pardonne mais que l'offenseur ne pardonne jamais.

~ Rousseau

"Healing Hearts and Minds" a Police Officer (and Firefighter) at Saint Paul's Chapel, World Trade Center Site, Ground Zero, NYC, USA

Fabrice, Reflected in the PATH Station at the Site of the Former World Trade Center

Fabrice's Trip - Lady Liberty

Fabrice's Trip to New York - View From the Empire State Building

Fabrice's Trip, Continued - View From a City Sidewalk

A city street with the "smokestack" of the men working underground (Fabrice found these "smokestack" thingys highly amusing)

Fabrice's Trip to New York -

Police and fire trucks (taken because he's a cop, used to be a volunteer fireman, and thus, such things interest him; and because these are so much bigger and more impressive than their French counterparts):






Cars (again, like the king-size bed, taken to show his parents how big they can be):

Photos From Fabrice's Trip - Bed and Room

• His bed and room (taken to show his parents how big a king-sized bed is, since they don't have them, here)

I Don't Know What it is, But it's Cool!!

In a recent post, another blogger discussed her geekiness.

In high school, I was not only a geek, but I was not allowed to wear makeup, my parents refused to buy clothes for me and my sisters more than once every couple of years, I had braces, and I was even more painfully shy than I am now. What a fantastic combination for the popularity contests that American high schools are!!!

Or not.

But I didn't care. Or did I? Of course I cared! I'd like to say that I was bigger than that, or better, or smarter. I would like to say that I understood the philosophical void that high school popularity was. But it wouldn't be true.

Now, though, now I am relatively happy with who I am. Oh, I am still geeky, and shy, and nerdy and dorky and all of those things that I hated about me in high school. But now I really don't care. I am who I am, and that's okay.I'm not ugly. Or mean. Or stupid.

I have good friends.

I care about people.

I try to live in accordance with what I believe, to do my best, to do the right thing, etc. I really do.

I have a hard time admitting when I am wrong.

And I have a host of other faults that I won't get into now.

But, interestingly, I have found that, being myself and accepting myself, in all my geekiness, and, yes, dorkiness, was okay.

Even more interestingly, the people I once only hoped to be friends with (as in, when I was in high school - the cool kids, th epopular kids, the kids who had something that I could never hope to possess, even though I still don't know what that particular thing is), are now closer friends than the friends I was actually friends with at the time.

Confidence. Or a carefully-hidden lack thereof. Or realizing we're all people. Or just knowing that it's alright to be who you are...

I don't know what it is, but it's cool!!

His First Super Bowl Sunday

Yesterday, Fabrice got up bright and early before heading into the city, again. Once there, he first visited Lower Manhattan a bit more. And did some more shopping.

After that, he went on a two-hour tour (at least it wasn't a three-hour tour, since he hadn't brought his entire wardrobe, and you never know when the weather might start getting rough and the tiny ship be tossed!!). Anyway, he went on a two-hour cruise, saw a number of landmarks, and got a lot closer to the Statue of Liberty.

After that, he did some shopping and headed to the Empire State Building, which would up being his favorite part of the trip. He said going up to the Observation Deck of the ESB was the most exciting, interesting, and impressive part of the trip. I am glad he enjoyed it so much. After his trip to the top of the city, he headed back to the hotel and I headed off to sleep, while he took in and enjoyed his first Super Bowl.

I never knew my French husband would be such a fan of American football! I promised him that next year, we would have a Super Bowl Party. You're all invited, of course!!!

Fabrice's Saturday

After Fabrice and I fixed a couple of administrative glitches, he turned out to have had a pretty good day. I don't think that he knows how to post pictures or anything, but I will post them when he gets home tomorrow.

In the meantime, Fabrice spent his Saturday (and Sunday, too) continuing to visit New York City. He visited Ground Zero on Saturday morning, and did some shopping and stuff.

On Saturday afternoon, he went on a half-hour helicopter ride around Manhattan.
I dont' remember what else he did on Saturday, but that was something, anyway!!

Hilarious Video on Baby Boomers

Click on the link for some hearty amusement...
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/opinion/walthandelsman/blog/2007/11/animation_baby_boomers.html

February 2, 2008

Today would have been my mother's 64th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Fabrice's Trip - So Far, So Good

So far, Fabrice's trip to the US is going well.

According to his reports, the immigration process took less than five minutes. He was the only immigrating alien in customs at Newark Airport at the time. The customs officials were rather rude, and made him wait until they had searched everyone they were going to search, before dealing with him. They were brusque in dealing with Fabrice, too. But it was relatively painless, no questions asked, and he is now an official resident alien of the United States of America. The stamp in his passport will serve as his green card until the plastic "permanent" version comes in the mail. That will take up to six months.

The phone at the hotel didn't work, but his room last night was big, with a nice, comfortable king-sized bed, and he said that he slept well. Because of the broken phone, they changed his room today.

This morning, he got started bright and early ~ the time difference makes it easier to take advantage of the first few days stateside. After breakfast, he went into New York and visited the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art. After that, a tired Fabrice headed back to the hotel along with all of the other Friday-evening rush-hour travelers. He is impressed by the conductors on every car, and the polite and friendly New Yorkers he finds himself in the midst of. He is also happy to realize that he is able to do what he needs to do with his English, even if he doesn't understand everything. He is more comfortable when not with me. I am sure that nervousness will ease up over time, though.

Tomorrow, he is heading into Manhattan bright and early, again. He's going to go to the Guggenheim Museum, up to the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building. And finally, to top off the day, he is taking a short helicopter ride around the Statue of Liberty and I am not sure what else. It's neat because things like the Empire State Building and helicopter ride are things that interest Fabrice, and things I am glad that he has had the opportunity to do; but, at the same time, they are things that I will never, EVER, EVER do, myself!!! Or with Fabrice. Or with anyone else!!! Ever. Dead or alive. Never, never, never.

Need I mention that I am afraid of heights?

Sunday, Fabrice is going to take a cruise in the port, back and forth around the tip of Manhattan, to see the Statue of Liberty, etc. After that, he is going to watch the Super Bowl. Silly boy!

I am not sure what else he has planned.

His flight back is Monday night, and he will arrive here on Tuesday morning.

I believe that we are heading out to Brittany and then the Vosges, on Wednesday or Thursday. Killing two birds with one stone, doncha' know!!!