Looking back at my earlier post about my housing situation, yes I am back out on the street but for much more serious reasons. No, not on the street literally, I am staying at Lionel and Martines again. The festival here in Giverny is in full swing and all the places have been booked out and once again I am running pretty low on the food chain. But I am beginning to master the art of learning to surf the waves of craziness. Little did I know what I had in store. Yesterday started off no worries, Lionel headed on up to the French/Belgian border for some work at a race for the weekend while I took another day trip into Paris. However, I woke up this morning to some pretty grave news. For the past few weeks Martine has been heading to the hospital pretty often to see her mom and father in law (who is the one in the hospital.) His health has been steadily declining and unfortunately, early this morning, he passed away. Insult to injury, today is also the day that one of sons of Martine is getting married. As you can see, many things are just not falling into place. If this were not bad enough, one of the dogs broke off one of his nails this morning while out on a run, resulting in a shit ton of blood all over. (I am no veterinarian, and this is about as scientific as I can describe it, but I think you get the idea.) Given, the current situation, it was a no brainer for Martine to get going off to take care of things as quickly as she could. Erik certainly got himself an interesting one. My french is getting better by the day, but one thing that I do not want to have to do again is head to the veterinarian here again. It certainly reminds me of the hospitals here and is a constant reminder of why you do not want to have too many medical issues over here. The waiting room was standing room only and with only 1 vet on schedule, you were certainly going to be waiting for a bit. If you do have medical issues, try and get to Paris and not a Norman hospital. Many of the luxuries that we take for granted back home are afterthoughts here. Regardless, I am now playing nurse to the dog, giving medicine and cleaning his wound a few times.
As it stands, it is 9 o clock at night and I was able to get myself a little bit of a ride in today, but made sure I wasn't too far away at any time. I have yet to hear from Lionel or Martine yet this evening and am planning on a stressful few days. Forgive me if I am enjoying a few of these on the night. Only some of Belgium's finest, I believe that I have earned them.
When I set out on coming over here little did I know that one of the things that I would be preparing for was a funeral. While much of my life is centered around a bicycle, when you step back and look at the bigger picture of life, it is extremely important to remember where family and friends stand too. That is quite possibly one of the largest lessons that I can take away on the season, and while I am not a part of this family, it is still tough to see people close to me going through a tough time.
Erik, it will be good to see you back here in Boise. You most certainly have had a time of it this year, great job. It has been very enjoyable to read you blog on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteTravel Safe, Howard