HeadSong Friday: Kiss From a Rose

God, it's been an intense couple weeks. I can't really go into it much, because I'm completely wiped out, but it started with our fabulous friends visiting us from Seattle. That was wonderful.
They are the most loving, incredible people, and she has this shitty cancer, and cancer is just, so, well, it's just fucked, is what it is. I hate being so far away, and I really hate that I don't have a cure for cancer in my pocket. Because if I did? I wouldn't even care how rich that trick would make me - it wouldn't compare to healing my friend. But with all that money I'd make, I'd take us all to Paris, and we'd eat our weight in cheese and chocolate.

Then this week, a friend called, frantic, saying that people were following her. Her English is on the low end of the scale, so I wasn't sure what was up, but we raced down there, and as I spoke with her I realized she was paranoid. I managed to get her into the clinic today, no mean feat (and I am officially counting my blessings for health insurance - depending on the state or county for that stuff is like swimming upstream with a giant rock around your neck), and convinced her to speak to her husband. I did as well. They are from another country, and talk about watching what you say and how you say it. Man. I was so nervous that I would step outside the cultural boundaries and make things worse. But he's on board, and I'm hoping we'll be able to find her the help she needs. She's been a good friend to me, and her son is one of JH's good buddies.

So tomorrow, we have another round of out of town guests, and I'm giddy with happiness to see them, but I'm a little behind in having the house ready. But I figured that it might be better if I were relaxed, and somewhat normal, so tomorrow morning I'm going for a massage. A long overdue massage.

And tonight, I'm going to go to my happy place, Paris, and take you with me.
I'll set the scene.
Here is the view out our window....


Charley and I have been several times pre-JH, and those times were all so incredible, and romantic and culturally uplifting, but the visit to the City of Light that I was thinking about as I lay in JH's bed, eyes closed while he read out loud, was the time we went with Charley's mom, dad, sister and JH. It was for his parents 50th anniversary, and they took US, and we all stayed in an apartment near the Champs-Elysees. There were, since we were traveling with family, some interesting times. JH threw up our first morning there. All over the bed. My mother-in-law got sick. All the adults had little temper tantrums at some point, like you do when you travel with people. JH was an absolute DREAM to travel with. He stayed awake during the entire trip over the ocean, and when we landed spotted Tour L'Eiffel from the air, he said "MOMMY! I stayed awake all NIGHT!" But aside from his feeling yukky that first day, he was the perfect travel companion. He did all the museums, he helped us find some amazing parks, he loved the Metro, and he ordered one scoop of Vanilla ice cream every day. In French. Aside from trips to the ER where he was exceedingly brave, I've never been so proud to be his mom as I was on that trip. He charmed every hardened French waiter we had. They were a puddle of melted Vanille Glace in his hands.


So tonight, join me, won't you? We'll sit outside at Maison du Chocolate, and sip red wine, and eat some of these delicious morsels



and take in the sights and sounds, and feel the cool evening breeze on the streets of Paris. This song will be playing, because for some reason, every time I've been to Paris, they've been playing something by Seal.



Ahhhhh. Oui.