And so it begins...

Oh no! Kippy asked me to take the bike, ride to the market a few blocks away and purchase 4 heads of lettuce! That would seem simple enough but all I saw were the obstacles...would I get lost? My sense of direction is as bad as my ability to recall names and faces, understand the difference between whole-life and term, or balance a checkbook. Could I communicate my task to the vendor? In French? Could I remember what I wanted by the time I got there?

Kippy and I rehearsed... Bonjour, Monsieur. Je m'appelle Margaret. Je reste avec Jerome et Kristina. Je voudrais quatre salades, s'il vous plait.  And then of course Merci boucoup. Piece of cake, right? Only I was completely thrown off when it turned out to be a woman who waited on me and then pointed to 4 different kinds of lettuce and asked which I preferred. I was not prepared to make any decisions. I was only prepared to repeat a script, which I blundered through with a lot of tee hees and goofy looks. And upon returning to Kippy's I realized I forgot to say s'il vous plait. I think the message here is that I need to stay in France longer so I can become comfortable with the language.

Freshly cut flowers are in every bedroom. By the end of this afternoon everybody will have arrived. After dinner tonight we'll go to the studio and I'll do a demo. They should all be exhausted by then.