"I'm an alien, i'm a legal alien..."

Hurrah hurrah hurrah!! We got so much done today, and I'm exhausted. So, let me start back at the beginning of the day.......

The phone rang late in the morning, and thanks to the miracle of caller ID, I saw that it was Carine, who is French, lived with her family (husband & 3 kids) in Greenville for three years working for Michelin, and were transferred to Troyes in July! We've not actually met face to face yet, but I've talked her on the phone a couple of times and seems very nice. Anyhoo, she was calling with a proposition: she wants her kids to continue speaking english, but already they are forgetting it. Since they get out of school at 5:00pm, and she doesnt get home until 6:00pm, couldnt I pick them up at school and take them home and watch them on Mondays and Tuesdays? Of course she'd pay me.

Me: !!!!! *happy dance*

The only problem is that she lives on the exact opposite side of town, which means taking the bus (eek!), but hopefully we can find some time this weekend for Stéphane to babysit me on a bus to visit her and the kids.

So, Stéph got home about 1:30, and after a quick lunch we headed to the Prefecture. Now brace yourselves, gentle readers, 'cause this is gonna knock your socks off: Getting my carte de sejour (residence/green card) was easier than going to the DMV! I cant believe it myself really. We had been to the Prefecture twice before (once in April and Tuesday) and we triple checked that we had everything, so the most difficult thing was waiting in line for 20 minutes! There was only one snag, and it's not even that bad: The card I have now is good for 3 months. Within this three months I have to have a physical, and they even make the appointment for me and send me a letter with the appointment info. The snag? They are currently 6 months behind. If I dont get the appointment before December 2nd, I just have to go back to the Prefecture, where they will give me another card that's good for 3 months. That's not so bad, is it?

Since we were riding a wave of such good luck, we thought we'd stop by Stéph's insurance company to see what we'd need to add me to his insurance. Miracle number 2: we had everything with us! So we signed a couple of forms and I'll have a card in a couple of weeks. The only bad thing about that one was that we thought adding me to his insurance would be free, but they changed it in January (just our luck). But, its only about 320 Euros a year to add me, which ain't bad at all. So, now I can break my other big toe and I'm totally covered. :P

After a quick stop to say hi to the in-laws (where my father-in-law pretended to light my green card on fire and Stéph said "That's exactly what your father would have done to me!") we went to the furniture store, named But. It's pronounced "booooot" but I cant help but think, yes, its a place to buy things for my butt to sit on. How appropriate! But no, nothing was purchased for my butt on this visit. We did, however, purchase an armoire for my clothes and a desk for my computer, the kind you have to assemble yourself. Getting them home involved rope, me seriously squished in the front seat, and blocking traffic as we tried to park in front of our apartment.

Everything safely inside, we decided to go ahead and do the desk, since it was the smaller of the two, and so we could get the computer stuff situated. After a quick dinner, we built that sucker, and its now standing proudly next to Stéph's. We've got to get a cable so we can network the computers, but I should have my computer back up and online by tomorrow.

Hurrah hurrah indeed! It's been a good day, but I'm freakin' pooped. Tomorrow is looking like a good one too - we're goin' to the flea market!

You kids play nice and I'll jaw at you tomorrow.

A quick note on time...
The time and date on this website are seriously messing with my head, so I just wanted to point out that since I have to ability to change the time and date for the entries, I'm changing them to my local time, which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. As for the time in the comments, they're just funky and well, do we care about that really? I didn't think so.

Right, I'm outta here. Nighty night!