Old dog, fewer tricks

The older I get the more I realize how difficult I must be to live with. I think only people who have the patience of saints, who understand and can accept the debilitating efforts of compartmentalization,  and who are  open to constant change, have a fighting chance of putting up with me.

Little Angels

Over the last few weeks I’ve taken the little ones to church with me. There have been a number of things that have been both wrong and astonishing. Just after I got back from Boston for some reason I was feeling remarkably cavalier, and I happily volunteered to take both twins to the 6.30PM mass on the Saturday evening. Given that I’d never attempted to take Capucine anywhere where she is required to be quiet for longer than 30 seconds, the decision to take them both to mass for the first time now seems like jet-lag fuelled folly… It was cold so we took the car. Maybe I forgot to mention that the church is just opposite the entrance of the stud farm. Driving the 500 metres to the entrance of the stud farm, parking up, and then crossing the road to go to church seemed like overkill even at the time. Thankfully we avoided the disapproving stares of the rest of the congregation because we were late. We did not however escape the funny looks at the end of the service as we all piled back into the car and then proceeded to indicate to turn left and then drive back into our “driveway” whilst everyone else turned right to go into town. The use of the car would have been the epitome of laziness if it weren’t for the fact that it was -2C and that Gaston and Capucine were in their slippers and pajamas. During the service itself they were also relatively well behaved – the one thing that trumps jet-lag fuelled folly is copious supplies of biscuits and not one, but two, colourful books (to avoid squabbling you understand). All very impressive, and a complement concerning the behavior of the twins from one old lady at the end even made me feel confident that I could even try taking Capucine to the serious big church in the centre of town the week after. So a week later we trundled off again, just the two of us this time, but late again. As we drove the 10 minutes to get there Capucine was her normal self, chattering away. We discussed the impending event and she readily accepted the need to be quiet and she even raised her finger to her mouth and made lots of little “ssssh” noises to show that she had understood. I was absolutely gobsmacked that not only had she understood, but that she then proceeded to say not a single word for an hour. Not a squeak. For anyone who has had the pleasure of spending even five minutes in Capucine’s presence, you will realize the enormity of what actually happened. I can’t help but think that there was some sort of Divine (and not even Biscuit flavoured) Intervention going on. At any rate I saw a new side to Capucine which was infinitely more enjoyable that the constant stream of “no’s” that she’s getting very good at. A little set of angels indeed; there’s hope for us all it seems!

The start of an American adventure

I’ve been back from Boston for 10 days or so now. I have to say it was an enjoyable trip. I felt quite perky as I arrived stateside. Aside from the fact that I was starting a new role which has the potential to be very exciting, I was conscious of the fact that although I have worked for American companies for over 10 years I’ve never really worked in the US. As I travelled I knew that this was going to be the first trip of many, so I couldn’t help but view it as being different from the normal once per year crossing of the Atlantic. I’ve always imagined that I’d like working in America, so now I’m going to see if that is actually the case or not. Furthermore I also don’t know Boston very well, and I’m sure this role will also have me out to California which is the spiritual home of one significant part of EMC’s business that I will need to work with. The other thing which I like about travelling to the US is the time difference. Boston is 6 hours ahead so it means that when I leave France around 4PM, I arrive at 5PM local time and even after staying up a bit for an early dinner, I always wake up at the crack of dawn the next day. I love this because it’s one of the rare occasions that I can combine what feels like a lie-in with a nice long morning run and session in the gym (the non-obese Americans are fitness mad so there’s always somewhere to do some training). Aside from the positive meetings at work, as the week went on I was reminded of many of the things I had discovered about the US on previous trips – the ridiculously sized portions of food, savory food that tastes unnecessarily sweet, disposable paper toilet seats that only seem to exist in the US, the wonderfully US centric view of the world and lack of any international news on the seemingly endless list of TV channels, and the fact that VPN connections and the internet seem to work much faster than when I’m that much further away from the EMC mother ship in Europe. At any rate, as I started my trip home to Europe at the end of the week, I was already looking forward to coming back. That said next time I’m going to stay downtown rather than in the faceless suburb that is Framingham!