Christmas in Michigan

So the blog was on Christmas break while Dave and I went home to Michigan for two weeks. We had a really nice time: one week with my family in Kalamazoo, and one week in Ann Arbor with Dave's.

This was David's first trip back since we left almost a year ago, so he was bracing himself for a big shock. But surprisingly, we slipped right back into our old lives without hardly missing a beat. It was easy to relax and forget about work being 6000 miles away from Paris. We fell back into the comfortable life of being able to talk to strangers, understanding the television, and reading the mail without struggling.

Christmas at my parents' house was much the same as usual, with the exception of the following anomalies:

• My brother was suffering from a miserable cankersore and was rendered nearly speechless.


• My grandmother brought her new husband Marvin, who weathered Christmas with near-strangers admirably.


• A wind storm knocked out the electricity on the 23rd, which led to all of us renting a hotel room and camping out until the power came back on that evening.

I also got a chance to sneak out and visit my friend Deidre and her brand new baby Abigail, who was born on November 15. At 7 pounds and change, she was barely out of preemie clothes.

At Dave's parents' we were joined by his sister Lisa, her husband Kevin, and their daughter Keira. Keira is 15 months old now, and this was our first time meeting her. Needless to say, she charmed the lot of us.

We also took some time to visit Dave's friend Josh (Hi Josh!), his wife Mo, and their new puppy Woody.

Babies and puppies, seems that's what everyone's up to these days.

And weddings. My friend Katie is getting married in October, so we spent some time trying on bridesmaid dresses at a local shop. Then hunting for bobby pins at CVS and shoe shopping and making fun of models on the internet. It was such a wonderfully girly reprieve.

So now we're back, and still a little groggy and jet-lagged. It was only two weeks, but it felt like months. David says that coming back to France after two weeks was weirder than going back to Michigan after nearly a year. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm having a hard time readjusting as well.

And Oliver, Oliver barely survived his longest stretch without us. We had "babysitters" come by every two days to change his box and refresh his food and water, but he refused to come out from under the bed for them.

When we got home yesterday it took ten minutes of coaxing to get him to finally stop crying under the bed and come out for some hugs. When he finally recovered, he was the most grateful, attention-needy cat we'd ever seen.

I just keep telling myself that this is 100 times less uncomfortable than our arrival last January. Cozy apartment, loose (very loose) grasp on the language, semi-adjusted cat. It could be worse.