Bonne chance!

A great pre-start to the trip!! Fantastic luck.

But first, a little necessary background information. We are trading houses with two families in France. One family has a house in Paris, the other in the city of Nancy in the Lorraine region. After we return from our six-week trip to France, we then turn around three weeks later for four months in Hawaii. When we are in Hawaii, we are renting our house to another family. Therefore, I had been working like a madwoman for about three months getting our home ready for all these strangers who will be living at our home, winterizing it in the summer. The fence was falling down, the deck was falling in, the water heater and washing machine were leaking, and the oven wasn’t working at all and on and on. I had planned on fixing all these things right after retirement in early 07 but, as most my friends know, I worked on Obama’s campaign instead. Thus, I had to cram in a year of planned house work in three months. But, I was determined to leave our home trouble-free for the families who would be living there.

On our final day, as we were powering through our final lists with only a few hours to go, a wonderful thing happened: a pipe got badly clogged! I have never been so happy for such a thing in my life. If it happened 24 hours later, the poor, jet-lagged French family would have to deal with it alone. They would have called Ian (who agreed to be the “maintenance guy” while I was gone), but it wouldn’t have be fun for him. And, yes, we would have to pay money to fix it. Instead, I happily snaked the drain! Voilà – problem solved and minor tragedy averted.

Then came even more luck! I went to put some chlorine in our spa. Our deck is surrounded by a raised deck – with a portion that is moveable in order to access the spa controls. I stepped on that portion and it – and I – immediately fell to the ground! I wasn’t hurt in the least. Basically, I had not put the piece on correctly the last time I moved it (for putting on deck finish). My first thought was, of course, “this is my lucky day.” If I had decided to change the chlorine from the other side, I wouldn’t have “found” the problem and one of the French people (the 8 year old perhaps) would have. And, the results could have been bad or, even, tragic. What relief!

And, they say that things come in threes (and exactly who are these mysterious folks, they?). I think they are probably wrong about that statement and I am sure some smart mathematician has proven it. But, they do say it and, in this case, maybe it is true. The very delightful French family arrived. We showed them around and, knowing how tired they must be and how much they must want us to disappear, we left to go to my parents house to drop off our dog. Our flight was in the early morning. We were approaching the Highway 17 summit when Leslie said: “Damn it, I forgot my contact lenses!” She is nearly blind without them. I said, let’s just go back and get them. And, so, we did. We felt bad that we had to disturb the French folks. So, where is the luck? That we actually had the time to do it! Normally, when we leave for a trip – we are going to the airport or, perhaps, to Doug and Laura’s to drop the dog. While, we like to leave ample time, not the kind of time required for a summit round-trip. But, today – everything was going our way!