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Monet’s Gardens and Mont. St. Michel
Carey and I decided to spend a couple of days outside of Paris/Vincennes, so we rented a car and drove to Giverny, home of Monet’s home and his famous gardens. The picture above is a home in Giverny that I liked, not really affiliated with Monet. We had so much trouble with our big car in the south of France, so we were dismayed when we were given an SUV this time, though we had requested a much smaller car. When we asked about this, the car rental employee told us that the problem is that most Europeans drive manual cars, and thus there are not a lot of automatics.…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Vincennes and a Bit of Paris
Our Paris timeshare was in the neighboring town of Vincennes, which is not technically part of Paris, but where I was corrected by a shopkeeper that they do consider themselves to be part of Paris. Fair enough, it is just over the border anyway. It is a lovely neighborhood, with lots of shops and their very own chateau, the Chateau de Vincennes. On our first full day in Paris, a Saturday, we decided to stay local and get to know our neighborhood. We asked the concierge at our timeshare for a recommendation for lunch, and she sent us to a truly lovely restaurant, Nido. The food, ambiance, and service were…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Mulder Update
I thought I’d let you know that Mulder is now 1 month in to his 6 month treatment plan. He was a little lethargic and had some tummy issues after the first treatment, but they gave us medication for that. Since then, he has been his normal happy self, no problems other than he is losing weight (but still eating normally), and that generally resolves itself soon enough, so our vet is not worried about it. She said his numbers are all looking good, he is responding well to treatment. One more month of weekly appointments, then the next four months will be every other week, and then he will…
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Grasse and Saint Tropez
After our adventure driving in to Italy, and driving to Nice the day before, we decided to spend less time in the car and stay a bit closer to home for a couple of days. We looked at the nearby towns, and decided it would be fun to check out the charming hillside town of Grasse. Grasse is known for their perfume, which Carey wanted to get as a Christmas gift for her nieces. It dripped a bit on us, but never really rained enough to justify the umbrella we were carrying. I love the narrow cobblestone streets, with little art galleries, perfumeries, restaurants, and boutiques. What I didn’t really…
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Pictures from France – Cannes, Nice, and Italy
(I thought I was just putting captions under my pictures above, but it looks like regular text to me. So consider those captions, and the paragraph below the beginning of the actual post, please, and I will do better with my next post. WordPress keeps changing things on me, and I don’t post often enough to keep up!) I’m home now, and finally able to post a bit more. The WordPress interface on my iPad was annoying the hell out of me, so I gave up, though I originally had a goal of posting here every day, at least a picture or two, to share my journey with you. Instead,…
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Pictures of Mougins
Cannes was lovely, we put our feet into the sea, did a little shopping, and mostly people watched. Perhaps at some point WordPress will allow me to add more pictures to this post, but I’m not holding my breath.
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Day 2 – Mougins and Cannes
Something weird happened with yesterday’s post (including the fact that I thought I had saved it, not published it, but I guess while I do not have jet lag, my blog clearly does). I will try to edit that post, but my first attempt failed miserably, so am just forging ahead. Today was day 2 or 3 of our trip, since you lose a day traveling, I don’t know. Or you could say day 1 of our vacation, since it was our first full day in France. We are in a little town near Cannes, called Mougins. Again, my computer or blog is being weird, so this is the only…
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Day 1, bookends
Today we started our day with a dog walk, then going to the airport and getting ready for our flight to France. A LONG day later (over 9 hours for the flight, then rental car and drive to hotel etc), we are finally where we are meant to be, with two very happy cousins. Here are our pictures..
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Updates
I think it’s time to fill you in on the life of J. First and most importantly, Mulder had his appointment with the oncologist on Thursday, and she said he is a very good candidate for chemotherapy, with a six month protocol having an 85% chance of putting him into remission for at least a year, though he has a marker that often means remission can last longer. We have decided to try this treatment, so he will have weekly appointments for 2 months, then maintenance appointments every other week for 4 more months. It is expensive, I would not buy a dog for that kind of money, but he…
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Wordless Wednesday
Photo credit to my blog/facebook friend, Simon, who posted this on his FB page, and it gave me a good laugh at a time when I needed one.
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Mulder
We received some devastating news yesterday. Mulder has lymphoma. I was petting him on Saturday and it felt like the glands on his throat were swollen. We got him into the vet on Monday, and she took a bunch of tests which confirmed the diagnosis. She could feel that it was not just the lymph nodes at his neck, but all of them that she can feel, they are all swollen with fluid. After the diagnosis yesterday, she then sent out for some more tests to determine what kind of lymphoma he has. What we know so far is that it is ‘intermediate to large cell, high grade’, and the…
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Meme Monday – Dreaming of France
Allow me to bore you a bit with the plans that my cousin Carey and I have for our upcoming trip to France. We are leaving on Friday, September 9th, and coming home on Monday, September 26th. We are both SO EXCITED, and dreaming of France and the things we will see and do is a lot of fun. Our first week will be in the South of France, in a small village called Mougins. This is where the time share is, and looking online, it looks like a picturesque place. We fly through Paris, into Nice. Hopefully our baggage will make it, as we are taking a chance and…
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Fabulous Fridays
My company is giving us a lovely benefit this summer, which is Fridays off from work, which they are calling ‘Fabulous Fridays’. I am loving it. On my first Fabulous Friday, I Got Things Done. I started by taking one of the cars in for an oil change, and while I waited for the car, I took Mulder for a walk downtown. It was a nice change from our normal daily walk around our neighborhood. The car took about an hour longer than it should have, which caused me some stress, as I had a hair appointment at 11:00. Luckily, modern times means that I have my stylist’s number in…