We’re going back to the doctor today. Pooplette officially has no skin left on her bum, so I’ve stopped all her medication as of yesterday. She’s miserable, cranky, very tired (she’s not sleeping more than a few hours at a stretch now, and quite frankly that reminder of her early days I can do without) and we just cannot handle this—we being me, of course.

This morning I had a nice visit with the tax office. When we built the shit heap on the hill we installed heat pumps, something that earned us a hefty 50% refund from those nice tax people. They want it back. We were supposed to move in within six months of the bill, and while that was the original plan, things got rather FUBARed along the way. Of course, we did make sure that we wouldn’t be dicked over about this before filing our taxes for that year. But this is France, right? Everything depends on la fonctionnaire’s morning cup of coffee. And the guy in charge of our dossier was not in this morning—nor was he in the last time I came calling, so I had to spill out the entire story to some other person, wait until she wrote everything down, photocopied my supporting documents, pled sympathy with me and then turned around to tell me that I shouldn’t really hope very much. What a lovely way to start the week.

I promise, for those of you interested, I will spill the whole house story one day. It’s just very long, and very frustrating, and such a source of problems for me that I really have a hard time with it. Ignoring it hasn’t made it go away, but it has made getting through the day possible.

In other local news, my feet are currently frozen. I’m not normally a cold-natured person, far from it actually, but at the moment my piggers feel ready to break off like ice chips. The window in the monkey’s room was broken way back in August and today it finally got replaced. Marc’s currently airing the room out so we’re not all high on fumes, and apparently all the heat left in the house has chosen to escape. I don’t blame the heat, not at all. If I could, I’d fly right out that window too.

Marc’s dad is still in the hospital. That’s a bit I haven’t touched on, so I guess I’ll fill you in. He had a flare up of the old prostate, and while it apparently isn’t linked to cancer, it was horrendous enough to render the man useless. That’s a pretty tough trick for someone like the ole beau-père. He’s stuck in a room with a nice view of trees in Nancy, or the outskirts thereof, over an hour’s drive from here. It’s a less than ideal situation for all involved, especially since he was scheduled to be home by now. Alas, ‘twas not to be. The incision in his bladder unexpectedly popped open the day before his scheduled release, so he ended up back in surgery a second time on the day he had planned on coming home. To say he was less than happy is truly an understatement. He has been on the town council since the last elections and was the only one of that group running again. He’s been reelected, of course (to know the man is to love him), but not being here has taken it’s toll on him. Seeing him lying in bed has been rough for me as well—giving me flashback to my father and his seemingly never-ending love affair with hospitals. It’s hard to see the strong men in our lives in such a fragile state.

I’ll leave off, so I can get Monkey 2’s bum checked out, defrost my feet, and think evil thoughts to those that have ruined my domestic dreams. Send black thoughts their way, too, OK?