Yes, It HAS been a while . . .

When last we left you, it was in the fervent hope that we would catch a taxi in the morning and head out of Paris, with the intention of getting home, doing the holidays, and then returning to Europe in January for a trip to Bordeaux, San Sebastian (Spain), and back to Paris.

While all of those things DID occur, nothing quite happened as planned.

We woke up in time the next morning. We traipsed down the stairs, around the corner, and found a cab.

(Side note: That morning, the drivers of the RER Ligne B, the one that serves DeGaulle Airport, began an “action sociale”, what we in the US call a strike. We were not planning to use the train, so it theoretically had very little effect on us. Theoretically.

Actually, it put about 25,000 more cars on the peripherique. Then there was the accident that blocked it pretty badly, besides.)

To give a little geographic perspective, please imagine Paris as a clock face. Our apartment is near the center of the clock, about half-way out the “little hand” when it is pointing at 9:30 or so. De Gaulle Airport is just past the end of the BIG hand when it is pointing to 10 minutes past the hour.

Our cab driver took us along the river, but did not cross it. I began to worry immediately, but tried not to get Kelli upset. When our driver took us all the way to Issy, which is around 7 on the clock, I knew we were in trouble. When he proudly pointed out he had been driving a cab in Paris for 4 days now, I started looking for the aquamarine necklace from the Titanic.

We finally made it to the peripherique, about 40 minutes after leaving the taxi stand. We left two hours early for a ride that normally takes 35-40 minutes, but with the trains on strike, we were expecting some delay.

Then, our driver turned the LONG way on the peripherique.

At that point, I knew I wasn’t going to make my flight. Kelli’s was scheduled out 50 minutes after mine, and it was going to be nip and tuck for her.

Sure enough, we finally came dragging into the airport, $90 later (most of it spent on waiting time), 4 minutes before my flight was to close. I grabbed bags and sprinted, but was two minutes late.

The Air France folks tried to get me on, but security rules (in France, anyway) say that late arrivals are held off planes, for obvious reasons. I would have to pay $200 to change my ticket; furthermore, I could ONLY fly on Air France, and their next flight with an open seat was in two days.

Kelli barely made her flight, which included no fewer than 4 security inspections/checkpoints because she was so close to closing time for the flight. We were able to holler good-byes across several yards because the security folks were nice enough to let me inside a secure area to communicate with her.

I ambled down to the American Airlines terminal, where in 90 minutes I met Deborah and Taylor stumbling sleepy-eyed off the flight from New York. I clambered back into an Air France bus with them and went back to the apartment for two more days, which was sort of fun even if I spent a lot of it dealing with trying to hook up her MAC to the internet – it required us buying a new cable modem (and the first one was defective, so I had to get it replaced, a concept somewhat foreign to French retailing), then getting it properly configured to deal with a Mac.

Started feeling a little punk on the last evening – kind of a cold, maybe.

Got home, uneventful flight. Plunged directly into holidays and Cal basketball coverage and Sharks hockey.

Got sicker.

And sicker.

Finally spiked a fever of nearly 6 degrees. Called Kaiser. They said (over the phone, of course), “it’s the virus that always goes around this time of the year. It will take either 6 days of 3 weeks to go away – ride it out, there’s nothing we can do.”

Stayed sick for a while. When it was time to return to Europe in mid January, I was just getting over the severe chest congestion and what the doctor-folk like to call a “highly productive cough”.

Was very low-energy, but looking forward to the trip to Bordeaux and Spain.

Flights were pleasant enough, no problems, arrived in Bordeaux, took a bus to downtown, met with Jean d’Alos and his family at their cheese shop, had a lovely dinner with them (the chef had worked in San Francisco for several years), went back to the airport, picked up a car and headed for Spain. Rainy day, runny nose.

The weather got worse as we got closer to the ocean. I was starting to honk and snort in that anti-social way people do when they start a real cold.

We arrive in San Sebastian and wander for a while in driving rain trying to find the hotel. We finally do, and I’m kinda cranky by now, but the hotel is so charming, on the water, with a Kandinsky in our room (large enough to rollerskate around in if one were so inclined) – and the coolest elevator ever, with wooden doors that swing into the elevator and a wrought-iron and glass door on each floor.

I’m getting sicker.

I start drinking Echinacea as though it were tequila shooters and I was on spring break.

Sicker. Still, we have a fabulous week in Spain – we are now fully assimilated into two families, were in the main square at midnight with the tamborrada began, stayed up most of the night walking through town playing our drums, ate fabulous food with fabulous people, generous to a fault. I got to not only eat at one of the closed gastronomic societies, I got to cook there also. We went into the mountains to eat clabbered fresh sheep’s milk for dessert (with mountain honey), then said “hola” to the sheep, who did not understand us because they speak Euskadi, the Basque language.

We have fallen madly in love with Donostia, the Basque name for San Sebastian, and highly recommend it to each of you for an extended visit. The second highest concentration of Michelin stars (17 in all) of any region in Europe.

Returned to Paris, really sick, now. The plane flight was rather painful.

Horrendous sinus problems. Must sleep sitting straight upright. Drainage is constant. I’m beyond miserable, and getting worse. By the third day in Paris, I’m only able to function by holding steaming compresses to my face until they cool off, then putting them back into the microwave.

By Friday, I’m getting worried. We are able to be tourists for a few hours a day, but the pressure is indescribable – I’m taking Percodan just to sleep – and I am concerned about getting on the airplane.

We contact our friends, Martin (from the apartment in December) and his wife, who is a pediatrician. After significant conversation, she decides that I’ve got a critical chronic sinus infection, and that I’ve had it since my last trip to Paris. She prescribes steroids and very serious antibiotics.

They work.

By Tuesday evening, when we go back to the old neighborhood and kidnap Martin for dinner, I’m 80% improved, and he then tells us that he was not supposed to let me get on the plane if I wasn’t mostly better already, because Annie was concerned that I might have something rupture in my brain. I was so grateful that the aching in my jaws and teeth had subsided, and that I still HAD all my teeth, that anything else was pure joy.

So, we arrived home together, I finished my course of antibiotics and now feel truly great. I spent a week with Kelli in San Jose at the SAP Open tennis tournament, and am now in Arizona for Spring Training (for another 5-week stint).
I’ll begin occasional posts about spring training, for those who are interested. At last, we get to the baseball part of the blog’s title