The Misadventures of Jack & Joanne

Because of spring vacation, I have no cooking duties for two weeks, so Jack set up appointments for us last Thursday. The first was a call back to Emmanuelle in Belgium at 11 a.m. I decided chocolate chip cookies might be an 'ice breaker' for us, so I made a batch before we left. Armed and loaded with cookies, who could possibly resist us? We quickly found out that Emmanuelle can - her little house was closed up as tight as a cocoon, the white shutters locked up unwelcomingly. We knocked on her door anyway, but no answer, so we left her a phone message to let her know that we had kept our part of the bargain. We spent the next 4 hours checking addresses against names of possible young adults and found one 25 year old woman at home. She had a young daughter and looked to be expecting again, so I don't think she qualifies in that category any more. Then Jack got a phone call from the new Home teaching family we were to see that night. They had to cancel because of sickness and car trouble to boot. Rats! Our best laid plans gone ka-poot and leaving us with far, far too many choc. chip cookies for the best interest of Jack and Joanne. We dropped some into the hand of a gypsy who was begging at a stoplight in the city.

While getting ready to leave for more head hunting on Friday, we got a Skype call online and were able to see one of our newest grandsons. We talked with his mom for 20 minutes or so, and then went down to our car, and there on our windshield was a parking violation ticket! Blaaaa! We have to park on the street until we can get into an underground parking space, so any time during the week we are home from 9 to 5; we have to pay the meter. Jack is always so watchful, making sure to pay on time day after day; but somehow in the 10 minutes that we overdue, the meter lady showed up and gotcha! We owe $17 Euro for that, but the guy who got caught in the handicap parking in front of our building has to pay $130, so it could have been worse! We programmed our GPS machine Mappy (affectionately known as Mappyanne to us for her sweet, patient voice), to take us to Armentieres where we found no family with the name Cretel in the building listed. Next, we located the very nice house of Mme. Beaudot, who was not at home...we'll be back. Jack got a return call from a young man who'd moved to Paris, and gave him a real pep talk about the Young Adult program there, and he said he was thinking about returning to the church. I then programmed in our other Home teaching family, la famille Lagache , and here we ended up 40 k. away from Lille and in big trouble when Mappy didn't warn us of upcoming radar like she usually does. Jack forgot to slow down soon enough as we approached their ville, Vieux Berquin. Suddenly a bright light flashed into our eyes from the roadside, and we were had! Oh my heck - a two ticket day! Hoop-la, they're coming to take us away I'm sure, as they'll soon discover that we're serial law-breakers! But, wow, did we ever get a warm welcome from the mother of the family, Doriane. She caged her dogs and invited us in, gushing happily over our visit. She's in her early 40's and her family is a bit fractured; her oldest son ( 21) has kids and is losing his home, her daughter (20) was in the corner glued to some show she was watching on the computer with earphones, and a 4 year old sucking a binky was watching U.S. cartoons on a very loud, very large TV set. We talked for awhile and we 3 had a prayer together (the others not so inclined), and Doriane warned us to watch out for the radar (coming and going), and then clucked sadly when she heard our bad news. We then found ourselves in a part of Lille we had not yet seen, Old town, with cobblestone streets too tiny for two way traffic. We parked and walked back to Rue Doudin (a real throwback to the middle ages) and found the place that was listed. It was an apartment complex that looked like a cave almost, the opening covered totally by a blue gate of iron bars. A young woman opened it with her electronic disc and she let us into the inner, glass door protected alcove, so we could check the mailboxes for Michele C. There were many boxes, but none with her name, so we went back out the glass door and the blue gate wouldn't let us pass through! Hmmmm. Jack hunted high and I hunted low for buttons or the like - pushing anything we saw that was button-like. With the glass doors locked behind us and the blue gate locked in front of us, we were caught, like rats in a trap! Jack tried out his whistle, but nobody paid any attention to it. Finally I spied a decrepit looking button thingy in a recessed corner past the blue gate - I pushed and nothing happened. Jack came and tried his muscles on it and 'click' the gate reluctantly unlocked itself, and we were free!

We've been hearing how high the gas prices have been rising there at home...amazing that some officials seem to think that U. S. prices should be in line with what people pay in Europe. At the pump now, on average, we pay $6.00 a gallon in Euros to gas up our little Chevy, and that's diesel (which is cheaper here). But, also you have to remember the exchange rate, because it costs us, on average, $598.00 in U.S. dollars to buy $450.00 Euros (which are so pretty and shiny they just seem like play money to me!). So, in our dollars, that adds on even more to the cost of that gallon of gasoline, making it more like nearly $8.00 dollars a gallon. Is that high enough for them yet? Some food for thought.

On Monday night our Peruvian Ami, Denis, went to a member of our ward's house for Family Home Evening. Racquel invited him when she heard that he was from South America, because she was born in Spain and could speak Spanish to him. She said things went very well and that they presented the Plan of Salvation as their lesson. He told her that if he doesn't get the internship he is trying for he will go back to Peru in two weeks. I'm glad that he has been introduced to the church well here, because if he does go back he will find that it is well established there as well. As you can see, things are normal or goofy no matter where in the world you are...but we are happy here right now.

Love to you all..........Sister Joanne