Blanche Update

Blanche was feeling a bit better yesterday. Her bag was smaller, so I imagine she isn't in as much physical pain. She finally came out of her shed, but went into a different pasture than the rest of the flock. She is still isolating herself, but at least she's eating better. I take her geraniums each evening.

Still no trace of the corpse of Marley. I can't stop obsessing about what animal took him. Yesterday, a tourist from a nearby camping spot was walking two Huskies. I eyed them suspiciously after reading in the Buddhist sheep book that Huskies are a menace to sheep.

I'm pretty certain, or at least I want to be pretty certain, that Antoinette and Attila didn't contribute to the demise of Marley. Yesterday I gave them a bowl of rice, and they had rice hanging on their neck hairs . . . there's no way they could have attacked a lamb and not had some blood on them. They aren't that neat.

Last night, a nearby village had a dance and confetti battle. The village sells bags of confetti and people go wild throwing it at each other. In the morning, there's an inch or two of confetti on the main street.

It's a village tradition that in the early morning hours, when the band is finished playing, people gather together to eat tripe soup.

It was dark, but the Husband and I walked Antoinette and Attila down the road to check out the action. The Husband had fun picking up some sort of strange glowing larvae that he found clinging to the tall grass. He stuck them to his shirt. I hope they aren't the result of a nuclear reactor accident.

At the village, the Husband and Attila ventured into the crowd. I had read that Australian Shepherds are afraid in crowds so Antoinette and I stayed on the sidelines watching the kids flirt. Antoinette was interested in a group of teenage boys who were drinking and smoking cigarettes. She pushed her way into their circle and sat among them watching them. Attila got confettied. It's still tangled up in his hair this morning.

I received my Carte de Sejour yesterday, so I'm no longer an illegal alien.

The Husband spends his mornings raking the gravel he had delivered for our driveway. If you remember, we had a septic tank put in this January and the asphalt between the house and the barn was ripped up. We were going to pave it, but after visiting several homes with graveled drives, we opted for the more rural look of gravel.

Unfortunately, the Husband ordered much more gravel than we needed and the deliveryman dumped the stuff in one giant pile. So now the Husband must eternally move gravel around to every available space on the property.

To my great New Age surprise, the Husband has adopted the attitude that the moving and raking of the gravel is his Zen training.

One becomes a Zen practitioner here despite any resistance to the idea. The animals and plants, the government and the repairmen, each have their own timetables with which we must be patient, patient, patient. The neighbors pop in at all times. The train conductors often strike.

On Sunday, I thought I'd make a schedule . . . to give myself the illusion of being in control of my time. By Monday afternoon, I wrote across the top of the schedule: Schedules are useless.

I overheard the Husband telling a friend on the phone that he found the gravel raking to be very Zen: the pebbles are like little pieces to a giant puzzle and one has plenty of time to contemplate how the pieces fit together.

I congratulated the Husband for "going over to the other side" by leaving his empirical view behind in his office. That change alone was worth the move here.