Deborah Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Rent a car in western France et al.

SNCF

My friend Deborah negotiated to rent a car in western France for us, including me emailing my wife’s driver’s license so she could show the dealer. I tried to secure the vehicle myself, but the webpage was terrible. Among other things, it kept slipping back to French, even though it had an English-language option.

Finding a vehicle with an automatic transmission was a challenge. Also, it was fairly expensive compared with US rates.

The downpayment for the trip we gave to AAA to give to Avanti was paid on January 21. I guess we’re really doing this. We booked another hotel for the night after the wedding, and all the accommodations were set.

My wife in the US had never met my friend Deborah. One of the lovely things about technology is that they got to at least see each other on Facebook. They seem to hit it off.

The train

The one unsettled element involves buying train tickets. We’ve discovered that Avanti won’t order them until they have our valid passports.

Our passports expired in August 2020. We didn’t rush to get them renewed since we weren’t planning to go anywhere during COVID. I decided to get mine and received it in March of 2022.

My wife mailed her application on January 8, 2023, which was supposed to arrive at the processor on January 10. (We found out later that it wasn’t delivered until January 17.)

On February 5, Deborah frantically called my cell phone. We were waiting in line at an Indian food buffet. For reasons I didn’t understand, everyone within range of me could hear her, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

She checked with the train service and adjudged that there would be NO train tickets if we did not buy them immediately. The next day, she wrote: “Big problem. I went to the train station today to find out why there are no trains showing for the 18th from Paris to Auray and no trains showing for the 20th from Auray to Paris, and it seems…the SNCF has cancelled all trains for those days to do work on the tracks. Right during the four-day holiday weekend, the Semaine du Golfe, etc.”

Technology

I attempted to navigate the website The Société nationale des chemins de fer français is France’s national state-owned railway company. But I was having a terrible time. I was on the site for 45 minutes, and as it kept switching back and forth from English to French, I was quite literally getting a headache.

Ultimately, Deborah bought us tickets. I gave her my credit card number, but it didn’t work. I sent her 375 Euros via PayPal, which was $422 US.

On March 20, my wife’s passport finally arrived, and I emailed the vital info to AAA. I wrote on April 5 to AAA: “Do we have train tickets?” They wrote back, but neither my wife nor I received it. Finally, on April 12, it was confirmed: train tickets to Auray and then back to Paris.

Deborah worked on getting me a refund for the tickets she bought, complicated by the wonky technology on the part of the SNCF website, which is totally believable.

Unrest

I could not have foreseen protests over French legislation that would increase the pension age to 64 from 62. President Macron said the measures are needed “to keep France internationally competitive amid declining fertility and an aging population.” The pushback started in January but intensified in March.

Alan Singer wrote in March: Macron “used a Parliamentary tactic to avoid an up or down vote on raising the retirement age.” He survived a vote of no confidence, which would have scuttled the bill and forced Macron’s cabinet, but not the French President, to resign.

More protests took place on May Day. “The pension overhaul was approved by the country’s Constitutional Council and officially signed into law, so while Mr. Macron will not find the issue easy to leave behind, there is little chance the protesters will be able to persuade him to reverse his decision.”

Talk about great timing.

Deborah and Cyrille are engaged!

Gulf of Morbihan

My friend Deborah wrote to me in October 2022 that she and her beau Cyrille are engaged! I was happy for her and also a bit surprised for reasons.

Did I want to come to the wedding? Well, sure, of course. The slightly complicating factor is that they live in the Brittany section of France.

I’ve never been to France, or, for that matter, anywhere that’s not in North America. I always wanted to, and now’s an excellent opportunity.

Still, after they sent out the electronic, animated invitations on December 4, I did not respond despite indicating my desire to attend in an email. The wedding is a very elaborate series of events, which will be described in due course. On December 11, Deborah asked about my wife and me attending since I had not RSVPed yet.

This involved the next issue. After six months off, my wife would start a new job on January 2, 2023. It involves an afterschool program, and the school year is still going on May 19, when the wedding occurs.

(I should note that the six months “off” included her falling on her face, getting COVID, and having a leg infection that sent her to the hospital for four days plus more treatments for a month and a half afterward.)

I wrote, “I am going. [My wife] says she wants to go too but has to negotiate. She also needs to apply for her passport. I will let you know by the end of the month.”

Oui

We said yes on December 19, the same day we went to the local AAA office to discuss the trip with a travel consultant. They wrote back two days later: “Attached is a quote for your trip to France. Unfortunately, Avanti did not have any hotels in Erdeven. I checked, and none of the suppliers that we work with have hotels there. The closest town would be Auray (where the train goes) or Carnac.”

The trip involved flying from JFK Airport at 1830 on May 14, arriving at Charles De Gaulle Airport on May 15, staying at a hotel in Paris for three nights, then taking a train to Auray.

On January 4, we received another message from the couple, marked URGENT. “We are happy that you are coming.

“But we have learned that our wedding is during a major Brittany event, La Semaine du Golfe… It is urgent to make your hotel and transport reservations as soon as possible.”

Re: that event, taking place from Monday, May 15th to Sunday, May 21st, 2023.: “The Gulf of Morbihan regularly welcomes over 1000 classic and traditional vessels for La Semaine du Golfe, a quite unique maritime festival sees the fleet split into flotillas by class, with around 18 harbours welcoming a new flotilla on each day on the event.”

Deborah and Cyrille wrote: “We also want to invite you to a post-wedding brunch at our home on Saturday, 20th of May, at 12:30 pm at our home. Please RSVP by 15 January.” This we did.

Ascension Day

Next complication. We need to rent a car to get around to the various wedding locales. Avis in Auray, both at the train station and downtown, close at noon on the 17th, and they are closed all day on Thursday the 18th for Ascension Day.

What the heck is Ascension Day? “We commemorate Jesus Christ’s ascension into heaven (as per Christian belief) by celebrating Ascension Day, which occurs on the Thursday, which is 40 (or 39) days after Easter. This year, it will take place on May 18. Known by multiple names — The Feast of the Ascension, The Ascension of Jesus, Ascension Thursday, Holy Thursday, or Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord — this is a Christian holiday that doubles as a public holiday in many countries like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, and more.”

This took me by surprise. The Wikipedia list of countries puts France as the 17th least devout among 144 counties, with only three in ten people saying that religion is important. (In the US, two in three say religion is important.)

So we returned to AAA on the phone and changed the train from the 18th to the 17th. Also, we booked a place to stay in Auray on the 17th and the 18th. But we did not yet undo our three days in Paris because AAA couldn’t get Avanti to lock in the train tickets.

But that’s for the next installment.

My friend Deborah

1977 in NYCNY

1977 was primarily annus horribilis for me. Yet it was also the year I met my friend Deborah.

I was crashing at my sister Leslie and her then-husband’s Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC apartment. My job, such as it was, involved making telephone calls to get people to buy stuff. They were to resubscribe to TV Guide at a higher price than they would spend by purchasing it off the newsstand. And we collectively were pretty successful at it.

I also got people to buy the Annual updates for an encyclopedia, though I no longer remember which one. (Geek self-reveal: my parents bought the updates to our Encyclopedia Americana, and I read them when they arrived.) Other people sold Bulwark fitness gear.

I worked from six p.m. until midnight, never calling after nine p.m. in the locale I was calling. It was five days a week, so I had much free time.

I became friendly with a co-worker named Michael. Sometimes, we’d go down to Greenwich Village and hang out at the clubs or sometimes in a park.

I don’t remember where or how, but Michael met a young woman named Deborah. He was instantly smitten. They went out for half a minute before she broke up with him. Somehow, Deborah and I managed to become friends.

After I moved upstate – New Paltz, Schenectady, then Albany – we wrote or called each other. When I came to the City, I’d crash at her place.

Then she moved to Japan. I was a mediocre correspondent, and we lost touch. But through Facebook, we reconnected.

In-person

I told the story here about how I got some found money in 2018. Deborah was visiting friends in Connecticut. She drove to Poughkeepsie, and I took a train there. We chatted for about 90 minutes, then returned from whence we came.

In the last few months, I got to plan to see her again, longer than an hour and a half. That’s for another day, as I needed to tell THIS story to tell the NEXT one.

Sweet for 4G (apologies: James Taylor)

I had not seen Deborah in decades because she lives in Europe.

The envelope was in a box of unsorted miscellany, rather than in the mail drawer. I discovered it about a month after the May 2 date on the letter. It came from MetLife.

“RE: Case Number…

“DEAR ROGER GREEN:

“We are trying to locate ROGER GREEN regarding an important insurance matter. They last resided at [my address in 1999-2000].

“If you know ROGER GREEN…” Do I! Calling the 800 number, I was told I would get some form to fill out.

Three weeks later, the Identification Questionnaire letter came. Section I was easy enough, Insured’s Information.

But Section II was nigh unto impossible. “Insured’s address when policy was issued.” I didn’t know THAT the policy was issued. “Date”? Dunno. “Name of agent who issued the policy” – seriously?

I ASSUME this was some sort of policy that was arranged by my parents at some point, though they never told me about it. Back in the 1990s, I started receiving these minuscule dividend checks every quarter from MetLife. $2.64 or $2.97 or $3.18, which I thought was a function I set up from something I must have set up.

In any case, I spoke to a different customer service representative. HE told me that I shouldn’t have needed to fill this form out, since I had an account with them. Long story short, I received a check for about $4,400 in early August.

It’s not life-changing money, but it’s life-made-easier money. We had one laptop among three of us; now we have two. And when it’s lacking software protection I assumed incorrectly that would be included, I acquired it.

I took a trip for work to Washington, DC, and the credit card bill came due before the reimbursement check arrived; not a problem. My trip to Yankee Stadium was affordable. I purchased tickets for an upcoming concert.

Most spontaneously, I could take a train to Poughkeepsie one morning to see my friend Deborah. I had not seen her in decades because she lives in Europe. She drove 90 minutes from Connecticut. We share hot drinks and a muffin at the nearby coffee shop for a couple of hours. Then I took the train back so I could go to work in the afternoon.

To be sure, some of these – the Yankees game and seeing Deborah, for sure – I would have done WITHOUT the extra cash.

BTW, the JT reference is to Suite for 20 G. From Songfacts: “This song was an amalgamation of several bits of songs/melodies/lyrics/themes that Taylor had laying around as kernels for three future songs that hadn’t yet come together. He and his producer, Peter Asher, had a deadline to meet for completing the Sweet Baby James album, and they needed one more song to do it. Asher had him string these loose themes together to make a single ‘Suite’ and get the $20,000 (20G) they were promised by Warner Bros. Records for completing the album, which is how it got the title.”