French Plum

Waiting for Takeoff
Originally Posted on January 4th, 2010

Jan 4th. Monday night on the plane. Everything is so surreal. Richard and I have spent four days of frantic scrambling thinking I wasn’t going to be allowed on tonight’s flight. The problem: My passport says “Paula Plum Snee”, my ticket, “Paula Plum.” . Richard spends hours on the phone with extraordinarily polite Indians named Jerry/Bob/ or Ralph who nearly convince him to purchase a second ticket ( for 1100$) to insure my boarding

I smell a scam and decide I’ll bluff my way through and cause a scene if necessary. Richard, more pragmatic, launches a phone campaign to every ‘connected’ one of our friends and family, until his sister Patty suggests he try John Linnehan, a boyhood buddy from Smithtown, now head of security at Dulles airport in DC. John, unfortunately,can’t do anything for us, but advises that he’s pretty sure, with the right documentation, I’ll get on. At the eleventh hour, Richard connects with someone at British Airways who says “ Oh, yeah, just bring a copy of your marriage license and she’ll be all set.” Why didn’t SOMEBODY say so in the FIRST place?

This problem folded itself into the agony of leaving Richard... Just so hard to leave my husband of 30 years to go gallivanting off to Paris...I’ve been waking up in panic every night wondering, “what the hell am I doing?” Some distant part of me knows that it’s going to be great, but right now it is so so SO FAR outside of my comfort zone.

I am on the plane, made it through security, no one really cared about my name after all.

French Plum
Originally Posted on January 3rd, 2010

Tomorrow night, Jan 4 , 2010, I will start another life as French Plum. I am flying out of Logan at 8:30 PM, British Airways flight 214 bound for France. By Tuesday afternoon, I will be ensconsed in my Paris apartment in the 7th arrondissement, taking a shower which has a skylight that peeps at the Eiffel tower. Or will it be peeping at me?

Philippe Gaulier Clown Show
Here is a video of Ecole Philippe Gaulier where I will be studying.