Back Home Again

Flew back home yesterday and am feeling the effects of jet lag as well as Claritan D after suffering a major allergy attack the evening before I left... but I'm unpacked and back in the office now, trying to remember what I was doing before I left. Time to check e-mail, voicemail and catch up on all things not Paris-related.

Brought mon chien Peanut with me to work today and the first thing I did was walk with Peanut, my office-mate Jeff and his beautiful daughter Grace to the coffee shop down the street. I have to go through re-entry carefully (like a space shuttle) so it seemed a good idea to begin my day with a trip to the local cafe. Jeff brought his cat to his office because they're trying to sell their home, so between the dog on my side of the office and a cat on his, we have the animal kingdom covered. The joy of being self-employed! There's been more than one time that I've thought of going back into the corporate life, only to remember I can't bring my dog and dismissed the idea summarily.

The trip back was great--John, my client, bless his heart, upgraded my ticket to business class. It's a whole new world for this business traveler. I needed an in-service just to figure out how the chair, which reclines into an almost-bed, and the individual TV worked. A kind gentleman, Jon, was my seat mate and because his work causes him to travel extensively, he was my tutor throughout the flight. Between the attentiveness of the flight attendants and the copious amounts of food (I passed up most of the unlimited offers of champagne and wine, having consumed more than enough on my travels), it became clear to me that business class is the only way to go. I kept thinking of the line from an old song, "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, now that they've seen Paree?"

Due to aforementioned allergy attack, I didn't have the opportunity to post my last blog from Paris at the Sofitel, where our meetings went well and I got to know the sales team. My presentation was Wednesday morning and the team was generous in participating in the interactive portion... I asked each of them to think back to early memories of when they knew they were good at selling.

Every one of them had a great story to tell, from featuring eggs in a county fair-like competition and winning (didn't have a chicken so he went out and bought the eggs) to setting up a home business as early as six years old. One gentleman set up a team of friends whom he sent out to do chores, and he collected the money a la Tom Sawyer (can you say "override"?) The group proved not only that they were gifted from an early age but that necessity is often the mother of invention--and, more importantly, innovation. It will take me a while to get the sound of the lilting French, Irish, English, Scottish and Dutch accents from my head.

It was with sorrow that I left beautiful Paris and in going through my e-mail, came across a quotation cited by a woman who has an ex-patriate blog of her own... she quoted Ben Franklin, who was known to say, "Everyone has two countries; the one in which he was born, and France.” Now I, too, have two countries.