Out Of Order

I am en route on my road to recovery. I have been out of action for the last few days with a classic case of the grippe! That and trying to catch up with the 21st century...I mean how many people do you know who have never owned a cell phone before? I got one on Saturday from Free...great plan...I paid 17 Euros for the phone and 2 Euros a month for their basic service. I had to go 16 kilometers to Hautefort to pick it up at the little store there because the delivery service claimed they couldn't find my house! Then, I fucked up the installation of the SIM card. The card was in a pop out multiple size format that fit the model of phone it was to go in. When I tried to pop it out, the littlest size piece just popped out, so I put it in the phone and it disappeared. The phone ate it. I realized to my horror that I had put in the wrong size format. I couldn't easily get it out. So I tried to call Free customer service...big mistake! Finally, I took it to my buddy's house because he is an electronic wizard and inventor of sorts. We took the damn phone apart, retrieved the card, carefully put the phone back together and  was able to fit the little SIM card back into the right sized formate and reinstall it correctly. The phone works fine now and I learned how to take apart a cell phone. My wife of course thinks I am a total idiot. You know how it is. You are only as good as your last mistake. Then I spent a few hours setting up the Free account and figuring out how the phone works. Things went downhill from there. I was sick for 2 days...today I felt I could work on the garden for a few hours as the asthma effect of my illness abated. Then my mechanic finally showed up...I had to order 2 new tires after a blow out last week. We decided to change the air and oil filters and the oil at the same time. It's a pretty cool deal. The mechanic, Gerard, has big van with an air compressor and mobile atelier. Out here in the backwoods, there aren't a lot of garagistes around. Our local garage in Hautefort, where I had always taken my car, closed about 2 months ago when Mr. LaFaye retired after his wife died.  So Gerard is a life saver. We order the parts off of the internet pretty cheap. He comes out here and does the work for 35 Euros an hour, has plenty of good energy and money saving advice and understands my clumsy attempts at humor in my retarded French. Sometimes I tell a joke and get totally lost in the sea of verbs and pronunciation...I have trouble remembering the gender of things...there is no simple logic. So, the car is back together and next month we will put in a new alternator and plugs. I went the entire winter with out being sick, no colds, no flu. Usually, I'm pretty tough, but I think I picked up the bug when I was down in Terrasson last week. The elections here were pretty rough. I will write about them tomorrow. If NKM had become mayor of Paris, I was ready to emigrate to Thailand!  She lost, and Pais has new woman Socialist Mayor, Ann Hidalgo! She's pretty neat and very independent! It should be an interesting week. The Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault resigned today Manuel Valls is the new one!  I am waiting to see if Hollande has the balls to appoint his ex partner, Segolene Royale into his new government! Some how, I just do not think he is up to it......