Banking and turkey

Wednesday we went to the bank, we thought to pick up our bankcards so that we can get money from the ATM. But, no, it was just the first step toward that. But now that we're a resident account rather than non-resident, we surely want to set up some higher interest accounts for our money. Well, yes we did, but we hadn't really planned on doing it right then. But we did. A very odd thing is that, although our checking (current) account is in both our names, the interest-bearing accounts can have only one name. But it seems like we'll both have access to them via the internet. (This is yet to be verified.) This was all carefully explained by a very nice young woman, who couldn't get the hang of speaking slowly and distinctly. She spoke a very few words of English, but even less than we speak French, so the knowing the exact words was sometimes handy. Next week we should get our cards for the ATM.

Next we went to the butcher, who was just back from vacation, to order our Thanksgiving turkey. We had expected this to be a problem, since on many Americans-in-France lists folks say it's impossible to get a turkey at Thanksgiving time. It seemed to be no problem at all, but maybe it will be a different story when we go to pick it up on the Day. Now we just have to watch for sweet potatoes and other necessities of the day.

Today we made an appointment for the technical checkup for our car. This is required to get it registered in France. The checkup will happen next Monday afternoon if all goes well. It may be that this is the last bit of paper we need. Then we can gather them all up, along with lots of copies, and go to Angoulême to work our way through the bureaucracy.

Sally (part of the Sally and Mike team who has been doing work on the house) is busy working priming the walls that were damaged by the leaking roof. She should be done with this in a few days. We're busy deciding (or not) what colors we'll paint when she's through. Ed has disassembled the innards of the closet under the stairs. Then we'll paint in there with some anti-fungal paint (the stone wall on that side seems to suck moisture into the house) and install shelving that fits our needs better.