Le jour d'action de grâce

After watching the French film of Coco Chanel's life on my computer, I noticed that midnight had crept it's ugly head toward my laptop clock, marking my first French jour d'action de grâce (joor d-ak-see-ohn duh grah-s: Thanksgiving).  The thought of spending the next morning cooking all day and teaching all night so that I could celebrate this American holiday without family, sweet potatoes, or pumpkin pie left me exhausted and slightly depressed, so instead of thinking anymore about it I decided to change into my pjs and climb into bed.

My hand poised over the light switch, a sudden frappe (fra-p: knock) on the door made my heart race and my body freeze.  Convincing myself that the loud knock was just the wind, I tried to ignore my confusion at someone possibly standing outside my bedroom at midnight.  I left my hand hovering over the light switch, debating whether or not I should go off to sleep without even checking to see if there was anyone there.  But mon coeur (mohn koor: my heart) wouldn't let me ignore le bruit (leh brew-eet: the noise).  There was definitely a knock, and I could feel a presence of someone - or something - on the other side of the threshold, waiting.

Turning the lock, I peeked around la porte (lah poor-t: the door), expecting to see no one there and for my fright to be all a mistake, as it's so often been with my old, loose French door on windy nights in the past.  In a split second my eyes scanned to hall, trying to adjust to the dark, only to see two eyes staring back at me.  Human eyes.  Male eyes.  Male eyes that belonged to someone who looked an awful lot like my boyfriend, Andrew.

And with a mouth forming words in a voice that sounded so much like Andrew's.

And with arms reaching out to hug me in a way so much like Andrew's.

"But wait" my mind told me, "Andrew is visiting his step-grandpa in Davis.  Andrew doesn't speak French.  There's no way Andrew could find his way around.  Andrew has to be at work on Monday.  Andrew is spending Thanksgiving with his family around their dinner table in California.  There's no way Andrew is standing at my bedroom door, in France, at midnight.  I've finally done it.  I've finally gone so crazy that now I can't even separate dreams from reality.  I'm a certifiable nutcase."

But my heart couldn't help but believe.  So I screamed.  I shouted Andrew's name over and over again, trying to wake myself up from this dream.  But I wouldn't wake up.  So I decided to hug Andrew, hoping his touch would wake me up.  But I just couldn't, for the life of me, wake up.

You know what?  It turns out I wasn't dreaming.  Mon Saint André (moh-n san-t ahn-dray: my Saint Andrew), who doesn't speak a word of French, who had never before flown overseas, who only had a weekend off from work, and who can never, ever succesfully keep surprises, managed to catch me completely by surprise by showing up at my bedroom door in The Middle of Nowhere, France so he could be with me for Thanksgiving.  True story.

And here I thought the most exciting thing about Thanksgiving this year would be the homemade cranberry sauce.