Ever since we moved the bed downstairs, we’ve not gotten a decent night’s sleep. Myself, I woke up at 4:30am with a stomach ache and didn’t get back to sleep right away.

When I finally did, two teenagers showed up who we hired to take care of our big backyard garden. I told The Frenchman that they seemed a bit young and inexperienced, but we decided to give them a chance. When they finished, the backyard was transformed into this incredible enchanted garden with water lilies and willows. We were a bit stunned, saying, “Well, um, it’s not exactly what we’d had in mind, but…” As I paid the two teens, they had brought with them their helper, an old-ish round-ish man with lots of face wrinkles in his golden skin. He was very cheery and spoke in a language I was pretty sure wasn’t Russian. In fact, I wasn’t sure it was human at all. When they left, a stranger started coming to our door knocking who wouldn’t identify herself. We never let her in. As it turns out, the two teens were faeries who were not supposed to have worked our backyard. They were in big trouble and nastier faeries were trying to find them; this one was a witch. Of course, we were somehow caught in the middle of this.

Stomach still hurts. We visited friends yesterday who live in a small seaside town that was having its annual sea urchin festival. We ate all kinds of sea food, including urchins and something called “coronet,” which was a squid filled with chopped beef and pork in a yummy sauce. I’m thinkin’ this was all a delicious mistake.

In the meantime, this very funny Canal Plus ad has helped me feel better. Thanks, Aaron!