New year, new French?

(I know this picture is offensive because it's obviously a North African doing the work, but I posted it anyway because it just totally and completely exemplifies the gas/electric/phone/anything company).

So it's a new year and there should be lots of good things to write about. Change is in the French air...

How 'bout the kick off of the twice yearly sales and my lovely new trench coat I've been eyeballing for months or the non-smoking restaurants so you can actually taste your food and see the decor or the fact that we can now choose the schools we want our children to go to thus avoiding putting Suzanne in the crappiest school in Lille. But I feel uninspired...maybe it's because of the house. That's the only thing that does not seem to be affected by the New Year.

When we last left our protagonist, GDF -the GAs Company - didn't come due to an energy strike and we had no further news so, pulling strings, the General Secretary of a major labor union balled out some little guy. They swore up and down that they'd come twice last week, once to connect the lines in the house and once to do whatever they had to do with the outside lines. I think you can guess the rest...

Jerome finally got a hold of the ghost-gas company who finally told him the problem - they hadn't gotten permission from the city to make holes in the street! See, this is what people have always told me about France - the right and the left hand don't work together! In the past, this has worked to my advantage (like when I was here on a tourist visa for an extended period of time and no one noticed) but in this case...crap, do you think this is my bad karma that's doing this? Should I start a list like Earl Hickey? Or is the power of French administration so strong that not only does it bypass my bad karma, but it's an all encompassing karmic cycle all to itself. Oh God. I can see this snowballing. Must stop writing before head explodes.

There is some positive - electricity will be done this week, plasterers coming on February 5th (assuming there is heat) and bathtub is installed. Hopefully all the banisters will be up by the time my mother comes in mid-February, otherwise, I don't think she'll be seeing the upstairs at all.