paradise by the croisette lights

I'm back from la France. It was a busy busy week of tv pitching and listening to tv pitches and bitching about tv pitches and good lord stop me before I start talking about pitches again. Cannes is a beautiful but decadent place to do business. I've had my fill of cheese and bread and pasta to last me a lifetime.

Alice and Matt did fine on their own - 8 whole days without me. I was nervous when I first left, thinking the worst of course. But they were fine, as deep down (very far deep down) I knew they would be. I did, however, have a panicked moment one morning. I had not been able to reach them in 24 hours and Matt's cell phone voicemail was completely full. Leave it to me to jump to the worst conclusions. There I was, sitting on the beach along the French Riviera, Cafe Americano in my hand, 25 degrees (C) out and no clouds in sight. I should have been enjoying the scenery and breathing in all that ocean air, but instead I was leaving panicked voicemails with everyone I know. Instead I was calling Nadine on the expensive French cell phone telling her I couldn't get a hold of Matt and Alice and asking her if she had she heard anything. Luckily, she's a good friend and wasn't condescending when she reassured me that they were probably fine and that she could drop by my place to make sure if I really wanted her to. Friends like these, who don't hold your neuroses against you and validate your fears at the same time they calm you down are truly priceless.

Once I talked to Matt and found out that our new cordless phone was broken and he kept trying to answer the phone each time I called, I calmed down and enjoyed the rest of the week of work. It's hard to hate where you are when you see this every morning (view from my apartment balcony in Cannes):



Or when see this on your way to work each day:





And it's REALLY hard to hate a place that excels in making an ordinary meal feel special. Even a regular old sandwich lunch came with these:



Of course, I did miss Canadian Thanksgiving. Which meant I missed an awesomely loud dinner at my parent's house. They can actually be quite fun, and I was disappointed to miss it. But mostly, I missed the opportunity to see my parent's dog in person, who was recently outfitted with this:



If I had been at Thanskgiving dinner, I would have got down on my knees and thanked god that I get to carry this image around with me for the rest of my life. Seriously.

One last thing that the Cannes trip gave me was an opportunity to shop at some of the cutest kids' stores. What it is about European kids' clothing that makes them far superior to the stuff we have here? There's just something about the tiny wooly hats and tights and crochet dresses that makes my maternal heart light on fire. I was happy to bring back a piece of France for my daughter - a reminder of the place I go to twice a year to just be me and not only mommy. Every time I go away I find that as much as I love working on my career, mostly I can't wait to get back to the lovely little spitfire who makes my heart ache when I hear her voice a thousand miles away.