Buying a House in France

The Franco-American Flophouse has been around for over 20 years.  We've lived in some great places during that time:  Seattle, Paris, Tokyo, Courbevoie, Suresnes and now Versailles.  We went where the work was and like many people we had to balance what we could pay against things like the availability of good public schools and proximity to our places of employment (not easy when both spouses work and one doesn't have a French driver's license).

In all that time we've never actually owned any of the places we've lived in.  In the beginning it was simply because we didn't have two centimes (pennies) to rub together when we were married.  Later it was about mobility.  It's much easier to give notice, pack up, and move to Tokyo at a moment's notice when you rent.

It's taken a few years but lately we started thinking about buying.  The likelihood that we will be moving on again anytime soon is low since I've got a long-term subscription at the Rene Huguenin Cancer Center in St. Cloud.  The other factor is that we really like Versailles, this little community of about 88,000 people.  Forget the gaudy castle, the rest of the town is charming and quiet and the people are very nice.   Pretty conservative too - this town was solidly on Sarkozy's side during the last election.  And finally Versailles is fairly close to Paris  - just 20 minutes on the RER C line.

So, we went looking.  We started dropping in on various real estate agents around town, talking to the agents and describing what we had in mind and getting a feel for the market.  This is the fun part of buying a house because you can still dream of the "perfect" home, the great deal that combines everything you ever wanted (wood floors, garden, American kitchen) at a bargain basement price.  But after you've visited one or two agents you are rapidly brought back to Planet Earth and you adjust your dreams to your budget.

For someone like me from a small regional city in the U.S. the prices are mind-blowing if you are looking for property near and around Paris.  Here's a quick and dirty comparison:

House in Suresnes:  This is a little house near where we used to live when the Frenchlings were little.  It's 65 square meters (699 square feet), was built in the 1930's, has 3 rooms (3 pièces) which means two
bedrooms and a living room in addition to a kitchen area and bathrooms. There's a small garden and patio as well. It's very expensive to heat (see the diagnostic performances énergétiques in the middle of the web page). This house can be had for a mere 415,000 Euros (517,000 U.S. Dollars).

You can do a lot better in terms of price if you give up the idea of a house and look for an apartment.

Apartment in Suresnes:  This one is not nearly as charming as the little house but it's about the same size and has same number of rooms.  The building is more modern so heating costs are less.  This can be had for the very reasonable price of 300,000 Euros (374,000 USD).

How much house or apartment could you buy in Seattle for that much money?

Townhouse in Seattle:  This is a townhouse in the University District with 3 bedrooms that goes for 369,000 USD.   1260 square feet (117 square meters) so it's twice as big as the properties I linked to for sale in Suresnes.

House in Seattle:  This is a house in the Greenwood district that goes for 519,000 USD which is not far from where we used to live.  They do not give a precise size in square feet but it has 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms so it's at least twice (if not three times) as big as the house in Suresnes for about the same price.

Of course prices in both these cities vary widely depending on the neighborhood, the type of property and so on, so do not take my quick and dirty back-of-the-envelope calculations to be gospel truth.  I saw some houses in my Seattle search that are well over a million USD and you can certainly buy cheaper property in Suresnes (or any of the other suburbs west of Paris) if you really look. If you are into doing the "Peter Mayle thing"  and want to live in the French countryside, the prices are even better.  It's also important to remember that cost is relative.  If you're coming from New York, London or Tokyo, for example, these prices may seem unbelievably low.

Some other things to think about.  I know nothing about buying a house in the U.S. since I've never owned property there, but here in France when you start budgeting there are a few things to consider.   For starters, you will need to put at least 20% down - it is highly unlikely that you will be given a mortgage that exceeds 80% of the value of the house or apartment.  So, for that little house in Suresnes, you would need to come up with 83,000 Euros (103,000 USD) in cash.  As for the mortgage, the general rule is that the payments may not exceed 33% of your income.  This means you must be earning over 5000 Euros (6,230 USD) a month in order to meet your monthly mortgage payment of 1,739 Euros (2,163 USD). For more information about French mortgages, this site has a good overview.

Where are we in the process today?  Well, we found something here in Versailles and we made an offer.  If all goes well, we will be signing something this week called a Compromis de Vente which is an agreement between the seller and the buyer which locks in the price and takes the property off the market.  The buyer (us) then has 2 months to come up with the money if he is paying cash (I wish) or 3 months if he has to apply for a mortgage.  In that time the mayor's office is informed of the impending sale and can exercise its right to buy the property themselves.

It's going to be interesting - yet another adventure - and I'll keep you posted.

"Taxes to Beat the Axis"

Once upon a time in America, the American government actually made an effort to explain to the people why it was necessary to pay higher taxes.

I came across this short film while I was researching another topic and I thought immediately that it was pertinent to our discussion about taxation.  During World War II,  the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury asked Walt Disney to make a film that explained to the American people why it was important that they file and pay their income taxes.  Even in that era they were disinclined to do so and so a case had to be made to nudge people in the right direction.  Paying taxes was tied directly to the war effort; the appeal was to patriotism and the future of the nation, "Freedom from fear and from want."

Fast forward to 2012 (70 years later) and the nation is experiencing neither of those freedoms.  Even more interesting is how this kind of discussion about financing the national defense has been sorely lacking in  recent years.  In the run up to the Iraq war for example the American people were assured that it could be done "on the cheap" and that no new taxes would be necessary.  No, it was even worse than that since the government at the time actually lowered taxes which most folks today see as a big mistake.

Now the bill has come due, it is much higher than expected/promised and the squabbling is over who is going to pick up the tab and the interest on the tab.  Alas, the tone of the national debate reminds one of the old saying, "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!"

I can already anticipate some of the arguments against this Disney film:  propaganda (well, yes) and  too simplistic and old-fashioned (do you really think voters today are more sophisticated than their forefathers? The ones you see with the signs that say, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare?")  Maybe.  But I think it has the merit of being extremely clear.  On one side are the taxes and, on the other, their purpose.  And if the government must ask for more in support of a national project, than it explains why in language everyone can understand.  Plus, I'm a big fan of the Duck.  Enjoy.

Diaspora Taxes: Citizenship-Based Taxation

What I think I'm hearing from the defenders of the U.S. system of citizenship-based taxation (also called worldwide taxation) is that the three cases I used in my last post ought to be treated pretty much the same.  Why?  One argument is that it wouldn't be "fair" otherwise  It isn't right that someone removes their money from one country and invests it it another, they say, and there should be some penalty for doing that.  Homeland citizens also argue that it's equally unfair that people move to other countries and deprive their country of origin of their skills and talents.  Whether it's financial or human capital, they make the case that this mobility is a kind of freeloading.  Having invested homeland resources to create a business environment where individuals can prosper and having diverted public funds to nurture individuals from cradle to university, the home country is owed a slice of that person's production.  Citizenship-based taxation not only has the merit of rectifying this injustice caused by mobile capital and labor but it also discourages tax competition and the long-term migration of its most productive citizens.

So, from the perspective of any homeland, a system of worldwide taxation for its citizens looks like a pretty good deal.   It penalizes "bad" behaviour (investment outside the home country and migration) and encourages "good" behaviour  (keep your person and your money at home, folks) because it's the "right" thing to do.  For this reason some Americans are rather proud of their citizenship-based tax system.  It may be unique but no matter, it is a model system for other nations who simply haven't had the good sense to emulate the U.S.  Here is Joseph Stigliz in his recent book, "The Price of Inequality:"

"Here the United States has one advantage over other countries:  we are taxed on our worldwide income.  A Greek citizen, having benefitted from that country's schools and universities, and having enjoyed the benefit of its hospitals and healthcare system, can take up residence in Luxembourg, do business in all of Europe freely, and avoid any responsibility of paying taxes - even to repay the costs of her education."

Wow.  That sounds just terrible, doesn't it?  Clearly the Americans are on to something if they are trying to prevent that.  Or are they?

There are some very good reasons why other countries have not implemented their own citizenship-based taxation systems and have opted instead to limit their tax base to activity within their territory.  In fact the only other country beside the U.S. and Eritrea that did have such a system, The Philippines, abandoned it in favor of territorial-based taxation in the 1990's.  So the theory may be interesting (and attractive) but in practice it's not as straightforward as it seems.  Here are a few of the twists and turns that make the American system not terribly successful (so far):

High Enforcement Costs:    There are around 6-7 million American citizens living outside the U.S. plus any number of Green Card holders and other people with U.S. connections.  Only a few hundred thousand people file tax returns every year that report foreign income.

 So if we take a low number of 6 million Americans abroad and assume (just for the sake of argument) that around 250,000 of them file tax returns, how is the U.S. IRS supposed to determine the status of the other 5.75 million scattered in 192 countries around the world?  That's a big job.  The U.S. government would have to put in time, money and effort to find that American guy in Spain living in group housing doing translation work.  If there was a census of the overseas population that would make it easier but that wouldn't solve all the problems.

Many won't owe anything since they didn't make enough money to file in the first place. Students, for example, or au pairs (lots of American au pairs in Paris). Some will owe a small amount of money in taxes (and much more in penalties) and a few will owe big money. Today it's a mystery if the taxes/penalties gathered will cover the costs of the chase after the low to middle-income U.S. person.   The "Big Fish" of course are another matter but even they have some pretty good defenses:  powerful, expensive legal and tax advice.

It is entirely possible that, at the very end of all these efforts to enforce citizenship-based worldwide taxation, the result will be an even larger U.S. government bureaucracy with not nearly enough incoming revenue to justify it.  The American taxpayer in the homeland may experience a visceral thrill at having caught all those "tax evaders" but he will be paying for the privilege. I'm pretty sure that's not at all what he had in mind and I have to wonder if he will think that his fun was worth the price of the ticket.

Killing the Goose:   Jean-Baptiste Colbert once said, "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest number of feathers with the least amount of hissing."  And what if you kill the goose in the process?  Far be it from me, lowly IT manager and mother of two, to disagree with such an illustrious person as Joseph Stigliz (Nobel Prize winning economist) but I couldn't help but notice that he left something very important out of his paragraph on the hypothetical Greek tax evader. He implied that by moving to Luxembourg that Greek will no longer pay any taxes at all.

Uh, since when?

Of course our Greek is going to pay taxes if he moves to Luxembourg - the Luxembourg tax authorities are very clear about that.  Residents (not just citizens) of that country have tax obligations and they are pretty stiff.  Let's just look at the income tax.  The actual tax due depends on the level of income and the family status but nevertheless the top rate is 39%.    The Greek income tax rate is also progressive and their top rate is 45%.  (In the U.S. the top rate appears to be 35%.)

Let's be realistic.  Adding together those two tax rates and telling our hypothetical Greek that he now owes 84% of income to two states just won't work.  And if he decided to become a US citizen as well?  And if all three states practiced citizenship-based taxation?  The sum of his tax obligation would be equal to 119% of his income.  Any way you slice it there just wouldn't be enough to go around.

Countries do recognize this and have come up with different strategies for "plucking the migratory goose" without stripping it bare and cooking it up for Christmas dinner.  As I understood former French President Sarkozy's proposed scheme, our Greek would pay Luxembourg first (39%) and then pay the difference between Luxembourg's rates and Greece's (45%-39% = 6%).  That seems fairly straightforward and a model of simplicity compared to the existing U.S. system.

Under the U.S. citizenship-based tax system there are two methods offered for avoiding onerous double taxation.  The first is something called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion which allows a U.S. person to exclude $95,100 USD (77,000 Euros) of foreign earned income for U.S. tax purposes. Another option is Foreign Tax Credits where taxes paid to one state can be deducted from those owed to the U.S.  Neither method is perfect, however.   Even the IRS says, "Foreign tax credits allow US taxpayers to avoid or reduce double taxation. "  Please note that they fully admit that in some cases it will only "reduce" double taxation, not eliminate it.

The FEIE only applies to earned income (and what about investment income, unemployment and retirement benefits and other types of income?)  and the foreign tax credit is hit and miss at best.  It is entirely possible for the IRS to say that a tax in another country is not considered a tax from the viewpoint of the U.S.  Take the CSG (la contribution sociale généralisée) in France, for example, which is a kind of "solidarity tax" designed to address the deficits in certain social programs.   The rates vary from 3.8% to 9.5%.  The IRS has decided that this is a social security contribution and not a tax and is therefore not eligible to be taken as a foreign tax credit.

So the current U.S. system is cumbersome, bureaucratic, and does effectively double-tax American citizens and Green Card holders abroad.  Does it actually generate sufficient revenue to justify the expense?  Hard to say and to my knowledge no effort has been made to do a serious cost/benefit analysis.  However, the U.S. Taxpayer Advocate Service had some very sharp words for the IRS earlier this year.  To paraphrase Nina Olson's report, the system is just too complex, it's almost impossible for American abroad to be compliant, and she called for reform.  Hard to tell if anyone in the U.S. is paying attention.  But here is something we do know for sure:  The goose (Americans abroad) is definitely hissing.

Tied to citizenship:  Patrick Weil in a recent news article pointed out THE major weakness in citizenship-based taxation:  it is tied to a status (either citizenship or Green Card) that can be renounced or rejected.  That has not escaped the notice of U.S. lawmakers.  The U.S. does not make it easy to renounce.  The renunciant has to prove that he/she has filed tax returns and meet other reporting requirements and may be subject to a hefty Exit Tax.  Other efforts to make it even harder to give up U.S. citizenship like the ex-Patriot Act are in the works.  Nonetheless, it is a possibility that many are taking advantage of.  Turning in a Green Card is even simpler if the individual has not had it for too long.  On the immigration side, the word is out that taking on U.S. citizenship may not be in one's best interests.  Again, it is impossible to know to what extent revelations about the U.S. tax system will encourage expatriation and immigration but everyone is watching the numbers closely.

Those are just a few of the downsides to trying to tax the diaspora using citizenship as a basis for taxation.  Could they be overcome?  Could a state build a better system?  Absolutely.  But first those who are taxed and those doing the taxing need to come to some sort of agreement about what is both reasonable and fair.  Where such a system lacks any legitimacy, the costs of enforcing compliance will be very high.  No one likes to pay taxes but most of us grumble a bit and then cut the check anyway.  It is the price of civilization:  roads, schools, pensions, protection against fires and burglars and so on.  I know a lot of American in France who live here and pay MUCH higher taxes than they would in the U.S. and, yet, I hear very little complaining.  Why is that?  I speculate that they might agree with one elderly French grandmother I talked to one day (a woman so conservative as to make some Right-wing Americans I know look like raving revolutionaries) who told me that she didn't mind her taxes because she was getting good value for her money.

So perhaps the reason that American in the homeland and Americans abroad alike complain about the U.S. tax system is not so much the rates or even the cost of compliance but that both perceive that they are not getting "value for money."  That they have a government which simply isn't worth what they are being asked to pay.

And that, mes amis, is a far more serious problem than citizenship versus territorial tax systems.

Diaspora Taxes: Some Basic Questions

Almost every discussion I've seen about diaspora taxes tends to get bogged down by the details:  citizenship- based taxation versus territorial,  exit taxes, efforts to combat tax evasion and the like.  These are all appropriate subjects for debate but sometimes it helps to simplify things as much as possible in order to get some clarity.

A diaspora is not a monolithic bloc.  When it comes to taxation opinions vary.  Some firmly believe that any attempt to tax the diaspora by the home country is not only unreasonable but downright immoral.  Others have a more nuanced view and might be willing to pay something provided that compliance is simple and that the sums demanded are not so onerous as to destroy them financially.

Homelander's opinions are just as diverse. Their overall perception seems to be that the diaspora is removing something from the home country that homelanders feel  a) should remain in the home country or b) the home country should be compensated in some way for the loss of that capital (be it financial or human).   But they do not necessarily agree on how to go about it and opinions change depending on the situation.

Let's take three, very basic, very simple situations where taxes are or could be levied according to different tax schemes:

1.  Taxes on assets and income earned in the country of residence
2.  Taxes on assets and income earned in the country of residence and invested in another country
3.  Taxes on assets and income earned by a national of one country in another country

Case 1 is a good starting point because it is one that generally all people agree on.  If you live, work, invest and save money in a country it is generally accepted that you should pay taxes to that country.   How much you pay varies depending on the local tax system but just about everyone agrees that your local government can and will levy taxes on you according to the local legislation.  If you are a citizen of that country and you don't care for the tax rates you can vote to change them.  If you are a legal resident but not a citizen you have less leverage to effect change.  (Yes, taxation without representation is alive and well even in modern democratic nation-states.)  But the basic principle, Territorial-based taxation, is there - most people agree that wherever you live you should pay something to that country in taxes.

It's with Case 2 that things begin to get complicated.  Let's say someone lives, works and pays taxes in Country A and then wants to invest in a Bed and Breakfast in Country B.  The source of the money for the investment was Country A but the investment itself is located somewhere else.  If that investment turns out to be a good one and the B & B is a success (makes money) then who has the right to tax it?      I think most people would agree that Country B certainly does - after all the investment is located there and one would assume that the investors knew the tax implications and were prepared to pay them before they decided to set up shop. It may even be true that the tax rates in Country B are substantially lower than Country A which may have been one of the reasons for choosing to invest in that country in the first place. But what about Country A where the money originally came from?  Assuming that the investor paid all applicable local taxes before taking the money out of that country, does Country A still have a right to levy a tax on the gains or profit made with that money even though it has a new home?

Case 3 is the most interesting because it involves human capital more than financial capital.  As an example, let's take a young national of Country A who, thanks to his country's superb public school system, is accepted at a prestigious university or is offered a really good job in Country B.  After getting his degree (or after a few years developing his professional career) he decides to settle down permanently in Country B.  When he left Country A he was poor in financial capital but rich in human capital since his country of origin invested a substantial amount of money in his training.  Clearly since he is living and working in Country B he will pay taxes there, but Country A could make the argument that it is owed something as well.  Does Country A have a right to tax the money and assets that are the realization of that individual's potential?  If so, for how long?   Is Country A's argument even stronger if the young national in question continues to hold citizenship in that country?

What do you think?

Flophouse Series: Taxing the Diaspora

Within the debate over the U.S. practice of citizenship-based taxation, reporting of foreign (local to most of us) bank accounts and the proposal for new exit taxes lies some very fundamental questions:  Should states control emigration through tax policy?  Should brain drain (the flight of human capital) be treated the same way as capital flight (the movement of money and assets away from the country)?  Do diasporas owe something to their home countries and are their assets earned abroad legitimate targets for taxation?  And do the host countries have something to say about home countries trying to divert resources to fill their coffers and deal with their debt to the detriment of the host country tax base?  

In almost every debate on this subject on the Internet and elsewhere, the word "fair" is used by all parties.  "Homelanders" (citizens of the home country) suspect the emigrants of taking their capital (human or financial) earned in the home country and using it to live it up on Riviera or in Buenos Aires or Singapore.  Emigrants are equally suspicious of home country attempts to milk them of money and other assets earned abroad.  They see themselves as easy targets - low-hanging fruit for home country tax authorities - since diaspora representation is usually pretty poor in the home country political arena and efforts to "make them pay their fair share" are pretty popular domestically. In the case of the U.S. American emigrants might conclude that the nation is trying to escape its own obligations (and poor past decision-making) by trying to make the diaspora responsible for paying off a large portion of the national debt (a great deal of which was put on a Chinese credit card). In which case, perhaps Americans abroad ought to cut out the middle-man and send their tax money directly to Beijing.

With all this suspicion it is hard to have a measured, rational discussion about diaspora taxation.  This is a serious problem today between the American Diaspora and the United States.  The "debate" which is being conducted via letter writing, Internet forums and the like is feisty and often quite bitter.  If we start from the premise that the Other has nefarious motives, then we are in for a long and bitter fight that has the potential to harm everyone.  Yes, the U.S. government can make life very difficult for its emigrants with onerous reporting requirements, double-taxation and in various ways make it much harder for Americans abroad to do some very simple things like open local bank accounts.  On the other hand, there are 6-7 million U.S. citizens out there who might be in a position to do some real damage to U.S. interests.  It is not the sheer size of a diaspora that matters so much as its willingness to fight home country attempts to exert sovereignty over it in both the home and host countries using tools like public renunciation of citizenship, rallying public opinion, using the local and international legal systems, working through the political arena and the like.

But resolution (something that all parties can live with) is not going to be easy.  The first step really has to be establishing some kind of platform where a real debate is possible.  Some countries like France have given their diaspora direct political representation in the national parliament but the U.S. does not seem prepared to offer something similar.  There is however a very interesting initiative being proposed by Representatives Carolyn Mulroney and Michael Honda to create a Presidential Commission on U.S. Expatriates.  This is a modest but welcome proposal that could be the start of a real dialogue between the homeland and the American diaspora.  There is some risk here, however.  If the U.S. Congress simply decides to dismiss it as being unnecessary or a frivolous use of taxpayer dollars, some Americans abroad might interpret this as a sign that dialogue (which would be a kind of tacit recognition of the existence of an American diaspora) is not welcome and that any further efforts on their part to engage the U.S. government and the American people are simply a waste of time.

Over the next couple of days I'd like to use the Flophouse to look at the various merits and demerits of the diaspora tax systems that exist (like U.S. citizenship-based taxation which is nearly unique in the world) and others that have been or are being proposed  (Sarkozy had one and Patrick Weil had another).  I'd also like to look at some of the underlying and seldom discussed issues behind these measures which are about:  controlling emigration; preventing "brain drain" and capital flight; establishing or limiting sovereignty over international migrants, and how all the parties involved (home and host countries, emigrants/immigrants) perceive the obligations and duties of human beings to the original countries of citizenship and what each one thinks is owed to the country of residence or other country of citizenship.

To be very clear the following posts will not be an attempt to offer solutions nor will they be a complete overview of all the issues around this subject (just not possible on a blog).  Rather what I hope to do is to demonstrate just how complex the question of whether or not to "Tax the Diaspora" really is.

Flophouse Project Update: La Buanderie

Progress.  We finished painting "la buanderie" (the laundry room) last week and it looks so much better.

Alas, house projects are a little like makeovers.  You gussy up one thing (new glasses, lipstick, tummy tuck) and suddenly you start seeing flaws in all the other parts.  That was the trap we fell into.  The laundry room looked so good that we decided to paint the upstairs toilet and the shower as well.   Once those were done we noticed that the kitchen looked pretty bad so it was off to the hardware store for more paint and so on and so forth.  At some point we will need to remember that "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (better is the enemy of good) but not just yet.....

Here is what the laundry room looked like before painting and below are a few shots of its new look :

Bathroom is still in progress (and now the kitchen too).

Bon weekend!

Chemo Round Four

My fourth round of chemo was yesterday afternoon.  It was a bright and sunny day in Versailles (for a change) and I spent half of it in the hôpital de jour being poisoned yet again. Go figure.

Preparation for each round of chemo actually begins a few days before the actual event.  There is a blood test to be done 48 hours head of time that is faxed to the hospital and there is medicine to be taken in advance to limit some of the side effects.  For this cycle my doctors have changed products/poison and that meant heavy doses of cortisone to offset the possibility of an allergic reaction.  This meant no sleep the night before so when I headed into the hospital I was tired and cranky.

Once I got there however there was a lot to lift my spirits.  I saw again a lovely woman who I had met during Chemo Round 3 and found out that her husband (also French) is a doctor in Montreal and her son goes to school there.  We spent a very pleasant half hour discussing the delights of that city and the quality of the Canadian system of higher education.  There was also the warm feeling that comes of being recognized by the staff as I walked down the corridor to the waiting room.  The doctors and nurses recognize me now (even with almost no eyebrows and a turban covering my head and pulled down nearly to my ears) and they stopped and asked how I was feeling and how the last chemo cycle went.  Ah, the small pleasures of having an abonnement longue durée (long-term subscription) in the club.

My doctor was in a particularly good mood yesterday.  Positively radiant.  She very carefully went over the list of side effects of the product with me and gave me medication for each one:  larmes artificielles (artificial tears) and a vitamin A pommade (ointment) for the dry eyes;   injections to boost my white blood cell count (something similar to what athletes use to boost performance - le dopage); pain medication (tramadol/paracetemol) for the muscular and joint pain; and a special vernis (nail polish) for my finger and toe nails to keep them from falling out.

Now these are the potential side-effects and it is entirely possible that I will experience none (or all) of them.  I found it very comforting however that she didn't wait for me to actually experience the symptoms before opening up the medicine cabinet. These medications are in my hands if I need them and that gives me a small very limited sense of control over my immediate fate.  This is important because so much happens when you are a cancer patient that is not within your power to change starting with the very fact that you are sick in the first place.  I am finding that it is easier to be graceful and accepting of the larger picture when the doctors take the time to talk with you and answer your questions and when some things are in your hands to manage yourself.

The chemo session itself went much like the others with one exception:  refrigerated gloves and slippers.  As I mentioned before one of the side effects is damage to my nails and they've found that icing them during the session helps to avoid that.  I have never been so glad in my life to have an Ipad/Kindle because there would have been no way I could have held a physical book with my freezing fingers encased in those big heavy blue gloves.  I just turned to my neighbor in the chemo room and she cheerfully turned on the device for me and helped me find the book I wanted.  Then, when I wanted to turn the page I just used a pointy edge of the glove to tap on the right hand side of the screen.  It was pretty funny to watch (I caught my neighbor smiling at my efforts) but it worked.

I went in at 2PM and was out at around 6PM.  As I left I said,  "A la prochaine" (until next time) to the staff and wished my doctor "Bonnes vacances! (have a great vacation).  Yes, that's right, one of the reasons for her exceptionally good mood was that she was about to leave for one of those long French summer vacations - a few weeks in the sun with her husband and baby.  A well-deserved vacation in my humble opinion, and since I know that I will be well taken care of in her absence, no worries on my part.