Pipe Dreams & Reality Checks

The Artistic One does not live on the same planet as the rest of us. He inhabits a place (in his mind) where rules and plans are for sissies; where bank coffers automatically stretch and replenish to meet the demands of checks written and where traffic citations can be ignored with impunity, especially if you have lost the paperwork, so considerately supplied by the kind police officer, and not updated the address on your drivers' license that, "Oops!" you can't find anyway. (That will be a post for another day; mandatory "one-on-one" time with a traffic court Judge and French translator, July 17th).
A declaration, made as a New Year's Resolution, that "This year, we will close up our business for a month and spend the whole month of July in Europe" seemed far-fetched at the time; Clients were not knocking down our doors to place orders; the phone was ringing with reminder calls from those nice folks at the finance, credit card and utility companies and an over-abundance of rainfall was paralyzing the construction projects of our industry, already mired in the general economic morass. 
Not seeing any value in being the Killer of Dreams at that time, I embraced the idea with a few "If everything goes our way" and "I hope we can afford that" disclaimers. I even spoke to the dog-sitter and had her pencil in the time slot, just in case of a miracle.
Well... Here we are...June already. How time flies when you are having fun! On the plus side, we are still standing. There's even some positively hopeful energy in the air as far as work is concerned. (We have three Venture Capitalists in our client portfolio; one High Tech and two Medical and Green Energy crossovers). The big boys are getting their confidence back.
In addition, some of Hubby's paintings have been selling through the gallery on the East Coast. Checks are slow in trickling in from that source and there is much whining and attempts to get the gallery percentage to increase above the negotiated 50%. "Paint it yourself!" is the answer to that one.
Hubby has been invited to show some canvases in Paris again in September; in the exhibition space under the pyramid in front of The Louvre. The exhibit is called "Grand Masters of Tomorrow" and there will be no living with the Ego now, but it did give me a reasonable and non-confrontational excuse to broach the possibility that it might be better to postpone our (Imaginary) trip until September and take care of everything at once.
This time, I actually believe that it might happen, although maybe three weeks rather than a month is more likely. The dog-sitter is booked up for other canines on the new dates so I have to find a solution for my girl Diva who is too old and fragile to go to the kennels. Tickets will cost a chunk less then and a large number of those nice tourists and their children will have their noses in their school books or back to the grindstone.
We are not yet surfing the waves but we have progressed from drowning in a stormy sea to doggy paddling towards a distant, but visible shoreline.