IN 2006, MARTY AND EILEEN purchased an old stone house in the Dordogne département, a beautiful area between Bordeaux and Provence in the Aquitaine region of France. It was a dream come true. In France they could get a welcome respite from their demanding life in Silicon Valley. They could slowly settle into a real community, absorbing the language and the ways of the locals. In the summer they could meet up with their daughter Sara, a chef, in the very country that invented the word cuisine. On hot days they could swim in the pool, on cold days sit by a warming fire in the salon. So they did it. They bought a 400-year-old farmhouse from an ad on the Internet. What followed was different sort of dream. A freak accident destroyed the interior of the house before they could move in. An ancient wisteria threatened to uproot the kitchen floor. The wildlife continually tried to move in with them, and the pool became a watery hole that swallowed up euros. They managed to salvage their sanity by adopting a simple, time-tested mantra: "Have a setback, have a drink." Soon they were buying rosé by the case.