Max and Alice Furlaud moved back to the United States in 1997, after the Parisian government took control of the couple's apartment, and settled in the Cape Cod cottage that Alice's mother had bought in 1933 and where the couple had gotten engaged in 1952.

Max died in 1999 from Parkinson's disease. Alice says she is now mainly kept company by her cat--to whom she feels a great deal of devotion.

Furlaud says that she terribly misses living in France.

While she may have left France, she has not left her radio career behind. She continues to contribute stories for NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday on subjects ranging from the Big Dig to etiquette for the Presidential Inaugural Ball.

In February, Furlaud returned to Cambridge to report on Harvard's now-completed search for a new president.

Furlaud is also a regular contributor to "The Next Big Thing," a relatively new Sunday show on New York City's NPR affiliate WNYC.

A particular favorite of Furlaud's is her feature on the show entitled "Don't Get Me Started"--which she describes as her "ranting and raving" over some issue. In the past she has complained over the growing number of SUVs on the roads and the decision of Al Gore '69 to close to the press a lecture he gave at Columbia's journalism school.

She is currently working on a rant over the explosion of email--Furlaud does not own a computer. She particularly takes offense to the fact many consider those without an email address a "lower order of humanity."

"She has a real zaniness that underlies her surface propriety," says Dean A. Olsher, the producer of "The Next Big Thing." "It's like she's The Harvard Crimson on the surface and the Harvard Lampoon underneath."