Monday morning run (the beginning of a new healthy regime): a discovery; the M town firefighters also motivate themselves to exercise, running circles around the M town pond.
The power: went out as I was filling in French unemployment stuff. The oven doesn’t work, now, because no one knows how to reset it. It seems so banal and normal and uninteresting, but it took me a few minutes to recognize that it could – and did – happen in France.
Our freezer: full of ice, inches thick, like frozen quick sand. An opened Styrofoam tray of white fish was stuck up into the layer coating the top, the thin plastic wrapping torn open from when someone, at some time, ate the other filet. Because of how it was wedged into the freezer snow, I mistook it for a mechanism and was unhappily surprised to discover how putrid fish can smell, even when frozen.
A gift of German gummi bears: candy is for children. Long live Peter Pan.
Canoeing on the Sioule River: an adventure greater than (and not equal to) all other canoeing adventures I have ever had. Experience involves rapids (large boulders and series of stones obstructing the pathway), a floating plastic container for goods, no helmets, and ice water. And a crazed, splashing, stubborn steer-er in the rear, responsible for intentionally over-turning the canoe and soaking the precious and delicate seer in the front.
Tractors with legs: S can drive one. With a giant scoop with claws on one side, a rotating chair, and a bulldozer-like snow scoop on the other. The machine is multi-purpose, able to pick up things like hay-rollers, and giant wooden wagons, and hay bales, etc. I can drive it, too, I discovered; but under the watchful eye of M.T and S, it is a terrifying experience.
Giant freezers and food orders: potentially the next step in my short-term summer career. It is 3* C in the freezer, and my one concern is that I will die of hypothermia. Aside from that, it would allow me to pay for my ticket back to France and give me a hope of going home for at least a little bit in the summer. So, let’s all pray to the Freezer Gods and the French Employment Gods and everyone else who might be helpful in getting me this odd opportunity. (note: did not come to fruition – do not waste French or Freezer prayers on this one)
Cherry picking: perfect activity for a grey, Sunday afternoon, smashing blood-colored fruit in the grass under our feet, eating one, picking two
The high school Director: see also powerful and manipulative and dictator; from my point of view, my perfect plan could have worked out if everyone had been willing to make a little bit of a compromise. And when I say ‘everyone’ I mean, The Director. I wanted a few months in America, my old gym, cheddar cheese and the ability to eat McDonald’s French fries without feeling responsible for reinforcing negative stereotypes about Americans, people speaking my native tongue and time to delight in the company of family and friends, with maybe even make it back for part of my never-missed week at the beach. But, The Director says that hiring a person “halfway around the world” is preposterous; if one wants to teach in France, one must be willing to make choices. Indeed.
Pilgrims, by Garrison Keillor: an utter disappointment (in English) that cost me 20 euros.
Mary Higgins Clark: author of Je t’ai donné mon coeur or, in English, Just take my heart (translations that do not match up nor mean the same thing at all) my first MHC novel of all time. I am very confused by “Easton” whom is mentioned often in chapter 10 but whom I have no memory of, and whose name I can’t seem to find in going backward in the book. A true mystery, indeed. Not bad, so far.
Vacuum cleaner and/or dishwasher: after not having one for 7 months, when I use it, I feel like a serious queen, like the luckiest and most spoiled person In. The. World. I don’t know what that means for feminism, but for housework, it means efficient and less time-consuming.
Patience: something I am destined to one day develop. Life is always helping me work on it, whether I want to or not.
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