Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Viva La France or Viva la differance!


Today Cindy and I drove around the immediate area, we drove northwest towards Sainte Foy le Grande, then south and inland towards Pardallian. Our mission today was to get a weekly planner as required by the school for Caleigh. We’ve managed to shop for all 52 items and only require the planner to finish off the list. Kind of funny and maddening at the same time. We’ve translated the list and matched it with the items at four different stores, and this silly planner has bested us. We bought a daily, weekly, and monthly, but can’t find a the correct weekly type, after returning the others we’re S.O. L. or as they might say here Merde outta luck. So we’re driving through the rolling hills, it’s still winter, the trees are bare. As we drive by the trees appear to have been uprooted and shaken of all soil and stuck back in the ground upside down, just the bare roots sticking up in the air. We’ve had rain, and in a few months the those bare limbs will start to sprout green. Caleigh has still got a steep learning curve to deal with in the French school, at thirteen her spirit still pushes her onward, but the language barrier does get frustrating. In all the articles I had read previously, there was a two to three month span of frustration to look forward to. Well not look forward to, but to be ready to lend emotional support to. She to her credit was prepped prior to and still has a very mature approach to it. I see it as her knowing that she is getting small bits at a time, that hopefully as the French saying goes. “Little by little the bird builds it’s nest” is an apt saying. When you think of the complexity of a nest, then the monumental task accomplished by a small winged creature, that piece by piece, constructs this marvel of nature. I think it equals the magnificence of a spider web, incomprehensible in scope, and elegant in its simplicity. That’s what she’s doing, piece by piece putting together sounds, words, and sentence structure to adapt to her existing language base and parallel it to another alien language. Christ, I have Cindy occasionally proof read my observations, and she must be flummoxed by someone of my age murdering the English language and grammar, which is my primary language. Well, I’ve got to keep this short, as tomorrow morning I’m driving the petite students to the bus stop. Next morning: Got up late, thought I had the morning off as I’m coming down with what Cindy has been fighting all weekend. I picked up the kids and as I was driving up the last hill to Soumensac, the tour (School ) bus was heading down the hill, so I enquired where to for the next bus stop and was given basic directions, dropped off the kids at the second stop in time. Today Cindy and I drove down south to Agen, A beautiful river side city. We try to take different routes around the area, trying to see as much as possible, when taking a long drive. Today our goal was the large department store Darty. Our main objective was to see Agen, after reading about it, but it gave purpose. Let me continue with the ending,…or maybe not the ending, but another chapter in the absurd. We have been trying to get a weekly planner for Caleigh’s school, not any run of the $%&^&ing mill planner, but a magic three bean planner for school. Today we drove to Agen, and knew there was a Darty enroute to Agen, just this side of Agen, printed the store locator and everything. Well everything but find it, we are quite competent in all of our day to day tasks, chores, etc. This planner will have probably cost us, 125 dollars in gas, 8 dollars in incorrect planners, and one marriage. Actually it has become a mildly funny rallying cause for us. We have seen more of France, laughed in traffic instead of nerving out, learned more routes around our town, and gotten comfortable filling up our gas tank and we‘ve done it together, and we’re enjoying our time together, instead of worrying if we were going to be bored of each other while Caleigh was in school and we were stuck together. Which is something we hadn’t planned on, who needs a fuc$%^g planner, we have each other.

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