The tongues of men

My German stinks. I'm not even going to try to say that auf Deutsch. It's better than nothing, I suppose, but I feel completely inept. I understand very little spoken, I can't remember any words when I try to speak, and real life doesn't happen in writing. My problem is I once knew it "OK" (conversantly in any case) and the "structure" is still intact in my brain, but I lack vocabulary - it's all gone. I recognize tons when I see or hear it, but can generate little to none from memory (20 years is a very long time). With a dictionary and time, I can do quite a bit, and understand most if not all. But who walks around with a dictionary in their pocket and tons of time to figure out each and every simple phrase or question?

All that to say, I'm delighted to meet this new family from Germany. Our children (they have two) get along well and have come over a couple times. Mom and I seem to be able to converse adequately. We get by. It's fun. I will be volunteering with the daughter in school a couple times a week in Language Arts class; today was my first day.

But in the meantime, I don't think that German is a strength of mine. Hopefully I will learn a lot and be of assistance to them in due course. Either way, we have definitely become friends, and that is a good thing in and of itself.

Fall Soccer

Constance decided about a week before school started that she wanted to play soccer this fall. She said she remembers thinking it looked like fun when Patience played it three years ago. So we signed her up and she got put on the wait list and just a few days before the season started, we got a call; she was on a team. Yay! The season lasts a whopping six weeks (six Saturdays for her age group, no practices and they really don't keep track of who "wins and loses" since it's not really quite that straightforward at this age due to mistakes, inattention, swapping players when teams are short kids, untied cleat laces and the like). It was an experience she really enjoyed and by the last game, she was actually "daring" to actually try to kick the ball. True to her "constant" nature, she persevered through getting hit w/the ball, being among the smallest on the team, and some cold weather, and she asked if she could keep playing all winter. We said we own a soccer ball and she can play in the backyard any time she wants. Stay tuned for next fall....

Speaking of retirement

It would seem the French law is all but a done deal now, but on a more important note, my mom has officially retired and the ripe young age of ... well I guess I'm not supposed to say but it's well above the minimum in any case. And she is visiting for a week. It's nice to have her and I hope her retirement is the well-earned privilege and break she deserves after all the years and hours she's put into her work. Granted, she took lots of "time off" to raise my siblings and I (and stayed extremely busy then to boot) but that was a full-time (and then some) job, and then she went back to school and worked like crazy these past twenty some odd years (more?) I'm glad she's saying good-bye to the grind and is choosing to spend some of her first few weeks of retirement here with us. Love you Mom!

Good old Maggie

I just read online in response to the whole French pension situation that Margaret Thatcher once said that the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. I thought that very funny and so very true. So very apropos in our current state political situation too, and the current governor race will likely determine how much or how little restraint the next two years will have fiscally in our little state. Looking forward to the politicking being over soon, both here and in France, Lord willing, so we can get back to living without all these particular distractions (tho' they are very revealing of what's in people's hearts and minds...)

[Snopes says it's a true quote (you can read about it here if you'd like).]

Four day weekends

Every October the NEA has a teacher convention and the kids get a four-day weekend. It is always at just the right time, and it's now. Some illnesses are just starting to gear up at school (the colds have been around but now we're looking at tummy bugs and strep) and so a few days away from the place doesn't hurt. Patience has a nasty cough that I'm hoping will get better with rest. She's still asleep (it's almost 7am) and hopefully we'll be quiet enough so she can sleep as long as she'd like. Everyone else seems to have a body that won't stay asleep on a day off. I woke up at the usual 5:30 w/o an alarm (though I did get back to sleep for an hour - yay). The other three kids were all up at 6:30 - I usually have to wake them when there's school but not on Saturdays and they seemed eager to play this morning despite the opportunity to snooze! Maybe tomorrow.

We hope to play and rest and go for walks (yes, I'm sore) and get some chores done (like sorting clothes and getting the summer put away and the rest of the longer sleeved stuff out). There are many things I had just begun when we discovered the lice so they got put away and or tabled and it's time to get back to them. We really didn't want to be trying on clothes in the midst of that mess. So now that we're clean, best get to it! Hopefully we'll do some baking and the like too and perhaps get together with some friends. There are still piano lessons and Awana so "life goes on" but the break is nice.

The right to retire

I have been following the news about the upcoming change in the minimum retirement age in France and the way the French people are responding and reacting, and just have to comment. One article states:

Gasoline shortages and violence on the margins of student protests have heightened the standoff between the government and labor unions who see retirement at 60 as a hard-earned right.

If they think their walking out on their jobs and bringing the economy down by violent protests and the like is earning something, their definition of "hard-earned" differs greatly from mine. I thought one earned things by working, not walking out or breaking the law. Another quote says it quite succinctly:

The interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, warned rioters, “The right to protest is not the right to break things, the right to set things on fire, the right to assault, the right to pillage.”

And never mind the student protests - they haven't earned anything yet. They may be legitimately afraid of whether or not they will find jobs when they finish school (unemployment is an ongoing problem in France as well, and those in the work force continuing work for another two years may indeed cause issues there) but they need to understand basic economics too, like bankruptcy and not having enough money to pay the bills (the gov't is running out of money to pay the pensions largely because people are healthier and living longer). The money must come from somewhere.

Crazy Days

It was a crazy and interesting one today. Busy and while a good day, not the smoothest. I began by writing a note to one of the kids' schools that I'd been putting off. I got it done - a very good thing - but I got caught up in it to an extent that made me run late getting Vivace to preschool. Granted it was just 5 minutes late, but it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day. I didn't run late again but I felt hurried and behind.

I then went for an hour long walk/talk w/a friend. Our conversation was at times very enthusiastic, and so was our walking it would seem. It's a good thing to walk, and I need to get into the habit on account of our upcoming trip, but I'm clearly not used to it, and to do so for a full hour wore me out! My legs were jelly when I got home and my feet never quite recovered.

The conversation we had was definitely franglais - it was all over the map language-wise and I so totally love that. Both of us being bilingual is fun. We intend to speak French when together, but we end up in English often. It kind of just flows back and forth. When I don't know the French, she helps me, and vice versa. I learned that "porch" is "galerie" - like an art gallery! How cool is that (we were admiring several porches as we walked). One of the things I enjoy most about talking with her is that we share the same faith in Christ as our redeemer, though we don't attend the same church, and the bulk of our conversation yesterday revolved around "thorns in the flesh" and suffering and happiness and contentment and God being "bigger than our circumstances" whatever those may be. You can see how it got exciting. An awesomely encouraging time (which is part of why I didn't feel the walk 'til afterward). So the tone for the day was a good one, but still not smooth.

The trip to the grocery store after pre-school was nuts. I had been on the fence about going at all today, and wished afterwards I had chosen to wait. You see, it's under construction and literally every day something is moved around. They are expanding and renovating all while staying open for business 24 hours a day. The end result will be awesome and we're starting to see glimpses of it, but getting there has been interesting and there are still months left until completion according to the big plan. Every week we try to have fun and treat going like a "let's see what's changed this week" adventure, and getting what we're looking for is a scavenger hunt. But the owner of the property (not the store) decided yesterday was a good day to repave the parking lot. What a nightmare (balancing that w/construction equipment - yikes). First I misunderstood the signs directing me, then after sorting that out, I got stuck and had to back out of an awkward situation, and then I couldn't find a spot anywhere. Two-thirds of the parking lot was blocked off - kind of ridiculous. There wasn't room for parking at all. I don't know what they were thinking but hopefully it's done and it won't happen again. I was so focused on trying to find a spot and getting out of the "mess" that I didn't even notice until after we were done shopping that I had parked on lovely new pavement. And then inside the store finally got to me. I couldn't find things. Maybe I didn't have the right "adventure/scavenger hunt" mentality yesterday but between the newest relocations (milk was in one place, the bakery totally displaced, the cheese in a new location, but obviously a temporary one and nowhere near the yogurt or the rest of the dairy....) and simply walking more, I was done in. My list was so totally not in the correct order b/c of everything's topsy turvy location and I must have walked back and forth across the entire store multiple times in search of things. I think I left w/o getting everything too - we had just had it. Oh well. I did keep to the budget at least!

So the rest of the day went similarly; I got done everything I needed to do, and it was "good" but w/lots of extra walking (we seemed to have a back and forth kind of day), I was tired, and little obstacles and unplanned things happened at every step. I got a deal at the school book fair (but was missing a kid for a while while he got himself confused about where he was supposed to be and failed to connect w/a parent to trade kids at the appropriate time to boot), Andante's parent teacher conference went great (but we got interrupted every 5 minutes w/another child needing to use the restroom or get a drink), and no one has any more nits or anything so I think we're done w/the lice - yay. Today was the two-week point! If we have anything after this, we likely picked it up again. So I'll be watching... but praise god we appear to be over that.

The craziest thing happened on the way home from home group (weekly bible study). Deer. We're fine, the car's fine, and the deer might even be fine (we didn't stick around to find out but we think so). But god sure reminded us that he's the one who determines our steps. There was a small deer in the middle of the road so we slowed down and began to swerve to the left so as to miss it. I saw the big doe (I think) off to the left coming right at us. She was huge and when we slowed down, she paused and then kept coming so we sped up a little and went between the little one and her and she just ran right into us full tilt, hitting right into the back left side of the car (Papa Bear thinks it was right behind him on the door to the back seat.) I was bracing myself and looking to see if there were more deer to dodge (and praying fervently). There was a big loud smack and everything seemed to be fine (Papa Bear thinks he saw the deer keep going) so he kept driving, feeling very blessed but very alert and full of adrenaline. That was close but again, everything went fine.

I was so glad when we got home! And today is now all but over - hope tomorrow is not so crazy (and no more deer thank you!)! Good night!