Routine maintenance

At the student orientation last week, Kristin was given a handout on the symptoms of culture shock: anxiety, irritability, stereotyping, distrust of hosts, difficulty eating or overeating... etc.  I think this explains my unexpected hostility when I met Monsieur biscuit(s) -- a box on the store shelf. Why did I find his smiley salute so agitating? Now I know it was/is culture shock. The only way I could respond was to buy him and to eat him. There were many of him in the box--individually wrapped emissaries of suspect friendliness. My cultural ground-wire appeared in a sugar-induced vision: Cookie Monster. Does anybody out there have contacts at PBS? I'd really like to see a Monsieur Biscuit vs. Cookie Monster throw down -- doughy hands and glazed buttons crumbling from CM's black felt mouth.

Yes, not being able to speak any meaningful amount of French is becoming more aggravating. It's instructive and humbling to be the clueless foreigner but, like Cookie Monster, I'm learning to find satisfaction in a one-word world: "cooooookie."

Angers has a professional soccer team -- Angers SCO. Jack and I hoofed it the two miles or so to Stade Jean-Bouin on Saturday for the match against Clermont Foot. We went for the cheap seats where adults are 7 Euros and kids under 12 are gratuit.  The only problem was that I had my camera with me. This lead to a lot of Cookie-Monster communication which actually didn't go that badly. The problem was my zoom lens. I'm not sure exactly what the concern was but it apparently had something to do with closeup pictures of players. The security guard, with the help of some ticket-takers and and other partial English speakers, finally got me to understand that he did not want me to just turn the camera on (which I did); did not want me to tell him about all its functions (which I started to do but simultaneously started laughing at the ridiculousness of that prospect); but simply wanted me to extend the zoom lens so he could see how long it was. Without looking through the viewfinder or reading the number off the lens itself, Monseiur Securite simply waited for the lens to extend and then exclaimed (in English), "It's too big!" Having no car to put the camera in, it was "explained" that we'd need to leave it at the gate and reclaim it when we left. Yes I was skeptical but somehow trusting and it all worked out. Angers won 1-0 and I got my camera back when we left. 

A random pic I grabbed from the rowing club's website
showing one of their recreational boats, the French
countryside not far from town, and apparently, a guy
with a rifle (Scott?)

Before Saturday soccer, Kristin escorted me down to the river to poke my head in the door of Angers' rowing club, Angers Nautique Aviron. We were lucky enough to find the club secretary on hand (she works parts of two days per week) to take my registration form and some Euros. Of course I also had to attach a photo to the form. I'm not sure what you can do in France without providing a passport-sized photo. The secretary and Kristin talked at length (en Francais), apparently about me wanting to row, and then about the fact that the woman's son lives in Weed, California. So, in some capacity which I'm still figuring out, I've joined the rowing club. I took the first opportunity (Sunday morning at 9:00) to meet up with the recreational rowing group. I got there a little early and stood in front of the doors. A couple of guys arrived and after our bonjours, we were stuck with the blunt realization that our conversation was over. As women started to arrive, they made the rounds with the little kisses/bises. There was no hesitation to bise the new guy (me) but there was some evident awkwardness when 1) they found out I was American and 2) we were unable to verbally reset the terms of our relationship. Oh well, life's a bise. It couldn't have been too bad. Despite very little English being spoken among club members in general, the head coach, Franc does speak English. He placed me in a "cox-less" Empacher quad (four rowers, two oars each, no coxswain) with two very athletic women a little older than me (one is apparently the current over-40 French female ergometer champion) and one aspiring women's French national team rower who seemed to be about 20. I was put in the two-seat which, because they apparently count stern-to-bow in France was communicated to me by holding up three fingers. After a brief cookie-monster oui/merci session with national-team girl, I agreed to sit behind her (but I'm still going to call it the two-seat). A good time was had by all -- at least I didn't hear (understand) anything to the contrary.


We've met a couple of other tenants in our apartment building. The third night we were here, a guy knocked on our door to explain that a young woman who lives upstairs (we have not seen her yet) had made a deal with him to pay a share of his internet bill if he would give her his wireless password. He did. She has never paid. And so he was at our door to warn of us this horrible girl's scam.
Last night, a different guy was at our door asking for a bandage. When offered a selection of bandaids (we had switched to some English at this point), he clarified that he needed a much bigger bandage -- "for the wrapping." It turned out that we'd come across an ACE bandage in our closet just the day before and this was exactly what he was looking for. He let us know that is was for his girlfriend and he could probably have it back to us in five minutes. Huh? Too much information? We made it clear there was no rush. Is girlfriend the..... internet thief? Stay tuned, this blog might turn into a slightly abnormal Nancy Drew mystery.

Ella, Ivy, and Jack are at their first full day of school today. Yesterday they started just before lunch so that Madame Thomas would have time to run around in the morning and tell their new teachers they were coming. Lunch was "some kind of delicious meat." All three were sad to have wrongly assumed that you should only take one section of baguette from the basket at the end of the cafeteria line. Today they will be prepared to take to the school yard looking like many of the other kids -- three or four baguettes sticking out of their pockets.  Jack has three friends already, Thomas, Thomas, and Pierre. One of the Thomases told Jack that he loves Americans and asked if he knew Michael Jackson. (Jack opted not to mention last year's events.) Ella and Ivy made more general first-day acquaintances with girls who were very excited that their experimentation with English phrases were understood and responded to. One girl told Ella that she was beautiful and another, who is also named Ella, exclaimed in English that she was glad to meet "another me." At PE class, another girl came up to Ivy and said, "I like your sweat."

It's a long school day -- 8:15 to 4:50 but lunch is two hours and they also have an hour of library time. Nonetheless, to help with the 25 minute walk back to our apartment, picking up a chocolate croissant for the stroll at the boulangerie across from school is clearly the right thing to do (at least yesterday it was). You could pick up your dinner baguette too but, you know, it stays warm better if you wait till you're almost home and you buy it at the boulangerie across the street from your house. Of course, you're then walking a significant distance in the early evening without a baguette sticking out from somewhere and, as stereotypical as it may sound, that borders on conspicuous behavior.