Sloths

Here's another photo of downtown Herbignac in the snow. I think I've taken at least a dozen pictures of this view, but I still like it - This is what one sees after one hikes up a tree-lined dirt road to emerge into the village center. Someday I'm going to have to ask someone about the missing chunk off the top of the church, though I suspect it probably has something to do with either Axis or Allies doing target practice.

Though it is sunny outside today, the weather is still bitterly cold. 33 degrees may not seem so bad, but coupled with a stinging wind whistling down stone streets, it becomes a constant companion on any trip outside - fingers burn with pain, ears go reddened and sore, eyes go Clint Eastwood-squinty, and more and more, we stay in. At the moment this is essential, as we are still struggling to catch up with our work and our money after the disastrous start of the year. But the problem is, it does become a state of mind. I'm sure any self-employed work-at-home person experiences the same sort of coccooned ennui - Get up, work all day without leaving the house, relax afterwards in the house, sleep, and wake to the same thing. With our energy levels suffering the usual grey Breton winter drop, it's tough just crawling out from under the piles of warm blankets in the morning. When the days start compacting inwards like this, I sometimes get stung by a weird sense of loneliness - I will realize with a start that it has been 25 days since I've spoken to another person besides my wife. It isn't so much that I miss the contact with others (I am a non-social surly bastard, at best summation), it is more a sense of dislocated surprise, a sort of, "Wait a second, there is a world out there after all."

I've gotten a bit of comfort from an unexpected source, though. I've just recently launched into "reading" (via unabridged audiobook) Spider Robinson's "Callahan Chronicles", and it has been a breath of fresh air into a calcified week. In the introduction, Spider writes that once a fan tracked him to his unlisted phone number just to call and announce that he was about to commit suicide... unless Spider could tell him that Callahan's Saloon was real, and where it could be found. While I would hate to have been in Spider's shoes at that moment, after reading the moving and warm tales of Callahan's, I can understand the caller's mentality. For those who've never read the stories and didn't go look up the above link, Callahan's Saloon is a nightly gathering spot for all sorts of odd types (including time travelers and aliens) that share one thing in common - a deep sense of humanity and sympathy. I can well understand some of the reviews on Amazon, especially one poster's comment that, "To be honest, I use this book to weed out new people. If they really like the book, then they can become friends. If they dislike this book, or if it's "just okay", then I really don't want to know them. That's how good Callahan is.."

On another topic, for an amusing dose of French/American silliness, check out this article. I never quite know what to make of stuff like this - While it's true that a lot of the French perceptions of what American life must be like are pretty far off, sometimes they are true from angles that I don't immediately see. For instance, the idea that all Americans lived in huge houses with deluxe kitchens (drawn from movies and TV) just seemed goofy.... until I got to know a number of French folks and found that their lodgings and especially their kitchens were often unusually small (at least to my perception). When someone tells you that, "All Americans are rich!", you (US folks, anyway) just want to laugh, and then you start noticing how many houses here are 2/3 the size of their typical US counterparts... how many families own one car instead of two (or three or four).. not to mention the glaring comparisons of each country's GNI per capita (The US GNI per person stands at an average of $41,400 compared to France's $30,090, according to BBC's Facts & Figures).

Some stereotypes are right on the money, though. Words cannot describe how happy Emily and I were to finally get our couch unpacked and set up when we moved here, so we could stop eating dinner at the damned table and return to cheerfully munching our hot wings lying on the couch watching TV.............