One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Here is definitive proof that not everyone in France is stylish and elegant :)

Emily salvaged this fellow from our yard. Birds nest under the eaves of our house, and chicks often fall the two story drop to the paved yard. This critter survived by miracle, probably by bouncing off a nearby bush. Emily the bird expert is now once again enmeshed in chick-rearing. The little fellow is already capable of eating on his own, and we're taking pains (despite the pics) not to over-acclimate him to humans. With luck, he'll be off and away in a matter of days.

I'd meant to post another list of France vs. USA babble, but that's got a bit derailed by the number of side projects we've had. At times of much distraction like this, my wobbly French suffers the worst. I had been taking private lessons here in town, but my professeur had to break them off because her final exams are this month, and she has to spend all month studying to get her English teaching degree. Then, there will be summer vacations, we'll be outside, it will be too hot for sitting indoors at lessons, other projects will pop up demanding attention (The long-delayed FDP Pipe of the Year is seriously beginning to lurk...) and what little progress I've made in French will fade away completely. Aside from buying groceries, I don't think I've spoken French in a month now.

The gap to conversational-level French seems larger than ever. Worse, we've actually, finally met a few people here in town that we share a lot of interests with, but can't talk to... or at least I can't, and that successfully cramps our entire socializing. But, I realize how long and how much hard study would be needed to reach the point of actually being able to participate in after-dinner chatter, and just don't see myself having the time (or money!) to invest in such education when so many other, more-pressing issues are at hand. Grrr...

On a tangent, socializing here is still something we can't quite get a grip on anyway. We can't invite French people over for dinner because they'll hate the food we make, so they invite us over and probably wonder why we can't return the fun. In the US, dinner wasn't the point of a gathering, usually - we might go for dinner but that was just a marker on the road to everyone ending up in the den laughing. Also, there was movie watching, which I'm not sure is even done here (Friends would phone us up, we'd go over for dinner and a rented movie afterwards). Meal times seem to prohibit this, with the French eating so much later that by the time dinner and dessert is finished and everyone has talked for a while, it's often midnight! I can't imagine inviting any of our French friends over for movies and popcorn - I suspect they would find it weird. Or perhaps not, I don't know - Like my lingual abilities, my window into French casual life remains extremely small, very tight, and very focused.

But in the meantime, there is plenty to keep us busy!