En français, “lamantinesque” (1/2)

I swear, the day I get home I’m doin’ what I shoulda done before I left: install Age of Empires III plus the War Chiefs expansion on this laptop. Then I’m gonna buy the Asian Dynasties expansion and Civilization IV. Because since being in Europe for almost five months with no significant video games to speak of, I’ve learned that there are some situations in which video games are not only enjoyable, but advisable, and even useful, to have.

Example: when I was in Wieselburg, Austria with Marion. Some of you may think I’m being an ungracious guest, but Marion knows just what I’m talking about. Wieselburg is a really small town, and there’s nothing to do. If I’d had a strategy game on my laptop it could’ve provided entertainment for both of us.

An earlier example: when in October 2007 I tried to observe the month of Ramadan. There were a few times in the early evening that my blood sugar was so low that I was almost in a state of panic, and video games would help me to relax until sundown. That was actually when I began my Ottoman profile on Age of Empires that would evolve into a Turkish variation of my Scottish strategy using the same fundamentals, making it an excellent strategy that’s uniquely mine, and probably my favorite of all to play.

Yes, I’m very aware that one is supposed to pray in order to get through Ramadan.

Because right now I’m alone at the new CVM house in the village of St. Blaise. Thérèse is at the CVM office where she’ll be spending the night to get work done. I thought of climbing one of the ridges tonight to get night shots of Briançon, but my tripod’s still at the convent. No books to read. Least when I was in Paris I had a stack of DVDs to watch for Cinema. Wouldn’t mind watching This Is England again. I’d even settle for The Idiots. But not Blue. This situation is crying out for several hours of gaming, but...

So on Wednesday, the day of the big move, Thérèse was going to send me to another valley, but I proposed hiking up to the Croix de Toulouse, which is on the peak above the Fort des Sallettes. She told me after I got back that it was two vertical kilometers. And it felt like it. The climb up was a pretty fair challenge, but I took a different route down that wasn’t as steep. It was kind of surreal to watch Briançon just getting smaller and smaller as I climbed, and at the summit you could see many more peaks than you can in the town, some across the border in Italy.

That evening Thérèse and I went out for pizza. She seemed a lot more relaxed than she had been, but it was not to last. She’s back to being neurotic and critical. One of her favorite things to say when I ask about something in Briançon is “You’re not a baby, you can find out for yourself.” And I might agree with her if I’d been acting immature in some way, but I haven’t been acting like a baby; if anything, I’ve been acting like a robot. I do the tasks she assigns me without question, and if I get something wrong, usually because of the language barrier, I accept her remonstrations with a manatee-like calm and move on. But tomorrow another kid is arriving, so hopefully the criticism will be halved! And a whole group is arriving on the 1st, so things are looking up.

But on a much brighter subject, yesterday Thérèse announced I was going to cut the grass in the Fort du Château, making a swinging motion with her arms. I thought, that’s not a very safe way to use a weed whacker. Oh, ye of little imagination, the Club of the Old Manor is far more committed to historical accuracy than you would initially think. So she took me up to the attic of the powder magazine and handed me two tools: a scythe and a sickle.

Never imagined I’d enjoy cutting the lawn this much, blisters aside. It’s very satisfying swinging a large blade like that, even more so than the machete clearing brush back home. I musta been a wheat farmer in a previous life. Didn’t get all the grass done because it started to rain, which means I’ll get to do more another day.

And today we moved more stuff from the convent to St. Blaise, then inspected the tents, in which we’ll all be living once the others get here, for mouse damage. Got them inside the house just as it started to pour. Guess we’ll set them up to aerate tomorrow.

I miss Guilford terribly, especially its people. I miss the way Kass strides into a room, the way Rachel rocks back in her chair when she laughs, the way Max uses his hands to express a point, the way Michelle’s smile makes you think of sunlight on an April morning, the way Bennie feigns disgust whenever I say something really nerdy. And Olivia... I miss everything about Olivia.