lack of witty title in a non-ironic way

It’s been about 28 days and this journal won’t write itself no matter how long I wait so here we are. Happy Strike. (not to be confused with the rampant baseball references/visual) Today started one of the big national ones. Sometimes there will just be smaller more focused strikes but this is for all the marbles although I admittedly still don’t know what the marbles are. When the declining mustard companies, education systems, transportation network etc all strike at the same time it’s hard to figure the goal out. It happens one day at a time so it’s France’s equivalent of a snow day. Wake up and listen to the radio, kids. This morning I was supposed to have a class and, in my naivety, showed up. Well, guess I needed the exercise…

(Clever transition) So, very happy that I joined baseball. A way to meet people, take up the time, get some exercise… The
pressure (all self imposed without a doubt) was a little intense when I
started because of the American stereotypes which equaled me
(obviously) being awesome at the sport. If I had been wheeled in as a torso with a US passport strapped to my chest I might have still been told to hit the mound. This past weekend, I was happy to go with them to Lyon to chaperone two younger girls, 11 or 12. They are two among about 6 or 7 boys. They had an indoor tournament and it was so crazy to watch. The age range of these teams was fairly ambiguous so some kids could have sat in their gloves and others could have eaten these young unfortunates for breakfast.

There was this one “big kid” team that all the other teams were terrified of. They were impeccably dressed and looked real hardcore. My expert analysis: This perceived evil empire could have been trounced by any decent American freshman team. I’m not trying to be all judge-y. If I picked up a cricket bat for the first time at 14, I’d probably end up hitting myself in the face or something. The
other highlight was sitting in the hall playing poker with the
coaches/dads making sure all the kiddies stayed in their room. They were nice. But in more important news, I ejected three of them by going “all in”. Hey, if I wasn’t going to drink the beer, I had to prove my worthiness somehow. They
very generously invited me to their Superbowl party which is happening
the Tuesday after the game because it airs live here at midnight and
they have to work the next day. It was officially be my first Superbowl Tuesday. My ticket of entry is a cheesecake. This
could be difficult since I am living in a kitchen equipped with one
measuring utensil and a spoon in a country where cream cheese doesn’t
really exist. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Shortly before that, one certain president elect seems to have been sworn in. I was recruited by the TV channel France 3 to be on a panel of Americans to talk about it. Irony of ironies, I missed the inauguration because I was doing this. Was
a little annoyed about that but France 3 is pretty big kid stuff
(national, big elaborate stage set up, etc etc) so it’s cultural. The C word. Although
I looked completely foolish because I was the first to speak in the
panel of 3 and didn’t realize I had one opportunity to speak. So I said stupid, inconsequential things and then the two remaining talked for 15 minutes on significant subjects. Oops. One of the guys doing it was an older American guy who has been living in France for the past 30 years. This summer, he is holding a France/American festival in Dijon. He
knows all these amazing people (including the White House’s pastry chef
who was entirely over making peanut butter cookies for Bush) so I’m
disappointed to be missing it. Other than that, just bought tickets to go visit the esteeeemed elder sister down in Nice in March! Fun effing times. Cannot wait. Also, the other Clarkies arrived (two) with our director and a Clark French prof. They took us to a super classy French restaurant. It
was the height of finals so it was nice to have a distraction away from
grammar, which had been aggressively over studied at that point. It was bizarre to see a little slice of the Woo (glorious Worcester, MA). I can’t get it through my head that it’s second semester, which makes sense since I still forget I’m in France from time to time, but we graduated from the first semester. We moved onto level 6 – the highest before they say “ok, you learned French. Stop being a wuss and go learn with the big kids.” Unfortunately,
we still have the exact same teachers for the exact same courses in the
exact same classroom with the exact same people. Sorry. Was that overkill? Hey there, Debbie Downer. But
can’t you leave you on that – can’t currently think of any stories that
exemplify my foolishness but that means tomorrow I will obviously fall
in a fountain or something. Maybe some angry mustard man will push me. Hey, buddy, I’m with you. As a ketchup connoisseur, you supply a very important half of my culinary delights. Ketchup with mustard. Can’t beat it.