The potential for "blog fuel" today was huge. On Friday, Dana and I were invited to attend a little game on Sunday. It's a local co-ed "touch" rugby tournament. We were prepared to look like fools (even more so than usual), have some fun and probably offend some natives. Unfortunately, our weather here hasn't been much different than what most of you are experiencing now in the midwest. No joke, it has been raining for the last week. Not surprisinlgly the park was in no shape to have amateur Rugby morons running around on it. If it works out in the next week or so, I'll be sure to post the results. Not the score so much, but injuries and cultural faux pas.
The weather caused some other anxiety earlier this week. After dropping the kids off for school I sometimes drive into Grenoble for my French lesson. Then after 2 hours of mind wrenching translating I drive the 30 minutes back to pick the kids up for lunch. It's tight, but I usually make it with 10 minutes to spare. Well, on Friday I realized another major difference between roads here and back home. It's a lot of work to cut a road through the mountains, so they don't usually cut another one parallel to it a mere mile away. Once again this is one of those things that make sense, but you don't really think about until the rain causes some poor guy's driveway to move 10 yards downhill and on to the only road you know. Fresh from my French lesson, I attempted to talk to a French policeman in order to assertain if I could go past the barrier to access a side road that I thought would get me home. My French is improving quite well, but that is not a simple question to formulate when he is waving you on and a line of cars is honking behind you. I failed and made a right with the rest of the mob.
So let's reset the scene. I have 20 minutes to make it to school to pick up two kids who have been told, "Do not go to canteen today, I WILL be there to pick you up". I have just been shooed off the road that will get me there in 10-15 minutes and have no idea how long it will take me to get there via the detour. (I use the word "detour" lightly. They use a similar word, but it is only a detour in the sense that it keeps you from using the intended road. I was initially hoping to follow the signs to get me around, the problem was that there was only a sign. We don't care where you go, but you can't go here) My trusty Tom Tom was helpful, but not that helpful. I had to drive for 10 minutes in a randomly selected direction before "turn around when possible" became something more useful.
To make matters worse, I was also trying to call someone to pick up my children so they wouldn't be wandering around outside the school searching for their dad who's told them to "I will be there, don't ever go with anyone else". Now, the technology on my new iPhone is awesome but it could be better. For instance, it can hold the numbers of every contact I have ever known, but it cannot look into the future and store numbers that I "am going to put in as soon as I get home". The only numbers I had were of people who had called me, and only one of those was useful. Not because she was a parent of kids at my school, but because I knew she would have someone's number. Never mind that she's in Italy watching the practice for a Formual One race, I need help. So, a couple calls back and forth over the border and I had someone to monitor my children until I could arrive.
The events of the last three paragraphs was stressful enough, but the French have a way of making such events even more stressful to us untrained Americans. Manual Transmission. "Oh, I can drive a stick" is what you are saying right now. Well, me too, but it sure doesn't make things any easier. In fact, it's a real pain sometimes. Have you ever seen a game show where people can't answer simple questions while under physical strain? That's what it feels like. My train of thought was being derailed every 10 -20 seconds.
The rest of our weekend was not as eventful. A couple from the UK has two boys, one in Lane's class and one in Audrey's, so it worked out well that they invited us for dinner. Surprisingly, having dinner in France with a couple from the UK was almost identical to you inviting my family and I over to your home. The only notable exception being that at home my wife doesn't spend the entire night laughing at your 4 year olds adorable cockney accent. She wasn't being mean, of course, but it did give us away as Americans.
Since we stayed out till 11:00 with the kids on Friday, Saturday consisted of resting and a quick trip to the mall. Which was fine because it rained all day, again. I feel like I bit on a time share scam in which they take you to the location during the only week of good weather for the year. Ok, not really, but the weather stinks. I spoke with the owner of the house today and I think he feels directly responsible. Which he shouldn't, but on the other hand, it is early September and he was walking me through the heating system for the house. We didn't need it yet, but I've always thought that a time of neccessity was a poor time to make sure your heating works. Besides, it was down to 62 degrees or so in the house this morning because it was below 50 outside last night. A little heat wouldn't hurt anything. So today on the 14th of September...... 
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