Statistically, I could just say, “Well,
that's the Poisson Distribution. Random things tend to clump.” But
it doesn't make it all better. (Now, if I could quote math instead of
stats, I'm sure everything would be rosehip tea and lemon cookies.
And no. I don't know why I have chosen those two items, neither of
which I am likely to ingest. Particularly since I don't like tea.)
We woke up super early. Why? Well, the
internet here is funny. We are so far from a city that the only
internet one can get is through satellite. And it seems that in the
morning, it works reasonably well. But in the afternoon and evening,
you are lucky to get much bandwidth at all. Probably because you are
competing with so many more subscribers in the region once they get
home from school or work.
We wanted to Skype with Grandma and
Grandpa. But with a six hour time difference and our need to do so in
the morning here in France, it made it challenging. So we got up
super early to Skype at 5h00 our time, or 23h00 the previous day
their time.
Skype went fine. But we were up early
and tired. And then the sky fell. Okay. Not really. But it did rain
in the morning. So something fell out of the sky.
Because of the rain, one of the horses
was shivery, didn't eat well, and she was clearly in a bad mood. She
didn't want to be touched or even looked at. Because we were dealing
with her, we didn't get one of the prep items taken care of that we
needed to do for the evening feeding. (To cut the suspense, we did
get her dried and walked and she is feeling much more herself now.)
Also, when there is rain in the night,
that means there is a lot more poop clean up. Why? Well, the horses
like to spend time at night outdoors, usually. And so their poop is
way off in a pasture and need not be shoveled. But when it is cold
and rainy, they spend a lot more time in the barn. And this means
that the proportion of their outdoor defecation decreases, thus,
indoor waste disposal needs increase.
In the middle of the day, after all the
manure was hauled away, we went to Le Grotte Prehistorique du
Cognace. It's a cave with ancient cave paintings. Sounds cool. We
had checked the website to make sure of their hours and everything.
Unfortunately, when we got there, there
was a handwritten sign on a piece of white paper that stated that
from some day in November to some day in April, the site was only
open, by appointment, for groups of 20 or more. All the technology
available, and they didn't update the website. They just posted a
sign on the ticket counter window.
Alrica said this was a lesson. We
should call first. To which I replied “And hear the answering
machine message in French that goes so fast there's no way we will be
able to translate what it said?”
Being weak in the native tongue has a
few other disadvantages. I consider myself someone who is reasonably
comfortable with technology. And yes, I am getting older. I'm
probably not up to date on all things. But I'm no shlub either. (I'm
not sure if that is spelled shlub, schlub, or if it is a nonsense
word that I made up and somehow think is a real word. Maybe the
latter because spell check doesn't like either of my other choices.)
So it is embarrassing when I can't
master appliances. I'm not talking about computer systems. I'm
talking about appliances!
In Marrakech, we had a washing machine
that sometimes would just run for hours. And you could manually stop
it, but then the door wouldn't unlock and you couldn't get your
clothing. You had to unplug it, turn it on, turn it off, and repeat
this several times until for some reason it opened. Now, the washing
machine itself didn't have words in any language on it. Just
pictures. But it did tell you the brand name and model number. And we
looked up a user's manual on the internet. We could have purchased
the PDF of the user's manual in French had we so chosen. We did not
so choose.
Here in France, if I want to use the
microwave, I have to cook things in 30 second intervals. Because the
only function I can figure out how to use is the “add 30 seconds”
technique. And sadly, you can't boil a chicken in a microwave, even
if you could figure out how to choose a time you wanted.
Why do I mention boiling chicken?
Well, the dogs normally get boiled
chicken as part of their meal. And I boiled the chickens yesterday,
but apparently not quite enough. So their meals were delayed. The
missing prep work in the morning meant that the horses' meals were
delayed. And as I type this, I am waiting on my own dinner, which,
due to the delays along the line is, unsurprisingly, delayed.
Plus we are all tired and cranky. And
the only silver lining I can see is that it puts me in a perfect mood
to write a rather kvetching blog post. (And my spell checker likes
the spelling I used for kvetching, so this time I suspect I got a
real word.)
Maybe one day we will look back on this
day and laugh. But, I suspect not when it rains.
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