Slow Day

I'm all alone. Well, except for the cat.

Yesterday, my wife and daughter went on a school trip to Rhode Island to attend a color guard match. They'll be gone until way-early on Monday morning, when they will call me to come get them from the school parking lot. (The other day, we let our daughter drive to practice by herself, which she's done before -- licensed driver, you know -- and then home again at 1015 at night, which was a first for her. We were nervous, but it worked out. After an eight hour bus ride, though, we didn't think either of them would be up to driving, even just the ten minutes to our house. I mean, they could, but why?)

So I'm alone. Stayed up late last night, watching television, which I almost never do -- watch at all, let alone stay up to do it. Found that we had taped enough that Tivo was complaining of being stuffed. Several interesting shows -- The Good Wife, which is a little glitzy but surprisingly good (the woman who plays the lead does a very nice job). We also had some episodes of Warehouse 13, which is funny but ultimately unsatisfying - I understand that it went off the air, which is okay with me. Though I did like the two female leads, especially the geekster. And we had a bunch of Doctor Who episodes recorded, three of which I watched and about half of which I trashed. Not too much other stuff. Tivo says it has a 'recommendation engine', but considering what it pops up with -- even given that it's heavily influenced by my daughter's tendency to tape weird stuff -- RuPaul's Drag Race, anyone? -- I don't think much of it. It should work better than that. Then again, from what I read, Netflix and Amazon have the same problem.

This morning I blearily woke up at 615 to hear my daughter's alarm going off -- thanks, kiddo -- and then went back to sleep. Got up later to make pancakes, sausage, coffee. The pancakes were 'from scratch'. I had found a recipe on a web site which say these were just phenomenally good. They were okay. I guess, when you think of it, what can you really do with pancakes? I do wonder about these people who wax ecstatic about recipes. I mean, it's just food.

Though I suppose I should be careful about that attitude when we're in France. They take food more seriously there. At least, I think they do. Maybe not. I really wish I could make a guess about how that's going to go. Its pretty confusing, from several perspectives. For one, we're of several minds about where to go -- my wife would like to see Paris, is mildly interested in seeing Burgundy, and really doesn't want to spend more than a couple of days at the kid's house; my daughter and I don't care if we see Paris, would really like to see Burgundy, and want to stay at the kids house. Except that I kind of want to stay there by myself as a sort of adventure -- Can Bill handle speaking French and French customs for several days? So there's that. What about just getting around -- is driving on the autoroutes pretty much like here, or are they more aggressive? If we take the TGV, will it be apparent how to do what we want to do, or will we end up in, say, Nova Scotia? Plus, we're not sure how much to expect in the way of 'French customs'. Do they really just eat a very light breakfast? Do they really have the habit of long, languorous meals with much wine? Do they really like to argue? Not in a combative way but a sort of intellectual jousting? I mean, these are what people say about them, and I guess they're a more homogeneous people than we are, but is it one of those things when, when people say 'the French', they really mean 'Paris'? Or is it no, that's pretty much all of them? I've asked some of these questions of the kid's mother, but she only responds to one email every other Saint Swithin's day. Still more than her daughter does, and that does frost me more than it should.

Today I do more French study -- despite one of my recurring bouts of Why the hell am I doing this? -- and maybe a little baking. I found this marvelous recipe....