Summer Wind Down

More than any previous year since we've been in the Possum Kingdom, there is a real feel of the end of summer in the air.

True, we've had a weirdly cool summer anyway, with only a few hot days sprinkled in amongst the cool and rainy ones, but beyond that, something different seems to be in the air. Perhaps it's the fact that days are already getting shorter and that mornings and nights are now really on the cool side. Perhaps it's the fact that the kids around the village are getting that restless thing that happens to them when they know that school is just around the corner.

Certainly the adults are eager for school to start (at least THIS adult is!). I'm getting ready to start my last week at the library and suddenly they're back to coming in all day and getting really rambunctious and rowdy, treating the place like it's their living room and not a library. I'm never quite sure how much of a disciplinarian I'm supposed to be and try to temper letting them have fun with how annoying they are being.

I feel time slipping away from all of us today. I don't know why, perhaps it's all that I feel the need to accomplish mixed in with the pain of my sciatica. All I know is that it leaves me feeling melancholy...

Ciao for now.

Randy

Possum sur l'Hers

We now have our very own, virtual, Possum Kingdom! If you click on the link and give us more inhabitants, eventually we'll be able to build up commerce and industry. It's free and fun!

Ciao for now.

Randy

Moving Mom

Now that things are settling down after my stepfather's death, we're really getting started on the process of moving Mom here to France.

For me, this is interesting in lots of ways: first, I'm reconnecting with her in a way I haven't done for years. It gives us whole new topics of conversation to explore.

Second, when JM and I moved, it was relatively simple, at least from the standpoint of paperwork. No visas necessary, as we are both dual nationals. This is not the case for Mom, so I'm having to discover how a non-EU citizen gets to move to France. The information will be invaluable when others ask us this same question.

Another thing that is fascinating is that I have come to regard the Possum Kingdom as home. Much of what was new and strange when we moved is now just familiar and normal. In order to present it to Mom, I've had to start looking at everything with new eyes once again. This makes everything seem fresh and wonderful for me as well as for her.

For example, we've started using our video camera to document the village and the events of the summer, so that we can take it to show Mom and her friends when we're back in L.A. I look at everything and wonder how it will be perceived by them.

Yesterday was our local Vide Grenier, a village-wide yard sale. People started setting up tables at 6 am, which is astonishing for around here. I noticed that a yard sale is a yard sale, whether it's in L.A. or Chalabre. Everyone has their junk spread out and others come and buy it, then show up the following year to sell it back to someone else!

I think there's this hope against hope that you are going to discover a long lost Rembrandt or something that has been hidden in a closet and unrecognized by its owner. I don't think it ever happens, but hope costs nothing.

I can't wait to show all of this to Mom; I feel excited like a kid at Christmas.

Ciao for now.

Randy