kateek

An aging brilliantined stick insect.

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We hitched to Delville Wood, which was almost completely destroyed during the battle of the Somme, the ground is still bumpy from shells. We hiked past some fields to find the New Zealand cemetery. We also saw an inchworm inching its way across a fence - I didn't get a good picture, but please believe me that it was a pretty cool inchworm.

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We're in Picardie, still looking up monuments for the Grande Guerre. We hiked about 8k into the country, visited some cemeteries, our legs were jelly, so we hitchhiked back to the town we're staying in.

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The Lochnagar Crater, where the British set off 27 tons of explosives under the German lines, starting the battle of the Somme in 1916.

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We did not accomplish very much yesterday, except for breakfast and apéro, so pretty good day all around.

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Pigeonnier, la Seine La Roche Guyon, Yvelines

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It's summer.

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I woke up to birds singing and thought it must be dawn, but it was actually 11:30.

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Sologne

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Chambord

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Sologne

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Les sujets de bac de philosophie 2016

« Travailler moins, est-ce vivre mieux ? » Classes and exams and meetings are over. I'll get my last paycheck at the end of the month. And then I'll be unemployed. After not hearing anything all last week, I emailed one of the higher ups in the department to ask about next year. She wrote me back, and said that the decisions were pushed back until the end of June. She said that she could pretty much guarantee that I'll get an offer, maybe just for one more year, but something. She also offered me the role of coordinator for one of the courses, which would be a good resume line. I was promised promotions and contracts at my last job. I never got them. « Savons-nous toujours ce que nous désirons ? » We're leaving on vacation tomorrow. Other than the first few days, we have basically none of the next two weeks planned out. I would usually feel more stressed or excited, but I think the work situation has somehow dulled my senses. You might think that organizing our trip would have been a good way to take my mind off things, rather than constantly checking my email and spinning out worse case scenarios. But hey, well, oh, oh well. « Nos convictions morales sont-elles fondées sur l’expérience ? » I got my hair cut yesterday it wasn't the same person I had last time and it didn't look right at all so I googled how to cut your own hair and yeah, why not, I don't have time to go back to the hairdresser, let's do this and oh no oh I now have a moral conviction based on experience that I should never try to cut my own hair.

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On Friday a friend called me, she was going to a wedding up north of Lyon, her sister was supposed to be her plus one but she flaked last minute, did I want to go? Leaving in a couple of hours? I said yes, and so we went. The drive was about six hours, to a tiny village that we almost couldn't find. The ceremony on Saturday was beautiful. I didn't know a single person beside the friend I came with, but everyone was friendly. The town hall service (only weddings performed by a city official are legally recognized) was held in the tiny mairie, with the trophies won by the village handball team on the old wooden shelves, and the official poster of the president off to the side. Like all French weddings, it was quite bureaucratique, with the mayor reading the names and addresses of the couple and their witnesses and their parents, and reciting the relevant articles of the Code Civile, concluding with 'the administrative formalities have been completed, you may congratulate the happy couple.' Unlike the wedding I went to two years ago, the attendants gave little speeches (yes, the best man did start with 'the dictionary defines celebrate as...') and the bride and groom said their own vows (the groom read his off his phone) and they were both tearing up, and even though I hadn't even known these people existed 24 hours previously, I was getting misty eyed too. The reception and dinner was at the couple's home, in their backyard, a whole three minute walk from the mairie. The yard bordered a pond on one side and fields on the other. They had a little tent and hung lanterns all around. The local butcher had been hired to provide dinner, and he'd set up that morning, and was turning the pigs on the roast by hand. Even for a fairly low key affair, French people don't joke with wine. We had a '96 Chateau Margaux at our table, there was a '96 St Emilion that I wanted to try, but I thought better of trying to steal it from the groom's grandmother. It's been raining nonstop in most of the country, but the clouds held off for most of the day, until right about dinner time, when there was torrential downpour. It didn't last long, but the yard was basically a mud puddle after that. The bride's dress was filthy, but she switched to her rain boots, and all was well. We ended the night quite late drinking Jura (I'm not even sure what it is but at that point all I could register was Oh! Strong! Tingle in tummy!). Yesterday we rolled out of our hotel beds and headed back to Toulouse. There was more traffic, and I didn't get back home until five minutes before I had to leave again to go to a planning meeting for an association I volunteer for. I didn't actually get to take off my shoes and pants until nearly 9 pm. That was the first time I checked the news, and read about Orlando.

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I've been away for a wedding. It was really lovely and I am exhausted.

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Morning view, evening view. The weather has been perfect recently, just warm enough to be a little bit sweaty. I still haven't heard anything from work about next year.

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One more thing about our hotel last weekend was that there were little individually packed tins of peanut M&Ms.

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(You hearted my "heart this for an ask" post, so, here 'tis!") How has your life on tumblr evolved over the time you have been using it? What do you love about it? What do you find problematic about it? Do your offline friends know about your tumblr? Have you met tumblr people offline? Tell us everything! :-)

Ooh good questions! I've become (slowly!) less shy over the years. I started out reading a few tumblrs that I had bookmarked, and then after a year I actually created an account to follow them more easily, but I didn't post anything myself for almost another year. I didn't post a picture of myself until I think last year? Now it's just pictures of me me me all the time. Sorry about that! I should post more about caterpillars. (Update on defrosted caterpillar - as of last night he had crawled out from the red pepper and ooched to the other side of the windowsill. This morning he was gone. Godspeed, defrosted caterpillar.) What I love about tumblr - reading about so many different lives and experiences. It's very addictive. That's probably what's most problematic about it, for me. Also, there's a certain asymmetry sometimes, when I read and learn so much about a person's life and relationships and job problems but that person doesn't seem to read or learn about me and I feel like Creepypants McCreepyface. I usually unfollow after a while in that case, so it's not exactly a serious problem. I should add that, selfishly, writing about my friend André, and having people who didn't know him send me messages or just hearts helped me a great deal. About offline, nope! Well, my youngest sister used to be here, but not anymore, and I have one friend who has a tumblr but he doesn't post more than a few times a year. I've never met anyone, but I am still determined to find @wallofdis and trail along after her, carrying her champagne reserves. Since I'm tumblring about tumblr, now is as good a time as any mention that this blog has an expiration date. After the password reset, I realized that the email I used for this account stopped functioning a couple of years ago (ha whoops), which means I can't log in on my laptop. I'm still able to use the app on my iPad, but if I ever get logged out here, or when my iPad eventually dies, that'll be the end of it. That may not be for a couple of years, and I'll probably just create a new account, so consider this a Heads up! that at some unknown point in the future, something I'm not quite sure about yet will happen.

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Paul was making lunch today and found a caterpillar nestled in the red pepper. We're not sure when or how he got in the fridge, but he'd been in there for at least a couple of days. Paul said he would look after him, so he set the caterpillar and his red pepper house out on the windowsill to warm up. I've been to check on him a few times, and I can share that he (or she) did wake up and crawl under the red pepper house, but hasn't really moved since. We're all rooting for you, defrosted caterpillar.