On The Road

This week I missed most of -- En Français -- Week 4 -- because I was in Billings at a Grant Writing workshop.

And if I got to keep the money I make for the Fire Department with grants, I wouldn't still be whining about how Hollywood doesn't like my scripts.


I lived in Billings for over ten years. I used to know that place like the back of my hand. Now I know it like the back of my head. I couldn't tell where I was until the last day. Recognized the park near the Starbucks that didn't used to be there.

Get that?

Anyway, BIG city. Big, bad city. Saw a drug deal and a guy eating out of the garbage can. I stopped running to the window to watch the ambulance go by after the 27th one.

No big city girl me. Had to use Google maps to get where I was going and back again.

Here to there and there to here. Thank Apple for the iTouch.

Stayed at the motel from Hell. Thank God for my sense of humor.

And from the Only In Montana file, I leave you with this.

I knew they must be good for something.

About That

En Français -- Week 3

Homework this week included filling out, en Français, my schedule.

I went merrily on my way, noting, for example, I only have time for breakfast, two days a week, and that there is a lot of driving in my life.

I carefully marked down time to study French.

This week, I have two entire days committed to a Trauma Symposium.

I had time to grocery shop, and scheduled house cleaning.

In French, "to do housework" is faire de ménage.

What's this, I wondered? Perhaps I'm not having as much fun housecleaning as I might.

So I asked Madame, before class, (I had no intention of exposing my classmates' innocent young minds to my warped sense of humor) how did ménage à trois spring from housework?

Question par excellence she said. Bring that up in class.

Class began. We went over our Emploi du temps. Madame asked different students what they had scheduled different hours on different days.

The girl sitting next to Dearest saved Friday night and all day Saturday to party.

When Samedi rolled around, Madame asked, me, what I did on Saturday.

Faire de ménage.

She asked, did the class know what ménage à trois meant?

Silence.

In English and en Français.

She went to the board wrote l'homme (man) and la femme (woman) and asked me how many of each.

And I had enough French to stumble through the explanation two of one and one of the other.

During this explanation, the class of 19-year-old Catholic youth were absolutely silent.

Ménage also means couple, so Dearest and I are one and have been for quite a while.

Little did I know.

Current Events

Somebody needs to bitch-slap the Media.

How the Meda Embarasses Itself.

Attention Bigots.

Afterward.

Another Follow-up.

And Finally.

Top Hose Tourney

Yesterday our Fire Department sponsored Firefighter Games as part of a fundraiser and 9/11 commemoration.

An obstacle course race to Save the Citizen.

And a Shootout.

That's Dearest in the white helmet. He and his partner won the Shootout, retiring undefeated.

And then there was this.

Old School

Speaking of old fashioned, and we were, I recently discovered the pleasure of bottled ink.

I've always had fountain pens, but I used cartridges. Unrestrained ink seemed like a mess waiting to happen.

Got a bottle to try out in a drawing pen and discovered, it wasn't that much of a mess. I followed a link to Noodlers Bottled Ink, color Antietam. I bought one and filled my editing pen. This ink looks like dried blood. While that may be an acquired taste, I think it's swell. A metaphor, don't you know.

Of course, one thing led to another.

Voila! I don't have enough fountain pens for all the lovely inks.

Not much of a mess means I haven't spilled a bottle refilling a pen, but I do usually end up looking like this.

Fortunately, fountain pen ink isn't permanent.

Most of it, anyway.

Besides, no matter how old one is, fountain pens have a style, gel pens can't provide.

En Français -- Week 2

Second week of Elementary French -- after Week One went so well -- this morning, Madame labeled us "elderly" because we knew what a fountain pen was. (le stylo)

Pardon?

This is beginning to get on my nerves.

I'm not quite ready for the rocking chair yet.

I passed the advanced EMS class with a bunch of firemen who, though they may not have cursed in front of me, still wanted to be my partner.

The day the Brown's Gulch fire started, our department had three calls starting with a car wreck at 4 AM. By the time we were released from the fire, some of the team had been up for 24 hours, including me.

Last weekend, I extricated an injured bicyclist off a mountain by myself.

Now, I know this is not my problem, it's hers. Perception, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but the problem with labels is they tend to limit expectations and possibilities.

You can't control how you're perceived,
only how you're presented.

Tim Gunn

Yeah, well, I believe you, Tim, but I still feel like crap after class.

Company 4 Breakfast