This, That & The Other

I'm bored and I don't really have anything good to say... So here goes another post. So what have I been up to lately, you ask.

Well as I said, not much.

For example, in an effort to do something more productive with my time, I applied to a graduate program through a university in Sweden last week. Pray for me to your respective higher power that I get in. It's a Master of Child Studies, which I don't know what I'll do with or if I actually want to break my back to get, but since I've about the most indecisive person I know when it comes to my life and I'll likely not make a decision as to what I'm doing with my post-volleyball career anytime soon... I figure it's something. Whatcha gon' do. Great reasoning, I know.

Also related to life direction & time usage, I decided to make a new year's resolution for the first time ever this year. This is normally the part of the post where I have a passionate reason for not doing one before... but in this case, I guess it's just 'cause I was too lazy for the first 22 years of my life. Anyway, instead of only one grand 2009 resolution that I'd never remember, let alone fulfill, I decided I'd do 12. One per month. If I like it, I'll keep doin it... If not, it's out. It's all dramatic like that. Anyway these mini-resolutions aren't exciting enough to mention here but I'll indulge y'all on one example.

I unfortunately have a genetic weakness for chocolate (runs in the fam. It's my cross to bear...) and February is that time of the year where I realize I have 3 months til people I know will see me again and will be horrified by the way French cuisine has treated my bod. So I decided it was time to reign in the beast and give up my vice. (See what I mean about the resolutions not being exciting...) Unfortunately I shared this idea with The American back in January and a couple days later she decided she was gonna give up drinking for 4 months. I couldn't be shown up just like that, and so to make it fair and due to the challenge, my chocolate-less life has been extended to 2 months, starting yesterday. It sucks already. For example, in the 2 days since starting I've
had the following eaten in front of me - chocolate-filled crepes, a box of belgian chocolates, and homemade white chocolate mousse. I knew this endeavour would suck, but it's like people are inadvertently pullin' out all the stops for me to fail. Why do bad things have to happen to good people?! Why.

Cancel the Valentine's shipment

In other areas of life, things are little better. Kidding, life is good for the most part but we're going to Italy for a match soon and it's about to be rough. We made it to 1/4 finals of CEV cup and consequently we get to play Vini Monteschiavo Jesi, aka the 3rd ranked team in Italy's A1 Series. Italy is the best league in Europe and who knows if we would've even beaten the Ukrainian team we didn't have to play in the 1/8 finals... this might all sound pessimistic but for those in the know, it's more like reality. To break it down, think of it like we're a high school team playing the Bulls in their MJ heyday. I've had at least 5 different fans tell me we have absolutely no chance whatsoever... Oh the love. Those would be our "fans". So yeah, the people are behind us and should be fun. On the bright side, free trip to Italy?

Are you there God? Its me, Co.

I won't get into personal volleyball frustrations, but this is about the time of year where one feels the need to start a countdown to the end of the season... Which I'd be looking forward to if, for various reasons, I had any idea what or where I'm gonna be for the summer... And that about wraps up another round of super optimistic upate of the latest whatnot that's goin' down in my hood. Don't say I didn't warn.

New Year Newness

Turns out 2009 has started out right and January has been the month of unprecedented events. Haircuts, road trips, and cut up hands, to name just a few.

Let us begin with the hair situation. I blame the American for this since she put the idea in my head one day and I ruminated about it day and night until one day in a fit of spontaneity I finally decided to go for the gold and chop it all off. 3 years of hard work, all gone in the snip of a blade. Fortunately the stylist that was fixing to redo my melon was the world's happiest French girl and hated every second of it. I think we came in, oh I don't know, 2 hours before closing time, and in this country that means 6 hours too late. Sometimes that gets lost in translation. Needless to say it was a fail in a bigtime way and I came home looking like a 6 year old. The German was horrified but pretended to like it and Matt attempted to tell me he didn't know how he'd feel but "I could pull it off".... I'll tell you one thing sir - Nobody pulls off 6-foot 6 year old.

Round 2 came the next day when I went back to our old standby at the salon by the post office. She was so memorable when she cut my hurr a couple months back that I still don't know the name... but the important thing is she did me a solid and fixed the 'do. So I think I've come around and have jumped on the bandwagon. Shout out to my sister Sarah who cut hers a few weeks ago. Sorry to steal your thunder, but you know you're prettier anyway.


Besides the road trip to Carcassonne the other week, I took a couple of trips in this fine month. First was Saturday morning which isn't really a road trip in the true sense of the word since it was only 20 mins down the freeway but I had to test the limits of our new wheels to attempt to get to practice in time.

It all started when a certain friend of mine, who I won't call out by name 'cause I'm a lady like that, was supposed to catch a train to the airport at 9:04 AM but miraculously slept in til 8:45 when I woke him up and we have 3 minutes to leave. I'm shakin' my head. The cat decides to take a shower.

Dudes. I'll never understand.

So we miss the train from the Albi station by approx. 2.3 minutes and decide to pull a Bond move to try to beat the train to the next town on its way to Toulouse. The 90-year old behind the wheel of a white Renault on its last legs foiled that plan though and we missed it once again by 2 minutes. Just how many of y'all can say you've missed the SAME train twice? That's what I thought. Respect.

So at this point it's like 9:40 and I tearfully leave the friend to take the next train at 9:51 and pray he makes his flight. Meanwhile I got more pressing concerns in the form of practice in 20 minutes, no court shoes with me and a 23 minute drive ahead. So I kick the Kia into high gear and attempt to beat the clock. I failed and despite going 170 km/h for most of the drive was 8 minutes late. Unexpected road trip vol. 2 of 3 unspectacularly complete. The GPS lied to me and my coach was none too pleased. Luckily he was a little distracted when I arrived and this is where the next event seamlessly comes in...

The American. I'ma choose my words wisely here - it's obvious we're tight and I've got nothin' but love for her, after all she's my literal saviour in this country - but she has the unfortunate habit of accidentally getting hurt in one way or another everyday. I mean EVERY day.

Case in point, Friday night while cutting fruit (I'll once again not name names but it was produce of the yellow variety, and ends in 'nana') somehow the knife slipped and she filleted off the side of her left pointer finger. So bananas, knives and bits of finger are flying and the blood starts gushing. Luckily we worked some magic and pieced it back together so she made it through the night.

The next morning our coach gets the news and being that The American is a setter and her hands are literally her livelihood, this was kind of a big deal. As he's trying fruitlessly to redress the wound I come flying through the gym door - hair unbrushed, sweating and gasping for breath. I thought I was off the hook for the first 3 minutes and attempted to pretend I had been warming up in the parking lot... but I was busted shortly thereafter.

So in an attempt to redeem a bad start to the weekend we won a game Saturday night. Just kidding. Well, we did, but actually The American and I redeemed it by taking a little trip Sunday on down to the French village of my youth 2.5 hrs away. I've been back to Montagnac twice since back in the day of running those streets as a 6-year old but with the new haircut, this time I finally looked the part. We poked around a little and I found my old house only to sadly discover nobody was home and the front window was boarded up.

#34 Rue de l'Hospice. The house formerly known at #26...
until the renumbering of 2003 came along.

So in the spirit of nostalgia, I took a walk around the way to what my siblings and I affectionately called Geezer Corner to catch up on the latest village gossip and chew the fat with the local elderly. Suckily, I'm sad to say that times have changed and these days, between me and the scraggly pigeon, I'm the oldest thing sitting on that classy cement bench.

Lost as last year's Easter egg

Montagnac tour complete (yeah back off, it's a small place) we were on to bigger and better things to watch a some men's ball in a town next door. Some Canadian players were in the house and represented for the home and native land. Side note - to me, men's volleyball is like the kid to get picked second last in gym. He's the kid that wants to be taken seriously and somewhere under the too much exposed man-thigh, short shorts and cheering & hugging between every point, he has talent. It just gets overlooked sometimes. And don't worry, I would kill to watch it daily and I am bearing in mind I play the women's version of that sport so I'm not sure what that says about me... or my kid brother who tears up the guy's game... but it's all love.

So yeah. That's about all I got. But last piece of newness - turns out since the Ukrainians screwed up their visas for this round of Euro cup, they had to forfeit and my dream to play against Severodonchanka Severodonec was foiled. Fortunately my dream to get HANDLED by an Italian team will finally be fulfilled as it looks like we automatically advance to quarter finals against Jesi who beat Cannes who beat us. That means nothing to anybody but me and French kids but suffice it to say you can all start praying for me now. And for The American please. We need her. Fingers and all.

Crazy castle-y type place we found on the way

My future home

Admiring my future digs

Doin' my best Ray Charles

Raw Pig Parts

The holiday vacationing continued with a train trip from Munich to Paris en route to Barcelona in the wee morning hours of December 27th. After hangin’ out at the train station from midnight to three AM (during which my aforementioned German convo with a drunk Britney Spears fan took place), we saddled up for our journey across The German’s motherland back to France.

We finally arrived in Paris at 10 AM and were feeling great. “Hey everyone! Come and see how good I look!” A quote was never so fitting. We were also tired and hungry but lucky for us, only had 9 hours to kill before our flight to Barcelona. Also lucky for me, the high quality bag I packed all my goods in decided to fall apart piece by piece such that by the time we arrived in Paris, the extendable handle had long since lost a screw and wouldn’t come out of its home, I had only one wheel and one strap. Don’t worry though, the other wheel and strap would fly off at untimely moments before the trip was through, leaving me to carry the bag in both arms as if it were a small child rather than filled with dirty socks.

Anyway, it was cold and the wind was angry that day so we sought refuge in a mall where I promptly fell asleep for a couple more hours sitting totally upright… My neck never felt so good. We took our luxurious RyanAir flight (I’ll not go into further detail but I know y’all out there that are familiar are shaking your heads right now) and finally arrived in Barcelona a full 24 hours after we left Munich.

The next few days were a delight. It’s hard for me to use that phrase seriously but in the spirit of a new 2009 (as opposed to an old one…?) I’m trying to do better with the cynicism. Update: It’s been a week and I’m already struggling. I digress.

An American friend of ours – also known as Matthias - decided to make a pilgrimage to the continent of his forefathers and met up with us in the citay so it was three’s company for the rest of the trip.

The man, the legend.

The next 4 days consisted of shopping, old buildings, a lot of walking, and a bit too much fast food in the form of kebab, aka delicious spiced meat of the gods. We saw the requisite sights; Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, Catedral de Barcelona, Las Ramblas, etc. and it was in a market at the the latter that I witnessed my first pig head just chillin’ for sale, complete with eyelashes still attached. And a bargain at only 4 Euros! Just the perfect belated Christmas gift I was looking for. There were also a plethora of cured pig thighs hanging about, also with hoof intact, in case you wanted to take your leg for a brisk jaunt trip the block before digging in. I was tempted.

Smile and some pig heads smile with you.

New year’s eve in Barca was interesting. We went for dinner and were enjoying a lovely meal when we remembered they have a tradition where you’re supposed to eat 12 grapes, one at each stroke of midnight, to represent good luck in each month of the new year. Or the old year. Crap I forget. But we definitely missed the boat on the first half-dozen strokes of the clock (or in our case, waiter banging a pot lid. Stay classy Barcelona.) and were forced to shove the grapes in 3 at a time to get ‘em all in in time. That’s tougher than it sounds when there are seeds involved. Anyway, I’m not sure if that’s a bad omen for those months in the coming year or a representation of 2008… but either way I’ve been a little on-edge since. Right right right, now I remember why I don’t let fruit decide my fate.

After dinner and the grapes incident we decided to walk down Las Ramblas which can only be described as a complete gong show. From what I understand, there are no laws against public intoxication or consumption so the Spanish just cut loose and wander the streets in droves. The specific street they frequent is Las Ramblas and the ground was literally wet all over with alcohol… It’s raining wine! Hallelujah! I was offered drugs by at least 8 shady lookin’ fellas and only tried a couple different varieties of Spanish Charlie before deciding it doesn’t compare with the pure coke on the streets back in my ‘hood. Just kidding mom. It was enlightening though and for the first time in my life I actually felt somewhat unsafe (I tend to delusionally believe people aren’t gonna eff with a 6’+ giant. There are some perks to being this large & in charge after all) and was pretty glad to have The German & Matt as wingmen. Fortunately they had bought the same black wool coat and aviators - their rugged individualism had kicked in – so they looked like bodyguards and I was just giving them some work.

The German and Leroy were sleeping soundly when I peaced out the next morning at 7:30 AM since they stayed in Spain for a couple more days to see the FC Barcelona game on the 3rd. The early morning New Year’s Day wakeup was the highlight of the trip but I had to catch a train back to Albi to get home for training on the 2nd. Someone has to work around here.

And that pretty much sums it up. Hope you all had a good one. Here’s to a solid 2009.

Breakin' it down

Starting 2009 off right with 5 desserts for 3 people...

...5 was a bad choice.

The American legacy abroad.

About to chocolate key a fool

The carnage

Juuuust around the riverbend

Contemplating the meaning of life
or how anyone could construct something so... stunning? Ahem.
Outside Sagrada