My bedroom as a kid was a cave. I had a bunkbed with a desk under it.
Power supplies, lasers, plotters, printers, electronics, soldering iron…

When I got my first big job in the motion picture industry, I worked at a place, Clairmont Camera, when I got promoted, I worked in a very tiny cave, then they built a cave of my very own.

At Applied minds I had a Cave/office with you guessed it, computers, soldering irons, optics.

I am a cave person. I need a few key people in my life, that’s it. My sister, the social butterfly, she has followers on social media, like 1000’s of them.

So here in France, I have my cave. My cave makes me happy.

But I also have friends. Like more friends than I know what to do with. This came as an unexpected shock. I know there would be a “people phase” in my new life. This goes beyond. This is a community.

Before we arrived, I joined a photo club. I paid the dues, got to know some people, and when we landed, I went to the club and met people. I knew that this would be pivotal to our sanity, and I was right.

People invited us to parties, introduced us to other people, more parties, more people, more clubs and voila the calendar is packed.

Literally packed.

We are taking today off to just chill.

This community is important, I think, for the usual reasons, but in the wintery doldrums, its nice to just hang with others.

Summer is frenetic. Vide grenier this, gourmande marche that. Winter is slower, but the people are the constant.

‘Muricans

We don’t know a lot of ‘Muricans, but this last weekend we met 4 expats that had sold everything and were on their 90 day visas hunting for their final destination.

We had a little get together one day with 2 of the new arrivals, and went to a gourmande marche with 2 ‘Muricans we knew, the 2 we just met previously and an additional 2 more.

Suddenly we are the veterans, giving advice and helping pave they way. Giving them tips and techniques, and assuring them that it is indeed possible (though these people already committed.)

September Survival

The early days of September are a crucial point in France. Just about every town of any size will have a Maison des Associations, a governing body that promotes clubs to beep people busy and happy.

Cool, huh?

Our first scouting mission brought us to Narbonne in the early days of september. There was a street lined with tables and people representing their respective clubs. Sports, dance, photography, night life, games.

We had one data point; “Oh look, it’s saturday and there are all these people promoting their clubs.” A day earlier or later and we would have missed it. We extrapolated our little time slot, a few hours in Narbonne to “this is what they do on Saturdays” but really, there is just that one day. Imagine millions of French on one day of the year milling about in town halls and courtyards, all figuring out how to keep themselves busy for the remainder of the year.

To my ‘Murican friends… The French work to live. Remember that next time the boss is golfing and you are filling out TPS reports.