settling for a sanity:art ratio greater than 1

allo allo;
so a fun little glimpse into rural french life this morning; we went to the kids' school to do a little portrait drawing lesson for the second graders. main observation is holy shit second graders can make a lot of noise when you get twenty of them in one room. M brought a bunch of her drawings to put up, and you could hear this wave of little voices saying to each other "ohhhhh, look, it's so beautiful" in this very lovely unguarded way, (some of the drawings were extra exciting because they were of people the kids recognized - L, me, M's daughter who's in their class) and then she announced that they were all going to get to try to draw pictures which just about tipped them all over the edge into excited hysteria. the teacher got them divided into four groups of 4-5 kids each, and we each took a group, and went for it. i had carla, hortense (unbelievable name for a seven year old, but i guess the rules are different in french :)), charlie, mathieu, and another little boy on whose name i gave up after the fourth attempt at understanding him through a mouthful of missing teeth, and it was a hoot. they didn't seem bothered at all by my total inability to communicate ('look eyes mathieu. he are circular? square? where part more dark face? part clear face?). kids at that age really don't get the whole observational drawing thing; it's all completely symbolic representation, so i gave up fairly quickly trying to get them to really look at each others' faces and did a lot of, oh, tres BIEN for pictures of dinosaurs with really big teeth, which was mostly what they wanted to draw. (M was very strict with her group, making them decide about what part face dark vs. clear, and her group ended up with a hilarious series of vaguely cubist drawings in which the right side of the face (drawn with circle for eyes, triangle for nose, etc.) was drawn entirely in white crayon and the left side of the face done entirely in black charcoal. i did marvel afterwards at how quiet and peaceful and neat the other three groups were, compared to the total chaos of my group (most of whom ended up with faces, hands and clothes smeared with a rainbow of oil pastels; there're a handful of french mamas out there tonight who will not be happy with me), and M said she thought perhaps in general the style of the teacher had a lot to do with the style of the group. sweet M! making a joke at my expense! unbelievable. oh and so so so sweet when we left A (M's seven year old) came over and gave me a hug goodbye. i just about died.

anyway. L invited G&P over for lunch, which was nice, but a little strange. she has done this a couple of times, invite people over, invite me to join them, ask me to make something small to go with lunch (rice, a salad, etc.), and then have a last minute meltdown at her inability to make a meal, so i end up cooking for everyone. today for instance she had bought a frozen parmentier thing, maybe 1-2 servings at most, which she planned to split between four of us, and it said on the box that it needed an hour in the oven, and five minutes before they were due to arrive, she asked me how to turn the oven _on_. hunh??? it turned out fine; i had made a big salad, and made some ham and grilled cheese on toast, and the boys had brought some juice and flan for pudding, and we had a spoonful each of semi-defrosted parmentier, but i can't figure out sometimes what is going on in her head.

in the afternoon, M had a mini workshop at her house to show anyone who was interested her charcoal and sanguine technique thing; it is really quite astonishing what she is able to do with a palette essentially limited to black, white, and reddy brown; she has a complicated system of stomps and chamois that she rotates, which i would never be able to keep as immaculately clean and separate as she does, and which i suspect is part of her success, but i might give it a go at some point. the escape to angers is postponed until next weekend (if i can't make it to meet up with K), as M&P invited me to come out with them and the girls in the car tomorrow - they are going on a castle expedition. i have decided i don't care where i go (or with whom, really), as long as i can sit in a coffee shop. chateaux all have coffee shops, therefore i will go to a chateau with them. i did go with C for a big long walk around the lake (to make up for my pathetic half-hour-only run this morning) in the sunshine, which definitely increased the sanity to art ratio of the weekend (i have only gotten a tiny corner of my next master copy done, and according to the schedule i am supposed to be done and on to the next one by sunday night. not going to happen. standards are crashing down, but it is all in the interests of not stabbing myself in the eyeball with a charcoal pencil out of frustration, which i think is a good thing.) C luckily is 100% sane and very nice and very easy company as well. gotta hang out with her more often, man. the plan for this evening is to see if i can get H to play scrabble with me; we've been posturing and waving our scrabble antlers at each other for a bit, now, and it might be time to put it to the test.

ooh, but dinner might have to be first...