bird in winter

Bird in Winter
January 2008

My iTunes: Overture from Mozart's Don Giovanni

I spent the evening playing a French card game with my younger brothers. It's called Mille Bornes French for "thousand milestones." The me is to travel as many miles (milles) as possible, but the journey is fraught with perils like speed limits (limite de vitesse), being out of gas (panne d'essence), accidents (accident), stoplights (stop), and flat tires (creve). Thankfully, though, there are spare tires (roue de secours), ends of speed limits (fin de limite de vitesse), repairs after accidents (reparations), gasoline (essence), and green lights (roulez). If you're lucky, you might even get a bottomless tank of gas (citerne de essence), permanent right of way (vehicule prioritaire), puncture-proof tires (increvable), or be a driving ace (as du volant). The game was rather difficult to find (imagine that, it being hard to find a game in French when you live in America, a nation known for its lack of lingual aptitude...), but it's quite fun and you even learn a little French as you go. The game really isn't lively until you learn all the French curses that lend themselves so well to the situation when you get accident after flat tire after speed limit after red light. Rather like real life? What wouldn't I give for a real-life card that would solve all my driving problems...

Anyway, this is a picture of a bird in my parents' backyard during the snow fall the other day. I thought it looked picturesque, like a holiday card image.