Wednesday, April 8, 2009

American Pick-up Game

Our friends are about to come really soon, so this'll probably be short. We're planning on a hike with them and then eating dinner. The friend is Pierre, who I have mentioned a few times, and he's coming with his family. Most of the kids don't really know English, so... might be sort of awkward. It tends to be awkward when we would visit their house. But anyway.

Then tomorrow or so we have another family coming from the states, my mom's old friend from like high school. So that'll be cool. Makes life hectic and busy, but I'll like actually get to be actually social.

It being extremely summer-like weather, the kind that makes you see and feel (thoughts of) lemonade when you're outside, we naturally want to get outside. The dandelions are also up, which are indeed actually French. They're so.. so.. yellow. There's this little field-place right across the street, and we often see the neighborhood kids playing soccer there. Problem is, it's surrounded by tan apartments which have these square windows for people on the lower level to gaze out of. It also has a parking lot next to it, and then cars parked on the streets. And that leaves little space for throwing things, and many break-a-window/irk-the-neighbor-type hazards. 

But, being the active and disrupting Americans we are, we throw Frisbee anyway. I forgot to mention, but yesterday while throwing Frisbee with my mom at the original place across the street, she uh... well, the cars weren't totally safe. It was the kind of thing you expect to do with your fellow middle school friends, possibly while equipped with a video camera and a whole bucket of swear words. We, being the responsible and guilty Americans we are, naturally re-located. 

As for today, I played catch with my dad so as to watch out for Pierre's car. No Swiss car passed with the right amount of people in it, and eventually we had to get kicked out.

We had been playing for a while, and then this guy and these little kids come out. The little kids would acknowledge us with slightly interested stares, and then move on to their little kid doings. The guy, who I had thought was with the little kids, walked around but then settled in this area to the side of us. He just sort of... stood there. After a while, my dad finally popped the question, or should I say- French phrase which probably causes French people to cringe inside. I mean, no offense to my dad or anything; he's pretty good at French, but I mean... there's just something about all of our accents that makes me think this. The guy said yeah he wanted to play (or at least communicated this to us) and thus we started an American pick-up game. Or whatever. 

The guy reminded me sort of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. He wore navy blue shorts, a slighty-unbuttoned striped blue dress-like shirt and a grey and white-camo cap. His build suggested something around the age of 20 or so, but his face made me think of a teenager. My dad, with slightly limited vocabulary, tried to help show him how to properly throw the Frisbee. He had his own Frisbee, so must of played before probably. His throw was slightly awkward, but I mean it was fine. 

My throws had been wobbly at best, and eventually this got the better of us. This one guy whom I recognized from one of the surrounding apartments came out to sort of scrutinize us, even though it was going fine until this one throw. It curved too far to the right, and although my father sprinted to save it, it hit the side of the apartment with a slight book. I sucked in a "crap I'm dead" type of breath and awaited the glare, the fist shaking, the European anger-management (or lack thereof, really). The scrutinizing guy turned to me and said a bunch of French I sort of got the just of, but none of that severe yelling business. My dad picked up the Frisbee, and then this lady with a... a concerned face leaned out of her window, probably already knowing what happened. Dang. My dad said a bunch of French words and I didn't even try to say sorry or whatever. We explained to the guy that we were waiting for friends and had to go, and then said bye.

Then I blogged about it all, and we're still waiting for the friends. 

...

Nothing much else to say, really. I'll probably have plenty to blog about after the people come, so expect a second post today or something. Yeah.

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