Sometimes I ...

Since moving back to the states, there are some things I do now, just because I can. Sometimes I ...

... Go buy groceries at 11pm at night. Because the stores are open. Not only are they open, but the crowds are gone.

... Stare in wonder at the selection of biscuits and waffles and pancakes and sausages and breakfast burritos on the breakfast foods aisle.

... Get slightly choked up that the grocery store book and magazine section has more English language reading than I saw in the biggest bookstores in France.

... Can't help but laugh at the insanely huge and bloated vehicles that Americans drive. V8 hot rods I can understand, but why would anyone want to have to struggle around town in something as ungainly as a Hummer?

... Want to just lie flat and stretched out on the cool, air-conditioned floors everywhere. Last night a store manager came and apologized to us, and gave us free cinnamon twists, because the AC wasn't doing a very good job in his Taco Bell. He hasn't been in a movie theater in Nantes in the summer.

... Go to mega-bookstores like Barnes & Noble, and just sit in the magazine section and absorb the mass of English-language media, and revel in the sheer presence of it all. Can't do this for long, because people think you're weird if you just sit there, so I have to grab something off the shelf and pretend to read it while I sit being thankful. It is an odd world when you can have an entire magazine devoted to collectors of classic Datsuns from the '70's.

... Wish the USA had more political parties. I like the Libertarians and vote for them often, but no one is ever going to take them seriously enough to give them media coverage or put their candidates on stage for presidential debates. Why can't we have Greens and Tories and Socialistes and UMPs and a Centre Nationale des Independents et Paysans (a party for independents and peasants, literally - that's me on both counts). Europe can keep their National Fronts, though. We have enough of those nuts already.

... Am absolutely stunned by the variety of stuff on the frozen food aisle. Super U had eight kinds of frozen pizza. The Wal-Mart grocery has a whole aisle devoted to pizzas. And another for chicken wings.

... Reflexively point in delight every time I see an entire restaurant devoted to hot wings. Or Cajun food. Or Japanese, or Indian, or Jamaican.

... Am amazed by customer service. When you don't have it for a long time, it's a pleasant but bizarre shock. The guy at Woodcraft exchanged a power carving collet for us, without a receipt, just because he recognized us. And when a replacement wasn't in stock, he took one out of a packaged box from a carving kit and gave it to us, and took the box off the shelf until he could replace the collet on his own. In France it would have been a month before we got our replacement, if ever.

... Go out driving in the evening just to see the night life. Traffic is everywhere, people are out shopping and dining and seeing movies and generally running about. After 7pm, Herbignac was as dead and empty as the abandoned movie set of a 1940's Frankenstein movie. The only nightly sound was the creaking of the metal Super U sign as it dolefully clicked through its time and temperature displays.

... Wonder constantly what various friends in France and Europe would think of things. In the parking lots, "Gosh, what would Claudie think if she could see all these giant vehicles?" At the Fresh Market, "I wonder what Marcel would think of the selection of international spices and ingredients?" At the mall, "I wonder what Camille would think of all the odd fashions?" Out for dinner, "I wonder if we could ever get Beate into a Cajun restaurant?" One thing I do not have to wonder about is Pipe & Pint, because our French pipe collecting friends would love it. Guillaume, you need to fly over here just so you can enjoy open humidors of tobacco, cigars, good pipes, great beers, and wine and lambic all in the same shop...!