Category: Fourre-tout

I always thought that to be proficient in any discipline, you needed to start at a very early age. It turns up that it is not necessarily so.

Some people have been playing golf or tennis for a very long time and they are still hacks. The same goes for pétanque.

It is not the number of hours or years spent on the field that counts, but your natural ability. Innate talent does not need to wait for eons to blossom. You have the “right stuff” or you don’t, and no amount of practice is going to change that.

In the game of pétanque, women can be extremely good at “pointing.” And needless to say that to be successful a team absolutely needs to retain the services of a good pointer.

I know such a person. She started playing relatively late, and she surprisingly became proficient in a fairly short time. This has not gone unnoticed in pétanque circles, and when there are mixed tournament she is very much in demand.
I think that she should parley her pointing skills into more substantial perks.

This individual was born in an unlikely place to play the game. She popped up into the world in a snow-blanketed place called St Petersburg. Few people play pétanque there even though it is not totally uncommon.

“Crossing the Neva, you’ll arrive at the Field of Mars – 22 acres of green lawns in the center of St. Petersburg. Just like its Parisian twin, a vast green lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Field of Mars in St. Petersburg once served as a square for military parades and now it’s a recreational space. On a fine summer day, you can join a group of pétanque players, or simply bask in the sun. And if it’s raining, which is more common for St. Petersburg, you should probably move on to the next route.”

When she came to America, this woman barely spoke English, didn’t know how to drive a car, never tasted escargots or frog legs, and never heard of petanque.
I would say that she was as sophisticated  as a “deplorable.” But she was also a diamond in the rough.

Luckily she met me… and as they say in Hollywood, the rest is history.
She is now one the best pointing dynamo in the club and she is eagerly sought for tournaments.

Her name, by the way, is Tamara Semionovna Efron, and she is my wife. She has brought home more trophies than I care to remember and (confidentially) I find this intolerable.
But facts are facts and I have to accept it.

One more thing…

I would like to reiterate before concluding that “there is absolutely no collusion” between Tamara and Vladimir Putin. If you hear otherwise, it is fake news.

до свидания (das vidania) my friends!

Alain

“I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.” Donald Trump

Typical tacky Trump! But bigger, my voluminous fellow is not necessarily better.

Some people in America have a morbid fascination with size. Everything they lust for has to be BIG!

Size seems to be the primary motivation behind any decision making process. When going to a movie theater, they will purchase a popcorn container big enough to feed a small African village… and a sugary concoction the size of a beer keg.

Personally, I find it rather repugnant that some people cannot sit anywhere without shoving something into their mouth.

In a restaurant, they will order a steak the size of Texas. If they buy a car, it will be a monstrous urban assault vehicle more designed to maul than carrying people. If they date a girl, she will be required to have breasts the size of watermelons.
What is the matter with those lunatics?

When it comes to size, I always have the instinctive reaction of the caveman facing a saber-toothed tiger. I run for cover. Big scares me. Big is not friendly and it will ultimately hurt you.

Yet some people have got to have it. And businesses are only too happy to oblige. They will provide T-shirts the size of a bed sheet, triple-decker hamburgers, ten scoops ice cream portions, Brobdingnagian soft drink containers, sandwiches the size of your forearm… without forgetting the disgusting “all you can eat” menus.

I find that there is something rather morbid about somebody who is primarily attracted by size… Because size will eventually kill you.

If you keep wolfing these triple-deckers, drink these mammoth size Cokes, and keep fornicating with surgically endowed babes, you will meet your maker sooner than expected. And you’ll probably require a triple-decker casket. They have those too… for a big price.
Bigger is not better! It is ultimately dehumanizing and detrimental to your well-being and to your wallet.

In short

It is better to be small and smart than big and stupid!

A small guy

You might wonder why it took me so long to publish this little report.
First of all, we had to celebrate the win of the French national soccer team.

Then I had to call president Macron to congratulate him. Next, I had to give a buzz to POTUS to caution him about a certain fellow who spent most of his life in a KGB environment and whose IQ (or wiliness) is probably vastly superior to our man.

And thirdly, my cat went on a hot pursuit of a cheeky squirrel munching on our nectarines, and I spent a great deal of time tracking the wily beast. I finally recaptured her before she harmed anybody in our neighborhood.

Back to business.
To the utter delight of French fans worldwide, France beat Croatia 4-2 in the finals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Moscow.
For the second time in 20 years, France grabbed the title of World Champion.
As the poet said: “A coeur vaillant, rien d’impossible” (To a valiant heart, nothing is impossible). Vive la France!

Our friend Jean-Michel won’t stop bragging about this for the next 3 months… maybe even longer. Be prepared.

Yesterday in Sonoma, 15 triplettes (45 people) battled for the title and the glory of winning the 2018 Bastille Day tournament. I am not familiar will all the contestants and since no last names were printed, I am incapable of giving you the complete list of all the competitors. In the future though, it would be very helpful for outsiders to see the first and last name of every player.

The contest was advertised as a “mèlée” event and as luck would have it, I was paired off with “Le Facteur” and another French fellow called Jacques Perret.

Jean-Michel is undeniably an excellent pointer, but to be a great player, he absolutely needs to remain cool under fire. Regardless of what is happening on the field, a player has to keep a stiff upper lip and his feelings in check.
If not, it will affect his game and the performance of his partners. No matter how dire the situation, a contestant has to keep his mouth in check and his powder dry.

And as I always said, no game is ever lost until the last point has been homologated. You need to fight hard until the last cartridge has been spent.

Our team started well though, winning our two games in the morning and qualifying for the Concours.

At noon, decked in Bleu, Blanc, Rouge, Jean-Michel gave his traditional spirited rendition of “La Marseillaise”. He also warmly encouraged everybody to watch the French soccer team in action.

In the afternoon we won one more game, propelling us to the 1/4 finals.
Our 4th game against Ed Clay, George and Tamara was a hotly contested match that we achingly lost 11/13. I need to talk to my wife about this.

Our 5^th game at the end of the day (for 3^rd place in the Concours) did not fare so well. I believe that we lost 5-13.

Being kept busy on the field, I could not take a lot of pictures. I shot sporadically with my iPhone, my little Canon G7 and my Canon EOS T 2i. Some pictures turned out OK and some not.

I also want to thank Carlos Chavez (a fellow photographer) who took some rare pictures of myself. Tamara also managed to take a few good shots. Thank you both.

Concours
1^st place: Ted, Debbie K. & Linda
2^nd place: Ed Clay, Tamara Efron, George

Consolante;
1^st place: Johnathan Dalmau, John Morrison, Henry Wessel
2^nd place: Mike Menefee, Joe La Torre, Steve D.

Thank you for your attention.

Alain

Watch the pictures… Some are very good.