New Camera!

But no pictures yet. It's charging.

We've finally had some warm weather--well, warm by my new standards. In the 40s. The snow is mostly gone. We took advantage of it yesterday to walk over to the island of Chatou right across the bridge. We found a giant rival Parc des Impressionistes. Rueil and Chatou seem to be in battle over who owns the impressionists. I'd have to say, Chatou has the better claim. Anyway, their park is much less landscaped but much more full of open space for Tristram to run in (once it's not full of ice) and has some of the most amazing playground equipment I've ever seen. There's a climbing structure I can't do justice to with words, but now I can soon take a picture! There's also a pony club right there, about half an hour closer than Rueil's, so I can take him to watch the ponies. You can see all the pictures at http://www.poneyclubchatou.com/ Also you can play their games to teach you equine skeletal structure, how to tack up your horse, and the parts of a saddle in French (which I don't know both because I never learned that vocabulary and because they only use English and dressage saddles here. Not a horn in sight.)

We walked pretty far down the island, till Tristram announced it was time to go home. There's a golf course there too, right across from Rueil's. The rest of the walk--I'm now determined to go all the way to the end of the island--is next up on my list for Mommy-Tristram adventure day. Also, taking him to that park is first on the list of things to do once it's warm and dry enough.

Today Tristram got his 12-month shot. As is his custom, he looked very offended but didn't cry. He never yells till the second shot, and today there was only one. He spent the whole time we were waiting trying to get into the doctor's office, because he remembered the toys she had from last time. (In France you go and get a prescription for the vaccine, pick it up from the pharmacy, and take it back for the doctor to give.) As soon as his shot was done he ran right back over to them and started playing again. Also, he charmed the medical group's dentist when she came into the waiting room and he ran up to her and held out his toy German Shepherd for her to see. He tried to make friends with a teenager in the waiting room, too, but that was less successful. He mostly made her feel awkward, and she was much more into her phone than she was into babies.

I have six job applications out now, and I would have seven if the navy's civilian employee job site worked. But if they can't maintain a functional site, I probably don't want to work for them anyway. Not that the navy would be my top choice in any circumstances. I think I've exhausted the current government jobs that look suitable, unless I want to go into HR or something like that, so it's time to branch out to the monster.coms of the world. In the meantime, I seem to be making a good impression as a translator with worldmeets.us. When is it reasonable to add that to my resume? January 2009 to present sounds absolutely ridiculous when it's still January.