What are the Chances?
Spades anyone?
Once I officially decided to attend Le Cordon Bleu Paris, I went to the book of faces and joined a few groups I believed would be good resources for planning for my time there.
Monday before I was scheduled to leave, there was a post in the Expats of Color in Paris France group that truly spoke to my soul!
Most people who truly know me, know that I love Spades (and that I’m really damn good at it..hey Melissa and our undefeated tenure at Hampton University as Kenady Queens including a blind 10 bid to maintain our winning streak). I mean what are the chances that someone halfway across the world would post this message 5 days before I was supposed to arrive? I told my sisters that I was pretty sure I’d already found my people.
I quickly responded to the post and, just like that, I found myself in a FB messenger group talking about meeting up on Sunday, April 3rd — just one day after I’d land— to play, and while I was sure I’d be jet lagged, I.did.not.care. I was to immediately have an opportunity to connect with folks in Paris who were obviously of the more intelligent line of humans because they were spades-heads like me!
My travel from Houston to France was horrendous, save being in Polaris business class, but that’s another blog post for another time. Regardless of how exhausting and delayed my voyage, no part of me ever considered flaking on Spades night. Besides, I’d already stocked up on some US-only purchases for one of the ladies to get her fix, I couldn’t bail on them (or the game) now!
Sunday evening came and I hopped in an Uber and headed out. When I arrived, I was greeted by our friendly host- and the savant who had the forethought to bring together this group of card masters for such a time as this. One of the first things JD said to me was, “My husband definitely said you weren’t coming when he found out you landed yesterday. He said she’s 100% going to cancel.” BOOM Proved A wrong from the jump. Never underestimate my affection for (kicking people’s ass at) spades.
Here’s what I loved…
We spent the first two hours or so just talking. 6 of us in a room in our gracious host’s flat. We talked about our experiences. I was curious about what brought these women to move to Paris. It was interesting to hear their stories about what life is like as an immigrant to another country, and the hoops through which they have to jump. The inefficiencies in the process.
What are the chances that a third of the black women in that room were D1 level, collegiate fencers, in their day? What I really love is that hours into our conversations, we’d really never talked about what any of us do for a living. This conversation was void of the mind-numbing, “So what do you do?” This conversation was really one about experiences some shared and some unique, so after I asked them what brought each of them to the land of our American Revolution allies, I was asked why I’d come. I told them of my intensive at Le Cordon Bleu and our host, JD looked at her husband and said, “You should tell her what you do.” As it turns out AD and his two brothers are the masterminds behind ChefClub, an online video platform with videos of some pretty cool recipes. They are determined to show the world that everyone can cook.
He mentioned that they’d been growing the United States presence of ChefClub and we should chat more once I finish my program. I immediately thought, “what are the damn chances?” And that was before I knew they had a following of over 4 million between the US and French divisions. Now, as I stated before, it’s not my intention to go into the profession of culinary arts. I’m taking this course at Le Cordon Bleu because I love to cook and I really wanted to hone my skills, but how interesting that a chance encounter could lead to this level of connectivity in a setting where no one really had an ulterior motive of networking. I appreciated the organic nature of these interactions.
Later that night, my behbeh and I literally sat up for hours watching video after video on the ChefClub platform. They are addicting so don’t start them until you have a few uncommitted hours to kill.
After more conversation about experiences, and how terribly Emily In Paris is a reflection of true Parisian experiences (I still love the show and credit it for part of the reason I’m over here right now), I said, “So can we get a game going.” We’d all settled into the conversation and basically forgotten why we’d come together in the first place; I hadn’t forgotten.
We finally cracked open the very French deck of cards, shuffled, and got to playing. And while it wasn’t the most invigorating game of Spades I’d ever played (and I mean technically I still won), the sum total of the experience probably couldn’t have been any more perfect. I look forward to reconnecting with the Spades Crew again before I leave.
Now tomorrow I promise, I dish on the LCB goods
