Month: January 2018

Pastries

It wasn’t until I had lived in France for a few months that I found out about the secret bags of pastries.

You see, normally, I would have one to three pastries a week.  That was all that I could afford reasonably, really.  And fresh pastries in France are kind of the bomb dot com.  Period.  Sometimes, during the morning break in class, my classmates and I would walk to the bakery the next street over, and all have a pastry and coffee together.  It was fun and always delicious.  And, compared to the US, the prices were fabulous.  However, there was still a limit – we couldn’t really do it every day on our college student budgets.

But, my life was somewhat transformed when one of the girls in my program told me how she always got her pastries.  D- found a way to try them all on a budget.  She said, ‘Yeah, you just look for these bags up on top of the counter, in a basket, and they’re filled with whatever didn’t sell yesterday.  So, it’s different every day.’

After several days, if not even a couple weeks, of psyching myself up, I finally went to the bakery she’d mentioned, to find these secret bags.  And there they were, crammed full of various pastries, and they were only a few euros.  I think it was that very first time that, even though I totally knew what the bag up on top of the pastry case was, I asked casually to the pastry chef what it was.  He explained it all to me, and how they didn’t want to waste anything, so they bagged it up and sold it cheap the next morning.  I semi-feigned surprise at what he told me, but I was also genuinely surprised that D- had been right and it really was a real thing.  For the price of one or two fresh pastries, I could get a whole bag of ones made only yesterday, and of all different types.  No, if you grow up on fresh French pastries, they aren’t nearly too delicious.  However, we didn’t grow up on fresh French pastries – we delighted in even the day-old pastries like it was some of the best stuff we’d ever eaten.  (And it totally was.)

Plus, if someone had given me a bag of pastries anyway, I probably wouldn’t have eaten them all at once.  It would have taken me most of the day to get through them comfortably, and I’d probably even save something for breakfast the next day.  So, for a huge fraction of the price, we got to do just that.

Usually, I’d share a bag with others, so we all got to try the different pastries.  But I got my own a few times, for sure.

So anyway, if you go to France for vacation or whatever, ask the bakeries in the morning if they have bags of yesterday’s leftovers.  I think there’s even a specific term for it, but my brain is not producing it right now, if there is one… I totally used it, whatever it was, though, word or phrase or whatever… I loved trying out all the different pastries.  However, despite trying so many different pastries, I still almost exclusively get a chocolatine (pain au chocolat everywhere but the southwest), a croissant, and/or a baguette (though those guys aren’t pastries, they are still one of my favorite foods ever).  But whatever.  I got to test out all the stuff and see that I enjoyed it all, as well as discover that I really just love the simple stuff best.  (It’s like a cliché about life or something, but it’s just how I feel about French pastries.)

Post-a-day 2018

 

Delta your life, daily

I’ve begun brushing my hair again.  I started it a few days ago, and it has been long enough that I don’t remember what day was the start of it.  I just remember that I thought about it for at least a few days, if not weeks, and then finally went and pulled out a brush I’d found, cleaned it out, and used it.  I brushed my hair three times that day (meaning occasions, not strokes).  And I’ve done it at least once, if not two or three times each day since.

My old flatmate had a mirror-markered message on her bathroom mirror, and it has always stuck with me in my low times.  It read:

You’re never going to Δ your life
until you Δ something you do daily.

I originally had a secret affinity for it, and therefore for the not-yet-flatmate, because of her use of delta for the word change.  I love math and language, and I slightly nerded out at that casual use of delta.  Naturally, I liked the message, too, but it was really the deltas that had the image stick so well in my mind.  Not going to lie, here.  (lolz… as I sit on my bed, just before I go to sleep…)

Anyway, that message has been a sort of stick in my side, whenever I get down in life.  So, after probably a year of not really brushing my hair regularly (slash almost at all), I began brushing it daily.  And it looks great, of course, because I’m not in the drier Japanese climate in which I previously lived – it gave me curly-type wavy hair, if I didn’t brush it…, but I also stopped brushing it, because I couldn’t justify the effort… which I find sad, because it is extremely easy to brush my hair.  Anyway, I’m doing it again, now, and I’m glad for it.

Every little step along the way not only improves the outcome, but beautifies the journey, which is where we spend most of the time, anyway.  🙂

Post-a-day 2018

The world turned upside down

The internet went out for a little while tonight…, and I find it somewhat hilarious that it was sort of a huge deal for the others in the house, and I almost couldn’t have cared less.  I did, after all, live several months wihout internet at home, both in the US and in Japan, and I even spent some months without cell service or phone service of any kind either…  I kind if enjoyed the certainty of quiet that it allowed.
  Knowing that no call or text or e-mail would arrive on any device whenever I was at home, was like breathing freely in a whole new way.  And all the important people knew my situation, so they knew to show up at my door if they wanted anything immediate, or to plan enough ahead to tell me to go check something at a certain time, using the WiFi down the road.

I almost miss that.  I certainly miss the reliability of work and income I’d had at the time.  😛  But that’s not really the point here, now, is it?

Post-a-day 2018

Walking the fence

Sometimes, it feels like life is on the brink of either incredible breakthrough or tremendous breakdown… as though I’m balancing on a fence, walking along the upper slate of wood, like I did all the time as a kid.  I know it isn’t very safe, and so I am careful, but I do it, nonetheless.  I know it could end in near-tragedy.  But I know, too, that it could end in complete success.  That’s how my life feels right now.  Though my balance seems to be deteriorating as of late, it still feels like I am just one little step away from something huge.

Do I even really care what that is?  I think not.  I just want to know that there is actually something there.

I know fully that I could drop all of this and move elsewhere, find great work, and move forward happily in life.  But something has me here right now, and makes going elsewhere feel like running away.  I just can’t see what it is that I keep wanting to escape every time my balance gets wobbly.  I can’t see the hand that is gripping me from behind, pinning me here either.  I guess I’m walking the fence with blinders on… makes me feel even worse for horses, because this kind of really sucks.

Whatever… I’ll keep thinking on it all.  I know everything will be great eventually for me.  I’m clear on that.  I just hope that I don’t end up running away from something, leaving myself incomplete… perhaps that is the key to everything moving forward.  Well, of course it is.  Duh.  Hmm…

Post-a-day 2018

Phew…

I’m a little off today from all the back-and-forth wth emotions.  Things were super positive this morning, which was an extreme contrast to yesterday evening and last night.  And then things were dreadful for a little while, and then tolerably comfortable for a bit, and then frustrating, and then quite good, and then wonderful, and then mediocre, followed by a burst of totally awesome tonight, and then back down to this near-numbness of right now, absorbing it all as I review the day.  I’m not ready to sleep yet, so I don’t want to do my sleep stuff yet.

I guess that means it’s a good time to play some ukulele.  Let it all go.  Pull an Elsa, but in a warm, island-y way.  Yeah.

Post-a-day 2018

::Sigh…

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t just be better to get a high-paying job in an office, and start saving up.  Then, after a couple or few years, start the process for adoption.  The only work so far that I have loved doing, without almost any question ever, is doing things with other people’s kids (nannying).  Maybe having a somewhat terrible corporate job in suits is worth it for having a kid…

I just don’t see myself happy each morning and each bedtime in a job like that, and that means bad sleep each night and a tough start to the day each morning.

I don’t know… sometimes I get depressive, and then desperate, and start calculating what ‘makes sense’ for life, as opposed to ‘listening to my heart’.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve even asked my heart what I/it want/wants to do with my life and time…

Now is as good a time as ever, I suppose.  🙂

 

P.S.  I’ve noticed that, whenever I get upset in the depressed, my life is going nowhere experience, I have an almost panicked desire to move to Europe, and it is most often France.  It’s not like I have any idea whatsoever what I would do there, or how that would solve any of my current issues.  Plus, it would create the issue of being away from almost everyone I know and love and who loves me, since most of them are in the US.  However, there’s just this feeling that arises that living in Europe somehow would just make everything okay, and in a good way (not just tolerable okay, but good okay).  Anyway, just something I noticed tonight.

Post-a-day 2018

My life in a novel

I feel like pieces of my life – almost every day – could be parts of a Sophie Kinsella novel.  Perhaps that is how she writes her novels; she combines all the ridiculous bits of her own life, with the plot of a made-up person’s life.  Even if she doesn’t do that, I think this is good enough validation for me to do that myself.  I mean, let’s be real here: I’m wearing a would-be engagement ring around these days, as though it’s no big deal, and I’m about to start telling people about how amazing it actually is, and how I think it’s a great thing for women to try at some point when they aren’t actually engaged.  How is that standard white bread normal?  Plus, wouldn’t that be a great part of a book about smart yet silly, somewhat crazy girl in her mid-twenties?  Exactly.  I need to start writing my own Sophie Kinsella novels.  She has inspired me and shown me that my life has just enough ridiculous for such a story.

Post-a-day 2018

Baby steps, again

I feel frustrated, so I’ll just share my list of goals to accomplish for tomorrow before 2:00-ish PM.

For tomorrow, anyhow, my goal is to hang up as much hanging clothing as is now possible in the closet space I cleared out the other week; then finish filling my dresser with clothes; fill out and send the online requests for recommendations for my grad school app; and then, hopefully, start clearing off space on the table desk, so I can start using it soon.

I have to write two-ish essays for my application.

Post-a-day 2018

Where are you?

Today, I met with my mom, aunt, and cousins in Galveston.  I was driving there from my aunt’s house, which is east of Houston (toward Louisiana), and so was scheduled to ride the Bolivar Ferry across to the island (not normally the case, because there’s a bridge to Galveston Island from Houston).  My mom and I usually ride the ferry whenever we go to Galveston, so she scheduled herself to ride the ferry over to meet me as I was first arriving to it.  That way, we could ride it together, if only the one direction.

And so, we kept in touch via phone, so that my mom knew about when to get over to the ferry.  When I was not too close yet, we spoke.  When I was getting somewhat close, we spoke, and my mom headed to the ferry.  But, there was no parking, so we spoke again, so that she could tell me that she was not on foot but in a vehicle.  Okay.

And then I sent her a message (via the handy dandy Siri) to let her know that I was two miles from the ferry landing.  She then called me to tell me that she was about to disembark from the ferry.  Okay.

She calls me a minute later, asking, “Are you about to pass me right now?”

I look up, and see no cars parked to the side of the road.  I glance left, and see her driving in the opposite direction and I am driving, in the line of cars that has clearly just disembarked from the ferry.  Just as I say, “Yes,” I see her face in her vehicle and she seems to look right at me, too.  She gives something like an Okay, and hangs up.

I continue on the road toward the ferry.  Within a minute, I’m stopped in line behind a car, waiting for the ferry.  I see my mom’s vehicle driving up, and am somewhat surprised at how quickly she managed to turn around and get back to the ferry.  She pulls up right behind me and stops in the line of vehicles.

At this point, it it clear that we will not make it onto this ferry, and so will have to wait about twenty minutes for the next.  Since it is cold out, I grab my scarf and put it on.  As I am reaching for my sweater in the passenger seat, I answer my phone with a not-actually-annoyed-but-playing-at-it, “What?”  I look up at my mom in the rearview mirror as I answer the phone, and I see her calling me.

She responds, “Where are you?”

…

For a moment, I am stunned and cannot speak.  Then, I begin to laugh and I tell her, “Right in Front.  Of.  You.”

I see her looking more carefully at the truck (I’m in the truck), and then we both are laughing, barely able to speak.

I don’t even know what we said after that, but the call ended somewhat quickly, and I went and joined her in her vehicle to listen to Canadian French country western music together.

We joked about it throughout the day as a family, because that was just too good to let alone.

Moms.  Gotta love them.

 

Also, she bought me this stellar ring today.  It has diamonds and everything, and looks totally old fashioned (but clean!) and also totally like an engagement ring (but that wasn’t why I got it).  And it probably would have been an engagement ring if it hadn’t ended up in this particular shop (and I hadn’t gotten it).  I got it, because I just loved the ring, and it made my heart go doki-doki when I put it on after it was cleaned.  I was planning to buy it myself, but then my mom just bought it for me.  So we marveled at it in the sunlight together afterward, and laughed at how people were going to think me engaged now, because I just had to show it off to the world, it was that pretty.  Anyway… that’s all for now.  😛

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Post-a-day 2018