rebecca_in_blue: (subtle sigh)

My birthday this year was pretty awesome. Grandma and Aunt Carla threw a big dinner for me and treated everyone who came to food from wherever they wanted. Adam got Subway, Eva got Burger King, I got Buffalo Wild Wings, and everyone else got Chinese food. And on top of that, Grandma also baked me a double-layered yellow cake. (I told you it was awesome.) Buffalo chicken with celery sticks and blue cheese sauce is one of my very favorite meals in the world, and the ones from Buffalo Wild Wings are among the best. That was an entire present by itself. I also got a toaster from Grandma and Aunt Carla, as a birthday/housewarming gift, and two nice shirts from Aunt Connie. I haven't gotten anything from Sara or Adam yet, but I know that Sara's present is in the mail, and Adam might get me something eventually too.

Scenes From Rebecca's Birthday )

Connie and John also came over to see our apartment this afternoon and were very impressed with it. (They had considered living in this same apartment building when they were first married, and so did Mom when she was in college.) Grandma and Aunt Carla will probably come to see it tomorrow. I might use some of my birthday money to buy a few picture frames for our walls -- or I might not, because I shouldn't be spending my money -- but I really want to frame some pictures of Sara and me in Europe and the rubbing I made of George Llewelyn Davies's grave in Voormezele.

rebecca_in_blue: (subtle)

The days are getting shorter now, and I've started riding my bike at night. The streets look so different in the dark, and it makes me notice things that I never notice during the day. Smells seem to be stronger at night (I guess because there isn't as much to distract you from them) and all the flowers in our neighborhood are like a heady perfume. I love riding past the houses with their windows lit, they look so cozy and peaceful. Tonight I saw two front yards that still had sprinklers running in them, and they were really beautiful. The water shone in the streetlights and the drops were like beads on a shiny beaded necklace.

I love how I feel when I'm out riding my bike. I love the way my legs move when I pedal, "wallowing up the sidewalk," as Anne Sexton once put it. It makes me feel powerful, for some reason, and lately I've been thinking that I need to take that feeling with me when I go on job interviews. I have another one tomorrow morning, and I've also found a temporary job in the mall (it probably won't last more than a few days, but it's better than nothing).

Mom was in town last weekend, and she insisted on celebrating my birthday while she was here. I won't go into details, but I will say that it was even worse than what happened last year, and it ended with Mom telling me and Sara to "get out of my house now." Grandma and Aunt Carla want to take me out to dinner on my actual birthday, which I'm really looking forward to.

rebecca_in_blue: (bemused shrug)

I've been unbelievably busy for the past several days, moving Sara and me into our apartment and unpacking all our stuff. I've gotten almost everything done now. Sara bought us a nice new TV, our aunt gave us an awesome combination VHS/DVD player (I dropped it hard while moving it in, but it still works), and our computer, which was in storage for over a year, is still running fine. The only things we don't have are cable and Internet (we'll have those as of Monday) and a couch. Uncle John came by yesterday and moved in our box spring, set up our bed frame, screwed in my clothes bar, and fixed two legs that had broken off my dresser.

On Wednesday morning I went downtown to apply for foodstamps. I qualified for $421 worth! So I'm going to go shopping tomorrow and buy us a lot of groceries.

The weather is very nice today, sunny and cool with no clouds in the sky. I'm typing this at Mom's house, and I just let Sable outside, so now when I look out the window I can see him rolling around in the middle of the lawn, having a swell time.


And on the off-chance that anyone who reads this journal wants to get me a birthday present, I've compiled a list:
Asthma medication, Singulair and/or Albuterol. I'm hoping to go by the community clinic next week and get a prescription.
Dog nail trimmers, for Sable. We've been meaning to get these forever. He really needs them, poor dog.
Batteries for my digital camera.

rebecca_in_blue: (Default)

Grandma's house was packed (and I mean packed) yesterday with relatives, friends, and people I'd never met. We were having a several-weeks-late wedding reception for my cousin and his new wife. There was chicken in gravy, rice dressing, shrimp fetucinni, crawfish pie, wedding cake, German chocolate cake, and a big bowl of ginger ale and lime sherbert, which is my favorite punch in the world. I was tempted to pick up the punch bowl and drink straight from that, but somehow I restrained myself. Anyway, Grandma's house was very hectic and noisy, and we called it "Hurricane Comeaux."

Today is Eva's birthday (she's 11!), and Adam and I went over to visit her. I had made her another YouTube video like I had for last year, but there was something wrong with the JavaScript on her computer, so she couldn't watch it. While we were there, Adam got a nosebleed for no apparent reason, and on the way back he got blood all over my truck. Driving there and back was like going through a ghost town. One of the busiest streets was completely empty, all five lanes of it, for as far as I could see, and nearly all the businesses were closed and boarded up.

We're doing what we usually do in the face of hurricanes: nothing. I brought in most of our outside things that could've been blown around (my hibiscus plants, etc.) but we haven't boarded up the windows or sand-bagged the house like most of our neighbors have. I'm really only worried about our feral kittens and semi-feral cat. I would bring them inside if I could, but I doubt they would let me.


Meanwhile our computer, which has always worked fine, suddenly started acting like a piece of crap a few days ago. My sibs and I have been trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong, but we haven't had any luck yet. Very frustrating.

rebecca_in_blue: (dozing off)
I remember well how busy the last week before vacation was in high school, and this lycée is just the same way. I still need to look up all the JM Barrie sites I want to visit in London, but my most important goal in preparing for London is to get some sleep sometime before Friday evening. (I was also planning to do my laundry before I left, but I had to scrap that – I simply didn’t have the time.) Unfortunately I have my appointment with the ANAEM at 8:15 tomorrow morning, which means I’ll have to get up at 6:00 to get there in time. And I have classes all tomorrow afternoon, so I won’t be able to catch a nap.

Yesterday was Marlene’s birthday. She had wanted to something special, like for us to take a trip to Paris, but this week has been so hectic that we just had a little party in Marina and Mariana’s apartment. I baked a final batch of pecan muffins and made a card with Happy Birthday in German. (It’s Glücklicher Geburtstag, or something. I needed an entire sheet of paper to write it all.) Today Mariana, Marlene, Sara, and I were invited to eat lunch at Madame C’s house. Her house was lovely, and so was her food, but it lasted so long that it was why I couldn’t do my laundry. Luch started at 12:30, but it was almost 4:00 by the time we got back to the lycée, because lunch entailed a trip to a neighboring town and a walk through the woods. (I will explain more later. Much later.)

In the last two weeks, I have baked four dozen pecan pie muffins.
rebecca_in_blue: (Default)

My sore throat is better now, but I still have a nagging cough. Around four in the morning on Friday, I woke up coughing so hard that it took me an hour to get back to sleep. Heather and I went into town together Friday afternoon, and when I told her that I needed to buy some cough syrup, she said, "Yeah, I know, I heard you last night" (she has the room right next to mine), so apparently it is even worse than I thought. French cough syrup does not taste at all like it does in America, although it is a lot better than Jamaican cough syrup. Nakeisha gave me a dose after I almost couged up a lung in her room, and it tasted exactly like a mix of salad dressing and gasoline.

On Friday evening, the school held a small party for all the foreign assistants and foreign exchange students. I lost track of how many different countries we came from between all of us. There was a boy from Scotland who played on his bagpipes for us, and there was also an assistant from an Eastern European country (I forget which one exactly, possibly Poland) who was very excited to meet Nakeisha because, she said, "I never heard a Jamaican accent in the real life." Sara taught us all a few Chinese words, and Marlena taught us some in German. Nakeisha tried to say "I love you" in German, and you can imagine what German sounds like in a Jamaican accent – or maybe you can't, but suffice to say that Marlena laughed so hard she cried. It was a lot of fun.

Today Marlena told me that she was taking a trip into a nearby town with the German teachers here at school, and she invited me to come along. We went first to Pierrefond, a nearby town with an incredible ancient castle built on a hill. It dates back to the early 1300s and was supposedly the model for the castle in Disney World. We didn't go inside it, but we walked all around it, and it was breathtaking. I would really like to go back again. Then we piled in the car again and drove to Compeigne, another nearby town, where we walked through an enormous park designed by Napoleon III full of statues and gorgeous flowers. It was a pretty amazing way to spend my birthday, and even better, the weather here was beautiful – very sunny and warm, with literally not a cloud in the sky!

After the park, Marlena and the teachers wanted to go shopping, so we headed to the botique area of town. Unfortunately Rebecca is the kind of girl who buys her clothes at Wal-Mart or Goodwill, and so she felt very out-of-place and bored in swanky expensive shops devoted entirely to perfume or shoes or lingerie. The women I was with never seemed to run out of money, because they kept going into one store after another after another, while I recited the entirety of The Wizard of Oz inside my head to amuse myself. (As I said, I was bored out of my skull.) I had just gotten to, "She's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead," when thank God, they finished. I realized on the way back that I can count on one hand the number of times I've ridden in a car since I arrived here. I hope I still remember how to drive when I get back!

rebecca_in_blue: (pursed lips)

Today Mom took me to her very swanky hair salon in hopes that her stylist could undo some of the damage. My hair is even shorter now, but it's much more pixie-ish and feminine, which I like. It's infinitely better than it looked before, although I'm still not sure if I like it as much as having long hair. Anyway, I feel very relieved and I've finally taken off my Harry Potter baseball cap. But otherwise, today was not so great. Mom and I spent the afternoon running errands, and we were on our way to the hair salon when her SUV got a flat tire, which lead to a lot of yelling and unpleasantness.

Mom had decided that we should celebrate my birthday today, since I won't be here when it actually is my birthday. But she slept this evening and Sara had to work, so my party just consisted of Athena, Adam, and me eating cake and playing video games (Athena tried out our Wii for the first time and was surprisingly good at it). It was fun, but I think that next year I would like to celebrate my birthday at Grandma's house so more people can attend. The best thing was my cake, which not only tasted delicious but also had le drapeau tricolore (a.k.a. the French flag) on it. Formidable!

rebecca_in_blue: (dozing off)

It seems like today and yesterday have contained a year's worth of good times and good news. 

Yesterday I went right over to Grandma's house after I got off work. She was serving dinner of shrimp gumbo, crawfish pie, and pizza, as well as several different desserts. Connie, Athena, Eva, and Karla Ann were there visiting, and Josh, Jacob, Cathy, and Mackenzie were in town from Alabama. So Grandma's house was full of people talking, laughing, and eating delicious food, which is exactly the way it should be. I hadn't seen Mackenzie since she was a baby, and at first I almost didn't recognize the big walking, talking 2-year-old. Although I usually tolerate young children at best, I found her extremely cute. Several people asked me about my plans to go to France during dinner, but I wasn't able to tell them much, since I was still waiting on pins and needles to get a letter from the school where I will be teaching.

After I got home that evening, I checked my e-mail, and lo and behold, there was a letter from the English teacher at my school. She seemed very polite, and she explained a lot about the town, the school, and its students; best of all, she filled me in on living arrangements. My school can provide housing for me, and no one can imagine what a huge relief it was to get that news. I will be renting a room with a bed, desk, dresser, closet, and sink, and sharing a bathroom and a kitchen down the hall with other assistants -- all for only 76 euros a month! I felt like an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. Although I'm still scared of going to a foreign country all by myself, I also think that it might just be the time of my life.

After I got off work today, Adam and I went right over to Eva's house for her 10th birthday party. Connie was serving fried shrimp and rice dressing for dinner, with a cookies, ice cream, and a delicious homemade birthday cake for dessert, and a lot of the family was there (but not Sara or Athena, who had to work). Eva's presents included a toy rifle and handcuffs, two plastic pistols and a holster, a cowboy hat, a three-pound bag of licorice, and a stuffed dog that was almost as big as her. I told everyone about the letter during dinner, and there were all very happy for me. Grandma must have felt as relieved as I did, because I think she almost cried; she seems to think that France is a third-world country, because she once asked me if they had washing machines there.

P.S. Yesterday I realized something that I should have realized when I booked my flight last week. I will be leaving the country on September 18, the three-year anniversary of the day Carolyn died, which was also the last day I spent with Dad, who died a month later. When I told Athena this, she said it was a good omen. I'm not so sure.

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