Mr. Catastrophe

i thought i was bad, but last night, i met my match. worse than me, actually. first, he decided to serve the wine, seen as our waiter was running around like a headless chicken. it worked fine for the people sitting across from him, but when it got to a bit further, he thought he could deal with the distance and all the glasses... but no. so down went my drink. luckily, my reflexes were good enough that i managed to miss all the liquid flowing toward me. but my table set was completely soaked. R. was incredibly apologetic. i assured him it was ok.

later on, after we'd all finished the delicious food, it seems R., concentrating on the current discussion, decided to dispose of his napkin by putting it on the table. or rather, on top of the candle burning there. flames shot up, which only S. noticed at first. i turned around and i think it was me who told R. there was a fire. R.'s reaction was: who lit the fire? but other than that, he seemed to think it'd go out on his own. i took my glass of water and emptied it on the flames, but there were some left so R. (finally) threw the contents of his on the rest, nearly soaking the brand new i-phone that was sitting on the other side of the table. it was funny, but obviously, we shouldn't rely on him to save us if something ever happens!

parcours du combatant

je devais prendre le tram pour traverser la ville. j'avais largement le temps: les trams passent toutes les 5 minutes et il fallait à peine 20 minutes pour arriver à destination et j'avais plus d'une demie heure devant moi. j'allais donc même être en avance.

après plus de 10 minutes d'attente pour un tram, et n'en ayant vu passer aucun dans l'autre sens (j'étais presque au terminus), je me suis dit que visiblement, y'avait un problème. j'allais donc devoir marcher jusqu'à la gare et prendre un bus qui allait à peu près dans la bonne direction. à mi-chemin je vois le premier tram passer dans l'autre sens. bon, il en avait encore pour un moment avant d'arriver, donc autant continuer à pied jusqu'au prochain arrêt. la bonne nouvelle, c'était que c'était le tram dont j'avais besoin, le 13, donc j'allais être à l'heure.

quand le tram est arrivé à l'arrêt où je m'étais arrêtée, c'était devenu un 15. bon, pas de problème. c'était les 3/4 du chemin, et après, y'en aurait pour 5 minutes à pied. entre temps, il était bondé, forcément. trois arrêts plus tard, le conducteur nous annonce que le tram est devenu un 16 et qu'il changeait donc totalement de direction. typique. tout le monde sort, évidemment. je me hâte vers le prochain arrêt, espérant contre toute attente qu'un autre tram arrive. apparemment, il y avait eu un énorme problème sur tout le réseau, ce qui expliquait ce bordel total.

finalement, j'ai fait le reste de la route à pied. heureusement, Genève n'est pas une grande ville, et donc je n'avais que 10 minutes de retard. je suis même arrivée avant un pote que j'avais croisé avant de monter dans le tram, qui lui venait en moto!

lilacs

my favourite flower, as i'm sure i've mentioned before... anyway, last year i wasn't able to enjoy their blooming, as i was wandering around in Morocco, but this year i'm here and my are they gorgeous! and they smell so nice, too.

lakeside

what a great day yesterday was. i was walking along the lake, on my way to meeting a friend for lunch, and the weather was so nice that i regretted we'd chosen another place to eat. but as luck would have it, the place was closed, so when she suggested sitting at the terrace by the water, i immediately agreed. we might only have eaten sandwiches and fruit salads, but the sun was nicely baking us into idleness. when my friend left, i stayed for a while before heading lack along the lake. that's when i heard the trumpet. it turned out some young guy was having a good time sitting underneath a big tree, playing to himself (and us happy listeners), with some recorded background music. i sat myself on a nearby bench overlooking the water. there were only 2 noises i was interested in: the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks below me and the lovely jazz. it unfortunately didn't last very long, but honestly, it was great.

the police station

when i got my bank statement last month, i noticed that money had been withdrawn on my credit card without my authorisation. after talking to my bank manager about it, i sent a letter to claim my money back. easy. or so i thought.

because of the recent rise in the frequency of such occurences, the bank now asks that we go down to the police station to make a formal statement, which they need a copy of. great. i wouldn't have bothered, cos it was only 20 euros, but they'd gone and cancelled my card anyway, so i wasn't really given much choice. the thing about French police stations, though, is that things go VERY slowly...

i drove up there on Tuesday morning and was lucky to be the only person there. an officer who took down the main details of the event and then spent another 20 minutes or so ticking various fields in various forms (or so i assume, seen as he didn't speak to me at all for that part, but kept clicking on his mouse). eventually, we got to the part of the formal statement, and can you believe it, they don't use a template! this kind of problem is regular, each station probably taking down 10 such statements a day, but no, they write up every single one individually. right. what a waste of time... anyway, it was finally printed and all i had to do was sign (i ignored the spelling mistakes cos by then, i'd been there for over 45 mns). by the time i left, there were 3 people waiting to be taken care of, cos apparently, only one of the officers there was in charge of that. go figure...

players

man to woman:
'you and i, we're a team.'
(hugging her) 'that's what being in a relationship means.'

man to everyone around:
'wherever she goes, i follow.'

would you assume those two were a couple? out of context, maybe not. add lots of touching and knowing smiles. now would you?

these were just some of the words i heard uttered last week. and everyone but one person came to the same conclusion: that if those two weren't dating yet, it was well on track. the one person being the man. the man who, after a week of non-stop flirting and a final movie-moment (saying goodnight after walking her to her car then coming back within 20 seconds to continue the conversation on some completely ridiculous topic), managed to confuse the poor girl totally by avoiding her kiss.

i've never heard of a guy avoiding a kiss... but at least, it was crystal clear and she then knew where she stood. she told him he was an idiot. he agreed. but he hoped this wouldn't jeopardise their lunch plans the following week...

married men

a friend of mine is having a relationship with a married man. it's not a seedy thing - i've had all the details from the start, when it was just a friendship. things just proceeded along the logical course. while i'm not a big fan of dating married men, i can understand her situation and i feel for her. it's not easy. and while it's quite certain he doesn't love his wife in any way, shape or form, it doesn't make it better. but it's not really my place to say. she's happier now than when she was married, and that can only be good, although i'm pretty certain it will not end well.

and then, while talking to another friend recently, it seems pretty certain she's heading the same way. she didn't actually say so, but i know that she fell under her boss' charm the day she met him, when he interviewed her. then she went and asked me about my friend and how that was working out, which was just a little strange, so i made a point out of saying that no matter how it all started innocently, the unmarried person would always be the one left hanging while the married person still had their life, spouse, kids, etc, and that it was just sad, and hard to get out of, presumably. then it turns out he's now gone and invited her to dinner. just what she didn't need. i can't quite see how he's going to justify taking an employee to dinner on a day off to his wife, but i didn't ask. anyway, she's gone now and i can only hope she'll be strong and stay well away from disaster.

Special Agent Booth

i know this sounds completely out of this world, but what the hell. there's a TV show that the archaeologist in me quite likes (and sometimes wonders why i didn't follow that career path), where the main character is partner to an FBI agent called Booth. and while i know he's just a character, i think this particular character is kind of the ideal man. mine, anyway. for now. or maybe it was just that episode the other day, where he became all protective. while i don't technically really need protecting, it'd be nice if someone did it all the same.

tarot

there is a French card game called tarot, which has nothing to do with telling someone's future. it's kind of like 'hearts' and, i imagine (having never played it) like bridge. anyway, i hadn't played in years. 15, in fact. in high school, i played every day. i loved the game. but since leaving France, i hadn't met anyone who could play, and after not playing for so long, i'd actually forgotten all the rules except one, as i found out when we started playing at the picnic yesterday. the first 2 games were completely lost on me, but thereafter, i started remembering and by the end (after 10 or more games), i was even remembering to play strategically! unfortunately, my memory is now crammed with student information, so i couldn't for the life of me remember more than the latest play, which was pretty useless, but still. it was fun. and it didn't matter than P. and his teammate (amazingly, considering you have to call one of the four kings and you never know who has it, nearly always M.) won every single game and that no matter how many points we managed to save, we still lost them all, save one.

picnic

first picnic of the year. and what a day!

we met up in a park near the lake. the sun was shining, the sky was blue, there wasn't even a breeze. we'd all brought something to eat, and there was rosé wine, white wine, martini and some fruit juices to drink. even ice-cubes, until they melted.

it was great. we ate and drank, played some volley-ball, frisbee and cards, and talked and talked. and all the time, it was nice and warm. as the first to arrive, i'd been there for over 5 hours by the time we left. 2 of us then took the 'ferry' to finish off the day - it wasn't necessary, cos it was just a 10-mn walk, but it was so nice to be on the lake for a while, up and down on the water. the perfect ending to a perfect day!

mojito

i had my first mojito ever, last night. i was in a foul mood, yet there i was, about to welcome 20-odd people to my fortnightly drinks. people who know me will tell you this never happens. that i drink alcohol when i'm out (as opposed to home) rarely happens. cocktails, never. a cocktail when i've barely eaten and i'm driving... well, you get the picture.

anyway, i asked for a mojito and the bartender, who knows me, asked if i was celebrating. no. ah... so he'd make it extra strong then, he said. i asked him not to. it was bad enough that i was drinking, no need to make it worse. he did well. it was very nice. i'd tried caipirinha once, and really hadn't liked it, but this, i could drink easily. and i was very soon a little tipsy. and in a better mood.

the party

after my lazy day, things continued at a slow pace until we made it to the party. at about 6.30, i took a shower, spent some time on my make-up (now that i know how!) and had a lovely dinner of asparagus and home-made pasta that i'd bought on the market. then i set off for town, where there was very little traffic, and even found a parking space near the venue we would eventually head for after the drinks. perfect.

the drinks were nice. we left later than we'd planned and once at the party place, found a huge queue of people waiting to get in. ah... the one thing i'd feared with my friends' timing. but not a problem in the end, as the organiser came out just as we got there and said 'you don't have to queue! come on in!' cool. being a local celebrity has its uses. this didn't stop me from feeling bad for the people who'd been queuing all this time, but it would have been silly to refuse; and we did have to queue for the cloakroom.

my friends' timing was based on us not getting there before people had got the guts to dance - we're usually the ones getting the party started, which they seem to find annoying - but they needn't have worried: things were already in full swing. so on we went for hours of dancing (4 for me). although they'd remembered to put the aircon on instead of the heating like they did last year, it was still very hot in there - it is, after all, a church that was converted to a theatre, not an actual nightclub - and by 2am, the music got decidedly boring for me so i decided i'd done my bit and left.

lazy Saturday

it hasn't happened a lot to me lately, but what with Easter coming up and quite a few classes being on holiday, i knew there wouldn't be much preparation work for me this weekend and as it promised to be a gorgeous day, i thought i'd make the most of it.

awoke at 9.30 but stayed in bed till 10.30, enjoying the morning sunshine. strolled around the market, did the grocery shopping, got home and spent a couple of hours reading on my balcony. after a while, thought i should be enjoying the sun some more so took the car to a place where i like to walk. the weather there was, unfortunately, cloudy, but it was still worth it. i took the path that led through the wood, which noone ever takes. silence. well, apart from the sound of the stream and the birds. it was wonderful. there was a point where the singing became quite loud and i did wonder if the birds could not tone it down a bit, but it is spring after all! got home to sunshine, so spent more time on the balcony.

new Afghan law

i found out about this through a 15s thing on TV last night. 15 seconds. nothing else about it on any other TV channel. i checked on the BBC website, and it confirmed i hadn't heard wrong.

a new law seems to have been passed in Afghanistan (well, it was in Feb, but apparently, amendments are being added). a law that "is supposed to provide more protection for women". the law apparently states that women are not allowed to leave home without their husband's permission and that they are obliged to have sexual relations with their husbands at least once every four days. right. i can see how this is for women's protection... or not.

hello? what is going on here? also according to the website, Karzai seems to think this is a misinterpretation by Western journalists. i'm not sure how 'not going out without your husband' and 'you have to have sex with your husband' can be misinterpreted. any ideas?

for full story, go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7983081.stm

summer time

last weekend, we switched over to summer time. it always kills me. ah, how i miss the good old days of living in Japan, where time is the same all year round! anyway, i did my best but still had a shitty week, cos waking up an hour earlier, no matter how much i'd slept, was HARD. i got really confused as to what time i was supposed to get up on, on Thursday... that was a new one.

my father always says i'm useless, cos an hour's time difference should only take a day to get over (this is the jetlag theory). and while it only takes me a plane trip to get over 8 hours of time difference, one hour takes forever. and apparently, this is normal: i've just read an article that explains how difficult it is to get over this change.

admin 3

would you believe that they actually went and sent me another letter to confirm the bloody meeting. not only that, but they got the date wrong again!