Well. Today, for the second day in a row, I took a nap. Stupid jet lag.
Also, I didn’t run today, as I waited until late in the day, planning to run with a group that they told me started at 5:45 from the local running shop. Sounds good, except I was the only one who showed up. “No one runs alone,” they told me, which, as it turns out, was true. After waiting around for 15 minutes I gave up, and by the time I picked up Seth from Barnes & Noble where he was waiting for me, it was dark and cold, and I don’t really have clothes appropriate for running in the dark and cold. And tomorrow it’s supposed to be really, really cold. I’m thinking maybe I need to investigate membership fees at the local Y.
Doing laundry here sucks. No one has dryers. They’re available, but most people just hang dry their clothes. I like the idea in theory, but my theory also includes outdoor clotheslines and significantly lower humidity. It takes forever for clothes to dry - even with the dehumidifier and a fan running. They do dry a little faster with the heater on, but Seth doesn’t like having the heater running while we’re gone. I don’t mind, what with the tile floors and concrete walls and lack of carpet, but hey - I suppose it’s safer to turn it off when we leave.
The point of all of this is that I put clothes on the line early this afternoon, around 1:30. It’s almost midnight now, and they’re still not dry. Grr….not thinking, I put another load in the washer, but I don’t really have enough room to hang two loads on my drying rack. So…assuming the clothes that are currently hanging are dry by then, I’ll have to rewash the load that’s in the washer sometime tomorrow afternoon. Of course, that’ assuming I don’t forget all about the laundry (this job has proven to turn my brain to mush on a fairly regular basis). I don’t think I’ll forget though - it’s the brights load, and lots of my shirts are in there!
Backdated to 01/08/08, since that’s when I wrote it. We forgot to pay the internet bill on time, so they turned it off yesterday. Ooops! We paid it today, though, so it’s all good now.
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans (sorry, all you Canadians, I’m, what, a month late?)! I’m hoping you’re having a great day wherever you are. So, what am I thankful for?
- Seth. He is my constant, my life, my joy. I love you sweetie!
- The instant potatoes and stuffing and gravy mix I had for dinner tonight - mmm…imitation American goodness! Thanks for sending those Mom!
- All the incredible good thoughts, love, and can-only-get-it-in-America food and treats people have sent our way. Truly, these have kept us going during the rough patches.
- My improving demeanor and positive outlook on life lately (roses and cherries and hearts, oh my!) (oh, the cheesle, it is ooey gooey).
- Our new NST, for taking a huge load off of our shoulders.
- Our one working scooter (it looks as though we can probably get by just fine with one, maybe we should sell the lemon?).
- My new corduroy pants - so cozy! I actually had a student pet my leg when I was wearing them yesterday…
Enjoy your turkey and stuffing (or dressing, if you rather), and save a slice of pecan pie for me! (Wait, you don’t do pecan pie? Well, nevermind then. You’re missing out, though.)
Ahh…shopping! After work today, we went into Keelung to hand over my scooter registration (they’d accidentally put the wrong color down, and it needs to be fixed in case I ever get pulled over) to the Piper, the girl who helped us get the scooters. We had mentioned to Evelyn, one of the secretaries at work, that we were going, and that we might go shopping afterwards. She seemed interested, so we told her to call us when she got off if she was interested in meeting up. She called about a half-hour after we’d arrived, right about when we were getting tired of wandering around not entirely sure where we wanted to go to try to find clothes - perfect timing! So, we ended up going to a few stores - Hang Ten (!), Giordano, and Nippon Blue, a Japanese import store. Seth and I both found things we’ve been needing at Hang Ten and Giordano, and marveled over the ridiculous prices at Nippon Blue, where we didn’t bother looking very hard at all.
Then we had dumplings at the night market ( yummy ones, too - usually when I’ve had dumplings before, the vegetable-y taste overwhelmed the pork-y taste, but not so with these), and then went to Working House (an overpriced home goods and gadgets store, where I almost never buy anything but find that I am inextricably drawn to whenever I pass one - I can just look at the stuff for a long time - sort of like Pier One or those organization porn stores, like The Container Store) and a bookstore where Seth bought a gaming magazine he won’t be able to read, since it’s printed in Japanese.
Then, Evelyn headed home, and we stopped off at Baleno, where I found a heavy jacket/light coat for not too much money that’ll keep me warm on the scooter. I’m amazed at how cold it gets when you go 50kmh on an open-air vehicle such as a scooter - the wind is chilly!
Anyway, we’re home now, and I feel really good. I think spending some money on ourselves was a very good thing indeed, as we’ve been needing stuff and hadn’t really had the means or confidence to go get it. So, even if we spent a little more that I’d entirely planned to (although, really, we didn’t spend more than about half of what we took, so I guess I had sort of planned to spend that much), you’ll find no shopper’s remorse here!
My big birthday box from Mom got here today. Inside were things so wonderful, so needed and yearned for, I couldn’t help jumping up to go try it all out right away.
Mom sent me new clothes. When I was living in KS, this was certainly cause for happiness, but not quite the level of elation I’m getting now. But here, where everyone is freakishly tiny and I’m an XL if I’m lucky, I haven’t really found any clothes I can wear for working, and since I’ve continued to lose weight, that’s a problem. I’m down to 165ish now (and still on a downward trend), and even 12s were too lose. So, from halfway across the world, I’ve got 2 new pairs of jeans in a size 10 that fit perfectly. I’m finding that even though I’m wearing a pair right now, I can’t really believe I’m wearing a size 10 anything. I don’t remember a time that I ever wore anything smaller than a 12, and even that was a squeeze. I’m almost afraid that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and it will all have been a dream…