Drooling over Kansas

I woke up over Kansas.

After three weeks with John Luke



and Yo yo (hobby horse by moi),



I had no trouble sleeping on the plane.

I was dreaming that Kevin called, but the line got disconnected. I was trying to call him back, but my the phone was so wet that my fingers kept slipping off of the keys. I woke up over Kansas with drool spilling out of my mouth, running down my chin, making a long string to my chest where a large patch of my shirt was so wet I could have rung it out. I guess the baby taught me a thing or two rather than vice versa. Downside: I slept through the beverage offering which was my only source of sustenance as I had eaten my snacks before boarding. Upside: the guy next to me didn't try to talk to me at all after that nap.

Goodness!

I finished David Copperfield weeks ago, but still I am left with deep regret that I am not Agnes. Agnes not only desires to be good, but is good. She cares for her alcoholic father all her life. She loves David, but acts as his true friend and sister, even befriending his wife. She always knows exactly what to say, what is right, what is good. She finds happiness even as her home and father and father's business collapse around her. She is confident and capable, and strong in a quiet way. She patiently waits for a reward that may never come. If only wanting to be good made one so, I would be so very, very good.

Sigh

Yo yo, my four year old niece, is pointing at my sister and yelling, "You're incorrect!" because she's sure that a band-aide won't be good for her scraped knee. Only the daughter of two Harvard grads could be naughty with such sophistication.

Calling all writers

My original intention was to end this blog after "summer oh seven" as the name suggests. However, it's been so nice being in touch with all of you (most of you are still emailing privately rather than posting on the blog, but that's okay, I forgive you) that I think I will keep it up.

I'm hoping I don't have quite as many embarrassing moments to write about now that I'm safely back in an English speaking country, but you never know. So, I'll be telling you what I'm reading, what I'm eating, and, probably about my embarrassing moments.

But, I was thinking, since Gypsy is the only reader I know of who has her OWN blog, if any of the rest of you have some good stories (like Molly's, see below) but don't have the "courage" (in the French sense, of "will or motivation" not that you aren't brave enough) to start your own, please send me your stories and I will post them for everyone's enjoyment.

Thank you!

Guest Entry by Molly

Marina, our cellar intern from South Africa had told me about a special bread that they have in South Africa called Must Bread that is made with the fermenting white grape juice (hence, only made during harvest). She said she called her mom and asked her how to make Must Bread. Apparently, you have to let it rise over night and then her mom would get up at 4:00 in the morning to punch it down, let it rise again, and then bake it so the family could have warm bread in the morning.

Well, she told me this and we marveled at how nice her mom was to do that and how much work that was and too bad that she didn't have an exact recipie.

What do you know, two days later I enter my office at 7:00 am and am immediately hit with an intoxicating fresh, toasty smell. "why does my office smell like...."

"I made bread!" Marina interrupts me. And she unveils three huge loaves of still warm must bread! It was sooooo good (eggs and sugar and must plus her kindness made it so). We all stuffed ourselves and there was still some left for the tasting room and the construction workers working on our new tasting room.

Marina had been joking about needing someone to marry from the states so she could stay here. All the guys said, "Yep, now you'll have no problem marrying".

For Cherry

Okay, this might not be the most authentic mochi, but it is soooo good.

16 oz mochiko flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 cups milk
5 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine mochiko, sugar, and baking powder. Mix well. Add remaining ingredients to mochiko mixture. Mix well. Pour into a 13x9x3 baking pan. Bake for one hour. Cool. Cut into squares and eat!

After today I'll be able to take a deep breath, relax a minute, and dig in to some French lessons. I have disappeared in order to madly get everything together to apply for a Fulbright. This involves 8 letters from various people, including 2 institutions in France, UCLA professors, language teachers, transcripts....and the idea that they may not reach me in time and all of my planning would be for naught, was stressful. It's not quite said and done, but I send my portion off tomorrow with 5 of the letters and my proposal, and the rest of the letters will hopefully arrive on their own at UCLA. Right? Of course, right.

Meanwhile, the whole Chuang family is asleep at 7:47 am -- oh I jinxed myself, there's the baby now. Gotta go!

Deathrow

7am. I leave Alain's flat in London. I'm headed back to the US. Alone. I'm getting used to seeing myself off and welcoming myself to the next place. On the tube map someone has pasted a "D" where the "H" should be on "Heathrow". I'm being dramatic, but that's how I'm feeling. My shoulders ache with my too-heavy bags. My head pounds with lack of sleep. The pit of my stomach protests that I am leaving the one person I want not to leave a continent and an ocean away.

Somehow the hungover NBA cheerleaders in front of me at the airport don't even cheer me up. Though, I am mildly entertained.

"God, he was the hottest guy I've seen, like, ever...I don't even think I saw his face...I mean, when we woke up this morning, I was almost afraid to look at him."

A few minutes later: "I totally should have asked his name."

Well folks, it's great to be back in America.

Okay, okay, some credit. The nicest boy sat next to me on the plane. He was from Boston. He asked me about my book and he offered to help a disabled woman with her luggage. 20 maybe, big nose, funny glasses, dorky shoes. I loved every bit of him for not being a cheerleader.

Escape to Normalcy

So, I've discovered why I need to read happy, lighthearted, the-protagonist-is-always-all-good children's literature. Today, in London, I decided to go for a run. I'm staying at Alain's which is in a suburb, with meandering brick and gravel paths occasionally jetting you through some field of blackberry bushes or a little wooden bridge carrying you over a canal with water lillies. So, I'm running along discovering one delight after another, when it occurs to me that I am the only human around. My footsteps on the gravel become the soundtrack to a horror film. I slow to a walk near the deserted preschool playground. From somewhere far off I can here kids screaming in a game of soccer. Everything is perfectly still. Except my heart, which keeps pounding away as if I had not stopped running. I tell myself I'm nuts, it's Sunday, of course no one's about. See, just a lovely day in the forest. But it doesn't help. The mossy grey fence posts that seemed so picturesque only a moment before now snicker at me as they dance among the tall green weeds surely hiding something sinister. Somehow the solid metal razor scooter laying in the middle of a courtyard of bricks looks limp, like someone has dragged its life, the child, from it and left it there to die. I hear footsteps ahead. A young man is walking his dog. He calls the dog to him. I say hello. He says nothing. I start jogging again, along the edge of a park. Now I can see the kids playing. It's a birthday party. I let my arms dangle and bounce for a moment laughing that I have managed to scare myself. But as I jog past a man and say hello again, I realize he looks as if he could be mentally ill. I decide against going down another deserted path completely tunneled by brambles and turn instead toward the party. I sit on the grass nearby and stretch. A woman reads her book on a bench. The young man comes back with his dog and they play fetch. The little dog runs for the ball each time, but often forgets to pick it up before bouncing back to his master. It looks like rain. I decide to head home. But, where, exactly is home? I was so enthralled with injecting evilness into the quaint cottages and meandering pathways that I did not pay attention to where I was going. I follow my nose. Ah, yes, here is the hill with the stairs I ran up. See, a typical suburb like I know at home. Dads out with their kids. But besides my delusions, there are signs of the city even here. Beer bottles and empty cigarette boxes lie scattered on the ground. I dash past the preschool and find my way back to the canal. It isn't long before I am back, well exercised, in Alain's spacious apartment where his room mates are babbling away while they cook lunch and hang their laundry about the house to dry. I open my happy children's book, (thank goodness I finished Harry Potter already) and escape into the mind of someone more sane than myself.