So. The birthday has been and gone, and what have we learnt from the festivities?
1. That people seem to get oddly offended when they find out that your birthday has already passed without their knowing it. It’s not as if I was having massive celebrations on the side and not inviting them – I’m just a low key kind of girl. My idea of a birthday night out was to treat myself to a quiet night to myself making jam, and to buy some lovely new wool for a crochet project.
There was no jam. There is however, still soaking ominously in my sink, the charred remains of my favourite thick bottomed saucepan, with the occasional skeletal grape looming up from the depths. Not a complete success then, I might venture to say.
2. That D is an awesome individual and that I am lucky to be with him now whether I stay in Japan in the future or not. He came over and cooked me (yes, D, cooking) a delicious meal of Nagoya (his hometown) black miso soup, ginger and spinach-y salmon, a kind of egg mouse in delicately flavoured prawn and mushroom broth (very difficult to explain and I’ve never seen its ilk before, but its subtleties complimented the strength of the black miso perfectly), rice, a good 2004 South African red, and steamed vegetable parcels with seaweed. There was cheesecake for desert. I almost swooned. There were gifts (the Japanese equivalent of the hot water bottle for warming my futon, and, unbelievably, a new ipod, to replace the one that drowned in the typhoon and which I had just resigned myself to not being able to afford to replace); and then there was a Marple DVD and tombe du ciel (more on that later). There was lots of conversation and gooey nose rubbing (an eskimo kiss being my displaying affection and/or intimacy method of choice). There were warm futons and this morning we brunched on freshly baked banana bread, soft boiled eggs with marmite soldiers, and pancakes. British pancakes mind you, none of that North Amercian nonsense. Wafer thin and basking in sugar and lemon juice, just the way they should be. MMMmmm. Completely rotted my teeth away of course, but you can’t have everything.
3. That 25 feels very much the same as 24 did.
4. That the DVD player on my macbook has suddenly decided to proclaim, upon receipt of any DVD I might want to watch, that I have inserted a blank DVD and what would it like me to do with it? We did get to watch the DVDs in the end, but only by lugging the TV and DVD player out of the cupboard and setting them up only to dismantle them again post cinematic experience. I am unsure how to proceed.
5. That I really do enjoy a good slice of cheesecake.
Habits to focus on this week:
1. Get morning walk back on track.
2. A clean kitchen is a kitchen worthy of home made jam tarts. Which I made on Thursday evening and which were so delicious that I ate the whole batch. Clean the kitchen.
3. Don’t eat all the baking.
Things to accomplish by Oct 21st (secretly Oct 18th as I’m conferencing over the weekend):
1. Budget
2. 8 hours’ writing
3. SMILE
4. 4 NJ articles, 1 chapter HP, 20 kanji, CONVERSATION
5. sort emails
6. Finish Anna’s knitting and post with letter
7. Sew green top
8. Work: lesson reports
9. Nails
10. Figure out w/e 27-8 and email people concerned
11. Lighten up, for heaven’s sake!
