Bonjour, Kelly!

For the record:

-I left the house two times yesterday. Once to walk my brother to the train station. Once to buy a package of my most favorite vanilla soy yogurt and a bottle of Cremant du Jura (Jura sparkling wine...for NYE tomorrow, duh.) I did NOT do any laundry -- if I did all of my chores at once, how else would I schedule the rest of my vacation?
I'm a sort of philanthropist for my future self, see.

-While I was verbally invited to join some BTS kids for their New Years Eve party, I do not know where this party is, nor do they have a way of contacting me (since I lost my phone, blah blah blah). Luckily, I got a call from the Houvilles, inviting me over. They continue to be especially nice people.

- I got a call from another English teacher whom I rather like, but am perpetually confused by. Well, no so much "confused" as "driven to pity." She's an awfully good teacher, entirely fluent in English and German -- I only know this from ocassionally stopping by her class, otherwise I don't work with her or take any of her classes. Her husband died 5 years ago, a fact you'd quickly learn from both her mourning dress (which she wears Every Single Day) and that she'd tell you, several times, in any conversation. She had mentioned before the holiday that she'd like to have me over, so, essentially, this was a call of apology for not inviting me. Last night, she told me about how she had gone to see her (alzhemier's stricken) father on Christmas, then totaled her car on the highway when a deer ran in front of her. We chatted for a bit, and I said, "Well, the most important thing is that you're okay...and I'm very grateful for that."
"Oh, unfortunately, I'm really not okay," she replied, "You see, I've had terrible back problems in the last year, and this shall only make it worse. Also, I lost my mother this year....and my husband a few years ago....all I have left now is my father, who has Alzhemiers..."
All I can offer her is some temporary companionship, which I am glad to do. I wish I could do more, though...

- On a more shallow note, I tried out one of my new exercise videos yesterday. Before I came here, I was a Exercise Person, mainly so that I wouldn't be a Chubby Person. I haven't broken a sweat in the three months since I've been here, which is not normal for me. This video, of course, changed all that. Unfortunately, it'll probably be another three months before I recover from yesterday's work-out... I have a new pilates video and yoga video to try out as well. (Thanks, Josie and Zac!)

- All of the snow that we had melted overnight. There was a terribly violent storm, with all of the rain and wind you'd expect. Now, I just figured out how to properly close my shutters so that they don't bang around in the wind -- apparently, I wasn't the last, because shutters of the room 2 floors above me clanked around all night. Exciting story: I heard said awful noise and was about to open/lean out my window to find out whose shutters were banging about. Right before I unlocked the window, I heard glass shattering, and saw shards fall past my window. That's unpleasant. It would have been far more unpleasant if that glass fell on my noggin, but since it didn't, we'll keep it at a Category 2: 'God, that's really annoying.'

- Giant Squid!

-Smoking Chimp!

- I dyed my hair last night. I've been coloring it red for two years now and, frankly, and not very interested in knowing what drab color my hair is underneath. Luckily, I found the exact same color here in France, so I've been able to keep my "natural" color. So last night, I'm unpacking the box, which has a picture of a little bottle on the front, proclaiming "Color Boosting Technology!" There was no little bottle on the inside, however. As I was coloring my hair, I thought, "Hmm...this doesn't look as red as normal..." and it's not. In fact, my color is now similar to a 2-week old color. This can only lead me to believe that they put half the color in another, smaller, bottle simply to amuse us chimps with squeezing more shit in. Like, one bottle of color? Maybe that will work. But ho boy! Two bottles?! Now my hair will surely glow brighter than the sun that warms us!


Now, legion of fans, if you'll excuse me, I've got laundry to do... Glamorous laundry.

posted by kelly @ 10:27 AM