with 15 days left to go

These are the shoes that are so busted they are not worth taking home.

Yep, you are seeing right. Normandy tore through FIVE pair this year. That's a good thing I guess - less to take home?

Being home in 15 days is starting to feel unreal. I have so much to get done before then. And French administration is a nightmare. I feel like anything that isn't taken care of already will not likely be done at all.

As usual, I feel like I didn't get to spend as much time with most of my friends as I would have liked to. Regardless, I am so happy that I got to live here for another year, grow closer with my friends, and start to master this language. I still have a long way to go, but am leaps and bounds ahead of where I was in September.

Tomorrow, final exams, the beach, a jazz concert and dancing.

Today, a Skype interview with a program I would love to be a part of. I hope they like what I have to offer them!

Oh, photos from our unforgettable pancake day!

Semicolon pancake!

Me cooking pancakes in the tiniest kitchen ever shared by 11 people

why i love my boyfriend

On gchat:

me: ok baby, me too, i better get some sleep
pancake date tomorrow morning with nath
its a national holiday!

T: France has a pancake day?

me: hahah no that came out so wrong
its the end of the war anniversary
and im celebrating with pancakes

T: Don't care it's pancake day

Best Week (and week-end) Ever, the assistants are leaving (but that's not why it was awesome) edition

On Monday I had a feeling this week was going to fly by. My last week of work, first week of University classes back from the Easter holidays, and worst of all, the last week for the majority of the assistants I know.

I think I had forgotten from the last time how sad it is when the contract comes to an end. And this year I had some absolutely fabulous students. It was hard to say goodbye to them, but even harder to share my last lessons and coffee breaks with my AMAZING colleagues.

There were only two times that I almost cried, first in my class de 1L, when four of my students presented me with this:

It's a beautiful picture frame and inside little notes from my students thanking me for the things that I taught them. In the left corner is a postcard another two students gave me with a Normand Hamburger on it: An apple cut in half stuffed with Camembert, tripes, teurgeule, and crème. Yum!

And the second time I almost let a few teardrops fall was when some terminales (seniors) had a few last questions to ask me about my favorite memories in France, what stereotypes I have come to realize are not true, what the first thing is I want to do when I get home (that one made me super happy because I got to say I will kiss my boyfriend!!) But the thought of not having these students next year, not working with these professors, was overwhelmingly sad. That's what happens when you create a whole nother life somewhere else though. After that, wherever you are, you are going to miss someone.

In other news, I am proud to say I am rocking the face off of my classes at the University. I got all my grades back from before the break and I killed it! Some of the best grades I have ever gotten in France!

National Poetry Month came to a grinding halt before vacation in Rome. I have ideas for all my poems, even some lines worked out, but I simply don't have the time to write them. I think I'll give myself an extension, write them when I can, and still post them here.

So, OK, let's talk about food. Because I have eaten SO. MUCH OF IT. this week! The assistants leaving has sort of inspired everyone to have going away evenings, last meals and all of that.

Wednesday night Bing and I were invited one last time chez Yolande, a professor at Malherbe who went to great lengths to reunite everyone who is lodged here. So she had us over for crepes a la Bretonne and they were even better than the last time. Plus, she showed me her technique for making the perfect egg.

Friday night was oh-my-moussaka Greek wonder (seriously, look at that picture. I am so overwhelmed). The Greek professor from my lycée invited me, the Spanish assistant (who is leaving tomorrow), a Spanish teacher, two French teachers, and the Swedish teacher over to send us away, and we also turned it into a birthday celebration for her. I cannot tell you enough how much I love this cast of characters. Spanish S with his love of dogs and cats, Spanish C with her glittering eyeshadow and a super colorful personality that makes you want to have fun, O, E and S, the French and Swedish teachers, with their soft speech and super interesting insights, and our host Athan, whose personality in all of its stereotypical Greek wonder is as spiced as the dishes she made. She speaks loud and she doesn't take any shit. I love being with all of them - what a diverse group we are!

Athan prepared an amazing full-course Greek meal. We started with a huge bowl of tzatziki and some baguettes to spread it on. You could smell the garlic from a mile away. Then, these amazing little spinach and feta cheese fritters. I don't know what she did with the feta but it almost tasted like paneer somehow. Then, a big Greek salad, and for the main course an enormous moussaka for everyone else and a dish of eggplant, potato, tomatoes and cheese for me. And then to finishe we had a sublime orange cake, and the chocolate cake Sam and I brought from our favorite boulangerie. And someone else brought macarons! I couldn't even eat one, I was so stuffed! Every single dish was super yummy and as I told Athan later that night, I was surprised that she went out of her way to ensure that I could eat everything on the table. My fellow vegetarians in FR know that is something you can say very rarely, and I appreciate the friends who actually get it.

I got dropped off at home in the rain on Friday, slept very little, and woke up for a full Saturday of things to do. Uni work/laundry in the morning followed by Sam and Yann's birthday lunch. I suggested pizza (wtf when I already had pizza planned for dinner?! Ashley, come on really). So we ate pizza in the salle commune, laughed at Youtube clips and joked together. Then ate this incredible gateau aux fraises that Violeta bought as a gift for the two guys.

And then last night, dinner for all the English colleagues from Lycee Victor Hugo. We meet for drinks, walk into a bar and are faced with a dude entirely dressed in a sub leather dress with a ballgag around his neck, a skimask over his face, and a flogger in his hand. Thank god my profs are not uptight! We all had a great laugh and headed over to the pizzeria where I got the best pizza I have tasted yet in Caen, I kid you not. Artichokes, mushrooms, olives, onions and lots of cheese. Que la vie est belle!

After another round of beers we were all on our way home, me laughing out loud down the street about all the things we saw and joked about that night. Oh, how we laugh together. I hope that wherever I end up teaching, the ambiance between the profs is as amazing as it is between them at Victor Hugo.

So now it is Sunday morning. I have lots of work to do, tidying up, letters of recommendation to write, University work to prepare, and CVs to send out as I am starting the job search process in the USA. Plus, a Sunday market to visit and a coffee to be had with one of my best pals.

Oh yeah, and one of the best parts of this week, I bought my plane ticket home. New York, baby, here I come! I think on June 8th when I finally get to New Jersey and am in the arms of my baby, the state will explode from the sheer power of my happiness.

saturday i'm in love

best week(end) ever is back, and it's only saturday. on the quick, a recap.

-yesterday, since my douchenozzle grammar professor established early in the semester that she's not going to teach us said subject, the nerd grammarian in me took herself to the used bookstore (caen is known for having lots of them) and bought exercise booklets in grammar, conjugation, and spelling!!

(i promise, the rest of the weekend is more exciting for those of you who don't find the self-teaching of grammar titilating)

-this morning i fell down my own stairs and didn't break my ankle. win.

-today included lots and lots of walking around caen, no earbuds, appreciating the beauty of doing errands in such a nice city.
*the most exciting of those errands was buying my ticket to munich!!! june 1st will be very very sad, as it is the day i am leaving caen, but at least i can look forward to an awesome last week in europe.

-this evening sylvia showed me how to make some bavarian recipes including knoedel (bread dumplings), mushroom sauce, and a very yummy salad.

-i finally saw the artist. go see it. so, so, so good.

-and finally, i am now ending my day by chatting T about all the movies we are going to watch when i am home. i'm so high on this beautiful little thing called life.

Who's Thankful? This dame.

For the most part, the French don't do Thanksgiving. But I have been blessed enough to find a wonderful Franco-American family who has taken me in, so to speak. And this year they invited me to Thanksgiving with their folks. So instead of sitting in my room missing my family back home and listening to sad mopey songs on Grooveshark, I spent the evening with a super welcoming family eating all the delicious staples of an American Thanksgiving.

First course: Veloute of pumpkin and potatoes with creme fraiche and parsley. A veloute, as W reminded me when I posted my pics on Facebook, is a hearty soup that has been blended into creamy deliciousness.

Then there was the turkey! Turkeys are typically hard to find in France at this time of year, but this family has been doing Thanksgiving for 6 years. They found this bird at a local farm. He's grain-fed and free-range. Which basically means he had a happy life. More than you can say for your average butterball!

Our sides were gravy, stuffing, and these two mashes. Plus homemade cornbread and cranberry sauce. Best I ever had.

Cheese course! I'm definitely introducing this part of the meal to my family next year. We had chevre (W's favorite - the cylinder cheese) and two local cheeses: Pont L'Eveque (the square) and Camembert (the round wheel).

And then it was time for dessert. E really outdid herself. Not one, not two, but three pies! From top to bottom, pumpkin, apple, and pecan.

The night was over much too soon, but I was left with the feeling of family, of holiday, of tradition. I truly am a lucky girl. I hope all of you back home had a great Thanksgiving too!

Two Words

Lavender. Chocolate.

On Cooking

I frickin love it. I've been pseudo-foodie lately, trying out every dish I can think of. My Thanksgiving dinner was out of this world. As I took a bite of my pumpkin pie (for which I didn't use a recipe, thank you very much), I proclaimed in a falsetto singsong voice, "I am a goddess!" My grandfather, a notoriously picky eater, told me it was the best pumpkin pie he's ever had. I mean, the man is my grandfather. He's had a lot of pumpkin pie.

Wednesday night I made my first homemade tomato sauce and wanted to make the same proclamation.

I float my own boat sometimes, but other times my culinary adventures end in disaster. The pumpkin pizza anyone? The attempt at pan-fried chickpeas? The reeses pieces brownies that turned out like sheetrock - which is apparently what happens when you scale the recipe down by 4 but spread the mixture in the same size baking sheet?

The point is, I've got some real talent, but I need lots of training.

Anyone know of a good vegetarian culinary training seminar? I'm looking for about a week, anywhere is fine. It won't do me much good to learn how to bone a duck if I'm never going to use that skill, you know?

More B.W.E.

As you already know, I spent the weekend in Chantepie (next to Rennes - - Brittany region) with my colleague Karen and her boyfriend Fabien, who is a baker, and Friday night we made galletes and crêpes. Crêpes are kind of like pancakes, but very very thin. Then you put dessert things on top and fold it up to make a nummy little sandwich. And galletes are the same thing, but they're more dinnery than dessertey. They're made with black flour instead of white. And mine had ham, cheese, and egg. So in the end I guess they're almost like an omelette (with much less egg) wrapped up inside a very thin pancake! The best part is they are so easy to make. In fact, I made one for lunch today. New plan for when I return to the States: open crêpe and galette restaurant.

So my camera officially sucks. I can take video, but unless I set it to e-mail quality (which absolutely sucks), I can’t post anything over 3 minutes long. As it turns out my camera creates an absurdly huge file size that neither youtube, facebook, blogger, or flickr will let me upload. So there goes the galette video I promised.

Luckily you can still see the one of Fabien flipping a crêpe:


On Saturday, my lovely hosts took me around Rennes. There was a telethon happening to raise money for muscular dystrophy. There were plenty of vendors there, and also two Christmas markets, so I had the chance to buy many, many Christmas presents. We were supposed to go see some French music; unfortunately the bar we wanted to go to was sold-out for the night. But we did get this nice surprise in the street:

I was so entranced by these percussionists. I think it was their baggy pants that drew me in. That, or their clear passion for the music. They rocked.

We had pizza for dinner at this place that apparently used to me much better, but wasn't all that anymore. Then we watched the end of the Miss Francepageant. Both Miss Bretagne (Karen's region) and Miss Normandy (my region) made it into the top 10, which made for some intense cat-fighting. In the end, Miss Bretagne made it into the top 5, but it was someone else who won.

I dreamed some more in French, and then it was time for a traditional Sunday petite dej' (breakfast), complete with baguette, leftover crêpes, nutella(!) and this really delicious caramel cream that Karen introduced me to and since been a little obsessive over. Then we had a nice tour of the Bretagne coast, where I was inspired to write the best poem ever. Or at least all of my poems.

Karen and Fabien took me to St. Malo, which is one of my favorite places here so far. On walking toward it, it looks like a big castle or maybe old farm building, but when you walk into the entrance, you realize it's this whole village. And there are a zillion stores and bakers and breaders and everything you would ever need. Of course there are also more people than any crowds-chlaustrophobic like me could handle, but c'est la vie.

And the best part about St. Malo? The beignets (donuts). There are these beignets bigger than your hand, and you can fill them with anything you want. Chocolate, jelly, NUTELLA! I know I'm supposed to be watching my weight and sugar and all that, but I just couldn't resist. I wish I had taken video of the factory-style assembly line too, but I was too entranced by all the Nutella. Rock out.

After our beignets we had the good chance to see the most beautiful sunset I've seen since Chile 2007. Best. Weekend. Ever.

Best. Week(end). Ever!

In pictures!

I promise I'll do a text summary too. For now, why don't you think of it as a game? Look at the pics, and then imagine what I'll write about them! It's totally fun, and not at all an excuse for me to buy more time in preparing the entries.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.

Une semaine de l’heureuse; or, Best Week Ever

This week had its ups and its downs. Serious downs including the most bizarre doctor’s visit of my life, about which you already read, and the fact that I still can’t withdrawal my pay. Bummer. But despite that, and some other negative things, there was a whole lot of good this week. And so I’d much rather focus on that.

First and foremost, I found the best cereal ever in the supermarket! Whoever came up with the idea of an entire breakfast of chocolate chip cookies is my hero. And, to go with this delish cereal, I found soy milk! Thank god, because I was beginning to think it didn’t exist here before I found it. Phew. Now I don’t even have to think about the whole drink-from-a-cow-thing.

Over the weekend I had a walk with some of my colleagues from the school where I work. It was a lovely walk on a trail through Point L’Eveche, a nearby city to Lisieux. We spoke in French and I understood a lot! Not everything, but through the words I did know and the context, I could figure out the bulk of the conversation. And like everyone else, these friends were great about keeping me engaged.

The night after the walk in Point L’Eveche, I hung out with Cecil and Milena (the other American assistant and the Spanish assistant). I just adore both of them. We had really good, relaxed conversation over a game of Uno and some disco biscuits and pizza crackers. Milena doesn’t speak English, which is great for Cecil and me because it makes it necessary to practice our French instead of falling back into comfy English. And here’s the most awesome thing (I think): when Cecil walked me back home after, we continued to speak in French. For the whole 15 minute walk! It would have been much easier to speak in English, but I think it’s pretty clear that Cecil and I both care about learning the language and practicing as much as we can. And that’s exactly the type of person I want to be around here in France.

The night after Point L’Eveche and hanging with Cecil and Milena, I did not have a headache! Usually, after a day with that much French, I feel entirely drained and need to take two ibuprofens just to be able to sleep. Would it be arrogant to say this shows I am on the way to becoming fluent?

Tapan told me he’s going to download Veronica Mars seasons 2 and 3 for me. This is part of the best week ever for a very serious reason: Veronica Mars rocks! I bought season one with me and planned to watch it over the course of seven months, but it was impossible. The end of each episode is a cliffhanger, OK? Can you really blame me for having to constantly go on to the next? And besides, it was a long, lonely vacances and I had no money to go anywhere, and sometimes it was raining anyway. Considering all that, it’s only mildly frightening that I watched the entire season in two days.

I sent Donna her b-day present and the postage was only 3 euros. Sweet. This means I’ll be able to send many presents to many people.

There were only two good things about the doctor’s appointment. 1. I met all the other English assistants in Caen and they were pretty awesome. 2. I found the clinic entirely by myself. The day before my appointment I had no internet access at all so I couldn’t use google maps to get my directions. I just had an address in my hand. But I somehow managed to get to Caen (the next-door city), find the correct bus line, and find my way to the building. And I only had to ask one person on the street for help. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but anyone who knows Oh Ashley will understand what progress I have made! [As an aside, why is google not recognized by the Microsoft Word dictionary? It is both a noun and a verb.]

I have acclimated to the French keyboards. So much in fact, that I often make typos on my personal QWERTY keyboard.

My lungs are healthy. Check ‘em out!

Pizza Français(e?)

Best Week(end) Ever, Part 2

After classes on Thursday, all four of my English teachers and I went out on the town. I had so much fun! We started by going to Le Moka, the internet café in Lisieux, for some socialization. It was established pretty early on that the dialogue that night would be mostly in French (though everyone is always good about speaking to me in English when I get totally lost). I was happy for the French though. What better way to learn?

Once Le Moka seemed to be closing, we decided to get some pizza for dinner. It was a decision based purely on necessity. As the daughter of two pizzeria-owners, it was my duty to do some research on the French art of pizza-making. We went to a very chic pizza restaurant, whose menu boasted of 60 pizzas! You could get anything you want on your pizza. Once again, I forget the name of what I ordered, but here is a picture of what it looked like. Check out the egg just chilling on top! That is something you would never see in the USA, but it was really frickin delicious! My pizza also had mushrooms, ham, garlic and basil. Oh wow, it was so good. I couldn’t even finish it all.

I thought I was full, with no more room for dessert, until I looked at the menu, at which point I declared, in French, “There is always room for dessert.” I ordered this delicious pear-brownie combination of wonder that was drizzled with chocolatey goodness sauce and cream. It was heaven.

I had an incredible time with the teachers. They are all really patient with me when I (attempt to) speak French, and Karen even said I have already improved. Rock! C is especially good at talking to me. She’s really good at taking note of when I start to zone out because the French all starts to sound foreign. At that point, she asks me a question so I am directly involved. Then, after I have been focused on for a while, she stops asking questions and lets me just listen to the conversation going on around me. I think it’s really a great way to learn.

After dinner, Philippe drove us to the station where I traveled with C and L back to Caen. It was late and everything was closed so I got the train for free!!! (knock on wood or throw salt or something) I would be staying with C for the weekend, so we went together to her house, which rocks hardcore. I really love it, and I wish that someday I can have a house like it. Hopefully with a pullout sofa as comfortable for guests. Cause man, is that a nice touch.

McDo's

Best Week(end) Ever Part Seven

I did it. I paid homage to my country. For the first and (I sincerely hope) only time, I visited the golden arches in France.



I’d been talking for some time about how I should visit a McDonald’s because everyone says it’s different in other countries. And it really was. For one thing, check out the interior. You can’t really appreciate it all in this picture, but the inside was all decked out in cherry wood. It was much chicer than any McDonald’s I have ever seen in the USA. It felt more like an upscale middle-class chain, if that makes any sense. I’m thinking Outback or Applebees.

Of course, Ronald McDonald was there, looking as creepy as ever (If you don't think Ronald is creepy, look at this). Another difference between this McDonald’s and the ones in the US was the speed! They were incredibly slow putting the orders together. And when I say slow I mean slow by our standards. It probably took five to ten minutes for our order to be ready, but you know, in the US it usually only takes about a minute, minute and a half, to be served. I’ve done well with adjusting to the pace here and I am much more patient than at home. But just being in a McDonald’s for more than two minutes made me really antsy and I wished they would move a little faster.

Here is my meal. I ordered the royale wit cheese as a shoutout to Tarantino and Pulp Fiction. I also got potatoes (wedges), and a coke. I don’t even drink coke, but in this case I felt it was go-big or go-home.

The verdict? Overall, I thought the food was pretty tasty. The potato wedges (you have the choice between these and regular french fries) were seasoned and tasted like the ones at KFC, which I was rather pleased about. The burger tasted more like a burger than is typical for an American McDonald’s, and the cheese was different. As for the coke, it pretty much tasted exactly like all fountain coke does.

I was actually pretty pleased with the food. It was much better than you would find in America. There are only two reasons I don’t think I will return. First, I found it kind of expensive. McDonald’s is usually much cheaper than other restaurants, but my meal cost as much as the other meals I have had here. There was certainly no “Euro Menu.” Second, and more importantly, I will not let myself be the American who goes to France and eats McDonald’s all the time. Because that would be ridiculous. Especially cause France is the land of chefs and all.

There are some similarities between US and French McDonald’s though. In my experience at least, the after-effects are the same. Nasty aftertaste, breath, and stomach feelings prove to be pretty standard. TMI? Deal with it.

Dejeuner!

Finally I dined with someone! Lizzi, the assistant from the school I am living at, came to get me and we came to the local internet cafe and ordered some lunch. I had a salad with chicken and gruyere and loads of corn (!) and Lizzie had a quiche and a tomato salad (pronounced in her lovely British as toe-mott-oh).


After that we thought we would indulge and order some ice cream. So we picked the best-looking one and we each took our first bites and don'tcha know it was like taking a shot. We didn't know when we ordered that it was going to be an alcoholic beverage with ice cream. Well, we hated to see it all those Euros go to waste, so we are now sitting in this internet cafe a little happier than we were before.

Hooray!

La Vie Telephonique

Screw the accents. I can't do them on Blogger.

Thursday was an awesome day! I went to the library in the morning and prepared some info on American Breakfasts. I didn’t actually use it in class today, but getting started with a lesson really helped me get into teaching mode. I’ve never taught before, and this was really, really fun.

Catehrine’s class was funny today because the kids were so shocked about the size of British breakfasts. They thought, with all the food in the video, that it must have definitely been lunch. Wait until they see American breakfast!

In Latetia’a class today we were still working on stereotypes. The students had to pick a European country, then use the internet to find two stereotypes and then find out the corresponding truths. It was interesting. Sarah Laits is a smart girl that was curious about me from the beginning. She is a round girl with short brown hair who shines from within (I know that sounds silly but it’s true). She asked if she and her friend could work with me, so we did. We had Ireland. I learned that only ten percent of the Irish population is redheaded, and St. Patrick is not Irish, but he was born in Wales. Whoa!

After classes, I met with Karen in the salle des professeurs and we went to get me a cell phone. I am so happy that she was willing to come with me, because otherwise I would not have been able to understand everything. I got a nice little prepaid phone with lots of neat extras. I have an alarm clock and I can play sudoku! I can call only use the phone to call within France, but I am happy that I have it in case of an emergency. I also bought an international phone card. It was only 15Euros and I have 858 minutes to talk! I can call cell phones with it too! But it wasn’t working at all when I tried it in the phone booth. So I have to go back to the store tomorrow and see if I can get some help.

Karen was such a help to me and I am so grateful for it. The man that helped us in the store, Julien, asked if he could have an English lesson, and I thought it would be a great idea to do a free exchange of language type of thing. He agreed that we could do one hour of English conversation and then one hour of French conversation. So I have his number, and I can’t wait to get that started. What a way to learn!

I don't have much else to say right now...so here's a silly picture of me pretending to talk on my new phone!

Just thought I'd Share

One of the teachers warned me that lunches on Wednesday are not really that good. Still, school lunch is only 2Euro, so I figured I’d stick around. The main dish was something I’d never seen before. It was a big plate of mashed potatoes. And thrown inside the mess of potatoes were: a hot dog, an extremely fatty piece of a bacon-like meat, and an over-easy egg. I ate the potatoes.

On Eating

It occurred to me this weekend, as I was sitting in my teeny, tiny apartment, that I had not yet eaten French food. What the hell! I've been so preoccupied with getting settled in my apartment and teaching that the only food I've eaten has come from the local supermarket. Pathetic!

I am here in France, the land of the chefs, why have I not had any real food?

So I went to the first place I saw and bought this, crudites poulet. Not too original as far as sandwiches go - it was sliced chicken with lettuce, egg, and onions. And a lot of mayo too, which I am definitely not opposed to.








And for dessert, I bought myself this tasty little treat, a tarte fraises. I think you can tell by looking at it what that translates into. And it was absurdly delicious! Decadent, yes, but a good portion size, which is something I am not used to with the way portions in the US are out of control.

On Sunday I didn't do too much. I was grateful to have a veg-day. I wrote a lot in my journal, made a brand new poem, and just had time to think. It was nice. I also went out and bought this for dinner: I didn't finish it because it was just slathered in mayo. Hey, I like mayo, but this was overboard. It's like a sea.

Then today I enjoyed my first meal in a restaurant. To hell with waiting for someone to dine with. I am independent. I came to Europe on my own; I can certainly walk into a restaurant by myself. So I did. I don't have pictures for you (didn't want to be a complete tourist) but I can tell you it was a delicious plate of meat, potatoes, rice, mushrooms and carrots. I'm not exactly sure what the meat was because it was the plate of the day, and the waitress recited it too quickly for my non-fluent ears. Then for dessert I got the most delicious brownie! I'm so happy that chocolate is universal.

The highlight of my day? I watched a nostalgia movie from home. Anyone who thinks Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green met on the set of Buffy forgot about My Stepmother is an Alien:

Hooray for nostalgic gems!

After an awesome night of body-accepting and comfort

I came into work and remembered what has been irritating me lately. I am secretary to a Health Sciences Educator for Rutgers University so most of my time on the internet is spent looking up information on Obesity and Overweight (real sad when the focus is on children), Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and Cholesterol levels, Diet and Exercise, and anything else that has to do with nutrition or family health.

One might say, "Hey that's great. You get the inside scoop. You get to learn new ways to be healthy now."

Except that I have struggled with weight since I was eight years old. Maybe longer. News flash: I already know. I have known the (quite simple) ways to lose weight for a very long time. We all know that more calories out than in equals less weight on the body. But, as most people who have a hard time keeping weight off will probably feel familiar with, the extra pounds that I carry on my frame have little to do with science. And another thing that far trumps all the tips and tricks I know about losing weight: These extra pounds and I are stating to get along. I am learning to be OK with them.

Let me clarify. I am just learning to be OK with them. After years of hiding them behind hairstyles and clothing and accessories, I am beginning to accept these pounds. I'm starting to realize that I have quite a sexy hourglass figure, one that could probably kick some roller-derby ass if I wanted it to. Sure I'm starting to see that this body is one that men can be attracted to. More importantly, I'm becoming aware that it's a body I can love, and feel secure in, and be proud about.

So what has inspired this ranty blog? Two things.

First, it seems that every single health website that I visit uses the BMI calculator as an indicator for wellness. And that really frustrates me. In addition to this being a skewed measure for health, it also makes me feel shitty. Really, I'm borderline obese? OK. Oh, and I'm at a much greater risk for diabetes and high blood pressure and death? That's funny, because I heard that women in the overweight group had the lowest mortality rate. Oh my god, AHA,are you telling me that if I don't make changes now I'm going to die someday? Fuck. Let me give you a trophy for opening my eyes. Truth is, it doesn't matter. Because I am going skydiving next year. Because I hitchhiked in a foreign country. Because I drive on a highway everyday. Yeah, I could make some wiser decisions about exercise and diet. But fuck it. I like chocolate chip cookies, and eating them is not going to put my life in any more danger than the next decision I make.

I'm frustrated that (because of all the searching I have to do at work) my google and scrabulous sidebars are always filled with ads for ridiculous get-thin-quick schemes. I'm tired of looking at "Are you Fat -----> Take this Quiz" ad banners on the top of my monitor. And I am at the end of my rope with people like Lissaana, who comment insensitive and cruel things on the bottom of sincere, well-written posts.

I don't understand why weight and body image are always ALWAYS on my mind. And I am terrified to take all of these issues to France with me. I'm planning on leaving them here, buried in 1725's back yard. And I hope I never EVER have to dig them up.

But perhaps what I am most cranky about is that I have still not found my USB cord, and all I want to do is show you the pretty pictures that I took. In July.

¿Quieres Comer Conmigo?

Yesterday as I was driving home from work I started thinking about how it has been a very long time since I have seen my first boyfriend. Or had dinner with his family. One of the best bonuses of dating a Puerto Rican is the food. Yumm to arroz con habichuelas, bistec encebollao, tostones, pernil, and of course anything con pollo.

I thought it might be a good idea to try cooking something. I mean, it couldn't go worse than my first attempt (when I was fifteen I made bistec for him and I misunderstood the whole season to taste thing - so I coated the beef with vinegar and adobo as if it were chicken I was dipping in egg yolks and bread crumbs. He graciously ate it, though it tasted like schmoo), right?

I didn't realize that bistec (my all-time favorite meal) should marinade for a couple days, so I decided to try the rice and kidney beans with pork chops instead. And I have to say, I am pretty damn impressed with myself. No burned rice, no overseasoned meat. It was pretty friggin good. And gluten-free! So the roommates who were home quite enjoyed it. OK, OK, I'm doing a little back-patting about it, but it's hard not to be proud. Sure, it didn't taste quite as good as his mom's always did, but I'm a second-time gringa. All things considered, how could I not be so enthused?

I'd already bought the ingredients for bistec, so as I write the beef is marinating with onions, vinegar, oil, garlic, adobo, and of course Sazon Azafran. It smells delicious every time I open the fridge.

Now I can't wait until tomorrow.

Pizza for breakfast?

According to an article by Lucy Danziger (e-i-c of SELF) it's not such a bad idea. She says that anything for breakfast is better than nothing, and that pizza with lots of veggies and a thin crust is actually a great idea for a breakfast that will keep energy levels up all day long.

Well, if only Andy and Sharon and I had saved some from last night's pizza-beer-bad-horror-movie-fest we'd be on the way to "slicker abs." But we scarfed it all down last night before we even cracked our third beers. Oh, how I love my bad habit friends. Don't get me wrong - I also have a special place in my heart for my wine and cheese friends, but sometimes (especially times like the day I had pre-Andy and Sharon) it's nice to unwind, talk about stupid nonsense, and drink Old Heathen until all the horrible things that happened on said day morph into stories worth rolling on the floor about.