Just another friday

Les Irises Mauves by Claude Monet

Over a hasty breakfast today I saw my irises bloom. All those rosy-lavender buds broke open in the hazy autumn morning. Not quite Monet's Giverny, but the florist told me their riotous beauty will persist until the first frost. I'm glad of that because...well, just because.

I wanted to stay longer, but the bustle below my window reminded me of the time.

***************

"How's it working out, living here?"

It wasn't the first time I was asked this. Lila was as curious as the rest of them, but the nonchalance with which she made the inquiry made it somewhat compelling. We met at the courtyard below my apartment. She was on her way out just as I was prying open my rusty mailbox with a kitchen knife. The damn thing held my mail hostage for three days.

Lila's routine on weekdays was nondescript. Her day job required her to wear a uniform of impeccably austere black, always complemented by a crocodile leather briefcase. On the weekends she was different, exchanging her straitlaced Yohjis for flowy printed skirts and poet-style blouses, and she would head out to town with a battered guitar case. She would take the train to Orleans, where she would stand on a street corner and sing. Sometime the next evening, she'd be back at her apartment across the hall from mine, still singing.

I can't help feeling my neighbors know more about having fun than I do.

***************

Cucumber gratin. I nearly ordered that after 15 minutes of scowling at the menu. Cheese, cheese and more cheese. Oh great, another omelette. My server pushed me to try the suckling pig confit, so it's a good start.

Goose grease never tasted so good.

Okay, any start is a good start in my book. I've been stuck in a morass of gastronomic non-adventure over the past few months. I mean, when you start spiking every third meal with parsley you know you're in trouble.

****************

"Mon Dieu, Rachel, stop doing that!"

"Stop doing what?"

"Stop picking at your life like it's some damn scab! It's...self-mutilation!"

"My dear dear Yanic, don't you know that I have an unhealthy obsession of overanalyzing my life and overanalyzing the time I spend overanalyzing my life? I'm really that much fun."

"Mmff." Yanic can be so charming when he purses his lips like that. It's a French thing, I guess.

***************

9:00 PM CEST. I get a text.

"Hey kitten. Stop hanging out with that crazy old timer Yanic. Love your neuroses, love you madly, CJ."

Meow.