Tag: postaday2012

22nd July – Began reading The Brothers Karamazov.  The three brothers are 20, 23 and 27, about the same ages as my three sons.

23rd July – One of my students had an alarm set for 5.17pm, the exact time of today’s sunset, the exact time she would be able to eat (Ramadan).  This is new to me.

24th July – Tonight I glimpsed an unfamiliar light, warm and yellow, in the gap between the curtain and the window. I went closer and found a horizontal crescent moon, like a Cheshire Cat smile.

25th July – Learnt that the three people who work in the local café are all expectant parents. Something in the coffee?

26th July – Heard an old guy telling a young woman that he was “pretty full-on as a child”. “I was reading before I was two,” he slurred, holding his six-pack tightly in the crook of his arm.

17th July – Tried to sew four borders onto a quilt, two long pieces and two short.  I got two of them wrong.  That has to be unusual.

18th July – A friend told me about Cloud computing which I knew nothing about.  A line from Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now came into my head and stuck:  I really don’t know clouds at all.

19th July – My husband read my translation draft.

20th July – In a sports shoe store with my son who is at the end of a flu bout, I saw his skin had a sickly green tint and I worried, until other people came in and turned green.  It was the intense lighting, which was also giving the African-Australian shop assistant an intense headache (but not a green tint).

21st July – A bottle of truffle-infused olive oil tells us that “Over 80% of women describe the odour of truffle oil as very sensual.” “Close your eyes, inhale the aroma,” it instructs. I’ve inhaled it twice and found I belong to the other 20%.

2nd July – In an online German course, I’m learning how to say “The salt is bad”, “The man drinks oil”.  I looked at the equivalent French course where I learnt “My wheat is black”, “We eat butter”.

3rd July – On the other hand, the French course teaches:  “She has a black dress” and “I love you”;  the German, “You are a man and I am a woman”.

4th July – A Chinese student thanked me with a packet of tea from China.  I scooped some into my teapot, drank the tea, inhaled its fragrance, then tried to empty the tealeaves out.  They had morphed into life-size green leaves, like leaf-litter in the bottom of the pot.

5th July – Eating at a table beside the lake when a seagull (lake gull?) landed and walked up to my plate.  It had a black and white polka-dot tail,which is actually the white tips of black edges of white wings.

6th July – A friend told me that her husband cut her hair in the shower this morning.

17th June – A church sermon was illustrated with a Renaissance sculpture of the devil tempting Christ:  the devil is bent-nosed and bald;  Christ is straight-nosed, long-haired and bearded.  They are both white.

18th June – Out for a walk, I passed a flock of ground-feeding sulphur-crested cockatoos.  One took off and flew close to my ear, squawking.  Almost deafening.

19th June – A man and his 10 year-old daughter went past on a bike – him riding and her standing on the bag rack, her hands resting on his shoulders.

20th June – At a closing-down sale of a large store, I was sold a cardigan by a fifty-something saleswoman.
“Are you a member?” she asked.
“No.”
“Would you like to become a member?”
“Ah, no….”
She shrugged.  “We have to say it.”

21st June – On this winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, it’s very cold and blowing a gale, yet a few women are outdoors in strappy tops.

12th June – My monosyllabic student had to write poetry for an assignment.  I started, he followed and came up with several words at a time.  Then he wrote a sequel.

13th June – My son who studies physics asked me which theory was more plausible:  time travel backwards or the idea that the physical world is an illusion.

14th June – Woke at 2 am and still awake at 5.  (This is not the unusual thing.)  I was surprised, in passing the hours, to read in a novel a recount of a long and spooky dream, then to pick up a second novel and read a recount of a long and spooky dream.

15th June – Turned on the car radio this morning to Artsound FM and heard Django Reinhardt.  Turned on the car radio this evening to Classic FM and heard Django Reinhardt.

16th June – Just after midnight, the dog across the street, who chases his tail all day and has never been outside his small yard, escaped and was free.  Ironically, shortly after, his mistress was put in a paddy wagon and taken to the watchhouse for the night for refusing to cooperate with the police (who had left her gate open…).

7th June –  A black cat crossed my street.  The late afternoon winter sun created a monster-cat shadow which got me up off my chair to see if it was being followed by a large dog.  It wasn’t.

8th June – Sat at the table in a student’s home and quickly stuck to the seat in several places.  Put my books on the table;  they also stuck.  I told my 9 year-old friend about the problem;  she confessed it was maple syrup.

9th June – I’ve noticed that since I started blogging, I’ve stopped talking much.

10th June – Found out the previous owner of our new second-hand car was Lego.

11th June – On The Voice, the TV singing talent show, the coaches frequently say “I love you” to their protégés, who sometimes reply, “I love you, too”.  This love is a new fashion.