wayfaringwordhack: (Sprout !!!)
 At 5h15, I was awakened by a boom and the sound of breaking glass. My first thought was, "Is J home? Did he break something?" (He works the night shift), but no, he finishes at 5h15 and his work is an hour away.  No other sounds accompanied the first one, but still I got of bed and did a turn on the second floor, stopping to listen at the stairs that lead to the kids' bedroom. Nothing. Outside, nothing.  In my very coherent state (not!), I decided that burglars would not be breaking in so "late" of a morning and determined that perhaps a picture frame had fallen from the wall, something that has already happened here.

I dozed fitfully until 7h00, and then a strange smell began to tickle my nose. J had stopped to nap on the road home, so I was the first to discover not a fallen picture frame but an exploded bottle of kefir water. 


All that was left of the bottle in its original location was the base.

I thank the Lord and prayed in gratitude all day as I cleaned shards and glass powder from all over our 24m2 kitchen that the explosion had happened when everyone was safely in bed. It very seriously could have been lethal; the largest pieces were projected just past our dining table, 4m away from where the bottle stood.

 


 
I am not sure what happened. I always respect the headspace when carbonating beverages through fermentation.  My hypothesis is that I was using a glass bottle from the French equivalent of a dollar store, and perhaps it was intended to be more decorative than useful. 

We have now moved our kefir bottles to the inside of a cabinet.

If you ferment drinks, too, please be careful!!!
wayfaringwordhack: (Sprout: !!!)
Or does she?

Goat is the name we gave our car that was stolen a year and a half ago. A few days before we left for our holiday, J was getting ready to throw away the key. "Wait," I said. "You never know."

J got a call today saying the police found Goat in Suez.

We don't know what condition the car is in, but it still has its diplomatic plates and these are what we need to hand over to customs when we leave the country in order to avoid heavy penalties.

Praise the Lord, whether she rides or not.

If she does, she just might come back to France with us, carrying all our boxes.
wayfaringwordhack: (art - pondering)
Or shall we just call it, "The State of Things." Forgive me, LJ, for it has been awhile since my last post.

_________
I've never tried to put a cut under a cut, so be warned that when I say something vile happened, there should be an additional cut there to keep it out of public view unless you want to read it. If there is not a cut, don't read on, there's nothing more to see. :)
________

In which you can read about the State of Things )Vile Thing )

Anyhow. Did not mean to end on a tirade.SaveSaveSaveSave
wayfaringwordhack: (Sprout: Soëlie eating)

Can you guess which one?

I made a Thai-influenced soup for lunch:

Junebug took his spoon, dug in, and proclaimed, "Tasty!"*

Sprout looks in her bowl and without tasting it, wails, "I like shrimp, I like calamari, I like chicken; what a bad surprise this is, having them all together! And rice! I didn't want my rice mixed in!"

o.O


_________

* Yes, I made the soup, so I might be biased, but it was very tasty.

wayfaringwordhack: (defense)
In my inbox, I have 500+ comments I've been meaning to reply to. I believe it is now time to face some facts:

Fact 1: I do not have the time to answer all of those comments.
Fact 2: Most people probably don't even remember making the comments that need a response, that is how old some of those comments are.
Fact 3: You can state two facts without necessarily needing a third, but 3 facts looks better than just 2.

If you have said something to me in the past that you would really like me to respond to, please nudge me.  If not, I apologize; I never meant to ignore anyone.

In the future, I will try to do better about staying on top of such things.
wayfaringwordhack: (neener)
For purposes of transcribing the conversation, I'm going to call the woman who "rescued" N'djema "Catlady" or CL for short:

7:20 p.m. I'm lying in bed, nursing Soëlie and trying to get her to fall asleep; Julien is with us.  The weather is quite warm, so we leave our door open for air as well as for our cats to come and go as they please. We don't hear the gate open, nor steps on the wooden stairs, but suddenly:

CL: Is anybody home?

J jumps out of bed and goes to the door; recognizing her, he says: Thank you for coming!* 

CL:  Oh, you shouldn't have worried. The cat is at my house.

J: That's good news. We were really worried something bad had happened to her.  We put up lost posters this afternoon--

CL: Oh, you shouldn't have done that. He's been at my house the past few days. I started letting him sleep inside.

I go to the door, happy to hear N'djema is safe, looking around, expecting to see her on the stairs or landing.  I say:  So glad to hear you have our cat! We put up posters and asked all the neighbors...

CL looks at me, shocked: There was no need to worry.  She (CL points at the nearest house, where the shutters are closed and have been since we got home) knew I had the cat at my house.

I:  Well, it's the other lady across the street who was feeding the cats for us, and she told us N'djema disappeared Monday.  That was five days ago.

CL: I was thinking that i need to ask you some questions.  I need to know what his name is, how old he is, and how he lost his leg in case I have to take him to the veterinarian.

J and I exchange a startled look. 

CL, oblivious, continues: If I adopt him, I'll definitely need to know those things.

Another startled look between us, and J says: Well, her name is N'djema.

CL: Oh, it's a female.

J: Yes, and we aren't sure of the age, but when we lived in Mayotte, we rescued her and the vet believed at the time she was 9 months old, which would make her about five.  We had to amputate her leg because she had eaten off her foot to escape being tied up.  We also spayed her and had the vet give her a microchip--

CL's shoulders sag: Oh, she has a microchip...

Apparently, she knew the cat was "ours" but was thinking that we hadn't bothered to tattoo her, so fair game?

CL:  She sure likes it at my house. (she then begins to list all the things N'djema can do like get on the furniture, sleep inside, eat all the paté she wants--not good for any animal to get fat, but especially not one with only 3 legs--and she told us about N'djema likes to be with their dog and how she and her husband kiss both dog and cat before going to bed...in short, pretty much making us feel like we are the worst cat owners in the world.)

J:  Well thank you for taking such good care of her. If you don't mind, I'll bring her home now....

CL mentions adopting again, but I say I need to put S to bed and J repeats that he should go and get the kitty now...

Tiboy was thrilled to see N'djema back home and insisted on PLAY, PLAY, PLAYING with her.

On a related note, I mentioned that Tiboy was traumatized, but I didn't mention how the other humans reacted.  J wasn't unduly worried because he thought she had gone walkabout and would be back any day.  I had a bad feeling since we lost Max and couldn't quite shake the fear that tragedy had befallen her.  I was on the verge of tears most of the afternoon, which had a striking effect on Soëlie. She is usually such a smiley, flirty baby; strangers and her doctor are always commenting on that.  But yesterday, she was so sad and serious.  It wasn't until I made an effort to hide my fears over the kitty that she gave me some halfhearted smiles.  It was a trial getting her to go to sleep last night...until CL came around.  Once we had N'djema back at the house, I must have relaxed greatly because Soëlie was asleep soon after despite appearing to be wired for sound but a minute before.

 

______________

* As I said in my last post, we asked someone to speak to her on our behalf.
wayfaringwordhack: (gecko)
We received mail at our new addy, addressed to our new addy. An electricity bill. Anxious to see if the meter mess had been sorted, I opened it and...It was the final bill for our old meter! Yes, I know this is just fascinating business, isn't it? But I share all of this in order to say:

[personal profile] frigg it appears that mail is a go at the new house, so you can send my goodies whenever you are ready. Send them nownownownownow I know you have guests, so take your time and mail them NOW whenever you get a moment.

We had dinner guests last night and are having another couple over this evening. I think we've done about as much entertaining in a few weeks in this house as we did in two years in the other. That's an exaggeration, of course, but not by much. Now that we have a table and chairs (and an always-tidy house), we no longer have an excuse for not hosting the occasional supper.

Oh, and speaking of having people over. The other night, I went out on the porch to work on some research. No sooner had I settled in then I was greeted by kids on the balcony across the street. After much shouting back and forth, one of the boys told me that his sister wanted to know if she could come over. I said sure because I didn't really think she would. She's at least 14, I'd say, and super shy. Whenever she sees me, she ducks down and CRAWLS behind the balustrade...as if I can't still see her. O.O

But lo and behold, she did come over. And then another one wanted to come, and then another. By the end, we had two women, three girls, and four boys out on the balcony with us, not counting the shy one, who had scurried back home amidst all the comings and goings. At one  point, when the women were coming in, I went downstairs to get some soda for our guests. I heard whispering by the side of the house, so I poked my head over the porch railing and saw one a woman squatting down, PEEING.

Well, what to do? I laughed along with them, trying to convince myself that no, a grown woman was not urinating on my walkway. But yes, when I saw them out, there was the telltale wetness. And this is the woman who asked me if I needed a cleaning lady. o.O

I'm not in the habit of giving people job advice, but I'll stick this out there: Don't relieve yourself on a prospective employer's property, unless it is in the facilities designed for such purposes and you have  permission to be there, naturally.

The gall

20 Aug 2007 03:41 pm
wayfaringwordhack: (Maki World Domination)
(abbreviated version since LJ ate the last ranty one)

I found out today that one of the idiots (herewith known as Idiot n°1) of  the infamous school/association I "worked" for last year is going around telling lies about me. Well, "lies" may not be the proper word since I guess it is all a matter of viewpoint and personal interpretation*. I suspected such goings-on and double standards last year, just because of how unethical and dishonest idiot n°1 and her associate idiot n°2 are. But today, thanks to meeting up with an acquaintance introduced to me by idiot n°2, I discovered my suspicions were founded.

The acquaintance asked me today if idiot n°1 and I had quarreled and was surprised when I said no because of the spiteful things that idiot n°1 said about me when the acquaintance asked her for my contact info.

1) Idiot n°1 said I'm a nutcase. Why? Because I told her that I'm writing a novel, specifically a fantasy novel.

2) Idiot n°1 said I'm a minx (her own word) and am flighty. Why? Because I have dreadlocks. A minx? er....

3) Idiot n°1 said I have probably already left the island (despite seeing me at least bi-monthly in the grocery store and calling me THREE days ago, hoping to get me to work for her! And that would be the phone conversation where she called me "ma belle" and practically pleaded with me to take good care of myself because I was having an allergy attack.) Why? I have no idea. Probably because I don't want to work for her. 

*There probably are people who think I'm a nutcase for reasons other than what I choose to write, but to call me a minx? When you know nothing about me, my private life, or my beliefs? Because of my hairstyle?!

As to what I'll say and how I'll act the next time I see her.... One part of me would like to tell her what I really think of her, but the other part says it--she--isn't worth it.
wayfaringwordhack: (Maki World Domination)
I do. Maybe that is a character defect, but there you have it. I love to be right, and I especially love to be right when people treat me/others poorly.

Remember that association I worked for giving English lessons? The one I "quit" (can you quit if you were never officially hired?) after only 6 weeks because of their weird issues with money like "Why won't you work for free, Miquela?" and their lying about how many hours they would give me? Yeah, that association.

Wellllllll, J just told me that they have been shut down because some of the people who were tooting their horns about being unpaid volunteers were actually embezzling.

So there. I was right that there was something rotten going on.

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