incipient san francisco

It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon in Vancouver, and I am sitting on the bed with my legs crossed, computer in my lap, and should be doing…homework(!). If I didn’t have enough to do already, this spring I started a class in sustainability that is a lot of homework, but a little fun still. Studying while having a full time job takes up every weekend in it’s entirery, but the semester is almost over. And what else would I be doing? All I want to do these days is eating Haagen-Dazs ice cream and read books, and occasionally go for a run. Or at least I wish I wanted to do that last thing I mentioned…

I have tried to write this post for a while, but I didn’t know how to say what I am about to tell you! In a few weeks, I am going to travel to East Africa again. Not that it is anything unusual about that for this time of year. But when I told my cousin the other day that I am moving to Africa, she answered in disbelief: I didn’t read anything about that on your blog! So I thought I’d tell you all that I am moving to Nairobi next month, and if I didn’t get to tell you in person yet, at least you read it here.

Moving. Again.

xx

(via theessentialshandbook)

I’ve been back in Vancouver for one week, torn by unanswered questions, postponing all real life decisions, working my ass off with good, old, plain work. At some point earlier this year, I decided to sign up for a class in University, and it is pretty much taking up all my free time! Bent over books at the library, the weekend passed in a flash! With this slow pace of learning, I am surprised I ever passed University in the first place!

I am apprehensive about my own decisions these days, but trying to be calm and zen about the things in life that I can not change, like the circumstances of other people’s careers, or the opinions of my friends, the fact that Mister Awesome slipped away to an Island. Being back in Vancouver also means that I am back to spending too much time at Wholefoods and all the weird produce stores on Commercial drive, walking the aisles up and down, spending stupid money on lush fruits that won’t be in season in BC in another six months, cheeses and licorice. When life gets confusing, go back to the basics. Or something like that.

I’ve made no progress in deciding what to do about my future. I want answers, but my mind won’t go there.

I have recently learned, however, that you can ride a zebra, in case others were wondering too.

‘tis the season. Sometimes around this time of year I am so busy I forget to breathe, and while my hair is slowly turning more white, I am sometimes wondering why it doesn’t fall out entirely. My life as a consultant is not much different from my life as a regular employee. Some days I have two hours of work, some days twenty, and some days I am on a plane all day and all night. I am about to take off for East Africa, this time without mr Awesome, and it will be strange strolling around Addis Ababa without him. I am still excited about the upcoming work there, and then Nairobi. Wondering about taking a weekend to see something new there. Any suggestions? 

After Colleen got a pasta maker attachment to the Kitchen Aid for Christmas, I have been pretty obsessed about making pasta for every single meal I cook, every single day. If there was a breakfast dish with spaghetti, we would be eating it. But mostly it’s dinner food that is prepared, and today, it was lasagna on the menu. There’s just something so wonderful about lasagna, that if there was a list of perfect foods of the world, lasagna would be on it! 

I froze my nose off walking to the Meathook, but buying slightly better meat for the purpose of your dinner is never wrong. A good butcher will have ground meat from better quality, aged meat, and it was really nice, fatty meat that went into the lasagna. And the smell of browning good meat…And to completely overdo it on a Wednesday night, I got wine from the new wine shop across the street. It’s called the vine box, and while Colleen and I were both convinced nothing good would ever happen to Greenpoint, the very genuinely nerdy, italian owner stocks our household with the most reasonably priced, amazing wines.

There’s a whole other story to this, which is that we desperately ran into the store on new year’s eve when the wine we had carefully procured turned out to be oxidized. Being in Greenpoint, the weird polish neighborhood right before Brooklyn turns into Queens, the vine box didn’t just open, but we had just always figured it wouldn’t be any nice. Oh well, even I am wrong sometimes. 

While cooking, we kept saying tutto prociutto, barbera, ciao, fernet and pretended we were Italians and it all made sense to us. Barabim-barabom! Ciao!

(via mietteshoppe)

just woke up to another day where I have to pack and leave in not too long. going to el salvador, new york, norway, and then east africa, not coming back until it says march on the calendar. now, all of this with just one carry-on makes me feel like I have some kind of super-power. Wish mentioned super-power was teleportation, though.