Part I
The Corona Chronicles
Tag: fun
Francine’s Guest Blog 9
Wedding Warps, but then…Cake
From Patrick’s funeral, I rushed to the wedding.
Normally, I would have felt quite out of place at a gathering where I know only a handful of people, but for some reason, I did not. Grace and I had been roommates at university and though we kept in touch, we did not really mingle with the same crowds. Grace’s dress was beautiful, very lacy, and strapless. The dining hall, which did not have formal seating, was elegant, and the guests were mostly well-dressed. I found a seat next to a couple I knew vaguely.
Halfway through the meal, I looked up to see a familiar figure, which I quickly realized was no hallucination: Mr. Wrong, with the tramp in tow. He saw me before I could bury my face in my food and we both stared at each other in embarrassment. He hastened to introduce me to Tracy as “the girl I told you about”. It turned out that Tracy was connected to the groom in some roundabout way. Wrong had never met Grace, so he had no way of knowing I’d be there, so I forgave him for that. In fact, I forgave him for everything (in my mind) on the very spot, mostly because of Tracy. She was drunk again, and was dressed in a rather decent peach colored dress, which looked nice with her skin. Unfortunately, she was wearing flip-flops, which totally cancelled whatever elegance the dress had managed to convey.
I don’t understand how flip-flops became an acceptable accessory for formal attire. I don’t care how many sequins they put on them, they do not belong in a wedding, unless you’re 6 months pregnant. And the other thing is that if your feet look like two tired trout, you need to show as little of them as possible. And not waste money on expensive manicures either. I’m just saying.
The servers had placed huge pieces of cake on every table, and I was planning on taking some home, but not openly. So I went into the restroom to rearrange my purse. I came back to the table to find that the couple had left, and two guys, one of them really loud, had taken their place. I caught the end of the conversation, which I assumed was about the valet.
“…the idiot had parked my Benz next to a beat-up blue Toyota,” said the loud one. “Of course, I made him move it…”
The cake was still there, so I sat down, but turned and looked at him. If there is one phrase that describes my car to a T, it is “beat-up blue Toyota.”
“I thought you said there weren’t any attractive women in here,” he said to his friend, when he saw me; then to me, “Are you married?”
Not thinking fast enough, as usual, I said, “No,” and thought about the most sarcastic way to phrase a response to the affront on my vehicle. I wasn’t quick enough.
“Got any kids?” he continued, leering.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said, and showed him the pictures of the Somalian and the Syrian. “Different fathers,” I explained, smiling. And suddenly they both had to go talk with the groom’s father. The cake was delicious. Moist and compact, with a light strawberry filling.
My phone rang, and I went outside to answer it. It was Sam the detective!
“I may have a lead,” he said, “but you’ll have to meet me for dinner to discuss it.” My eyes were popping out of my head when my mouth sputtered my acceptance. I vowed not to pursue the bread bandits. Without them, I would not have met Sam. It was fate that led me to remember that I had books to sell that day, and it was fate again that pushed me to go to the police, when I didn’t even want to.
I had had enough of the wedding, and as I floated to my beautiful “beat-up blue Toyota” I reflected on how far I had come since my last encounter with Mr. Wrong. The insignificant dent that he made in my life is all but forgotten. I can move forward with this business of life. I can’t say that any one thing helped, but that everything did.
According to my mother, time is the undisputed healer of all emotional pain. One of the ways to help Time, I’ve discovered, is to fill your days with meaningful things, to be grateful for the things you have; to be generous. And to forgive. Apart from those early days of the break up, my days have been full of activity and incidents, some good, some bad. Without them I think I would have spent a lot more time feeling sorry for myself. And getting fatter. Lots of people have worse lives than I do. As it is, I feel better about myself; I can sleep through the night; I’ve got a romantic prospect, and…
I cannot end this blog without showing you the dress I’m wearing to dinner with Sam. Robbie says it’s “the bees’ knees.” That means it looks super awesome.
Francine’s Guest Post 7
Be Still, My Beating Heart
But I couldn’t get the bread out of my mind. And not the bread itself, but the bread bandits. It had become a compulsion, which I recognized as completely out of my range of compulsions as it went against my normal live-and-let-live philosophy. But something was telling me to pursue it.
WWTC is across the street from the courthouse and the Nth Precinct, which, besides being very convenient for some of our students, is a comfort to us, knowing that help is always close by. I decided to report the robbery. Who knows, these people may be a lot more than just bread thieves. When I inquired, an officer came to explain how to file the report, but very quickly, she was called away by a coworker, who came to replace her. He was dressed in regular clothes and quite good-looking, so I had trouble remembering all the crime details, in which he seemed very interested.
After a few questions from him, I couldn’t remember any of the details at all, nor did I care about them, so I just started to make stuff up. Then I was feeling so bad about reporting the poor people that I gave him the address for a totally different bakery. I have no idea what that will do. I did give my correct telephone number though. I wish I could show you a picture of him, so you can understand. All I’m going to say is that his first name is Sam and that he’s a detective. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to rush into anything. One thing I know for sure is that he has a real job.
Robbie sent me a text to say that Patrick had died and that the funeral was on Saturday. My friend Grace is getting married the same day, and I will have to attend both events.
I Stumble Upon a Scientific Discovery
Thursday afternoon I saw Dr. G again. I was debating whether to keep the appointment, and yes, I had to look at my pro and con list again. I got to her office and there were no chocolates. I made a mental note to add this to the con list.
“So, how have those exercises been working?” Said Dr. G., after a few grunts.
“Exercises?” I said. “Oh, those! Yes, working quite well.”
You probably know I have not been doing any exercises, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. Who can keep track of exercises when stuff keeps happening all the time? People dying, people getting robbed…. She asked me about improvement in my symptoms, and surprisingly, there was quite a bit. I was getting more sleep, not losing things, hardly thinking of Mr. Wrong….
I read something somewhere about a scientific experiment in which one group of people played basketball while the other group of people imagined they played basketball, and guess what? When they measured them, both brains reflected similar activity, and they had comparable improvement in their physical skills. This could be what is happening here. If I pretend to do the exercises long enough, I could indeed see significant improvement.
There were no calls from Young Grizzly during the session. I assumed she had put him in check. Good for her! Sad to report, though, she was wearing the same outfit, except the blouse was a little different.
She continued with her questioning and gave me some more exercises, which I promised to do, (wink, wink.)
Some guy outside of Whole Foods was selling goldfish, already in the bowl, so I bought one, in another attempt to add more generosity and caring to my life. He has a florescent green color, with red stripes, and very delicate fins. Very cute. I named him Phillip.
For some reason, I felt like eating salmon for dinner. Can you tell me what it is with the fish people who refuse to skin your salmon when you ask them nicely? They’re in this exclusive environment, made for skinning fish, surrounded by an array of sharp knives, running water, garbage receptacles…and, yet…
“Well, no…. we don’t really…” or
“We-ell…, I could…but it’ll take a while….” It takes me 30 seconds at home if the knife is sharpened.
Some have the nerve to say, “The skin comes off easily once you cook it.” And I want to reply, “Yes, with all the flavor that I seasoned the fish with, and what do you know about cooking fish? You’re a fishmonger; it’s not a given that you know anything about cooking fish.” But I don’t, because I’m polite.
I was in bed that night when I realized I had no food for Phillip. The fish seller did not sell food, only fish. In my pantry, I found a box of bread crumbs and gave him some of that.
A Mournful Morning
Well, Phillip was floating in the bowl when I woke up this morning. I was horrified. We had had such fun the day before, him darting back and forth in the water. I began to wonder about the cause of his death. Either I was sold a defective fish, or…. I went to take a careful look at the box of bread crumbs I had fed him, and my worst fear was realized: it wasn’t just plain bread crumbs, but seasoned bread crumbs, with onion, garlic, and the dreaded cayenne pepper. Life must go on, I told myself, and flushed Phillip down the toilet. At least he went quickly and before I became too attached to him. I also vowed not to buy fish from ambulant vendors.
Francine’s Guest Post 5
The Juice Cleanse
Well, I finally broke down and told my mother about the insomnia. I just did not want to have that discussion about how I’m wasting my life in this “one-horse town” and how it would be better for me to move to “Metropolis” less than a hundred miles away where there are more opportunities and where I can live with her and share the camaraderie of her hairy hippie friends, who are always eager to include me in their sweat lodges, their musical endeavors, and their séances. Why would an insomnia discussion invite such a response, you ask? Because every complaint or request for help from my mother does. She had never liked Mr. Wrong, and never hesitated to tell me so. When I broke up with him, no one was happier or more vocal. I try to avoid the lectures, suggestions, and advice for as long as I can, but then I always break down…. partly because I know she’s right.
This time at the end of it, she said, “Just take Valerian root.” And she gave me the name of a concentrated brand. For those of you who have never taken Valerian root tea or capsules, be warned: keep a bar of perfumed soap nearby to wash your hands. Valerian root smells like concentrated anus.
Thirty minutes after taking it, I fell asleep.
Feeling very energized and refreshed the next day, I decided to go on a diet. A severe diet. No carbohydrates whatsoever. This will be a big challenge for me, as I have a small weakness for cake. I found a diet on the internet that’s supposed to make you lose as much as 5 lbs per week. Well, it’s been my experience that only obese people can lose 5 lbs per week. The most that a regular overweight person can hope for is 1 lb., and that’s what I’ll settle for.
I have lost the link, but here is the recipe for the Super Fat Cleansing Shake in case you are interested:
- Two bunches of celery
- One bunch of spinach
- One carrot
- A few spearmint leaves
Celery has been said to have extraordinary intestinal-cleansing and weight-reducing properties. I’m not sure about the other ingredients, but I suspect the carrot is there just to give it taste, because I tasted the celery juice by itself, and let me just say that whoever invented celery was a sneaky rogue. How can something so cute and harmless-looking cause such a violent reaction in a person? It is tall, thin, graceful and shapely, captivatingly crunchy, and let’s face it, is not the color “celery” the most delightful of hues, along with “cornflower” and “periwinkle”? But extract the juice of that lovely plant, and it is the vilest thing on the planet. Celery was not a staple in our family, as my parents never saw any use for it, and when I was younger and I tasted it at parties, I always used to think, these people are just using this vegetable as an excuse to eat dip and to avoid washing spoons.
Anyway, you blend all that stuff together and drink it for one week, while eating bland protein and vegetable items for meals. “And just watch the pounds melt off!” the video said.
I hope you will have better luck with it than I did.
The first morning, I forced it down, a whole cupful of it. I had to lie still for a while to keep it down. An hour later I had one hard-boiled egg, coffee, and a half a grapefruit (no sugar). This I ate very slowly, to encourage my body to believe that it was getting a lot of food. It’s supposed to help with digestion.
Well, I stayed on this diet for exactly two days. Day 2, my body had had all it could take of hard-boiled eggs, unseasoned chicken and fish, and steamed vegetables. The food had settled at the top of my throat and was threatening to come back out. Finally, it did, around 1 AM, and I couldn’t even make it to the toilet.
My system had been abused and was forced to refuel with civilized nourishment.
These photographs were taken daily, at teatime.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
You get the picture.
Needless to say, I did not lose one pound.
Do not let this discourage you, however, from your own weight-loss venture. There are probably lots of people who can stomach the celery juice, and I am sure that it has many benefits.
I must say that somehow this hiatus has made the racing thoughts and self-doubts and anxiety a little less severe though. And I have already addressed the sleeplessness with the Valerian. I believe I am on my way to recovery.
I also suspect that cake, especially chocolate cake, has healing properties. It’s just a theory for now, though.
Francine’s Guest Post 3
I Chase the Elusive Morpheus
The insomnia having gotten out of control, I made an appointment to see a doctor. The new insurance had a list of about fifty thousand doctors, so after narrowing them down to those who were accepting new patients, I closed my eyes and picked one. And let’s call him Dr. Young.
His secretary seemed quite anxious to take my appointment, and that kind of aroused my suspicion. Not that I wasn’t grateful for a same day appointment, but which doctor has every slot open from 9AM to 4PM? Why hadn’t I been more careful in choosing?
As soon as he walked into the room, I knew my fears were justified. Dr. Young looked like he had just graduated from high school. He could not have been more than nineteen. And it was obvious that he had never shaved in his life. What can this child do for me? I asked myself.
I was able to make a short video to prove to you that I’m not making this up.
“So, you’re having trouble sleeping,” he said.
“Yes, I sleep about 6 hours per night, if I’m lucky,” I replied.
“That’s actually not that bad,” he said.
“I used to sleep eight hours before,” I said.
Then he started to recite the ways to “create an ideal sleeping environment”, which is very popular now on the internet. He must have seen the annoyed look on my face because he stopped halfway through the list.
“Do you have some medicine to make me sleep?” I said dryly.
“I do, but I don’t think you need any medicine just yet…If this continues…”
“It has continued,” I almost shouted. “It has continued for three weeks! I just need something, anything, just to get me through the next few days. I have 60 essays to grade! I have to get some rest!” The desperation in my voice was palpable.
“E-e-exercise also helps,” he stammered.
This little twerp thinks I’m a drug addict, I thought.
“Your health is very good otherwise,” he continued. “Come back and see me in a week.”
Not bloody likely, I thought.
And with that we parted company.
Here is a list of the items I collected before I left:
– 6 tongue depressors (Yes, I wax my own legs. I buy the wax in bulk, and I get the applicators from doctors’ offices.)
– 2 syringes (you never know when you’ll need them.)
– 2 rolls of bandages (the soft, expensive kind.)
– a stack of make-up applicators (I don’t know the medical term, but they look like a Q-Tip, but longer.)
Now uploading the video, I notice that little rectangular blue thing on the wall behind him, which I think may be a camera. I zoomed in, but couldn’t be sure. Why would there be a camera in a doctor’s office, right? I came up with these answers:
- They’re doing some social experiment at the hospital, to try to figure out what kind of people steal medical supplies.
- The camera is to watch him, to see if he’s playing video games while he’s supposed to be working.
I’m more inclined to think it’s B.
It would be real embarrassing if it were a camera, though, right? For me.
Francine’s Guest Post 2
Pizza, Thighs, and Exercise
Well, no one objected to the cheese, so it remained in the box with the clothes. Grendel did give me a sour look when I passed by her cave yesterday. I don’t know if the exterminator truck parked outside had anything to do with it. Rats are known to like cheese. Anyway, I’ve got bigger problems.
I seem to be running out of clothes that fit. I’ve been trying to convince myself that they’ve been shrinking. Well, that may work for the knitted items, but not for polyester or silk.
How can a slice of pizza – okay, two slices – make your thighs rub together overnight? I’m never eating pizza again.
At lunchtime, today I decided to go to the gym after work. Exercise not only helps you lose weight, says the Internet, it increases energy, improves your mood, and helps you sleep. I need all of those things.
On my way to the gym I stopped at a restaurant to get some healthy food for afterwards. I did not want to be so hungry that I would stuff myself with anything I could find in the fridge. While waiting for my food at the counter, I heard a commotion behind me in the restaurant.
“I got a seat for us, Tracy! Where’s your man?” I turned around to see that the drunken loudspeaker was Mr. Wrong’s cousin, Tim, the recipient of those nightly phone calls. I remembered hearing that he lived in a rooming house with a bunch of male and female roommates. The girl he was talking to was one of two busty, scantily dressed women, also drunk. I concluded that they were part of the group home.
“He’s parking the car,” slurred Tracy, as she lurched into the seat, gulping from the beer bottle she was holding.
I grabbed my food and slipped outside. Not twenty feet from where I was standing, I recognized Mr. Wrong’s car maneuvering into a parking space. Well, suddenly, a few things became clear. The cousin had been a decoy. No wonder he insisted that I check his caller ID every time he called Tim. Then Tim would give the phone to Tracy the Tramp and I’d be none the wiser. Slick. Well, he’s neither gay nor incestuous….and he’s still a slug. I hurried down the street to my car, thinking how stupid they all must have thought I was.
Better her than me, I finally said to myself. Now she’ll have to deal with the freeloader. Or maybe they’re all freeloaders, living off each other in that rooming house, hiding from creditors, on that precarious raft of deceit and depravity.
By the time I got to the gym, thoughts of Mr. Wrong had completely left my head. I was very excited about this new gym-venture. I had been there before, and I had undergone their little presentation, because who wouldn’t, for a free three-day trial? This time I was determined to give it my all. So I allowed Bob, and his fellow trainer, whose name was – guess what? – also, Bob, to show me around and explain the machinery. Well, it didn’t take me long to start yawning, and I was getting pretty annoyed. I mean, after all, I did come there to exercise, not to listen to some boring information about how machines work.
“I came here to tighten up my behind,” I said to the Bobs. “Can you just lead me to the machine that’ll do that?”
Grudgingly, they did, and I was on the machine for a good twenty minutes, working myself into what felt like a sweat. Oh, I’ll increase the resistance, I thought, and pulled what I thought was the resistance-increaser. Well, it obviously was not the resistance-increaser, as everything felt really loose after that. But at that very moment I thought I saw Mr. Wrong walk into the gym, so I whipped my head around, lost my balance, heard a loud clang, and ended up in a most embarrassing and precarious position. Fortunately, the Gym-Bobs were there in seconds. The two of them disentangled me, to the great amusement of all who were pretending to concentrate on their weightlifting,
The picture below was taken from the video surveillance camera and given to me by the gym boss, who was delighted that I agreed not to sue them.
I’m pretty sure I broke their machine.
The guy I thought was Mr. Wrong turned out not to be – much better looking.
It’ll be a while before I go back there, of course. Unless I can find some different gym clothes. And a wig.
Francine’s Guest Post 1
The First Day of the Rest of My Life
or
Should the Cheese Stand Alone
The idea of a blog came to me after the break up. Mr. Wrong and I had not been seeing eye to eye for quite some time. But after I threw him out, things did not get much better. Don’t get me wrong; the freedom I felt after I closed the door on his lying, despicable face was indescribable. It’s just that I can’t seem to settle into a comfortable place no matter what I do. I keep judging myself, I have constant internal monologues, and I have trouble sleeping. My mind is a hopeless tangle of what-ifs and I-should-haves. As a temporary solution, I decided to follow the advice I often give my students and use writing for the clichéd catharsis and self-discovery that it produces. So, my dear readers, you will be receiving weekly reports (more frequent, if I can manage) of my journey out of what I am beginning to suspect may be a depression.
So that you may have a glimpse of what goes on in my life, and in order to ensure that everything I write reflect reality, I have installed a video camera in strategic places in my home. Hopefully by the end of this blog, the cloud will have lifted, and I will become myself again.
In the video above, you can see an example of what I do when I come home from work. I lie in bed, drink tea, read, (yes, I sometimes read without looking at the pages), take long baths, and generally sulk.
I don’t think I’ll be able to write much about Mr. Wrong right now, except to say that I should have seen the signs. Here are two of the most salient:
- What grown man over thirty does not have a bank account or a credit card?
- Who calls their cousin at ten o’clock every night “just to touch base”?
Anyway, I packed the rest of his belongings in a box, and took them down to the office of my apartment complex for him to pick up because I told him that I’d rather not have any contact with him as I didn’t want to be responsible if I SNAP at the sight of miserable face. The idea of removing from my home every single item he owns appealed to me immensely, and I relished packing them in the box: some clothes (including his favorite sweater), some books, his Spiderman thermos, and of course, his precious cheese. Yes, Mr. Wrong is a connoisseur of cheese. The riper the better.
So here is the dilemma: I hate soft cheese, almost as much as I hate Mr. Wrong, but I also hate waste. I decided not to throw the cheese out. It is a brand new, very expensive Camembert. The thing is, I had only one box, and so it was packed quite tightly, very close to the favorite sweater, as I remember. It was only later that I found out that he wouldn’t be able to pick up his items for two days. And I had already taped up the box and left it with Grendel, the Keeper of the Gate, whose idea of a response to “Good morning” is “Unrghh!”
I have done the research. I know the cheese will survive at room temperature for a couple days, but what about the clothes? Will they survive? Should I have double-wrapped the cheese in plastic? But wouldn’t that make it sweat?
On the other hand, am I putting too much effort into accommodating the needs of this vermin with whom I wasted two of my precious child-bearing years and who contributed only to my awareness of evil and my ability to withstand adversity?
Readers, I place the fate of the cheese in your hands. If in the next two days I get one request, just one, to walk down to the office and separate the cheese, I’ll do it.
I definitely did not foresee this dilemma.
As I write this I see that I may be a little obsessive.
See? Already this blog is working. Fantastic.
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