A lovely day at JFK

I'm in an airport. I'm supposed to be on my flight, on the way to Denmark, where the train that's supposed to take me to Lund and my house and my boyfriend and the dinner I had mentally planned (salmon!) was.

Little did I know that the plane to Denmark suffered from mechanical errors. I also knew very little about the supposed plan to tell me about this in Atlanta so that I could be rebooked onto a flight to Newark instead of JFK and continue directly from there. What I DO know is that people can be idiots, and that now I have been delayed a full day. I also know that if all goes well I will be on my way to France in a few hours.

I have become very aware of strong negative emotions about airlines. Especially Delta airlines. And Continental. And maybe even KLM. Actually most airlines except for Lufthansa, because they just kind of chill out. I now also know why they have such rigorous security checks. The next time I fly I believe I will pack pressurized substances, dangerous chemicals and weapons specifically to test said controlls, and if they don't stop me I may or may not use the pressurized substances to attack them.  In their faces.

Also Charlotte, I can't believe you like borscht. I mean come on.

It also just struck me that whether you are in France or New York, I am/will be much closer to you physically than usual.

Missing the Fancy Pants

I am back in Marseille, the motherland.
Rather than writing about France, however, I shall be writing about something that is sitting in my pantry in my apartment in New York, the foster motherland.

A few months (yes, months) back, I came across this can of beets.
Now I like beets a lot. In fact, you might say that I'm quite the beet fiend. And borscht too for that matter, but that makes sense since borscht is essentially mashed-up beets.
I know what you're thinking, oh inquisitive reader: "If you like them so much, why haven't you eaten them yet?"
The answer is: I'm just not fancy enough.

Charlotte

Announcing...

The 2010-2011 Anna Karenina Off!

The Contestants: Charlotte and Sally

The Book: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

The Parameters: 817 pages, 36 days. Whoever gets the furthest in the book wins.

The Dates: December 19 to January 24

The Prize: A dinner at the winner’s restaurant of choice.

What People are Saying:  "It's gonna be a long trek in the arid Tolstoy desert"; "Well, really there are no winners, just a couple of well-read losers".

Note: If a contestant miraculously finishes the whole book before January 24, they are to inform Mediator Maya, who will officially end the contest and announce the victor. 

Two Illustrated Questions:

1.

What is happening to the world?

 2.

Why are the Germans the only one with an exclamation point?

To venture an answer to either, try the comments.

Charlotte

Sally

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live with a Linguistics major with a passion for ceramics? I knew you did. Well, today's your lucky day: I'm going to share my experience with you.

This is Sally:

Sally's an expert at ceramic glazes and when I say expert, I mean the girl's a pro. So much so, in fact, that she helps some people with their ceramic thesis projects, which results in conversations such as these:

Charlotte: What did you do today?

Sally: Well, I was helping this girl with her thesis project.

Charlotte: Yeah?

Sally: Yeah, she's making cups shaped like breasts and we spent hours finding the perfect areolar color.

Sally also does things like x-bar theory, which is when you take a sentence and put it in some sort of tree diagram and sometimes it takes her hours to do one sentence and she gets really frustrated and will go slightly crazy. And sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I find things like this on the kitchen counter:

When I asked her about this, she answered that she didn't even remember writing it; she was on an x-bar high.

Charlotte

True.com

As I checked my Facebook the other day, this appeared:

No, Facebook, I do not want a fake-taned, army-bandana-wearing, long-sideburned "Cute Boyfriend".

I have never been more disappointed that there isn't an "all of the above" option.

Charlotte

It's a Small Thing

If you’ve diligently read the description of this blog, you’ll notice that there were promises made to our vast audience. Namely, that Isabel and I “celebrate the small things in life”. This post is about one of those small things.

I feel like there’s a sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a tube of toothpaste. It’s an affirmation that you have done your job, kept your teeth clean. It takes a while to finish a tube of toothpaste, it takes hard work and discipline. Recently, I finished one, and it was pretty great. I always squeeze out every last remaining drop (?) because I don’t want to feel like I’m cheating, so I finish it until there’s nothing left, and then have a grand, dramatic moment where I chuck it in the garbage can. I have had no noteworthy athletic achievements, so this is the closest thing I have to a touchdown, a basket, a goal or a home-run.

Logically, it should be a huge disappointment when I have to buy a new tube: the start of a yet another long, exhaustive journey. But no. It’s not disappointing. In fact, starting the new tube may be even more thrilling than ending one. Why? Because look at that tube!

So deliciously plump! And then it’s time to apply the toothpaste: all the colors are in a straight line, they lay side-by-side on the tips of brush. I make sure of this: I slowly apply the toothpaste so that it looks just like the commercial. And sometimes, I even manage to get that playful swirl. You know exactly which one I’m talking about:

That’s when I know it was all worth it. Going through that arduous process of finishing the tube. It was all worth it because of how straight the lines are and because of that swirl. And now I just have to be a trooper until the end; the day of a new tube will come again.

Charlotte