Still Passing Open Windows ....

Reading the tea leaves

Not being an experienced tea leaf reader, I tried to remember what I read and simply turned my cup upside down on my saucer once I had drunk all my tea. There are clumps of tea leaves and then there are the floating tea leaves in the remains of the tea. My interpretation is: clumps of happiness / good things with potential for more in the floating tea leaves but overall very changeable or unstable; things could go in many different directions.

Background info: the cups were a wedding gift to my mother. She only uses them once a year, for special occasions. Now that my parents are seriously faced with moving, I was able to export 2 cups from the set (of 6). I use them every weekend and love them. I prepare tea in my little metal tea pot, which is standard issue in more rural supermarkets, and drink it on the balcony. It's a link to home, to drinking tea on the verandah and looking out over the hills, often misty. I look out over the road with its scooters and impatient commuters and remember happier days (say in a quavery voice for full effect) and feel about 73. I must look for a nice shirtwaister this week.

Do you have any tea leaf reading tips? I feel coffee ground reading is similar enough and will accept coffee grind reading tips too.  

PTD

"What do you feel like doing tonight?" H asks me as we drive home from the airport.

"I don't know. Let's see later. I'm waiting to see how long it takes before Post Trip Depression hits so I don't want to commit to anything yet," I reply.

Clever girl. PTD has hit. It probably wasn't helped by the phonecall from our RE to say that only one of the three embryos produced in this cycle is growing and that he recommends thawing our 2 frozen ones. So much for that trip then.

I look out our balcony at the building site opposite us and the slightly menacing house up the hill, as a scooter buzzes annoyingly up the road. The US is looking very attractive at this point. Europe is just looking bleak. Post Trip Depression. It always hits and it always takes me 2-4 weeks to find my equilibrium again, to get back into a rhythm. In the meantime I will just watch TV and eat Reeses, because I bought back a good stock. And if Reeses can't help the blues, what can? I wonder if that would work as a mantra ...

Moral Support

I am not a big driver. It's not my thing. I would rather walk or take my bike. So driving a lot and taking freeways tends to freak me out. In this context, add using the cheapest car rental available and you can imagine my stress level.

We're driving up the freeway, on the way to a historical site 63 miles away. There's a little dinging noise. "What's that?" asks H.

"I have no idea," I say, concentrating on the road and the GPS which is nestled between the steering wheel and the speedometer. ("I'll give it to you for free," says the car rental guy, pulling it out a drawer. "It has no stand.")

H whisks away the GPS to reveal both the petrol light and the battery light illuminated.

"I think we should go back," he says.

"Really?" I ask, concentrating on the road but now throwing worried glances at the lights on my dashboard.

"Yes," he says firmly, "And we should probably fill up with gas first."

"Where do I fill up?" I ask, looking around and seeing hotels, exit ramps and offices. "There are no filling stations! Where's a filling station?" My voice is rising and I'm getting panicky as cars whizz by me on either side.

"I don't know," says H with a shrug, quite calmly. "How would I know?"

"There's nothing!" I say shrilly. "In South Africa there are petrol stations on the side of the highway, here there's nothing! This is a foreign country for me!" 

"Take the next exit," says H. 

I fly by it. I'm thinking. What to do? What to do? Both lights are still on.

"Look," says H, "There's a gas station. Take the next exit. And it's right next to the highway, what do you know? Just to make you feel at home."

"Ha ha ha, very funny," I say.

We fill up with gas and turn around, heading back into the city to the car rental place. 

After we've driven a few miles, H comments, "Look, another gas station, next to the highway," says H, "It's just like South Africa."

And now, every time we pass a gas station on the highway, H shakes his head in mock wonder and goes, "A gas station right next to the highway, just like South Africa." If I wasn't concentrating so hard on the road, I would hit him.

 

Musical memory

Becky has written a great post on music she loves. It got me thinking about songs that can change my mood in an instant, put a smile on my face or take me back to another time. 

One of those singers is, funnily enough because there are very few French artists I love, Raphaël. I love his songs, his voice and the words. One of my favourites is Ne partons pas fâchés (Let's not separate angry). It's a typical guy statement - let's not part angry, it's not worth it - but his voice and the melody are so beautiful and upbeat that I forgive him, like I forgave my unrealiable boyfriends in my youth. He sings of of how beautiful he finds the girl, of how he wants to take her to the sea, of how there's nothing else to do but drink, of how he's sold his motor bike. It's his voice and his elfin face that gets me I think, and the song reminds me of being at university, of being young and that mad love you feel for guys at 20 when you stay up all night and decide to drive to the beach at 5 a.m. and you're high on nothing more than youth and alcohol and finally being with the person you have been obsessing over during all those lectures. Before infertility and losing babies and diabetes and making sure there is an apple juice in my handbag and that I have my insulin. Before all of that, when a day can suddenly turn into something magical just because a guy speaks to you. Or is that just early love?

My latest love is Paolo Nutini's song Candy. There's something in that song that could make me leave everything and take off in Paolo Nutini's car, driving into the distance, anywhere, as long as it takes us days to get there. Even if he does have the odd clunky line like "I'm just a stain on your bedsheet and you're my diamond in the rough". His voice just melts me.

Maybe I love these two guys' songs because they somehow encapsulate something of the guys I have lusted after. They have a bad boy quality mixed with a boyishness which gets me every time. It's probably why I love Macy Gray. She sings about loving the bad boys, about how she knows she shouldn't yet she does. And she has that great voice.

My mother loves music. We would dance to Buddy Holly and she would tell me how only the bad boys liked the Rolling Stones, and she would look like a different person, jiving away and singing all the words. Maybe that's why we love certain songs; because they evoke a younger emotion or time in us, they remind us of happy, carefree times. Ok, I am stopping now because I just sound old and care worn. Time to go to bed, and maybe listen to Raphaël on my iPod.

A worm

A worm, that's what I feel like, but I'm a happy worm. H is coming. Yay!

I'm nervous about blogging about this cycle. Superstitious I guess. Things look ok. I read today that lifestyle changes take about 3 months to show any effect and while I haven't introduced any major ones, I have been drinking protein smoothies pretty regularly and doing acupuncture weekly and I think it has had a positive effect. I tried to follow a healthy eating plan but after a couple of days I hit a wall and went on a binge of chocolate, coffee and junk food, felt awful and decided that simply trying to eat better was probably better for me in the long run. My inner rebel does not take kindly to being told what to do.

I blame boarding school. It has made me allergic to somone else imposing their ideas on me. My sister loved boarding school, so did H. I still have nightmares that I am suddenly back there. So little choice, so many rules, it makes me shiver just thinking about it. I must remember this on days when I find adulthood hard.

Today I indulged my stationery fetish and bought sketchpads and a beautiful fountain pen. It's gorgeous. If I could figure out how to download photos, I would post one. One of my dream jobs would be to have a stationery store. It would be in a small town with tree lined streets and I'd have a cute house with a big lawn sloping down to a river. I'd have a dog with loads of character and a group of best friends to have coffee with, and my parents would live in walking distance. Sort of like a Gilman Girls-type existence. Do you think I would be bored before a week was up?

Travelling

So here I am, moving into the next cycle. IVF, in case you were wondering. I arrived today, all on my own. H can't make it due to a myriad of reasons so I have a week alone in a foreign city. It's not unknown; we've been here before. It's a nice place to visit too, it's just that I'm all on my own. For a week. And for all my complaining about being a solitary person and liking being on my own, there is a big difference between being on your own at home and being on your own away from home. I feel that strange city loneliness lurking in the shadows. You know that loneliness that is like a huge emptiness, it's almost a childlike fear of being away from your mother. Who will look after me? What if something happens to me? Who will help me?

Yes, I know I am being pathetic. Totally pathetic. I am staying in a lovely hotel. The car hire company gave me a funky Chrysler saying, "I know you ordered a compact car but you don't mind taking that car  out there?" Who would mind? It's such a cool car. So I have a nice hotel and a car, a fun car at that, and a week just to hang out and do nothing and I'm moaning about being on my own. There's no pleasing some people. So I give myself a slap about the head and plan stuff I know I like to do, but still there's a little voice in my head going, "But we're all alone! Where's the man?" And the most ridiculous thing about this all is that I think I am quite independent. Ha! And one of the things that drives me crazy about my mother is her dependence on my father. Blood is obviously much thicker than water. 

Well, the upshot of all this is that I will probably be a lot more active on my blog this week. Because I have all this time and no-one to talk to, and I got comments on my last post! I still have people who drop by, you have no idea how much it touches me. And, last but not least, I managed to get connected to the hotel internet. All on my own. Without the man. It's a brave new world, ladies. May it continue to be this easy.

And you know the worst of all of this? I am being ever so slightly chilly to H, because even though I know it would be difficult for him to come, it's still like an unwritten relationship test and I think, "If he really loved me, he would come." This is what I think about the man who arranged for flowers and a fruit platter in my room. I feel like a worm, but still a slightly vindictive worm. Maybe I'll have such a nice time this week and discover an inner confidence that ... um, I'm not sure, that I realise it was all ok? I know it's going to be ok in the end, of course it will, I just miss having the man to do stuff with and to have shared experiences with. There we go, maybe by the end of this week I will realise how important sharing life is and how good it actually is to have the man there.

Italian

H always laughs at my family's love of Italian food. We go to Cape Town and as soon as we talk about going out to eat, my sister says, "Oooh, our favourite Italian restaurant is just down the road!" H turns to me and says, "What about fish?" Cape Town is a peninsula, you are surrounded by the ocean, by two oceans in fact but my family wants pizza, pasta and tomato sauce.

I was home alone tonight. I perused the fridge looking for something yummy yet easy to prepare. Leftover lentils? No. Fried egg (my standard eating alone choice)? Naah, I've done enough egg. Leftover Aubergine parmigiana? Mmmm ....

And I sat and ate my solitary aubergine parmigiana on the balcony, with a side of rocket, and you know what? It was delicious; a little sweet,a little chewy and the aubergine even added a slightly meaty texture. Altogether a very satisfying meal. I know why my family loves Italian, it's just good, you can't really go wrong.