i am getting homesick.
yen left yesterday morning - and the combination of many late nights and getting up early and the past week's frustrations and strain and a sudden teariness made me crawl back into bed shortly after i had seen bob off. bob reeder has been a real brick - i wouldn't think of asking anyone for a ride at 6.30, but he volunteered, explaining that he had to get up early to teach sunday school so he didn't mind. i asked if i could give him breakfast in return for his kindness - so we came back to my place. i had put bai mu'er to cook at 6, so when we came in at 8 - yen's train was delayed by 40 mins - it was almost ready. while i stirred and made tea i gave him fruit. there was a peach mixed in with the nectarines - i hadn't realised - i generally like nectarines more than peaches - and this is good luck because bob loves peaches though i did not know this. i showed him my books - which now includes the house at pooh corner - in latin! yen brought it for me, she'd got it at blackwell's when she was still at oxford, judging from the date of the inscription *grin*
actually i was worried about how my breakfast would turn out because bob is very...american in his food choices. a bit of a hamburger and fries guy. i wasn't sure if he would eat my bai mu'er, which is strange-textured, and what his reaction would be if i said it was a kind of fungus. bai mu'er comes in an alarming shape doesn't it? and fungus does sound like bread mould and foot infections and things. actually, what's so bad about fungi? americans eat mushrooms don't they? anyway, i gave him my hardback cassell's dictionary as a table, and he ate everything without dire expressions, and said it was good, but the trouble with cooking for anyone is that that's just what you expect they'll say even if they hated it. well at least it was a hot portion on a cold morning!
minyin tells me me it's the hottest day in melbourne since 13th jan, 1939.
saturday morning, yen and i got up at 7 and walked. i'm glad she's a walker - walking is rather english (and i know i've definitely driven some people mad with my "let's walk there" since i was in rgs - i bet cindy remembers all the times i made her walk to orchard in all kinds of weather!) - we walked along alderman, around the stadium, through the engineering school - very english, the courtyard i mean - and on towards the gardens, the lawn, and then, emerging from the back of the rotunda, not forgetting to point out my favourite magnolia tree - von helped me pilfer blooms for my room when he visited - and then across the tennis courts and emmet street - i wish april were here and she could see this place in its lovely spring splendour. when we reached the tavern my ears were pinkish cold. we had banana nut pancake and bacon waffles and i got whipped cream on my nose from my hot chocolate. at barnes and noble afterwards we went into the children's section and i read ramona quimby aged 8 and she read the new fudge book which name i've forgotten again. in the afternoon we went to arch's because doesn't it make you think of athena's place back when we were in rgs? we walked downtown - it was still bright, but the fairy lights in the trees were already lit - somehow that always makes me happy no matter how many times i've been. we looked in odd antique shops and i saw there is a new place that advertises itself as a tea house i wonder what sort of tea they mean. one day i'll go up and look. in daedalus, yen found a copy of the marriage of cadmus and harmony, and she pointed out a copy of la fontaine's fables to me which i put back - it's a hardcover! my parents were just warning me to stop accumulating things so that we can ship it all home without breaking my father's back. i was looking for another good old coloured edition of doctor dolittle for von (because i have misplaced the copy i got him in new orleans) but i haven't happened on one yet. maybe he is zhu4 ding4 not to have one.
su-lin pointed out that i meant bai xu qi zhong in the last entry
for the second night in a row i tried to eat at bizou but there was again too long a wait. the previous night i had been there with a few of the singaporeans, there was a forty minute wait then, so we had gone to rapture instead. there, one of them asked the waitress for a candle but she explained they didn't have any. when the cake came, she'd stuck a straw in it with a cherry on top though. that was awfully sweet. i can't blow out a cherry, but they said to make a wish and pull it off without touching it with my hands or knocking over the straw. this turned out to be very easy because when i leaned over and took it in my lips - aha! - it wasn't pierced through at all, just balanced, so of course it came away. allie thought that was a letdown. heh. thinking too, that this is the last time we'll all be here at school together - two of us will be leaving this year. i hope i'll be back. yen and i go to escafe finally - i've only been once before - where we exclaimed over everything. we had the udon in a kind of tomyam like soup and gingered-honeyed chicken, and salmon. the guy at the next table was very loud and and yen and i kept catching each other's eye and trying not to laugh. yen asked - would you like to live in charlottesville? i ask myself that often. i don't know. yes, i think, if the right people were still at school. but maybe they'll all be dead then. we were going to have coffee at the mudhouse afterwards, but it had suddenly turned cold and the sooner we were home the warmer. earlier the ice hockey team was practising in the skating rink, and now passing it the other way many young people were gliding around, and i thought, a little ruefully, that i can't skate and should learn.