Forgotten Names

Most of the findings I have made going through my stuff have been pleasant and enheartening but some are slightly disconcerting. Like when I come across letters from people whose names I can’t even recall. Let alone imagine on what occasion I might have known them. Well, there’s been a few like that. One was a long e-mail from somebody explaining the changes in his situation for the passing year. Kind of like these impersonated Christmas cards/letters. And I realized I couldn’t care less. Because I didn’t even know who this was. Or why I was storing this information. I must have somehow ended up on this person’s address list. I mean, I hope this is not a friend I used to know. That would be lame if I couldn’t even recall the name if I tried. There are also a number of name cards that leave me totally blank. And names with address and telephone written down on paper slips. It feels a little strange: People whose lifes crossed mine at some point and whom I subsequently erased from my memory. For some I can vaguely remember a circumstance where I might have exchanged addresses with them. “Please come visit me some time!” or “You’re welcome to stay in my place, next time you come to Paris”. Hmm, wouldn’t that be funny, if you then picked up the phone and told them “Hi, I’m here. Remember me?”

There are also e-mails from this guy in a CD store downtown who used regularly to post to me. I didn’t know him at all, so I always found this a little creepy. He would address me by my first name and attach very amical terms to it. I was quite offput. I realized later that I had agreed to give my e-mail address to the store on some occasion for an e-mail list with news and offers. The store later went broke, that didn't surprise me, the way the were reacting to customers. The guy would
send me e-mails where he scolded me for not doing my job, that I shouldn’t pass phone calls to them, and when I told him he was mistaken that I shouldn’t take his remarks “like that”. Bugger. Off to the waste bin!

Long Gone Foods ...

Oh, the things that pop up as I go through piles of old throw-away stuff! When I had been living abroad for two years after highschool, I came to spend the summer at home, where I got a summer job. I imagine I must have been looking forward to it and also that I must have been missing a lot of things from home. My mom must have been looking forward to having me home too. In any case, I must have been looking forward to coming home, renewing my experience with familiar things and possibly having my mom cook me my favorite dishes, because among my papers I found this list of foods:

. Salted lamb with mashed potatoes (while I didn’t actually care that much about the Pea Soup that goes with it, but I so do now! I’m an absolute sucker for it!)
. Pan-fried fresh haddock in bread crumbs
. Haddock with apples and curry on a pan
. New potatoes in the skin with butter (so basic, but when they've just been recolted they're just so good!)
. My mom’s Lasagna with lots of thick white sauce
. Lamb Meat Soup exactly like my mom makes it
. Hot Dog with mustard, ketchup, remoulade and onions
. Fish gratin (and here I forgot to mention “cauliflower au gratin” another big time favorite)
. Homemade pizza with pepperoni, oregano, bell peppers and tomatoes (still appreciated, I guess, and my sister makes a really nice crust, however, with the arrival of Domino’s and the pizza boom, I’ve come to find this food kind of dull)
. Chow-chow (a spicy stew my mom came across some thirty years ago; now a legendary family recipe)
. Mexican chicken curry (a family recipe again, don’t know what’s mexican about it, but the fun lies in the little accompaniments you assemble with it: dried raisins, red and green bell peppers, dried almond flakes, sour cream, salted peanuts …)
. Potato salad in vinegar dressing with onions (no mayonnaise; however, I over-ate on this, at some point)
. Iceberg salad with tomatoes (Dunno' how I could possibly have been missing that; well, the French mostly eat this slightly bitter green salad, never Iceberg)
. Ground meat stew with rice (Kind of boring, right? Off you go ...)
. Sweet and sour shrimps in tartelettes (What the hell is that?!?)
. Leg of lamb with glazed potatoes, corn, red cabbage and brown gravy (the classic Sunday dinner from our childhood)
. Party dish with bread, eggs, ham, aspargus and cheese baked in the oven (comfort food)
. Halibut fried on a pan (oh, I love halibut, halibut, halibut …)
. Boiled salmon with lemon (kind of homely and nostalgic)
. My sister’s tuna salad (her secret: HP sauce)
. Barbecued lamb and grilled bananas with chocolate (I maintain that nothing barbecues better than lamb …)
. Soft ice cream
. Lamb chops fried in bread crumbs (yet another classic, I would even eat them cold as a kid)
. Hamburger from the Night Grill (a sleezy down town joint that doesn’t exist anymore; I'd eat leftovers that my brother would bring back home at the end of his night shift)
. Pita (like the one we girlfriends used to have when we were doing math on Saturdays in highschool ...)
. Mutton spread (Sort of a paté, although akin to the French “Rillettes” except with mutton, and we mostly eat it with rye bread or flat cakes)
. Fake hare (Now, that’s a Danish dish, but I grew up with it; it’s basically a meatloaf with bacon served with brown sauce and mashed potatoes)

I think I can proudly claim that my culinary tastes are somewhat more sophisticated today, and that what I miss now are mostly the products I used to have when I was living abroad. This list however brings up some very pleasant feelings, and is most certainly a tribute to my mom's cooking …

'Have a meeting ...

I love short meetings. Work meetings should never exceed one hour. If they do, they should be labeled something else than a 'meeting'. Best are meetings that only last 45 minutes or that are out before the time is up. Oh, when I think how much time would be saved just by sticking to the time frame accorded to such and such meeting ...

Short meetings are efficient and to the point.
Long meetings are enduring, aimless and boring.

Things and nostalgia

It's strange sometimes how we desperately hang onto material things, even the most trivial things we can be sure we are never going to find use for again in our life. It completely beats logic. Or does it? Well, I think we unconsciously are counting on these objects as mnemonic aids. We are aware of how fragile and ephemeral our memory often is. These objects may be important links in our intricate memory network, and the most insignificant object may trigger associations and marvelous trips down memory lane. So those objects may not mean anything to us per se, but we may be aware of there importance in keeping some souvenirs intact or their potential for bringing back memories we think are long lost.

I am a sucker for remembrances. Not because I don't like my life right now or because I would like to return to the past. Rather because I see myself as nothing more, nothing less than a human body with a sense of identity that is based on an accumulation of life experiences. And if traces of some of these experiences are to be found at the back of my mind, others have shaped me without me being able to recognize them anymore. And I would like to understand all of them, the best I can, in order also to better understand the present. Then, some of them are of such nature that they still warm you.

This is the only reason I can find to explain why I have been storing:

• A receipt for the payment of my rent from 1990 where my name is atrociously misspelled. When I look at this receipt I am reminded of my not so dear landlady of the time, all the drama involved with that flat where the roof used to leak every time we got a good rainfall, the toilet would overflow each time it encountered bowels of a good consistency, and the door could be peeked through. That lady, Madame Félix, stole my money, stole my belongings and screwed me in every way, but it was a very valuable lesson for me to stop expecting strangers to be truthful and honest. I paid her 26 months of rent and got just as many receipts. Each of them had a different spelling of my name, none of which however was ever correct. This also taught me that it’s not because people don’t give the appearance of being smart that they won’t have a nose for business.
  
  
• A faded registry slip from the supermarket INNO. On the back of it, I had scribbled the menu of the party I threw for my 30th birthday. And I am suddenly reminded of my preparations, the people I invited and friends who used to be.
  
  
• An announcement letter for a conference I took part in. The letter reminds me not of the lectures or of the venue but more of a couple of people I hooked up with there and became close friends with.
  
  
• A study book of arithmetic for children, that I had when I was 4. No, such a book does not serve as a reference for theoretical matters, but when I open it I am vividly reminded of how much I enjoyed filling it out and how thrilled I was by all the discoveries made and how exciting my first contact with the world of mathematics was.
  
  
• A program of activities for the students of the CAVILAM language center. And I think of the social center we used to have, where we would do buffets, dances and other social gatherings, the excursions we made in the French countryside, the “Petit Robinson” discotheque right on the beach from where I would once climb out the window to go flirt with a boy, the English, older lady, Mary, who went to class with us and whose eyes would not stop pouring tears when we came back from seeing “Au revoir les enfants” at the cinema, our football club that we once accompanied to a little village to cheer it, and Tour de France was passing through.

I could go on. But how can I justify not getting rid of these insignificant, worthless things. And how can I actually justify throwing them away, along with everything they engender.

Cooing Dove

I used to know this Syrian girl when I first went to live abroad. She was in my french class, and as this class was mostly composed of professional people, including humanitarian workers, diplomats, french teachers and interpreters, the two of us turned out to be the youngest pupils in the class, by far. Actually, she was only 17 when she arrived in the class. So, we stuck together; we walked together to the canteen at nights, did homework together, shared our feeling about being homesick, badmouthed the French together, accompanied each other to the supermarket (where we would to begin with mostly stock up on softdrinks, chips and biscuits ...), and did other stuff.

Her name was Hadil, which according to her meant "cooing" in Arabic, cooing like pigeons do. Actually, the word she used was the french "rocoulement". She liked to tell people what the meaning of her name was, but I noticed that our classmates usually didn't get it, even if she pronounced "roucoulement" very nicely, with an "r" that actually sounded sort of like "cooing". She would usually have to explain it at least twice, then people would give her an incredulous, non-impressed "Really?" and probably go home and look the word up in the dictionary.

I thought Hadil was a pretty name. It sounded a little harsh, with authentic Arabic prononciation, but one could get used to it. And I liked her; she was very genuine, extrovert and sincere, generous and warm, cheerful and light, and we had a great time toghether. She was sort of still a child, while I didn't consider myself one anymore, but that was allright; I would let my guards down with her, be enchanted, be scared, be silly when she was. She obviously came from a very privileged family and a somewhat protected environment. Her dad held a ministerial position and she had obtained a grant to come and study in France through her father’s influence. (I remember she was very surprised to learn that I was on a scholarship too, yet didn’t know anybody from the government.) Not that she was unworthy of her grant; she was very smart, sweet and astute, and she studied a lot for classes. But I was aware that, even though we had this tight and solid friendship and comraderie, we weren’t exactly on the same boat. She never worried about expenses; her parents were paying the rent (for the lovely little flat her father found her) and everything, so she would at worst complain that her pocket money (scholarship) didn’t allow for any extravagance. I was struggling to make ends meet on it, although doing okay at that, especially when I would buy coupons for the canteen where we could eat really cheap. Every so often, her dad would fly in. I wouldn’t see her then, not while he was there, but she would come to classes riding his black limousine.

I find it strange when I look at it to have felt so close to this girl. I mean, her coming from such a different culture and all. But somehow we just ended up doing everything together, always. We had great talks toghether and lots of laughs. It was awsome. I found her actually to be fairly western in her attitudes. In some ways she was more sophisticated than me, me being such a tom boy and all. I would for instance help her wax her arms (of all things!) Except that she didn’t wax with a wax, but with some sugary paste she brought from the Orient. It was great fun. We would cook it together, she’d spread it on her arms, and then I’d help her with the painful part. She offered to help me wax my arms. “Ugh, no!” I told her. There was no way I felt inclined to rid myself of the invisible down I possessed on my forearms. “As you like, but where I come from, no woman who respects herself will walk around with body hair …” Then we just laughed at our differences.

Before the end of the year though, I lost touch with her, but that’s a matter for another story. Later, I learned that she had taken on medical studies in France, just as planned, but that then, unpredictably, she had gotten married to some bloke from Syria, twenty years her senior, who had been taking french classes at our language institute when we were. I never really got that, but well, there was probably a lot in her culture I didn’t quite fathom.

She kind of stays with me still though. I can picture her giggling. An amazing friendship we had.

My Electric Companion

Being without a computer when you've grown so used to it feels like having suddenly your arms cut off. I didn't think I was that addicted, but I now seem completely helpless as far as paperwork goes, staying in contact with people, organizing myself, writing letters. And, when you're stupid enough to electronically store all the little details of your life, this can easily be gone in a blink:

Your correspondence for the last fifteen years, your mailbox, your bookkeeping, lecture notes with problems and solutions for all the classes you’ve taught (and taken), tax reports, and of course the photos from your last ten vacations, birthday parties, pictures of your nephews and nieces when they were younger, your wedding, your honeymoon, and old photo albums that you’ve patiently been scanning and retouching. And then there’s of course the wonderful CD database you just completed!

This should teach me not to put so much trust in a machine again ...

Dullest Blog in the World

I am not going to blog about
. being sick (then I mean writing about my cold, my flu, a runny nose or such)
. being tired (what’s the interest in knowing somebody’s tired, unless you were dying to rub her/his feet?)
. some stupid web test I took to prove that I am cool (or not), smart (or not), sexy (or not), creative (or not), ambitious (or not), mature (or not), in love (or not) (why should you need a test for that?)
. sports results (those who wanta know if Arsenal won can look at the sports site!)
However, if you are missing any of that, try going to this blog.