By now I feel so much better than at the beginning of the week that it reminded me of the premise of the children's book Heidi, where a few weeks in the mountain air, drinking sheep's milk and living life outdoors, sets up the heroine for health.
In my case, I have been sleeping well and even rising earlier than usual, aside from small twinges here and there have been headache-free, most of the bags under my eyes have gone, because I've had time to cook for myself I've been eating plenty of fresh and varied and delicious food, and looking into the mirror I generally see a glowing and healthy face. And today, instead of feeling like going out into hot weather would harm my health as was the case a week ago, I cycled through 32°C weather quite nonchalantly. Which makes me highly question the sanity of returning to work.
Anyway, I baked two olive bread loaves, made a Greek salad, and prepared a Mediterranean-style cornbread with feta, green onion and parsley. Besides I bought stracciatella ice cream.
Around midday I cycled off and dropped off the typewriter at last, by the grace of God managing to put the case right-side-up on the counter instead of embarrassing myself by ignorantly presenting it upside-down.
Various pedestrians seemed hell-bent on imperiling their lives for silly reasons, e.g. crossing the street at random when a crosswalk was five metres away. Cars and delivery vans were causing chaos by stopping in the middle of the street. Altogether the urge to facepalm was frequent.
Speaking of traffic and the urge to facepalm, I think it was yesterday, but I don't know for sure: I was riding behind a parcel delivery man on a bicycle, who was so absorbed in his smartphone and other stuff that he'd pulled out of the bicycle lane, then he slowly pulled back in again and pedalled off only to — after a pitiful handful of metres — bump straight into a construction fence in a snail's-pace collision. It was a fairly classic slapstick moment, which I don't feel guilty for enjoying as he seemed unhurt.
In the evening, J. and I visited T. in her apartment, to eat her dinner together. The ingredients and recipe were pre-ordered, so we watched as she carefully cleaned and set up everything and then pulled the recipe together: spaetzle with mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, and onion in a cream sauce.
The linden trees are not too parched by the summer heat to still be beautifully fragrant every now and then — one definitely begins to understand why the German Romantics appreciated them so much. ('Am Brunnen vor dem Tore,' etc.)
What I don't appreciate so much is the emergence this past week of a host of mosquitoes. I had red badges of their courage bloodlust scattered on my arm, face, and feet this morning.
It's likely an empty promise, but in the next weeks I will need to think strongly about how much I'm willing to sacrifice for my job. One of my great-grandfathers died of an ulcer, only in his forties and leaving a devastated young family behind; and although he seems to have been a nice person, I'm not eager to follow in his footsteps by taking on so much stress that I die early — even if it's well paid and a steady income.
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