October 9. An egg sits in my fridge, waiting. Truth, ever since I was little and we were home schooled and went over to a friend’s house one day and they showed us how they were raising chickens... and how they had cracked open a fertilised egg and glopped the half-chicken half-egg into a bowl and stuck it in the freezer... Ever since then I’ve had a slight fear of cracking eggs. So this one sits, entombed in a plastic egg crate. I still remember that thing’s beady eyes and beak sticking up out of the liquid.
Home schooling was a good thing. My (our, but at this point there is no one to make me equal us) children will be home schooled, too. We (little sister and I) learnt to think independently, to be creative, to waste time constructively (better to play at being frontier wives and run the general store than to sit in a class of 24 other kids waiting for everyone to shut up. I didn’t have a very positive experience in public school later on.)
October 11. I’ve started frequenting the (probably illegal) market on Yanko Sakuzov Boulevard, where it meets with Evlogi Georgiev. There, the babi and the dyadovtsi (grannies and grandpas) sell their forest-gathered kopriva (nettles), home-grown parsley and carrots, and freshly collected wood mushrooms. I love mushrooms, and they have such magical names, too: rizhinka (рижинка), byala livadna pechourka (бяла ливадна печурка), maslovka (масловка), surnela (сърнела), purhoutka (пърхутка). The surneli are particularly good, though in all the varieties, there are often “friends”, or, “alternative sources of protein” to be had.
Once, in university, I was taking a course on mushrooms, and, well, misidentified one. I’m like, “Hey, it’s a Boletus edulis!” But it wasn’t. My mushroom identification guide misled me. It was a Boletus bicolor, and the stotinka-sized bite that I tried caused days of feeling strange. I called poison control and they said that because I’d taken in so little, I wouldn’t die. Thanks.
Maslovki are boletus, but the edible type. Otherwise I’d not be here writing this.
October 12. Someone said something last night that I already knew, but didn’t want to hear and most definitely did not want to believe. But X said it and I had to accept it, because ultimately it is better for me. Though, in addition to the continuing greyness of the sky and underlying fatigue from a late night, today was not the happiest of days.
October 13. The benefit of not having a washing machine is that someone else does your laundry for you (and when you pick it up three days later, it’s all folded and ironed!). The drawback is that someone else does your laundry for you.
Apparently, the ladies at the place I go off of Boulevard Sitnyakovo did not understand my latest request for one item to be dry cleaned, and the rest to be machine washed. I had thought it strange that I did not have to pay for the sweater separately, but, not being a dry-cleaning regular, thought that I would pay when I picked it up. No.
I didn’t pay extra for the pink woollen J Crew sweater (one of the few clothing gifts from my grandma that I actually liked); nor did it get dry cleaned.
Let’s just say that a cute five-year-old girl will be warm this winter.
October 14. This forced use of plastic bags disturbs me. Like at the vegetable market, a lady says that she does not need a bag (bless her!) but the cashier still sticks her bag of rice in one. Today at the supermarket (Picadilly, because at least it is – or was – a Bulgarian company), I decide to buy fresh ginger (yes, in Bulgaria!). And it gets weighed by the scale-lady. And she sticks the price sticker on a plastic bag. And I try not to freak out, but frantically try to peel it off. And she looks at me like I’m crazy.
She asks why I do not want a bag. I reply: “Because there are enough bags in the world, there is no need to make more trash, and this piece of ginger does not need a bag.” She looks like she agrees, but is constrained to a fate of weighing bananas, printing stickers and sticking items in yellow baggies.
“What’s your nationality?” she asks. “American.” “Do they use bags there?” “Unfortunately, yes.”
October 15. Relief, but still a slight undertone of – what? Why do we live? For God, yes, but why were we created? For God’s companionship, which sounds nice, because companionship is not necessary, but desirable. Mutuality. That word always reminds me of mutual funds.
In Zaimov>Oborishte>Zaimov Park this evening, some tots are chasing after their dad. A boy of about 10 starts mocking them. I become annoyed and calmly say something like: “Please be kind.” Then he yells something at me that sounds like “poutka”. And then I get indignant. He’s with a friend of about the same age. I stop walking and look at them. (My mum says I’ve killed a thousand people with my eyes.)
“I want to tell you something,” I say calmly. The first boy runs away. His friend stays, and I walk to him. “I want to tell you something. Respect towards other people is very important. There is not enough of it in this world. Thank you.”. This second boy was polite, nor did he make fun of my un-knowledge of the correct way to pronounce respect (уважение – and he in fact provided the correct word for me).
If I ask: “Where is this country going with educating its children?” will I sound like a gripey old woman? (May it never be so!)
October 17. I cracked the egg last night. It was bicolour. v
