Tonight, my sister, my cousin and I went to an Italian bakery/cafe nearby. We got some chocolate cannoli, profiterole cake, a hazelnut/chocolate gelato sundae of sorts, a Coke float with vanilla ice cream — and water. None of us ate a WHOLE dish, but we all shared.

Agnieszka had never tried a Coke float (ice cream floating IN a soda?), cannoli (sweet cheese filling IN a fried pastry/cookie shell? Only the Italians!), profiterole cake or gelato. However, I have it on good authority that she liked everything we shared.

It was nice - we just sat in the cafe and talked for a while, and laughed quite a bit about a variety of things. It’s good to see my cousin coming out of her shell a bit, and nice to see my sister trying to improve her Polish so she can communicate more effectively with my cousin.

Then we drove home and Agnieszka selected some movies from my DVD collection so she can watch something in the late hours of the night. She doesn’t get to sleep until after everyone else in the house (she still has her youth!) so to keep her from getting totally bored, I’ve told her to feel free to come into my room and borrow whatever DVDs she likes. Thus far, she’s watched Edward Scissorhands, A Christmas Carol (with Patrick Stewart), The Last Unicorn, and Legally Blonde. Tonight, her movie selections were James and the Giant Peach and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. As long as she can turn on the English subtitles, she’s OK with watching them… she can read along if the speech is too quick or just confusing. It’s a fact that most people, when speaking, make absolutely no sense since words run together, sounds get dropped or glossed over… it’s hard enough to understand people when you’re speaking the same language, but it’s damn near impossible to understand them when they’re speaking their own language in a comfortably lazy way. Yeah. Not fun.

Today at work, the company that owns the buildings on our block held a tenant appreciation day. Local restaurants provided hamburgers and hot dogs and potato salad, soda and chips and Mr. Softee ice cream and such. They hired a DJ who seemed to have a minor obsession with Gwen Stefani since he played three of her songs in the 45 minutes I was out there. Ridiculous. But her shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

They also hired caricature artists (I skipped that since I’ve had it done twice before in my life and I end up being depicted as ALL cheeks. It’s so not even mildly flattering. I give up.) as well as tarot card readers. I waited in line with my friend - who was going to get a reading - until I felt I’d spent enough time out there and needed to get back to my work (I had a particularly tasty spreadsheet waiting for me!) When I got back upstairs, I was walking by a co-worker and he asked me how my reading went. I responded that I’d just been waiting in line with a friend and didn’t actually get a reading. He responded with a, “why not?” and I replied that there wasn’t really anything I wanted to know (since saying, “I don’t believe in that shit” might’ve offended him if he, in fact, did believe.)

But it’s kind of weird. When I was in line with her, Krys and her co-worker asked me if I was going to get a reading, and I said no. They said I should do it; didn’t I have anything I wanted to know the answer to? (The card reader had talked to us a moment before letting us know that she wanted us to focus on the question we had for her since it would make the reading quicker and more accurate). I thought about it for a moment, and I had to say that there really wasn’t anything I wanted to know about (even out of a silly kitschy curiosity.) I wouldn’t ask about my future in terms of relationships or love, or work and money, or family and home. I’m working on all those things in my own way and whatever comes to pass will come to pass because I have been working towards it - or not. I don’t need or want to know what’s going to happen because it will all happen in due time. I’m not impatient about knowing the WHEN and HOW and WHERE. It makes no difference. So, that felt sort of good in a way - being able to honestly say that I didn’t want to know my future (even if from a tarot reader who may or may not be someone with “the gift”) and meaning it.

After work, I went out for Thai food with Theresa and we were seated near the most wretched pair of old women ever. OK, almost ever. The one woman ordered a Thai iced tea (which is not a regular iced tea, and which comes sweetened and spiced and with milk in it… by definition.) When she received the tea, she took a sip and commented loudly to her friend, “IT’S A LITTLE TOO SWEET.” [All caps to emphasize her speaking as if to the entire room/a deaf person. From what I could tell, her friend was not hard of hearing.]

She then turned her head towards their waiter and repeated, “IT’S A LITTLE TOO SWEET.” The guy asked her if everything was OK, and she said everything was fine. The moment he walked away, a girl came by to refill their water glasses. The old lady commented again, “IT’S A LITTLE TOO SWEET.” She held the glass up to her friend and said, “Do you want to have a try? IT’S A LITTLE TOO SWEET.” Her friend politely declined, saying, “It’s already sweetened. Does it have milk in it? I can’t have milk. I HAVE A CONDITION.”

At this moment, I quietly begged Theresa to promise me that if I ever became like one of those women, that she’d inject me with something merciful or lock me in the garage with the car running. She promised me she would. Our friendship became that much closer.

Then we talked some more about her wedding and planning the ceremony and decorations and stuff. I bought her the wedding planner she decided she wanted, so I hope it helps her keep things organized. I know she’s a planner and I’m an organizer, so I think we can understand the need to keep the information together and handy for planning and organizational purposes. Also, I am pleased to be the safehouse for her wedding dress until she takes it to the seamstress/tailor for alterations and dry cleaning. After that, I’ll be the safehouse again.

I have a tremendous amount of work to do tomorrow, so I’d best be getting along to bed. It would be good to be lucid. I have about 30 pages left of the novel I’m reading and I’m enjoying it tremendously. I’ll probably write about that tomorrow… since I just can’t wait to get into bed and polish it off!