Yay! First snow this winter!!! Winter is not my favorite season, and snow not my favorite thing, but mostly because of the inconvenience (the scraping & driving), not because I don’t appreciate the poetic swirling of snowflakes and the magical landscape of white on green. I even ventured out (attempting) to meet EC and gang for lunch, but didn’t make it. The freeway was at a standstill, and my 2WD was doing rather poorly on the road (swerving and skidding even at low speed). As I was already late and didn’t want them to wait for me, and given the driving conditions I didn’t want to become another one of those “snow-weather-accident-statistics”, I turned back and headed home. Even that short stretch of road took me half an hour. I pray that schools will be closed on Monday. Interestingly, even though the freeway was paralyzed with traffic, the Fremont Bridge was deserted. My neighborhood almost became a ghost town if not for a few shivering figures chasing after their dogs and (ridiculously brave or simply insane) runners.
When I was sweeping the thick fluffy layer of snow off the car on the apartment parking lot, I said hello to a guy in his 50/60s, who was doing the same thing. After a while, a pickup truck drove by and stopped. A woman called out to me and said: “My husband is worried about you. Your car might not do well on the road. We have a 4WD so if you are stranded somewhere give him a call and we can help you.” Her husband, the guy I just saw, handed me a card with his phone number and told me their apartment number. OMG?!! Good samaritan in my apartment building? This is so amazing – they actually “worried about” me and offered to help? I am by now so used to the tepid, if not downright chilly, relationships between neighbors in this complex that I was so shocked and touched I didn’t know what to say. I thanked them and said I would call them if that happened.
This is my first REAL Christmas/New Year in Portland. Technically it’s not, but I “escaped” to somewhere else the past two years. This time, I don’t feel like traveling anymore. For the first time I feel so settled in here that I want to stay and just savor the moment. Just sit back, breathe, and relax. That’s all I want.
Friday night went to CM’s “hors’ d’oeuvre party.” I was surprised that she invited me. She is teaching faculty that I work with every term. We might have lunch once per year to discuss classes and so on, but being invited to her house for a “social” party was definitely unexpected. I said I would check my calender even though I knew I had nothing on Friday night. My first, instinctual response was “no…”, as I thought it’d be awkward to “mingle” with all the other teaching faculty in her department. What do I have in common with them? Small talk is not exactly my forte either, and plus I have been quite a shutin lately. However, part of me was interested, curious, even a bit excited, about seeing these people outside of work. After talking with EC and GS at length and a lot of soulsearching, I decided to say yes.
And guess what, I actually genuinely had a great time. There were a few people I have worked with, but meeting new people was really not as “exhausting” as I thought. Never much of a “networker”, I ended up talking to most people. The conversations flowed easily, and when one ended, we just drifted off to chat with someone else. I had planned to leave after one hour but ended up staying over three hours. The food was delicious, and there were at least a dozen wines. I am so glad I forced myself to go, even though I was still thinking of excuses of not showing up on my way there!
Finished reading Interpreter of Maladies by the beautiful and talented author Jhumpa Lahiri. Her writing style is simple yet exquisite, her tone warm and tender, her portrayal of characters and their life predicaments honest and sympathetic. Even though she writes about people of Indian heritage, the themes are so universal the stories transcend ethnicities. The author is adept at observing the most minute details to expose the most private inner workings of the human heart. Sometimes the stories resonated with me so much I felt almost vulnerable, as my eyes welled up in tears. The book is a wonderful collection of short stories, although a couple of them (A Real Durwan & The Treatment of Bibi Haldar) are not quite on par with the rest. I am esp. thankful that the author didn’t intentionally “exoticize” either her writing or her stories (maybe a little, in my least favorite stories aforementioned), as I am sooo tired of reading books with “pidgin English” (or of the sort) written by native speakers who try too hard to contrive a poor imitation of the “ethnic speak.”
It seems my houseplants are having a growing spree, in WINTER! My rubber plant didn’t grow an inch the whole summer, but since November, it’s been sprouting new leaves like crazy. The dragon tree doesn’t seem to have changed much to the untrained eye, but to me it seems have become more luxuriant.
