Celebrating Rejection
I grabbed my bagel and coffee from the common folding table found at the back of the meeting room. The table was draped with a bright white cloth which illuminated every crumb or innocent splash and spill of the water that dripped from the chilled water dispenser or the coffee that didn’t quite make it all the way into a writer’s cup. I would take my regular seat towards the back of the conference room and listen to the monthly updates from the writers’ community in Kern County. (more…)
“Y” is for Yams
The students sat down in their usual half circle in the classroom, leaving room for their professor to sit at the table in the front. There were only six of them, which certainly made the students feel as though they were closer to each other personally, than those they have met in other classes during their undergrad years. Some how the same seating arrangement that they had experienced in preschool came back around as a trend when they become graduate students.
One of the students, who wore her long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, looked up from the papers laid out on the desk in front of her as I walked into the room. “Hey, so how was your Thanksgiving?” (more…)
“X” is for X-Ray
Her blonde hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, and when she opened her mouth behind her mask, she spoke with a heavy Boston accent. “So, do you floss regularly?”
I stared up at the woman with her gloved hands in my mouth. “Well, umm, I floss?”
My dentist laughed. “I don’t know, I’m asking you.”
She finished up with her examination and then went to go grab the x-rays that she had taken of my teeth earlier.
I waited for a few minutes until my dentist came back with another dentist.
“So, that weird thing you felt in your mouth was an extra tooth.” She pointed to my x-rays. “You have five wisdom teeth. (more…)
“V” is for Versailles
The day before we left France was another cool and slightly gloomy day. It had poured and sprinkled off and on every day in Paris except for the first extremely hot day that we arrived. It didn’t really rain as we headed for the metro and onto a train to Versailles, however, it rained for a moment while we took shelter inside of a Parisian McDonalds.
After eating our beignets and macaroons from the French-ified restaurant, we walked down several blocks to visit Château de Versailles. It was slightly strange walking off the path of the suburban surroundings and onto the property, which once housed monarchs.
There the Palace of Versailles stood as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the “Ancien Régime” in the middle of a country village, and it continued to sit beautifully dripping gold in the wealthy modern suburbs of Paris. (more…)
“U” is for Umbrella
The last day of our adventures in Spain was flooded with a heavy downpour of rain. The small group of travelers that I was with at the time wanted to make one last stop before hoping a bus to the airport in Barcelona, despite any of us being prepared for the weather that waited outside for us.
We had walked against the cool winds that tried to push us away from our destination. We had called in and tried putting our names down for a reservation to enter the architectural feat that is La Sagrada Família, and were to told that we could walk in with other groups around 10am. We checked the time when we arrived in front of the gates surrounding the basilica, and were told by the guards at the front that we had to wait outside for bit before they could let us in.
The day before had been so sunny and warm, but as we looked up toward the gray skies our faces were dampened with misty sprinkles. A moment later led to an immediate cloudburst of heavy rain, and all of us travelers without hoods or an umbrella huddled together underneath a small awning in line. (more…)
