Author: mycatisafrenchspy

hello march

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february, you were a heavy and unforgiving veil, enveloping me and choking out my tired, burdened breath. welcome march, unearth me.

it’s march and let spring begin. it’s three weeks to vernal equinox, well it’s actually 3 days short of three weeks, but what’s three days between friends.

my cozy little house has gotten quite comfortable and conducive to laying down roots. i used to think to never buy furniture because i was scared of settling down and not get my own house. now that couldn’t be further from the truth, i feel very lucky to have this little haven.

“true self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from. — brianna west, from “this is what ‘self-care’ really means”

this weekend has been a great to do as the international orders i placed, got delivered so fast which was really astonishing and exciting. i am a sucker for beautiful artistic things and i don’t mind how expensive they may be. in fact, i would rather buy quality pieces which may be expensive than buy things of no value. when i left my old house, i threw out a lot of things which were not that expensive (most of them were like $1000 or so) plus they were destroyed by my kids who clawed at them and as my husband was a neanderthal with no artistic bone, he didn’t want us to pay a lot of money for things and yes of course he did have a point, in that they completely destroyed our very expensive furniture after which, he put his foot down.  now i am an artist, i like to surround myself with aesthetically pleasing stuff and beautiful art, but i put up with this shit and nonsense, primarily because he was the bacon bringer aka he worked while i was pursuing my ph.d. now that he isn’t here to stop me, plus i’m bringing the vegan bacon home, i got back into acquiring stuff. i thought i wouldn’t buy things till i bought a house, on account that i don’t want to have a lot of things to move, but recently i realized that if you pass up on a chance to get something you may lose them as i had my eye on this really rich french draperies which i loved to bits and i put them in my wish list but someone bought them. so i adjusted my thought processes and decided i will buy the things which i fall in love with even if i have to put them all in storage. hence when i saw this beautiful french provincial sofa, i ordered it as well as a beautiful mosaic lamp from turkey and goddamn, fedex was pretty fast in delivering but they were supposed to be delivered on a weekday and so i had to actually convince fedex to let me pick them up on sunday (on account saturday is sabbath and we rest). the boy borrowed a pickup truck from a friend (he drives porsche cayenne, which is like really sexy) and we went and loaded the sofa from france and the lamp from turkey.

so the sofa and the lamp are sitting in the living room, all out of the box but my downstairs currently looks like a tornado ripped zone on account that in anticipation of spring, i have been buying all kinds of plants, indoor and outdoor but they are all currently indoor and i also order things online (pet food, other stuff) and they are all sitting in unopened boxes as yours truly is not very domestic at all and i would rather read or frolic with my cats or play games or watch movies or have sex and not interested in cooking or cleaning and also my maid has gone to her country for a vacation and she would have put them in a neat order and in the meantime, i have been lightly cleaning around the house with a broom but i really need to get someone to come and mop the whole house. i think i need to hire a housekeeper so he/she can also do my laundry and do my grocery shopping for fruits and veggies.

once i assemble them and have my living room to some semblance of an order, i will post the photos as i can’t tell you, how pleased i am with my finds.

this weekend we sat and watched some true crime shows and the

life lessons from true crime shows :

your spouse will murder you / if you’re not married, don’t worry, your lover will murder you / single people shouldn’t feel left out: the stalker, the checkout boy — even the cop who pulled you over — these are only a few of the countless local creeps just dying for a chance to murder you ! / yes all men, statistically speaking, are probably going to murder you / if anyone other than your insurance agent inquires about your life insurance, they’re definitely going to murder you / don’t live in midwest, lest you die violently in midwest, where everyone gets killed by murder / just don’t be a woman

i love murder mysteries (agatha christie being my favorite) and i’m partial to bbc series and i pretty much am in love with a lot of bbc detectives like, poirot, morse, endeavor, and recently i was watching vienna blood (a murder mystery on pbs masterpiece) and this was set in the late 18th century / beginning of 19th century where there are a few references to sigmund freud, beethoven, mahler and i was watching with the boy and i was pretty much orgasming aloud and cooing at the show and how much i would love to live during those times in vienna and being able to attend those concerts (assuming i have beaucoup d’argent) and boy was nodding his head in agreement, and as we got deeper into the story they were showing how they treated patients and we both looked at each other and went”NO” uh, huh, scientifically speaking those were dark ages and yes, i agree that we made lots of progress but man, they were barbaric in their practices. i think eastern medicine during those times was way better and actually i prefer natural remedies anytime and if i haven’t already said this i am a vegetarian for that sole reason and i am careful with my eating habits.

also pbs airs a lot of ‘walter presents’ (i often wondered who this walter may be & i googled and i question his taste in murder mysteries as they are pretty much made for people with low iq) which are very comical and they are usually either french, spanish or dutch.and i usually watch them my language skills for spanish and french) and one time i watched this french murder mystery and it was ridiculous as they kept trying to twist the plot over and over again i was having giggle fits but i did finish watching it.

i’ve had a long and strange unsettling week. but also had a few strong moments of positivity which i’m holding on to. grateful for my safe home, fabulous sunny weather, cats, friends, laughter and for doing years of often hard ugly boring self-care so even my bad weeks are easier to turn around. everywhere i go i live in peace

i’m known for being upright, raw, deep, caring, fearless. i’ve been through hell numerous times and kept fighting (let it be suicide, anxiety, fear) when giving in would have been so much easier. i change constantly. after all that time, i trust, love, care for myself, deeply. i’m so proud of who i am. i have no idea where i’m going, but i’m on my way. and i’m not going to let my fear stop me.

and, good lord, what a fantastic feeling !

je t’en brasse !

delicate

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what’s with the boys i date (or marry) and kayaks ? the boy declared that he would like us to go kayaking, as soon as the weather permits and i’m like you are insane because i’m pretty much convinced that i would drown in my own bath-tub… i hate any activities on water, like tubing (which i did and felt that i may drown), boating (which i did and felt that i may drown), almost surfing (and pretty much drowned) ! one of the guys i date a while back (before i was married), wanted us to go to belize on his boat or a yacht or whatever the goddamn thing americans buy and so no my dear boy, we ain’t doing that or to be precise, i’m not doing any kayaking but you may !

also we are thinking we will go salsa dancing (i do dance salsa, the boy doesn’t as he is a neanderthal) and take a language class possibly german or japanese. when i realized that i might take any class with the boy, something awakened in me…. like in a kinky sort of way….. like it makes me wet just to think that !

i forgot to mention but i did go to a therapist. i sat at the edge of my chair, didn’t even remove my jacket,all my stuff on my lap. as soon as the introductions were done, i told him that i may not talk or worse, i may run away as that’s the best thing i always good at. he said not to worry but to just chat. he was picked by my doctor but if i decide to continue i may find someone nearer to my home.

healthwise, i have gone back to the gym #hallelujah, #praise the lord and hopefully i will stay but i may quit the gym at my work and continue the one near my house. and oh, remember my cholesterol being almost 220 !?! my doctor repeated the test because she wasn’t certain and it’s normal levels now and everything is peachykeen but she wants to repeat it again in about three months which is fine by me. come next week, i am thinking of moving my money into government bonds as the market is quite uncertain due to corona. speaking of corona as my boss & others travel a lot, i may opt for flexible work place option and work from home as i have no interest in contracting flu or corona as people in general are very unhygienic and no consideration for other people. and one of the other reasons why i was driving in every day was because of other passengers in public transportation.

february is coming to a close and la de fucking da ! i could have done without the goddamn heartache. and wow my emotions really are hot garbage this week huh. i cried a river, build a bridge and got over it. i bit off a piece of golden thread and wove the strand through the pieces of my heart with a needle – to hold myself together. then i listened to sad and angry and beautiful music and i wrote about everything that makes the world stop and also what makes it spin again. i went and had a coffee with the boy and we hiked and biked to a forest, took a nap for an hour, fucked hard on the still cold ground, and got dirty from lying on the ground but didn’t care about it. i know that that the fractures seal and they may leave a scar but like a broken leg, i have learnt to dance with a limp before and sense the rain is coming by the ache. i honestly think, it wasn’t that bad of a heartbreak anyway because in my heart of hearts i knew he wasn’t for me but sometimes i am dumb, what can i say ? my friends think that i should raise a flag of my hideous act of dumbness ! but great things came out of this as the boy promised he will go to church with me this sabbath and i’m like achievement unlocked ! now if i get him to return tithes and to have him go to church with me every week, half the war is won (also may be have him become a vegetarian) ! but baby steps !

our story starts small. starts with bread crumbs and becomes constellations. our hands a postage stamp to explore each other. our hearts tethered by a thread. at night we have lain awake, naked for a story that started mid sentence. untraveled roads and unraveled dreams. someone else’s language on my tongue with an aftertaste of other people’s name. like i am supposed to be somewhere else. like you carried me elsewhere. this is all just sweet happenstance. we can call it hope. we can color it lemon yellow and bright blue like a prism of our seeing and meeting.

i hope this won’t be necessary but let it be known that this too will pass. pain is temporary and so are the situations.

one day i’ll be having my christmas dinner with the family i chose, maybe i’ll have gone to another, colder country to make it really feel like christmas, and i’ll watch the grinch, and i’ll never remember the past and all i have to do is wait for the storm to pass.

there’s nothing i can’t endure. i’ll just start making a plan and slowly organize my next life.

into the fog

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february has been foggy a lot and during those misty, foggy, daze (days), my morning commute has been absolutely divine….. i love driving through these mists listening to the classical music and if bach or vivaldi is on, it’s better than an orgasm and not even a great orgasm comes close (and i should know about all those orgasms) to what i feel at that time !

some things fall apart, some change into something else and some just fade away…

february is coming to a close and for a leap year, it ain’t all that bad !

(all those buildings are center city philly where i can’t even see the skyline because of the mists and a few near my lovely neighborhood)

fate

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i have become bold in recent days, stripping each layer of myself, becoming hopelessly vulnerable again.i thought  i dreamt that i had something to say but i didn’t wake up in time to tell you. i have been a shadow and a hostage in your hands. i squeeze my fists together, the redness turning white, bare bone begging to be covered by your fluttering lips. but you won’t know me and you won’t come back. in this universe, i’m quite wide awake under the orange sky, my heart butterfly opened by a car crash dream. in another universe, i’m small and happy on a passenger seat, with you driving. like i imagined countless times. look, there is another broken dream lodged in my teeth. it’s almost tomorrow somewhere, but here now, today, feels like a tomorrow. i already had another life and in spite of doing my best to take a train departing to the opposite direction, here i’m at the same train station, holding onto the ticket for happiness and a clenched jaw. i thought i was getting better facing my darkness.  because whatever happens later, i’ll never escape what i’m. all these twisted, broken thoughts, please tell me they’re not all i’m…

i don’t know how to say that i’m happy for you with a smile on my face. how do you look someone in the eye that you love and tell them that you’re happy they found someone else ? i do so and i can feel my heart exploding inside my chest. but i’m happy for you, i truly am. i’m happy you’re happy, i just will always wish it was with me.

i wish you knew i will miss you in the loving ways and at least i didn’t lose you to death this time !

adieu american boy !

valentine’s

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i would love to have a week of saturdays… these past few days were gloomy and colder than usual, where february was behaving like april, and my twins were cooped up inside the house and i read myself to oblivion. this weekend was promised to be warmer.  on friday, i thought i’d be clever and go to bed early, get a full night of sleep; worked great until i sat up fully awake at 3 am with my brain holding a knife to my throat like, “don’t test me bitch” and so on saturday as it was promised to be warmer, i woke up bright and early (again) around 4:30 am and waited patiently for the sun to come up and warm us up so we all could go out for a bit of fresh air. and as of 8:00 am the temps were still at 28 f, practically a  heat wave considering it was 17 f at 4:30 am. by the time we actually got to go out was about 3 pm but sunday was warmer still and the boys and i got to go out and frolic. this afternoon i went on a long ass walk with the boy and it was incredible.we walked along this river and it was a really small one but it had big river energy lots of small islands and old,very old broken down buildings. one thing we saw was the fundament of an old mill and i just fell in love with that path we took. merveilleux  !! with each outing in nature, i step deeper into a wonderland (like alice’s)

i stayed and worked from home on valentine’s day as my furnace was acting funny and i scheduled someone to come and take a look. when the boy found out, he sent me one rose every hour starting at 8 am till he came to have supper with me around 7ish pm and he got me another dozen roses. needless to say, i loved all his effort at romance even though it was not his original idea. you see, my love, julien sent me 19 bouquets of roses on my 19th birthday ! we sat out for a bit in bitter cold looking at the stars till our bums were numb.

he did the valentines date night the next day where he cooked me dinner and chocolate fondue and later we sat on his couch, legs intertwined, and watched “corner gas” and laughed  so much because it is such a funny show and heavily made out like a couple of teenagers.  it was my turn to do the valentines date and this saturday and took him to a jazz restaurant; confession: there was this really nice jazz restaurant i wanted to go, but i am thinking i would go there with american boy if we ever hook-up and what does this say about me ? i’m known to break things with my bare hands, in a bloodied knuckles type of way. it’s just me and my thoughts at 3 am. it’s not really a secret how i’m always soft for him. all silk and rose and honey under the beaming full moon. my telescope heart has seen all the winding roads and blinding lights, but home still leads me back to the comfort of his voice which is like a soundtrack for my summer.

the night sky knows me too well and sometimes i wonder if you maybe see me whenever you look up even then the familiarity of uncertainty filled the room; old ghosts knocking at the door. . i tiptoe through the doubts and the reminiscent touches of lovers who don’t understand that love is not an elixir for everything. and past it all, there is this boy who stands with a laugh that is as bright as a daydream and a smile that plays like an endless loop in my head. like the stories of how two people met and it was nothing short of serendipitous and everything romantic, but there is something hazy, about the way i free fall into this feeling. still, it all feels liberating. what i am trying to say is, he makes me weightless and it is great to be in my own skin and the fact that i don’t have to try and impress him at all.

to love is not to imagine that we love; it’s to act as though we loved and that’s how we discover, one day, that we truly love.  jacques de bourbon-busset, french writer

hope you all had a wonderful valentine’s as well even if it is something the greeting card companies concocted.

Bises !

perchance to dream

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this week threw me in for a loop and it was all heartachy. i have to let go of another one of my babies and it broke my heart all over again. i became less selfish and learned to let go of them, but goddamnit, the void is immense and i feel like i can’t breathe. and the feeling is worse when my babies die suddenly with no illness symptoms.

anyway, the week was rough. i also had my health check-up and i passed all the numbers but my cholestorl number went beyond optimum and came goddamn close to 220. i think that is ok for now considering the high levels of stress and anxiety i was going though or may be me not going to gym #sidelook. but will sure to get it retested in a couple of months to make sure i’m not slacking off with my health.

in the meantime, my doc keeps pushing me to get therapy because after a long time, i told her what happened to me. i find it easier to write as i remove myself from this and write as a third party. but i know she is right as i have seriously been thinking about getting married as well; after my husband’s death i didn’t think of marriage or even relationship as even before his passing, life kept knocking me down, and i kept getting up only to get knocked down. honestly i didn’t have any strength left to care for someone else and also tbh it wasn’t easy to keep going. and the doctor keep pushing me to see someone to get therapy for reasons, as i have successfully detached myself from anything which would cause me pain or anxiety which includes any commitments to either people or things or places.

so i decided i should write down my feelings so you and i can read it, so i can face them, acknowledge them, confront them and analyse them as clearly, currently i am not. it’s been about 6 years since my husband’s death and i still don’t know how to process my own feelings. i am trained scientist, so i clinically diagnosed myself, separated them out and precipitated them in a dark corner. i can write about them, from an observer’s perspective. i’m able to offer myself a mirrored pool of thought, but i can’t feel them. i swallowed all of my feelings and survive on them. there have been days, weeks, when i refused to eat,unable stomach food because of the large stone of emotion i carry in my stomach.

but as i am thinking of letting someone into my life, and wanting to commit to a marriage, i want nothing more than to know this person, aka me, again. i hate myself for carrying this anger at myself, guilt and sadness. i can see clearly the sunny place beyond the gloom and darkness and i wish to be there, free. but i know i have to face this darkness, and go through it again, and expel the stormy clouds but i don’t know how. sometimes, i wonder if it is justified. is it ? i want to walk through life gushing with love for humans. i hate myself for having this darkness in my heart. i have contemplated ending my life more than once. i want to be in control of my entire existence.

i think it is only fair for this man, whoever it may be, who wants to be my other half. and i have to let him come closer to me and let him to get to know me.

personally i think the hardest part about getting to know me isn’t just his insecurities, or fears, or hesitations. it’s mine. in effect he will be fighting a war in my head and my heart that’s derived from every person’s let down that’s comes before him. . so now here you are fitting no mold, you were never like anyone else, and you’re trying to break through a cast that seems to be  miles deep while bearing your own cast of steel. it’s heavy and it’s hard but every once in a while you get this glimpse of what’s behind the wall and you know it’ll all be worth it. and you know that even if you’re not the one who takes the last piece of that wall down, you’ll have helped heal what’s behind it in hopes that someone more deserving than you gets to see what i’ve gone to the depths of hell protecting. i’m often lost in doubt  my actual aspirations are too ambitious; yet my self-doubt even more determined, hence i stick myself in the same day after day, year after year instead of chasing a lighting that is a pledge of a fire that’ll consume me.

i am hoping that someone (even if slightly) pick up on the hints of my misery mirroring hamlet’s misery (in his soliloquy), smile as i do when you hear “perchance to dream” or pick your own strings of words, and doubt the cowardice he blames on conscience.

the funny thing about healing is that it comes from within our own, singular minds. we may think we need other people to save us, but i know now that’s all just smoke and mirrors. we believe what we feel to be true. but truth has no interest in making us feel whole. truth takes us and breaks us, fragments our hearts, destructs the careful realities we have constructed in our minds to make us happy. your thoughts can save you but your thoughts can also kill you. truth and belief are no friend of each other when we’re talking about peace (piece) of mind. believe what you can while you can, because here i’m again, lying in bed, and i haven’t felt safe in years when i am with humans.

we don’t need other people to make us feel whole, but we believe that we need other people to make us feel whole. and that’s the human difference.

rite of spring

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le premier février ! well technically it’s le 2 fevrier today. yesterday when i woke up i was greeting my cats with a happy “bonjour, aujourd’hui c’est le premier février” and my kitty boy horus thought it was just the bees knees and got very happy and excited and i figured out that he loved the sound of “le premier février” for whatever reason and so i kept saying it to him and he kept squeaking with joy ! oh yes my dears, i do speak in french to my cats and they are bilingual or trilingual as they understand english, french and speak meow. one time, (a long time ago as now i’m an orphan) i was talking to parents in my mother tongue and this was the first time my kids heard me speak in a different language and you should have seen their little faces which are full of exclamation and confusion !

honestly guys, it’s the most beautiful beginning for any given year and i’m goddamned pleased to have a whole month of spring / winter mix…. days are pleasantly springish and nights are winterish. i have started on my garden of spring mixes and ordered some potting soil and bulbs.

so the boy was in netherlands (he is back now) attending some training conference and i was in church on friday evening for sabbath services when he started texting me on the various things he thinks are relevant to “what makes an innovative society ?” and some of his weird thoughts included, mushrooms, being gay,fascism…. i was struggling to not giggle and i finally had to shut off my phone.

been a long week in a series of long weeks (all good but very tiring) and now it’s time to settle into some hot chocolate and gobble up a night you & i will love. boy and i went to bach’s “mass in b minor” at the kimmel center. it was done by philly orchestra conducted by yannick nézet-séguin. i love dolling up in sequenced gowns and giving the car for valet parking. afterwards boy took me to a gay coffee bar and said “you can enjoy the view” for it’s full of good looking gay men and alas, what a waste !

this week’s one of the highlights is american boy pouting for two days, and i believe he is still pouting, for reasons, which makes me super confused as i’m not sure how to translate. his name is stuck in my teeth like popcorn. do you feel me in your bones, like i’m an inescapable force. constantly finding ourselves in the same orbit. like i’m sure how the moon felt the first few millennia she spent struggling to break off course.. nature is absolute. no matter how we try and deny it.

for the record, i wasn’t chasing him as he showed no interest and he can ask me out if he chooses to, but he also should realize that unlike all the women he is used to, i’m super intelligent, opinionated & well read and not to mention i will knock him down if he tries to put me down. having said that, i’ve no intention of putting my life on hold while he is making up his fucking mind.

i named some people in my department as pea brains and i don’t have to explain why as the name is self explanatory. the boy is currently working on a short story based on the tidbits i feed him.

the first month of the year has been both refreshing and exhausting with equal measure. i started the year full of motivation and ideas ready to be explored, but sometimes, and by sometimes i mean always, life decides to throw some hurdles your way. i don’t want to dwell on the negativity though. they say, “better days are coming”, but love, sometimes, things don’t really happen. they don’t materialize; don’t work out. some things just don’t come better when you don’t start making something good out of the bad days.  i feel like a frozen dragon for now and but don’t count me out as my heart is still on fire.

Also, as it’s superbowl, go san francisco patriots !

2020-02-02

et bonne année 2020

/ mycatisafrenchspy / 1 Comment

wow it has been a few weeks since i last posted ? well happy new year, and here’s a dollop of me and what i’m up to now a days. were i a seashell and were you to come along, pick me up, and put me to your ear, this is what you’d hear today.

i feel winter warm and blanket soft and it snowed today… we had some splendid, respectable snow and while listening to bach i’m puttering around the house thinking february is around the corner rushing in smelling of snow and wood smoke. where did january go ? oh by the way, by the time i put some warm clothes on and strolled downstairs to shovel, scott, my neighbor already took care of it which is really such a nice thing to do and so i went and threw salt (pet-safe) on our walkways as that’s the least thing i could do. i probably will get him a thank you cake tomorrow.  it was really nice day to lounge about in underwear and drink cocoa.

my christmas vacation was fantastic on account that it was respectably cold for december with no snow and a few clear nights so i went (with the boy) star gazing and dwelling on the nature of planets and stars and searched the skies for ufos / aliens. new year came in swiftly and casually and with right notes, and with american boy smelling like orange blossoms but it quickly hit sour notes (what the fuck life ?) with patriots out of american football play-offs.

i’m mostly happy and anxious free but my anxiety hits high notes when my kids get sick. it makes me sick to my stomach when i think they are suffering. as they are growing old their wittle bodies are slowing down.

all i do now a days is eat healthy, not go to gym (shame on me) and read books (after waiting months i finally got to borrow eleanor oliphant is completely fine) or watch news / bbc sit-coms. can’t ask more from my life, as my asthma is under control, thanks to my decision to blow money on parking and drive to work every day and so no prednisone and no albuterol and so your truly is feeling fantastic and super horny. can you believe that i, who yelled at the boy for pouncing on me every time he sees me (and ripping off a number of new panties), have the unmitigated gall to l say a sad “please sir can i have some more ?” which gave him a temporary upper hand which lasted only till i orgasmed for the nth time of the night… you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a pathetic loser.

work life is fine as i have decided as long as i get paid the right kind of salary i don’t need to grow because i started investing and so god willing, i will retire in a few years (five plus or minus). so recently we acquired a new colleague mike, and i have to mention him. i think i already mentioned him once before. he is such a sweet heart and kind and i have awful suspicion that he may have a huge crush on me or he may just be being friendly but my women’s intuition is telling me that he “like” likes me. and honestly i love that attention but i refrain to flirt back as he is not yet thirty and i don’t date anyone under thirty. but i am keeping him as a back up plan as this boy would make an excellent husband and did i mention that he is kind ? and i figured i don’t have to train him much to make me a good husband. but alas, he is young and he probably should have a whole family like children and cats. in the mean time while i am amused, i am also curious to know what he really is thinking and i will keep you posted if i find out.

you know, i’ve really gotten to a point in my life where i have a healthy fear of bach and that’s what we call growth. i recently heard this concerto playing on radio (thank you gregg whiteside of wrti) and oh ma lord, i had to pull over and listen to it while crying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rkucnttars.

so this is one of the coolest things i’ve heard in a long time… bach’s mysterious and almost jazzy concertos and may i also add, orgasmic music.

the fact is at this time of my life i’m finally willing to admit that without bach life would be a mistake. i can’t believe bach wrote an entire cantata  (20+ minutes) about coffee because honestly, same.  and the other funny things he did : picked a fight with a bassoonist calling him a “nanny-goat bassoonist”; threw his wig at a musician who played a wrong note; the second movement of brandenburg concerto no. 3, which is just two half-note chords.

and the coffee cantanta is such a funny story – when i first heard this cantanta, i went and looked up the libretto for the story. bach did this c. 1735. through trade and changing economic situations, coffee became popular in europe during the 18th century, and coffee houses opened up where people would sit and relax with a cup of coffee while listening to some kind of entertainment. thanks to this newfound caffeine rush, i’d argue, the enlightenment philosophic movement took off [for better or worse]. however, not everyone was in on the coffee craze. it seems that in germany, for example, some people may have been worried that coffee drinking was a bad habit. and j.s. bach, notable for writing deeply profound religious cantatas, decided to write a short comedy, and most likely this was meant to be played at a coffee house. the “coffee cantata” opens up with a narrator telling the audience to quiet down and get ready for the story, already establishing the lighthearted mood. it starts off with a man named schlendrian [literally “stick-in-the-mud”] who is annoyed that his daughter, lieschen, is addicted to coffee and refuses to stop drinking it no matter how much he insists she should. lieschen even sings a love aria…to coffee itself. schledrian threatens to get rid of his daughter’s things, like clothes and food, unless she stops drinking coffee. she ignores him. pondering on what he could do to convince her, schledrian decides that he will forbid her to marry unless she drops her coffee habit. she gives in. but when schledrian finds suitors for her to judge, she secretly tells them that she will only marry if her future husband lets her have all the coffee she wants. it ends with a “moral”: drinking coffee is natural. and, that’s it. it’s charming and silly, and it’s a good example to fight off the people who think bach is too cold and stoic and serious. and it is as relatable now as it was back in the baroque era. today, the world runs on coffee, and caffeine addictions are pretty common, and probably the least harmful addiction out there. the love aria to coffee is so relatable, “ah ! how sweet coffee tastes ! lovelier than a thousand kisses, smoother than muscatel wine. coffee, i must have coffee, and if anyone wants to give me a treat, ah !, just give me some coffee !” and my favorite line comes from lieschen who laments “if i couldn’t, three times a day, be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish i will turn into a shriveled-up roast goat”, because honestly y’all, same.

i love how some composers were able to take an instrument to a whole other level through their works, making it sound like it never had before, in a completely new light. like i always adored mozart and bethoven and to an extent chopin. chopin’s nocturnes and bach’s art of the fugue are the two examples that come to my mind when i think about how these composers had such a brilliant understanding of the instruments they wrote these pieces for that they literally composed in a way that exploited the potential of the piano & the organ to an extent nobody ever has.

so my darlings, here’s to brand new experiences and new memories. i’m hoping to enjoy life deeply, explore my surroundings and hopefully have another ufo experience like the one i had a few years ago. also friendly reminder that saying yes to new experiences and opportunities even if you’re a little afraid of them is super brave and great !!! but also remember that you have a right to say no and that you do not owe anybody (even yourself) an explanation. we can’t take care of other things if we are not taking care of ourselves first. ciao mes petites !

all that jazz….

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

i feel like november whizzed by with barely a bat of an eyelid this year. time seems to be passing in very strange ways for me at the moment; the days dragging out and weeks feeling impossibly long, i spend the majority of my time trying to distract away from reality / pass time as quickly as possible (to little / no avail at the moment) but the months ? the months are flying by ! like how in the name of fuck is it december already ?!?

my drives to work (or anywhere else tbh) got really spectacular…classical which makes me feel as though i were flowing, and autumn / winter is magical time of the year as the air is crisp and clean. as i mentioned before i started driving to work every day and after experimenting with various radio stations to distract me from the people on the road, i finally hit wrti 90.1 (classical and jazz) and wow my drives got so much emotional and sublime ! almost all my drive time i’m usually tearing up as this music is coursing through me, filling me up with this sweet music.  mornings they play classical and during evenings they play jazz (after 5ish). i have missed both so much ! i used to regularly attend symphonies at kimmel and went on dates with my husband to jazz bars especially zanzibar blue in philly and god i miss dressing up chic and swinging to the blues !

i love classical and jazz because they are so chilling, they give me the sense of relaxation. so when i am driving back from work, with sun already set and driving through the dark and windy roads, jazz transports me to those cool air-conditioned, dimly lit, luxurious bar, (smoke filled i imagine myself) i can just feel the cold air surrounding me whenever i listen to these jazz and blues music.  you can just feel the vibes and you could just feel how much you wanna start singing out loud and as i don’t know the lyrics i just go humming., i know i am not completely able to convey my feelings when i listen to jazz and classical, but what i can surely say is that these both music genres are relaxing as a great fuck !

this evening i was moved by these two particularly – listen to these and you will thank me.

yo-yo ma havanaise op 3 saint saens (the swan).

mark whitfield – harlem nocturne

on thanksgiving eve, i went shopping gathering the needful stuff so i don’t have to run around on thanksgiving day and friday.  while driving, i have been listening to wrti and driving around from shop to shop like a little bee buzzing about and i was driving home when they started playing the requests and someone requested dvorak string quartet no. 12 in f major lento “american” by hagen quartett (https://youtu.be/20cwxpo338i) and the timing was perfect… the breeze started picking up and it was becoming windy and all the autumn colored fall (fallen) leaves were beckoned by this gentle wind and they started dancing in a swirl of golden memories and it was the loveliest sight of all ! lads let me tell you, i was moved so much at this sight and as this music started bathing me with emotions and found myself crying helplessly… string instruments like violins have a knack to evoke melancholia ?

i chuckled to myself when i saw american boy as he walked into the kitchen at work while i was busy going through my brewing coffee ritual. he and i are like twinsies as we often wear same colored shirts / tops : case in point, i wore a black shirt today & he waltzed in wearing black. whenever i see american boy, i’m reminded that love is such a losing game.

a lot happened since my last blog and so a few updates: october ran away taking the rest of the leaves. the day before halloween i came home to find a kiddie drawing on my front porch. it brought me so much joy and it was done by scott’s (my neighbor) daughter. her name is kinsley (at first i thought her name was kinthia). she is 7 years old and one day i had a brief convo when i let out my twin boy cats for some sun and fresh air out in our backyard and she was playing with their dog. though i don’t do halloween, i bought her some candies as this little gesture of hers gave me such pure pleasure.

patriots have lost another game sadly, but i’m ok as i’m pretty sure they will win the superbowl ! warriors, my fav basket ball team, have many baby warriors, and steph curry, and others are injured and needless to say, we won’t be making it to the playoffs… i’m fine with that as well and whenever the baby warriors are playing, i keep muttering to myself “i’m groot”

i’ve been limping a bit lately as i’ve a pinched sciatic nerve. not sure how it happened. i had a massage the previous day from another masseuse as my regular one was on vacation. and that same night, during sex, i got all twisted up and semi fell on to the floor (not much distance to fall as i only have a mattress and no bedframe) but the point is i have ended up in a weird angle and we continued to have sex which i later regretted as i ended up with some bruises and pains and this may have also twisted my hips  well serves me right !

thanksgiving was grand as i caught up with lots of shows and ate a lot.. slept a lot  ! boy went to visit his grandparents (he wanted me to go and i’m not ready yet. more of the point is will i ever be ?!?)

i have also bought astronomy binoculars a step towards buying a bad-ass telescope as i so badly want to look at the moons of jupitar and the rings of saturn ! speaking of planets, there’s a great semi-documentary on netflix called “mars”. and yours truly also bought solar binoculars to look at some sun spots and solar flares…  i will take a trip soon to cherry springs state park to have a star gazing picnic with the boy and i am going to join an amateur astronomers club…

i am planning to have some cozy long winter drives, day dreams and night theories… where in those long, midnight drives, somewhere in those letters of i love you’s i never said, in the creases of my month-old sheets and in the calls i never made, somewhere between the daybreak and quiet sunday mornings, between the lamp posts in the streets, between tonight and the first night i knew you, between the sounds of hellos, and the sound of my heart breaking – somewhere out there, darling, is a place where i’m still holding you in my arms.

(2019-12-03)

drizzly friday

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

this is how we roll !

it’s foggy, cold, and drizzly outside…that drizzly kind of rain that clings to everything and covers the world with dewdrop diamonds…. the perfect friday for staying under sheets, cuddles with kitties, and immersive reads… hope it clears out by tonight as we are going to have meteor showers and i’m ready with my blanket to watch them whiz by…

2019-11-22