-in many parts of the world, including Bert!
This morning, I wondered what pair of sneakers I should wear. My orange Pumas or my orange Pumas. Took a look out the window, it was cloudless and sunny, a rarity in Bert, so I went for the orange Pumas, the one with a blade of yellow to better match the sun. Phrases like that make me dread that my reader takes me too seriously and believe I live my life the way I say I do, but whatever. Point is, it was sunny so I wore my favorite sneakers, the orange Pumas, instead of my regular orange Pumas.
Got to work and suddenly, it started snowing heavily. The snow did not fall the way people behave in Bert, no, it was intense. It started as a squall, sudden, violent, low-visibility, but continued steadily for a few hours and very quickly accumulated. That, was pleasant surprise #1 today, even though it meant getting my favorite sneakers wet and dirty. It felt cheesy saying so, but the snow reminded me of home. "And where's home?" Jay, the volunteer that I can't really understand, asked. "Boston," I say, because any other answer would have been too complicated and would've been met by blank stares and awkward pauses. "Oh, Baw-stin?" he asked, in a perfect Bostonian accent, and it was a complete shock. Jay's speech is normally low, mumbled, and slurred and that triple cocktail makes it nearly impossible to understand through his thick accent, so I'm always nodding at him without really comprehending, and trying to figure out if he's special or not, but that brief, sharp clarity was just startling. It was a completely different voice, tone, and personality. And that, folks, was pleasant surprise #2.
Being at work, I couldn't really capture the majestic fall of the snow. By the time I got back to the flat, the sun had semi-come out and a lot had melted away. This was the scene from my window.
Surprise #3 was mostly pleasant, but not that much of a surprise and pretty bitter-sweet quite literally and metaphorically. Had a date with Fiona at Plaisir du Chocolat today, a really fancy chocolatier and cafe that has teas and hot chocolates with fancy names and really long descriptions. They had a 7-page long, leather bounded menu for just tea and coffee. I'm not sure if I can even imagine more over-the-top formalities than that. A tiny hazelnut chocolate tart, divine as it was, set me back $8.74. Not even kidding. It was perhaps 2, at most 3 inches in diameter, a tiny little thing, and it cost that much. And oh, it tasted so rich. (Ba-da-chi) The chocolate espresso, at a mild five dollars, was in a tiny little espresso cup, and I literally felt like I was drinking liquid chocolate/maybe this is what heaven tastes like. It was so luscious. As it cooled, a thick film of chocolate espresso skin formed on top, sweet yet dark, strong and very caffeinated all at once. Each cup of hot chocolate comes with glasses of water because they know that it's that intense. They also have designer chocolates with intricate flavors, designs, and of course, paragraph long descriptions. The chocolates change by season and is perhaps the most pretentious indulgence I have ever seen.
The names of the respective tiny cubes are Persephone, Szechuan, and Sheherazade. One 'evokes splendors of the Arabian East,' one is infused with indigenous precious pepper and pear pulp, and the one is named after Hades' niece/wife. And oh yeah, this is still chocolate we're talking about. How the servers at Plaisir du Chocolat can keep a straight face about their work every day, I do not know. Perhaps they're just too intoxicated by the deep, lavish textures of their work.
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