today's small happinesses
instead of wilting immediately in the 91-degree, 90% humidity that has characterized this past week, i went out into this cloudy morning and virtually floated down the stairwell of the subway station around the corner, it was so (relatively) cool. i didn't break into an instant sweat. this made me not feel like punching people in the face, a pleasant start to the day.
inside the station, a 3-year-old pigtailed girl holding her mother's hand wore a little flower-print shift over cuffed jeans and pink rubber rainboots. she was sort of twisting and sing-songing in a sweet way until her mother told her to be quiet. (that last part made me so sad that the force of it pushed me against the tiled wall, where i had to lean until the train came.) on the train, her mother took the boots off and smiled at her gently when she fidgeted her feet off the edge of the seat.
i was taken around to check out the rooms at a fancy hotel where some pissant assistant manager refused me access last year. i wrote a complaint via the hotel's website and never heard from them. this year i showed up not sweating like a pig, and bearing a purse (!) rather than my usual raggedy patagonia hiking bag, but i have a feeling it was more about the nice man than any minor changes to my appearance.
lunch. oh my gosh, lunch – bento served in a lacquer box, the bottom tier of which contained rice and a bit of flaked salty fish, the top tier of which contained carefully arranged comfort food. there was a kind of smushed tofu with paper-thin slices of vegetables mixed in, then fried and sliced, served cold. alongside the tofu was a bit of sweet miso eggplant, a slice of lotus root, a ball of japanese taro, a cube of konnyaku (a bland, gelatinous item made from some kind of yam), a sweet-salty bit of tuna, a spoonful of daikon salad, some cold steamed green beans, a pile of black sweetened seaweed with tiny bits of fried tofu in it, and other lovely morsels just the right size for chopsticks. oh, and miso soup stuffed with green onion and silken tofu! and the lady of the house was so warm and aunt-like, patiently explaining how to make the smushed tofu thing. lunch truly made my day.
no, actually this made my day: as i was walking up a street, a little girl on a bike approached, ding ding dinging her bicycle bell like crazy and barreling in a zigzag amid the foot traffic. i saw her grandfather, riding his own bike behind her, start laughing aloud with joy watching her clearing the way. we shared a smile as our eyes met when he passed.
and then at the end of the day i finally found some cute, functional shoes – for cheap! – so i won't have to slosh around wearing sandals when it starts raining. it's the little things.
inside the station, a 3-year-old pigtailed girl holding her mother's hand wore a little flower-print shift over cuffed jeans and pink rubber rainboots. she was sort of twisting and sing-songing in a sweet way until her mother told her to be quiet. (that last part made me so sad that the force of it pushed me against the tiled wall, where i had to lean until the train came.) on the train, her mother took the boots off and smiled at her gently when she fidgeted her feet off the edge of the seat.
i was taken around to check out the rooms at a fancy hotel where some pissant assistant manager refused me access last year. i wrote a complaint via the hotel's website and never heard from them. this year i showed up not sweating like a pig, and bearing a purse (!) rather than my usual raggedy patagonia hiking bag, but i have a feeling it was more about the nice man than any minor changes to my appearance.
lunch. oh my gosh, lunch – bento served in a lacquer box, the bottom tier of which contained rice and a bit of flaked salty fish, the top tier of which contained carefully arranged comfort food. there was a kind of smushed tofu with paper-thin slices of vegetables mixed in, then fried and sliced, served cold. alongside the tofu was a bit of sweet miso eggplant, a slice of lotus root, a ball of japanese taro, a cube of konnyaku (a bland, gelatinous item made from some kind of yam), a sweet-salty bit of tuna, a spoonful of daikon salad, some cold steamed green beans, a pile of black sweetened seaweed with tiny bits of fried tofu in it, and other lovely morsels just the right size for chopsticks. oh, and miso soup stuffed with green onion and silken tofu! and the lady of the house was so warm and aunt-like, patiently explaining how to make the smushed tofu thing. lunch truly made my day.
no, actually this made my day: as i was walking up a street, a little girl on a bike approached, ding ding dinging her bicycle bell like crazy and barreling in a zigzag amid the foot traffic. i saw her grandfather, riding his own bike behind her, start laughing aloud with joy watching her clearing the way. we shared a smile as our eyes met when he passed.
and then at the end of the day i finally found some cute, functional shoes – for cheap! – so i won't have to slosh around wearing sandals when it starts raining. it's the little things.
posted by a wandering eye at 11:36 PM
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