Night light

Two nights ago a firefly found its way into my room. It took me about ten minutes to catch it and (take pictures of it and) let it out so it's green light might find it a companion. Last night I decided to watch a DVD I bought several months ago in Saigon. All of the actors were Italian, but the Vietnamese vendor assured me that the movie was in English. Unlike most of her clients, probably, that was the opposite of what I was hoping to hear. But I bought it anyway. I popped it into my laptop and hoped against hope that it would be in Italian despite her assurances. The menu came up and it was all in Russian. Well. That wasn't the language practice I was intending, but I might as well give it a shot. I pushed play and lo and behold it was in Italian after all. Hooray! It took me a little to get into the right frame of mind (the right ears?) to keep up, but soon it was like I never left Italy. For a while I was trying to mentally translate everything into English to prove to myself that I understood every word, but all that was doing was slowing me down. It was funny that I caught myself doing that, because I've always contended that you know you know a language when you don't have to do that.

The power was out for most of the day. With it went the water. So many of the little things that I don't get around to seemed like the perfect way to fill the time, until I realized that I couldn't do them. I couldn't iron my blouses. I couldn't write cover letters. And so on. So, I read a book. After that I tried to study Vietnamese. In the late afternoon I finally went on the walk I've been intending to take for ages. There are a couple new shops on the other side of the roundabout, and one offering a major sale. It was only until I was already dripping sweat outside when it occurred to me that a swankier shop with glass doors and everything might not be open if there was no power. I decided I might as well commit to a walk, and enjoy it even if the shops were closed. Luckily, the stores were open despite the power outage, and I found my second pair of miracle shorts. It's only taken seven more months of trying on shorts to find another pair that fit me.

I thought about getting an early pho dinner on the way back, but I cannot claim to be acclimated to Vietnam enough to honestly desire soup on a hot afternoon lacking the relief of an electric fan. Instead, I bought a couple of cold coconuts and paid a long-overdue visit to my pajama mamma. I had hoped that, with my recent upswing of Vietnamese lessons, conversing would be easier. Sadly, this was not the case. Her friend and her sister were with her when I arrived, but she invited me to join them nonetheless. It was nice, but it wasn't easy. Maybe their presence kept her from being quite as patient with me as usual. Mostly we redressed past topics like: how (hideously) tan I am and how tall and handsome Elliot is. A new topic was attempting to discuss what I did during Tet. Lots of other topics were (maybe) brought up, but I have no idea what they were. I felt a little discouraged, but I stayed for about an hour, and in that time we had a few sparkling moments of clarity.

Even though I spent most of the day loafing in bed (reading), my excursion made me feel like I'd made good use of it. As if to reward me, the power came back just as I was getting back to my room.