Today was my last day at SCVO, and I was very sad to tell everyone goodbye. I have been very lucky to have had the same job for eight weeks and even luckier to have worked with such warm and friendly people at an organisation that I believe is doing a great amount of good. I suppose I should also note that Sunday marks Edinburgh and my two month anniversary. I’m thinking of buying a wide, stylish belt to celebrate. As a ‘thank you and farewell’ gesture, the SCVO networks team went out to lunch today, and I got to pick the restaurant! I chose Blue Moon Café, one of my favorite restaurants just off of Broughton and only a short walk from the office. Oh dear, I will miss SCVO.
I have burned the dickens out of my right forearm. I suppose the scar that will soon be once the burn heals will simply balance the scar on my left hand from a similar accident my senior year. You see, our oven is very low, and I have twice now touched my forearm to a rack whilst trying to remove a casserole dish. I first did it last week while making macaroni and cheese (the good Southern kind with eggs but without the dry mustard—we deemed that an unnecessary luxury), and I did it again last night whilst pulling out our barbecue chicken. The second burn is in a perfect line with the first, leaving half the burn a fresh blister and the other half a scabby mess. It stretches almost two inches across the top of my arm half-way up to my elbow, it hurts like none of your business, and it looks disgusting. Perhaps I should limit my cooking tasks to the stove-top and leave the oven works to Kate and Anna.
Our landlady is due to come into town tomorrow, carrying a second couch and a fringe hinge in tow. Joy told us she intended to add another couch to the living room when we viewed the flat, and two months later, we may finally get it. Granted, we have sat waiting for the delivery that never was on two other occasions, but since Joy will physically be in Edinburgh (she lives in Aberdeen), I have high hopes for this scheduled delivery. We went through the same thing with our kitchen floor. When we moved in, the floor was half-ripped up, and the man failed to show twice to finish the job. However, we now have a complete kitchen floor, so perhaps we will soon have a second couch. Right now we have a love seat, and while we three do fit on it, our couch-lounging, BBC-watching evenings are spent in a close snuggle. It will be nice to spread out. The fridge was a bit be-jiddity when we moved in, and now the bottom hinge has broken in to two. Refrigerators here are dorm-sized, so it is not like we have a 5-foot door swaying too and fro, but our mini-fridge door does fall to the floor when you open it. If all goes according to plan, this will also be rectified tomorrow.
I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Poinsonwood Bible, and it comes with the highest of high recommendations from this former English major (and it's even American literature, which, as we all know, is not my favorite). I think it meant a little something else living away from the US in more basic circumstances than I have ever done before, even though I am fully aware it is leagues away from living amidst war, hunger, famine, and poverty in the Congo. Read it. You won't regret it.
Adieu. Adieu. To you and you and you.
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