FireEyeButter

Sometimes I try to heal myself by pretending I’m on fire. If I have a cut or a headache or pain in the many places it chooses to settle in the body, I imagine a controlled fire burning away the pain molecules and the virus bits and bacterial scraps. It sears away the bad things, leaving only good intact and able to rise.

Memories

If someone asked you to share your best memory and your worst memory, how easy would the answer be for you? I spent a semester in college at a theater intensive in CT, and in one of the classes we had to share these with each other. For me, the worst memory was easy to recall, if not easy to relay. But the best memory? I had no idea. Not that I haven't had wonderful moments in my life, but the best? Just about nothing comes to mind. How pathetic is the best memory compared to the worst? Profound moments, aha moments, intense interesting unforgettable moments. But the truly happiest moment of my life - I had no idea.

Sometimes it feels like life is just about dealing with things that go wrong.

milk in the bag

Listening to NPR the other day, they were talking about the 20th anniversary of the first opening of McDonalds in Moscow. People waited in line for an hour, and were taken aback by how friendly the staff was (they had been trained to smile nonstop - Soviets definitely not used to that). Many people said they didn't like the food; it wasn't Russian enough.

It reminded me of my own McDonald's memory. Many, in fact. I remember waiting in that long line, and seeing people in their Sunday best going out for a meal there after church. The people eating hamburgers layer by layer - the bun, the lettuce, the meat. They'd never had a hamburger before.

What I really remember, though, was going to the McDonald's factory on a fieldtrip and seeing the milk bagged. Seeing the milk put in bags.

In Russia, at this point, fresh milk wasn't something to be relied on. When Stockmann's, the Finnish grocery store, had it, we would buy several bottles and freeze all but one (as previously mentioned - obviously had a big impact on me and my memories). The other option, in the early post-Soviet years, was McDonald's milk. I don't remember where we bought it, but it was from a store, not from the restaurant. It would come in this white plastic bag with "McDonalds" written diagonally in a pale orange. At home, we would cut open a sliver in the top, and place the whole bag in a pitcher, to be put in the fridge.

Just thinking about that fridge brings so much to mind.

We had a tv on top of it. Sitting at the kitchen table watching the news when Princess Diana died.

Our cat Spike would lie on the ground in front of it because it gave off so much heat.

I thought "Fridgerator" was what it was called, and my American teacher thought that maybe I was British and this is what we called them.