Saturn and Cantalope

(MH) Hi Jo! I'm glad you got on both your flights okay :) I'm waiting for you in Amsterdam, comfily settled in at a computer and actually you should be landing in five. This is after only a brief hiccup with the customs dude: turns out, I am my father's daughter. He *always* used to get stopped at customs. Big dude, thick curly black hair, darker beige skin, deep set brown eyes with marked undereye circles, and a healthy black mustache. Hell, even I sometimes thought he looked like a terrorist...No, I didn't. ... Yeah, okay, I did. Nah nah, just kidding. Or. ...

I also got to realize on my flight to Amsterdam that I experience an acute sense of panic when surrounded by white British men in business suits. Go figure. It's either colonialism's ghost that creeps me out or the acrid combination of repression, sharply-scented soap freshly scrubbed, cigarettes and tea. Whatever it is, yilg and good riddance.


And funny you should mention Mercury, cause at Heathrow, I was thinking -- again, obviously -- about Saturn. And how I've always been sure I hated cantalope. But in the proper middle of the Saturn Return I've made it a habit to reevaluate all long-held, even dearly held certainties.(Google it if you've never heard me or someone else pontificate on how important the Saturn Return is and how *essential* it is to take advantage of Saturn's energy especially then -- this means you, if you're between the ages of 27 and 29 -- even if it hurts, espeeecially if it's hard.)

For example, apparently I now love beets and sauteed kale. Like really, really love them in a way I could not have anticipated given previous fear and indifference, respectively (and given my notorious stubborn streak).

(I'm a little hungry with all this produce reminiscing and hope Johanna gets here hungry too...)

But cantalope. So I had a fruit salad while waiting for plane number 2 of the day and it had cantalope in it. I think you know where this is going: I not only ate it; I kinda dug it. I love that we can still always surprise ourselves. Thank you, Saturn.

[Important sidenote: The cat on the plane from Boston next to me was definitely reading Kafka. I thought, what a dark choice for traveling. The copy was brand new, bought special for the trip. He'd filled out his white visitors' card: not British, but staying at least a little while. And his Birkenstocks were new -- maybe to match his just-so disheveled curlies and his perfectly uncoifed (sp?) beard. Ethan or Evan or Aaron or Ian, I thought, Kafka? Not that I should feel quite so free to judge. I brought school books with me: Twain and Diaz. But let's be real: I think I've never quite believed anyone read Kafka for actual leisure. Maybe the old habit of mini-judging anyone earnestly (the new ironic) toting Kafka is an old habit even Saturn can't touch.]

PS: Re: my previous post's title: Right. So. Turns out the saying's about cats, not pigs. Jo told me at brunch yesterday and few thousand miles west. My child-of-immigrants shows most in my inevitably botched-up execution of colloquialisms. Whoopsies. (I hold "there's more than one way to skin a pig" sounds better. Furthermore, I'm no skinning expert, but I bet it's truer, too.)

Jo, are you here yet? I'm starting to crave pork and cantalope...