Postcards from France

Hello all! It's me again. It's been a nice two weeks so far in sunny Los Angeles, hope everyone is doing well! The packing is ok, you know the drill, selling stuff, giving away stuff, cleaning the apartment. The kind of stuff you do all the time, like when you've completed a doctoral degree after four years.

Anyway, I arrived safe and sound, and hope to go back in one piece. But there will be two of us, lovey and me. But in a sense that's just one. Went around the town, the first night was in this bar with red dark lighting and dolls hanging from the walls and shelves.

I actually semi-dislocated my left arm. Was in the ocean helping get the kayaks get offshore. The waves were pretty mean. Capsized many a kayak that hardly got two meters from the sand. I saw a capsized canoe about 3 meters away, and tried to wade towards it, then a huge wave came. I didn't know how to deal with waves, but now I know. Anyway, I kinda turned to use my right side to block the watery onslaught, and got knocked into the water, and when I came up I had lost the sunglasses on my face to the shallow depths (never found it), and my left shoulder felt weird.

I guess it's a semi-dislocation in that the arm probably never got out of socket, but sprained. Good thing is that it's most healed now, I can use it almost as good as new. Couldn't really use it without pain for about 5 days, actually. Took anti-inflammatories, and iced it the first couple of days. This was in Malibu. Sat by the ocean watching people surf.

When a wave comes, if it hasn't broken, you can pretty much just ride it, bobbing up and down as it passes by. But if it's about to break, dive under it, go below the surface of the water before it hits you. Then it crashes harmlessly above you. And doesn't dislocate your shoulder. Saw people surf in a variety of methods. One that's pretty cool is a long surfboard and the guy holds an oar, so you can surf normally plus paddle with the oar further from the beach.

My lovey bought me a pack of cool bicycle cards, that are negative-image like, so all cards are the same color, the background is pink. My dad bought me a bicycle while I was away, so will be getting to see that when I'm back. Seems my granny is doing better, they're feeding her porridge again.

My lovey also bought me a tennis racquet! US$55, after taxes. It's a Prince racquet, and pretty solid. She is so sweet to me. So now I guess I don't have to lend my super-lousy $10 racquet to people who don't have racquet. Bought some head tape too for protecting the frame from superficial damage. Hope that there won't be problems bringing the racquet back, for I hope to hand-carry it...

We also went for a Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend retreat last weekend, and it was quite good. Basically to deal with relationship issues, and start or improve communication on crucial issues, as the case may be. Writing exercises, sharing of experiences, that kind of thing.

We watched Cinderella Man, which was really good. The cinema offered a money-back guarantee if the movie was, like, not so good. We got our money back anyway =)

I'm going to miss the soy ice cream and vegetable meat (ground beef, beef burgers, sausage patties). Can't quite find these in Singapore, but will look harder if we do start cooking seriously. I think I've seen soy cheese in Singapore. The ice cream we bought this time was damn good, same brand (Turtle Mountain) but they have a "purely decadent" line. It's chocolate ice cream with peanut butter swirls. I'm bringing back about 2kg of dark chocolate, by the way.

Flying off tomorrow morning.