Friday! (and a small confession)

Appetizer
Name a trait you share with your parents or your children.

I don't have any children. Although I did have a hamster once (called Apple) who enjoyed sleeping as much as I do. I am aware, however, that there are some key differences between a hamster and an infant. One you keep in a cage and hope you remember to feed semi-regularly, and the other is a hamster.

Traits I share with my Dad:
My sense of humour. One of my housemates at university once commented that hanging out with me is like "hanging out with someone's comedy uncle". I took this as a compliment, of course.
Traits I share with my Mum:
I look a bit like my Mum. Except she's smaller than I am. Personality-wise, though, I think she is like me in sensitivity.


Soup
List 3 qualities of a good leader, in your opinion.

Humour
Ability to listen and respond to people as individuals and in groups
Ability to make decisions and stick by them

Salad
Who is your favorite television chef?

I... I don't think I know any. Why would someone be a television chef? Televisions are not nutritious, nor are they tasty. This makes no sense to me.


Main Course
Share a story about a gift you received from someone you love.

A couple of years ago I was going out with this South African guy called Clint. He looked like a Clint, he was six-six, built like a really tall, strapping South African, and had really good teeth. He was lovely, and at twenty-nine was a bit older than I was. We went out for a bit, but I was still hung up on someone else, and my heart was never really in it. He knew this because I told him. Not in those words, quite, but he knew the situation. We spent time together, going out for drinks and meals in Soho, going clubbing (which I don't like) and sitting in old pubs drinking beer (which I do). His attitude towards life and love, he told me, was to wear his heart on his sleeve. He was tired of hiding feelings because of the effect it might have on the other person. As a result of this he told me he loved me. I couldn't respond in kind, and that was alright by him, he said. He knew that I had been hurt and was still hurting, and just wanted to spend time with me.

I found this peculiar, but went with it. He encouraged me to talk about who I was, about anything I wanted to talk about. I always felt that he was listening to me, really listening and wanting to understand.

This I also found peculiar.

He told me all about Cape Town and his life leading him to London, all about his seven year relationship that ended painfully and made him a believer in honesty and openness. He really made me feel bigger in myself, which is ironic considering he was six foot six and being with him made me feel tiny.

Once we were in a pub in West Hampstead and I started telling him about Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the book by Salman Rushdie. For reasons that I cannot identify, I told him the story, from start to finish. I explained the importance I attach to that book, that I first got a copy when I was about seven years old, and that I loved it then. I explained how it became something of a comfort blanket to me, that the familiarity of those beautiful words have filled me with warmth even when I have been at my coldest and most lonely. I told him how picking up my beloved copy had always made me feel somehow alright.

When I was doing my finals, I told him, I felt so in need of my comfort book. I looked for it, everywhere, and couldn't find it. I searched the house, desperate to see the turquoise cover, tattered and scuffed from years of pages turned, but it was nowhere. I explained my initial panic and horror, and then my deep sense of loss.

I told him all of this and he listened to me. I don't know why I shared with him, other than because I could, and because he wanted me to.

I still hadn't found the book, I told him. I still need it and I still don't have it.

A few months later I had broken up with Clint, to get back together with the ex-boyfriend I had been hurting for and who would, in time, hurt me again. I had been honest with Clint about my reasons for breaking up with him, and he had been upset but understanding.

I was at my parents' house one day when a package arrived through the post, addressed to me. I opened it and inside was a copy of Haroun and the Sea of Stories. On the inside of the front cover was a poem. It told me to always look for the happiness and to always follow my heart. Under the poem was written "For the most beautiful woman I have ever loved, from Clint".

I didn't love Clint when I was going out with him. I love him now a little bit, though, because I think he is one of the most wonderful, honest, and genuine people that I have ever known.

Dessert
How do you react under pressure?

It depends. Some situations make me crumble and have panic attacks, but in others I am cool, calm and collected. It would be hard to say what these situations are, though.

****************************

I have a confession to make, and I am sorry if I have led you on. I don't make up the Friday's Feasts! They come from a website:

http://www.fridaysfeast.blogspot.com/

I sort of thought everyone knew that. Now I feel silly, like I have accidentally plagiarised.

It is Friday today. I do enjoy a good friday. Also I enjoy Good Friday, because we get the day off work. Hurray!

I had a hot cross bun for breakfast this morning. It was truly a Friday's feast.

Oh! I just thought of a joke!

What do you call a street person in an oven who is not at all happy?

A hot cross bum!

On that note... have a good weekend.

(An aside: I have since found my original copy of my book. I had lent it to Dan, who has since given it back to me. Added to the copy in Italian that was given to me by another wonderful ex-boyfriend, I now have three. I am a lucky girl.)