All Things New

This has been a week of firsts and of new things. I am flopped exhaustedly on my couch surrounded by boxes and bubble wrap, nestling contentedly into my new apartment. It's very nice! I have a lot a lot to do before it's presentable, but it's a pretty little place with a very nice and spacious patio, and all my stuff seems to fit in it just so.

I'm logged into the internet via my brand new wireless router and cable modem combination. There's another new thing I've picked up, a new bill. Now I owe money to Time Warner, but hey, I have *excellent* signal strength!

Having movers move my stuff was a new experience, but a very pleasant one. All three men were courteous and took extra special care of my great grandmother's china cabinet, which actually arrived in safer shape than it left; it locked itself en route, and I don't have the key!

My next new experience, then: lock picking. I was successful in getting the latch to slide back, and now it's taped so that we don't have this problem again. So now I just need to figure out where my stuff will all go, because I think I want to do something different with it all. Something . . . new! :-)

As if moving weren't enough, I had another very fun new experience this past week. On Wednesday, I had sushi for the first time. Now, I thought it would never be done. I mean, I don't like fish to begin with, so what on earth would I be doing eating *raw* fish? But Frank told me I could gorge myself on Yakitori chicken, and would I at least try one piece? Would I trust him? He'd select the best piece he could for me. So . . . I did!

We went to Kubos in the village. I ordered my chicken on a stick, Frank, Chuck, and Brett ordered their sushi, and we got edimome to start with. I had thought those were spicy, but they aren't. Just salty. Frank showed me how to eat them, and I like them a lot! They brought us soy sauce in a little pitcher, and wasabi to mix in. Frank insisted I try a teeeeeeeeny bit of wasabi. Yeah, not a fan. That stuff is killer!

Frank's sushi came, and I do have to admit it is a lovely food. So colorful and elegant. He had something that must be caviar-ish, and sparkled like tiny orange gems in the dark wrapper. Then came something or other with lovely little shredded vegetables, read and green and white, against the soft pink of the fish. There were two sockeye salmon ones, a bold red, then two tuna ones, also red. There were two regular salmon, those were orange, and two pale pink yellowtail ones. I had half of one of the tuna, and half of one of the yellowtail.

Very interesting! The fish sort of just creamed away as I pressed it to the roof of my mouth and chewed the rice. I was surprised at how soft it was. I was expecting to have to chew it, but I really didn't. Frank was very pleased with the yellowtail, but I didn't care for it, really. The tuna was better, I thought. But then, both kinda tasted like soy sauce, since that's what I dipped them in. I also tried some of Chuck's which had salmon skin in it, and tasted sort of bacony. But it had other flavors I didn't care for. So sushi, tried it. Not really a fan, but I really enjoyed the new experience. Especially since I *did* use my chopsticks and I did *not* embarrass myself by dropping anything!

So, new job status on the August 1, new food experience on August 2, new apartment today. Solomon was a very wise man, but I think he was wrong. Maybe there's nothing new under the sun, if you expect any one person to be completely original and do something no one else has. But if you approach life as an adventure, and experience things you've never met before with an open heart and a sense of fun, all things can be exciting and new!