Naughty week.

It is an universally known truth that once in a while all that may go wrong will do. 

Now, before you all get worried about it and start kindly asking me if I am OK and so on, I am totally fine. I am just referring to that type of week when every single little thing seems to delay or twist, causing not serious but annoying trouble. It is just like we all enjoy our own dose of Murphy´s Law now and then, and this time it was my turn.

It is a bit too complicated to explain it here, but long story short: I spent half of the week trying to sort a bureaucratic process without any result, lost a delivery parcel because of being home absent, and had a couple of little irritating domestic accidents due to anxiety making me even more clumsy than usual. Well, c´est la vie, I suppose! 

With all that happening at the same time, I desperately tried to figure out how to relax, so stress and frustration would not make me feel miserable. 

These are the things I found comfort in.

 1. Thrifted books!

When sad, there are a few things that can actually make me as happy as thrifted books. They are old, paper printed and beautifully designed. Plus, they are bargains and I must admit I am always lucky to find favourite authors and titles. This week treasure is courtesy of The Gentle One, who shops  from an old bookseller visiting his faculty once a month. I admit this arrived just in time to improve my otherwise gloomy mood. I have been a big fan of Vincent Price master of horror generation for a while now, and my heart jumped with pleasure when I saw this was a terror anthology commented by Ackerman himself. Little spooky girls need their treats sometimes! 

 2. Good films!

When I feel grumpy (and by grumpy I mean the type of mood somebody else would consider some kind of pre-killing spree state) one of the few real therapy solutions is watching a good movie. Lately, I´ve been re-watching some of my all-times most loved classics, because well, those are the ones that can never disappoint you. A couple of nights ago I chose Ugetsu by Kenzo Mizoguchi. I always forget what a beautiful story it is. Whoever thinks Gothic Romance is exclusive from Western culture is totally wrong. Ugetsu is full of moon beams, ghostly landscapes, floating fog, pales ladies and family spirits. If Japanese cinema is new for you, I would totally recommend starting with this film.

   

  3. Planning holidays.

  Although Catholic Easter was almost a month ago, Orthodox holiday will be celebrated at the very beginning of May. The Gentle One handled his thesis last week, and that means he is totally free from 24/7 academic work for the first time since last September (hooray!) To be honest, I don´t know if I´ll get used to enjoying married life again, since I almost forgot how it is! (Should I check one of those 50´s housewives lesson books yet? Because, if we speak about traditional roles, I don´t think I can cook to save my life. But I think I will have another cocktail with my book, thankyouveymuch...) 

Where was I? Oh yes. The thing is, we decided to take the chance and pay another visit to Vienna, as we loved it so much the first time we visited two years ago. Also, he will have  some little work to do in the university of Bratislav, but even so, we will get time enough to visit the place for a day or two, and we plan to spend the rest of the week in Austria. As a consequence, I had some spare time to plan the trip, and that was almost as pleasant as a holiday itself.

 4. Long reading sessions.

Obviously, this is related to point number one, but not exclusively attached to it.

In general, April was a good month for reading. I managed to finish my re-reading from A Dance with Dragons before GoT season 6 (although avoiding spoilers during the week we´ll be in Vienna will be more challenging, I guess...), as well as reading the half of the Outlander series part three. Also, I finally decided to scratch another book from the literature bucket list, and I started The Tale of Genji by Murasaki a few days ago. It is about a thousand pages on my chosen edition, but I am not in a hurry, so I believe it will be OK. My only source of concern is how much my tea intake is going to grow while reading it...

Tell me darlings, how was you week?