the bottom

this february thing (and it really is a february thing, as a quick glimpse at last year's february entries confirmed), it does always end up ending. my yoga teacher (i mean the friendly man on the DVD) says that you can only remain in a state of depression for a few 'minutes' at a time. and although clearly that was an oral typo, and he must have meant 'weeks', i agree that the dip is a finite state. it's a pit with a bottom. i know, because i just hit it.

two days ago. i bought 2 kilos of mussels from the local supermarket. (and for those of you who wonder why i would do such a thing: because we love mussels, because they fall under my vegeterian level 1 diet, because they are very very easy to prepare, healthy, and fun to eat). i was standing in the kitchen in front of a sink full of cold water and mussels. shuffling the mussels around. Marc walked in and wanted to know how i could tell a good mussel from a not-so-good mussel. i held one up for his inspection, it was slightly open, i pressed on its shell and the mussel closed with a swishy snap (yes, that is possible). 'see,' i said, 'this one is alive, so it's good!'. there was a silence. a watery swishy mussely kind of silence. 'they are alive?????' asked my rather ignorant husband. 'yes'. 'and you put them in boiling water????'. more of that silence. and then my stomach turned. it was as if the floor had shifted under my feet. i felt dizzy. there was a buzzing sound in my ears. 'i am sorry, i can't do this', i said. shook my wet hands over the sink, and walked out of the kitchen.

well, he couldn't 'do it' either. so we decided to free them. and ate a veggie burger instead. the mussels spent the night in a bucket filled with water on the kitchen floor (actually, not any old bucket, but the special diaper bucket we bought for all those organic cotton diapers we were going to use for Antoine and which i still haven't had the time/courage to put up for sale on e-bay, pristine and unused as they are) (but that's another bottom altogether). they (the mussels, not the cotton diapers) were supposed to be freed on sunday morning, first thing. Marc was to cycle to the beach with the diaper bucket and do the happy deed. but sunday morning was busy, sunday afternoon busier, sunday night too dark, monday morning too sleepy.

now i have a diaper-bucket full of dead mussels in the middle of my kitchen floor. and every time i think about them, i feel like crying.

and that. is. a typical. february. bottom.