Postcard from Quebec

I wish my geeky, awkward 14-year-old self would know that as an adult, her life is going to get bigger, grander, more fabulous than she could ever imagine. Her life is an endless list of six impossible things that manifest in front of her, one after the other.

Greetings from Montreal.

Here's a sentence I never thought I would write, greetings from French country, I'm writing this post inside a fabulous condominium overlooking a snowy landscape from the balcony. A few hours ago I had brunch in an old-school French diner with the menu written entirely in French, and when I walked over to the pharmacy across the street, the cashier ignored my "I don't speak French," protests. At the diner, I tipped 54% because I didn't know how to ask for small change, and the waitress speaks five words of English.

I love it, I just love it.

I've always been one of those girls, those girls who tried to learn French, prefer croissants over muffins, toasts, and hell, even rice (blasphemy, I know, coming from an Asian woman). One of my great dreams in life, and it still is, is to find my way in Paris, and luxuriate in cafes and boulangeries until my heart bursts from joy. But for now, a city a few minutes from Montreal would suffice, especially since the plane ride here from the US was paid for, and all my meals, and other affectations are paid for.

Such is my luck, you see, all the amphibians I've kissed in the past and finally, I found someone whose largesse and infinite capacity to love never ceases to astound me. Needless to say, this isn't all about his largesse. I have been with some people in my life who had two dollars to their name and yet my heart was all his, all his for the taking. Unfortunately, as they say, all the good ones are always taken.

Not this time, this time, I get to have the good one. The one all the other women dream about when they allow themselves to wish for a good man, a great man.