Saturday. At the coffee shop.

The last few days haven’t been great, to be honest. I was feeling pretty low after what happened in the Mid-Levels earlier this week. Who wouldn’t be, right?

You get on a plane, you fly to the other side of the world expecting to live your dream life, and then it all keeps going hilariously wrong instead. Good thing I’m a writer, or I would be crying to my family and begging them to let me come home. I’m not about that life. I will survive.

Instead I made a decision to be pro-active and not cave into the inevitable bed rot. I spent the whole of yesterday deep cleaning my apartment. Just dropped off another load of laundry at the Chinese Laundry Service on the corner so everything will be clean. Made some spicy noodles, drank some tea, ate some snacks. Slept in my freshly-laundered sheets and blankets. Definitely feeling somewhat better about life today.

I know it’s okay because the song on the delivery’s guy street speaker is Linger by the Cranberries. LOL. It’s… a long story, LOL. This is actually a South Dakota moment, not an Irish moment. It’s a “I’m finally at peace with my book about Bloody Mary’s Bar” moment. We have waited many years for this. Let’s soak it up while it lasts.

Anyway, back to the present. We don’t live that sad little small town life anymore. We live the Big SEA life, which is much more exciting. I get to do things like go to yoga school in Bali and spend the night in Thai airport jail and go on dates to the Mandarin Oriental with crazy hot Russian guys and receive late invitations to the fabulous Emerald Ball in Bangkok.

As for the Bloody Mary’s Krewe? Well, I guess they’ll always have the oh-so-fond memory of Mad Dog and I smoking pot on the back patio while Sam the bar owner yells at us over whatever he’s in a bad mood about that day.

Hahahaha!

Okay, but for real, back to the present.

What is my plan for the day? Well, it’s market day, which means grocery shopping! Yay!

Get this: So I kept seeing memes about Hong Kong neighborhoods, and apparently my neighborhood is the Frenchiest neighborhood in HK. I did not know this. I kinda knew because I hear people on the street speaking French just as much as I hear English and Cantonese. I’ve seen some French spots around. I just didn’t realize my neighborhood was “The Spot” until last night when I typed in the word “French” into Google maps and my neighborhood lit up like the Fourth of July.

I discovered a new imported goods shop that deals exclusively in French products, including cheese, deli meats, and bakery items. Ummm, yes please!

Screw the bougie grocery store in the Mid-Levels! On top of everything else ridiculous that happened to me there, they also had the nerve to sell me not one, but two packages of moldy, rotten cheese, both of which were extremely overpriced. We are officially done with them forever. That is definitely a sign from the universe saying, “Stay away from the place! It’s no good for you!”

So today I’m going to check out the French shop instead. I’m very excited about it. In addition to fancy ramen noodles, I survive almost exclusively off of “snack trays” that usually incorporate a variety of fruit, cheese, nuts, and crackers. I checked out the prices online and the deals on some of my preferred items are much better than at the other Western grocery stores. I’ve tried three of them now and they are okay, just overpriced. I still prefer to buy some things at the Chinese shops, like fresh fruit,large packages of water, and household goods. But there are certain things that only the Western grocery stores have (such as the deli and bakery sections), and the quality is vastly different.

Otherwise, I have decided to make peace with the rats who have recently moved into the rooftop garden. They came with the change of the season. They did not used to be there. Now every night I go up there for a cigarette and I see them lurkin’ in the shadows, watching my every move, creeping around so they can grab some rice out of the communal food bowl the building owners leave out every day for the birds.

At first, I was freaked out. It’s not that I am afraid of rats, it’s just that I’ve never forgotten about the time they wiped out 2/3rds of Europe’s population with the Black Plague. I also haven’t forgotten my encounters with the GIANT rats of New Orleans (locally known as “Quarter Cats” because they are so well-fed), nor my encounters with the New York City rats, who are aggressive enough to run straight at you in an effort to try to scare you enough to drop your pizza on the ground. Luckily, Hong Kong rats are neither scarily large, nor scarily aggressive. It seems like they prefer to sneak around unnoticed and hide in plain sight.

Last night I was out there smoking and I caught one of the rats watching me from the safety of one of the plants. It was actually kind of cute. I realized it was more afraid of me than I am of it, and we should be okay as long as we keep a safe distance of six feet of space from each other at all times.

As I made peace with the rooftop rats, I stood up to go back inside. I could smell a very familiar scent coming from the entry way, signaling to me that my cute neighbor was there. So I knew he was there, and I expected to see him standing there, and he still scared the shit out of me anyway! I swear to you, he did it on purpose!

It used to be that he and I would startle each other by accident, but now I think he is doing it intentionally for a laugh. I mean… it was kind of funny. I literally knew he was there and he still got me! Like, bro, why didn’t you just come out into the garden and say hello like you usually do?

I realized then… I gotta watch out more for this guy than I do for the rats. He’s the one that’s gonna get me when I least expect it. Not that I would really mind if he randomly backed me into the elevator and started making out with me… he is a sexy beefcake, after all! And he’s got the sexy British-Hong Konger accent.

Last night he was making fun of the way I say “laundry.” Prior to this jump scare incident, I ran into him in the hallway and told him I was on my way to pick up my laundry. He laughed as he walked away and kept repeating “LAN-dree, LAN-dree” with like some weird Southern drawl on the end of it. Like maybe he was trying to do a Texas accent or something. He just thought it was the funniest thing how I said “laundry.”

I don’t get it, but okay. And then we get the jump-scare a couple hours later. Okay, okay, let’s just makeout on the rooftop already and get it out of your system. Then you can pull a Russian guy and just go back to your real life while pretending literally none of it ever happened.

He also came out of a different apartment than the one I’ve seen him coming out of before. Did he switch apartments? Is that why I keep seeing that random Chinese girl walk into the one that I thought was his? Does this Airbnb host just play musical chairs with their studios and keep moving us around at their convenience? What is happening over here?

Anyway, I was annoyed with him because I actually wanted to ask him a legitimate question and I forgot. I want to ask him what he knows about The Wolf and The Sketchy Place. Surely he has some information I need. I will make sure I remember to ask next time he jumps out of the stairwell and scares the crap out of me.

Well, that’s about all I have to say for now. Off to the market. Have a good day!