It was a classic case of masking purchases. I had run out of tampons and headed to Driekoningstraat to buy some at Kruidvat. I can remember being in line at a supermarket in Mountain View, California once and watching an Indian couple buy 2 packs of condoms and then added some candy bars at the last minute because they were embarrassed. (quite funny) And today, though it appeared to be the same, I had only one thing to purchase. "Monthly picnic" supplies.

I actually needed pads, pantyliners, super and regular tampons. But I couldn't bear to buy only period supplies. Instead I bought the tampons and 2 Mars bars. If I had been the checkout girl I wouldn't have been able to help but say, "Ah, periods and chocolate cravings." And I had prepared myself for just the reply in Dutch, but to the checkout girl I might have well been buying a bottle of shampoo and vitamins. No comment at all. We simply exchanged money.

On the way home, as I neared our street coming down Helenlei (I don't know if that's spelled correctly) I saw a man walking his dog approaching. The confident me with my purchases (I had also stopped to buy some pork and strawberries at Peter's Grovers) facing the man walking his dog. As he got a few steps closer, he sorted grunted at me, in the most disturbing way. Sort of like in a perverted cave-man mating call. To which I passed and rolled my eyes. Not 10 steps further a second man did the eye equivalent of the eyebrow raise and tongue clicking. There are just some days being a lesbian is so fulfilling, though no boy I would have ever dated would ever have stooped to such levels. (at least I hope I'm right!)

I went to Mechelen to eat lunch with Eva. As the day was splendid (I was even wearing sandals) I couldn't help but see she was depressed about having to stay indoors project managing English translations and data-sheet layouts instead of running around Belgium. She took me to some of her secret places in Mechelen. As she has worked there for almost two years now, her hour lunches have provided her with enough radius to find all sorts of treasure-spots in Mechelen. We walked our way to a park, had our broodjes, and meandered back through town--arriving on the street where we began, her secret lunch-spot not as far-removed as I had thought. She's sneeky like that. We parted ways at Lu's Paragraph, and then I came home and set to work.

As I had seen first-hand how Eva's working makes her somewhat restless on beautiful Spring days, I decided to make Thai and have it all ready for a picnic in the park--picking her up in the car on her way home. I bottled up the sauce, mixed the veggies with the rice, and packed a water-bottle, plates, and chopsticks in my backpack--with only a few minutes to spare.

Funny that I should prelude this story by mentioning bastard men. I cannot say a blanket statement of "all men are bastards" as I know better, but come on men, a large percentage of your kind are, as the park we headed to is the same park where Eva and her childhood girlfriends had a run-in with a man hanging out in the park just waiting to show his private parts to little girls. Thankfully, or surprisingly enough, Eva has no hard feelings against this particular park as it's gorgeous, especially this time of year.

We took our roll-up grass mat and headed to a section of grass we that was sure to have sunshine until we were ready to leave, and there in the evening sun, in a park bursting with the such green Eva acts like she's never seen before, we settled in to our Thai.

Over and over again I swear things to myself, to do a few things more often. Sometimes it's as simple as going to the library, and other times its buying flowers or cleaning up our wee little apartment. Today I vowed to surprise Eva more often with dinner in parks and surprise sunset outings over which she has no say.

We returned home well-rested and well-fed. We tidied up the place and settled in for a Spring evening, most of which had me reworking my dossier for my end-of-year exhibition--shortening my verbose 12 pager to just a few pages of sweet and concise explanations. Had she not been so helpful, it's true that it might not have gotten finished. She kept reminding me that English is not everyone's native language, and that short and sweet (less-wordy) is the way to go. Thankfully I had already thanked her by having the meal packed in Little Debbie a few hours earlier, so she didn't mind having to remind me of length-issues over and over again.

IN THE NEWS:
Global health officials warned travelers Wednesday to avoid Beijing and Toronto, where they might get the SARS virus and export it to new locations.