Coffee reading

Tonight was Titika's Greek dinner, for us people who helped her move to campus earlier this month. I'll get my eating and sleeping patterns back on track by monday, and keep them there for a while; but when I stare in awe of the culinary abilities of people who otherwise are similar to me, my jaw droppes and food just enters by default.

I finally got a chance to try Turkish coffee, so that Duygu could read my cup. I'm not picky about caffeine, but I don't like having to chew it.
I'm open to different cultures, but I know what I like and what I don't: love sushi, hate wasabi; love oreos, hate marshmellows. Don't like Turkish delight either, but I digress.

First of all, you leave some residue in the bottom of your cup; Julia goes "You have no sludge!", and all of a sudden I feel like a kid being pointed and laughed at for being different. Great, I don't even know what sludge is or whether that's how it's spelled. I just figure she's saying it's not going to work and I drank that stuff for nothing. But Duygu says it's ok, so then you put the saucer over the cup and shake it... in horizontal circular motion, holding it with your right hand, the thumb over the saucer. There's got to be a better way to explain this, but that should be clear enough. Ivonne and Julia said I wasn't shaking vigorously enough - so I have no sludge, and no muscle either, just leave me and my loser coffee-residue alone.
After a while (and someone taking my picture while shaking, big freak show I am), you turn over the cup and saucer and set it on the table. If you have a ring, you put it on the up-side-down bottom of the cup, and wait for the whole thing to cool off.

Duygu saw a million things in my cup. First of all, there was a bubble: something to be excited about. And a little coffee-free spot on the saucer: "Is one of the rings you're wearing a gift?". Yeeeah, blush, giggle, hee hee hee.

There was a person taking me under his or her wing, someone I feel attached to by three things; there was a small fat fish: a gift, a job, some money. A little material something coming my way.There was my family having to make three payments, with an impact on our finances. I'm hoping this means I'll buy a new car or something, but the first thing I thought about were medical expenses for my dad, which is creepy. I really shouldn't get my fortune told, I get too scared something bad is going to come up.And it did, in a way. Duygu saw me in the form of a goat, which was bad enough even before she told me it simbolizes stubborness: someone lying in front of me, whom I will sacrifice to get what I want.

I thought maybe I'd be leaving Enrico for a job opportunity too good to pass up; but a little turtle said I will reach my career goals with slow and safe steps, and I'm not that stubborn about work. Duygu saw him climbing a mountain and asked whether he's due for a promotion.Maybe I'm giving up the relationship I had with my parents, to live my own life despite them not approving.

I am confused now, but will clear things up in "units of three": three days, three months, maybe three years. There were a lot of triangles, apparently.

There was a pale girl with messy hair, who misses me and wants to give me something nice to drink. I think it's my little cousin Claudia: I can see her blond wisps of hair escaping her pony tail.There was someone, a permanent presence in my life, with authority ("Is anyone in your family involved in politics?", nope), not liked very much by the family, who would get angry.There were two people speaking to each other and one of them giving the other something, and a third person looking at them and being upset about that. That's got to be one of my parents breaking down and helping me out, while the other is feeling resentful for being left out.There was me discussing something "like a snake, with no solution, but it does have an end" with someone who's name has an 's' or starts with an 's': my sister Sarah? The discussion would be difficult and tiring.There was a man looking at Duygu, who has something to tell me but won't. Michele I bet; I left him because he wouldn't open up to me.There was something I recurrently think and worry about, which is not really as harmful as I fear.There were short trips, but no long-distance travelling: either Copenhagen or Cotswalds in August, in fact.

I made a wish and Duygu did something with the last drops of coffee: my wish will come true only very slowly and in time, more time than I thought. It's ok, because it was kind of a long-term wish anyway.

I thanked Duygu, and then Titika then told me that if you thank the fortune teller you actually blow the whole future she predicted away. So screw it. It's palm reading next time, though, unless someone can read my cappuccino.