by The building work in the bathroom is done; next week the plumber will do his bit. My teaching room, and just about my whole flat, is a mess.
This morning I had a good chat with my parents. We talked about festive seasons past. Ten years ago (can it be that long?) my brother had all his mess with that crazy woman. Twenty years ago my grandfather (Mum’s dad) died, so Mum was over in New Zealand for that, and the rest of our family had a go-through-the-motions Christmas in England. What a crappy time that was for me, those first few months after university, applying for jobs I didn’t really want and getting nowhere while I packed boxes of CDs in a business park.
Nearly three years ago, just before Covid, I met an elderly couple who had arrived in Romania in 2001. Late in 2020, the husband died of pancreatic cancer. This morning I met his widow, who suffered badly from depression after her loss. She lives in a flat in Iosefin, or is it Elisabetin, the area I used to spend a lot of time walking around when I lived in the old place. It’s just over the river from there. Her block, which is something of a rabbit warren, was built in 1919. It has eleven-foot-high ceilings, what she described as “don’t look” wiring, and a courtyard where people have dumped their lives. Her place looks far more lived in than my bare-bones apartment. Her living room has around 2500 books, most of them bought by her husband, some of which you can’t reach without a stepladder. She is involved in the Baptist church which has been a source of friendship for her. She speaks good Romanian and has worked as a translator here. We talked at some length about language, and Romanians’ struggles to differentiate chicken and kitchen, Tuesday and Thursday, or fifteen and fifty.
I’ve just received the details of tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve party. Seven o’clock start. Jeebus. Why so early? I’ll have hit the wall multiple times and it will still be 2022. In Abu Dhabi. I’m dreading it.
On the 27th I played a whole suite of badugi tournaments and made $67. I might have to knock the online poker on the head because, when I’m trying to write a book, it’s too much of a time sink.
