May 14, 2013

I had chosen the perfect day to stay at home and work on my e-book project. Elvira came by before ten to deliver the attendance sheets and evaluation forms completed by the participants at all the training sessions so I could complete my report for Natalia.

I asked her if she knew the exact location of the Chinese restaurant where the book club would be holding its meeting, but she indicated she wasn’t even familiar with the street in itself. I told her we needed to make a reservation, or at least let the restaurant know to expect around ten people for sure. She didn’t offer any assistance.

A few minutes after she left, I got a call from Max who had run into Elvira and had been told about the reservation at the restaurant. He’d been hoping that someone who was fluent in Russian would make the reservation for the group, but since no one had stepped up to the plate, he offered to do it himself and called me back to confirm it.

On a gorgeous day, I spent it most of it adding pages to my e-book while confronting the same problem of having what was a compact one-page document in my MS word turned into a two or three page one in the LibreOffice program. I’ll need some help with the formatting of this booklet for sure.

I sent email messages to Caroline, Corrie and Carol (what a coincidence that all their names begin with the letter “c”) asking for their permission to include the handouts they had previously allowed me to use. All three responded with a resounding yes as I had promised to acknowledge their contributions.

By mid-afternoon, it must have been in the low 80s and I went across the street and got myself a cold beer to drink. I took my camera along to photograph the jungle-like quality of my building’s courtyard where intoxicating scents were floating around.

My neighbors must have been quite busy gardening during my three-week absence for there were all kinds of flowering shrubs and even the beginning of tomato plants in neat rows in some of the plots. The vegetation is so dense right now that I can’t even see across the courtyard to the building opposite mine.

I sent Laira a text message suggesting we get together on Thursday for a cup of coffee since Elvira confirmed my participation this weekend at the symposium in Issyk-Kul with us departing early on Friday morning. I’ll be presenting that same afternoon. Laira agreed to come to my flat at eleven.

Damira had agreed to come see me this afternoon, but sent a text message indicating something had come and she couldn’t do it today. She’s one of the CATEC participants who has failed to submit a description of her poster for the program. I sent Anna the tentative program with the corrections I deemed essential while letting her know about those still missing a description, including Damira’s.