TGIF

February 8, 2002 TGIF The second class of the week for the architects is at 7:30 in the morning on Fridays. The class went well and the four of them are really nice people. I was home again by 9:45 am and was ready for my nap, but there were phone calls to make and other things that needed doing. While I was at class, Ron had made a number of calls and accomplished a great deal. Dawn, Fernando, and Damon wanted to do something with us tonight, but nothing had been arranged with any of them. Each said, “Call me and we will discuss it.” Dawn can be reached at her apartment and by mobile phone, Fernando has the home number, which is not tied up when he is on the computer, has an office number, and a mobile phone. Damon has an office phone, an apartment phone, which will also receive calls when he is on the computer. We being the most technologically impoverished only have one phone and no mobiles. When six o’clock rolls around, I am ready to check e-mails, do banking, check teaching sites, and the list goes on. Then I have to share that evening time with Ron since he fades earlier than I, he needs computer access earlier in the evening. With all of this, the efforts of coordinating everyone are on us. We have to make the phone calls since those trying to reach us will get a busy signal while we are on the Internet and there are no alternatives for now. The social merry-go-round started. The first round of calls was to see who was still interested in doing something in the evening. Dawn was not sure what she might need to do for work that night, call her later. Damon was starting a conference and did not know what his energy level would be like so please call him later. Fernando might have to do something for another friend, call him later. I wanted to see Vanilla Sky, but was willing to be flexible for other people’s suggestions. Dinner together was out of the question due to our financial condition. With a harried week behind us, I decided to go to the thermal bath and let the medicinal waters carried off my stressors to some another place. Amongst all of this confusion, the doorbell rang. Many times people will ring our doorbell to be buzzed into the building. We say we do not speak Hungarian and they buzz someone else. I expected this to be the case. The person ringing mumbled something in Hungarian or perhaps he was not mumbling and it was just Hungarian, but I had this feeling I should let him in. It was a DHL delivery person. My diploma had arrived. When I got home at six, Ron had not heard from anyone and it was Internet time, so I checked e-mail and logged off to make calls. By 7:30, we found out that Dawn’s boss had work people over for dinner and she had to be there. She wanted us to call her tomorrow for a late lunch since she had a massage appointment at noon. Damon was too tired to go out, but please call him to do something on Saturday evening, and Fernando had to do something else, but call him about Saturday evening also. By this time, we had missed the last showing of Vanilla Sky in English, so we just went for a walk instead. Deciding I had better be pro-active, I placed a collect call to Global Currency. Bank of America made out the check incorrectly, so they mailed the $300.00 back to the bank. However, the bank has not credited the check back to our account, so this money is in limbo somewhere and we do not have access to it. Shortly after hanging up, the phone rings and it is the Hungarian woman we met on our day tour to Brussels. She will be in Budapest this weekend and wanted to know if we wanted to get together this Sunday. We arranged to meet at a coffee shop at noon. The phone rang at 11:30 pm. Assured it was a wrong number, I answered it with the words “Nem Hungarian” perched on my lips. It was Anthony, the supervisor from Bank of America who promised to get back to me about the missing days on my bank statement. The missing money was one payment to a credit card company and that made the difference in the account balancing. I thanked him a million times to taking the task into his own hands and getting done what I had been given empty promises for in the past. When I hung up, I remembered I should have asked about the missing $300.00, but the moment was lost. Tomorrow is another day.

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