Oct 22 2007
Was lost and now found…
This weekend has been a mess. Short version: random picnic outings, yogurt women getting in a fight over me, losing and finding Francine.
Long version: The stressful week continued until Saturday-ish - Francine was quite bad on Friday, and I was short money as I hadn’t gotten to go to the bank since returning to Khovd. So I figured I’d try taking Francine to the English Movie Night at the Library’s American Corner and tie her outside so she couldn’t destroy anything else. I went off to buy dinner and about 50 minutes later I returned and she was gone…I felt bad for tying her up in the first place, then felt bad for feeling partly relieved, so all sorts of mess. Thus ended my Friday night. Saturday comprised a variety of outings. My work went out to Black Lake and we had lots of food, which made me happy, but I obviously couldn’t bring Francine, which made me sad. Lots of cute kids and I have some spiffy photos from it that will be posted eventually. Plus fish in a can! And fruit in the form of a can of cocktail fruit…and I used the can opener tool on my leatherman (which meant learning how to use a manual can opener…)
Then I got home and finished making some bread I had rising. It’s still not behaving - if I leave it out to rise too long it dries out and kind of collapses, and I’m not sure why. Maybe the lack of hydration? Perhaps I should seal it up better while rising. The thing is, it still is bread-y (not dense or gross inside) but just kind of flat. Maybe it’s the yeast too…oftentimes it’s past expiration but I don’t have other options.
Then I went to Laura-the-Fullbright’s sort of going away party and had pizza hooshor and played apples to apples! It was fun, but not as silly as I’ve experienced previously. Maybe I hadn’t drank enough…only one tumbler of wine.
Sunday was a big cleaning day. The place was still disasterous from Francine plus me being gone for almost a week. I did all the dishes, laundry, swept, cleaned my water distiller, and mopped. I also got groceries - and found oranges!! So I bought a few - they were expensive - and ate two right off the bat. They were a bit sour but still citrus…and then I candied the orange peels for something later. Maybe a bread or fruitcake - as they have candied pineapple out here…
I also cooked up dinner, which made me very happy. It’s the first time in almost a week I managed to cook, so that was cool. Japanese curry - which I had bought for a pretty penny in UB - and it made me nostalgic as well as very very full and burping strange things for the rest of the evening. My laundry’s still a bit damp so it’s outside still - hopefully no dust storm and warm enough to dry out a bit more by lunchtime. I still need to dust, but the apartment’s looking pretty good. I also slept absurd amounts and feel generally more human.
So concerning the yogurt, I went down to get yogurt, and my normal lady wasn’t there, but someone else said they had yogurt. So I went back upstairs to get my jar, and by the time I did so, there were THREE yogurt ladies outside, including the normal one, who repossessed what is technically her jar, while the ladies begin to argue over who I’ll get yogurt from, including the original non-normal lady who is trying to drag me off to get “her” yogurt, with my lady scolding the other lady, etc etc. So what do I do? I flee. I mumble something about “market” and “later” then run away and avoid the courtyard for the rest of the day.
This morning my lady was outside and came up to me to mutter that my yogurt and HER jar will be available this evening, so meet her then. The other lady looked at me bemusedly, and the other other lady asked about my dog. I think she approved of Francine being lost, but it’s hard to tell.
I swung by the Library today to see if Francine was about and lo and behold there she was chasing random people like usual! So she’s followed me to work and there she will sit til I leave (dammit) as I’m not going to leave her inside anymore I think unless I’m there. I’m glad she’s back, but I also just cleaned up the house! And threw away her food…
So that’s about it. Hope you all are doing well and live in less interesting times…
