Perpetual Change

Awkward but Comical (at least to me)

The other day, I went home with a new Italian tutor. She lives in a big home on one floor, her elderly parents live on the ground floor as do her brother and his family. She pushed me into the inner corridor to take off my shoes while she closed the outer door. It was only a minute but in that time her father opened the door immediately to my right, and peering at me in my suit from less than a meter away, he had this suddenly surprised look of, “oh my gosh! Who is in my house?” but he didn’t actually say anything, before I blurted out that I was with Mrs. Lesya. She then came through the door and assured the old man.

Winter frost finally arrived (or so I thought, it is gone already). I was actually very excited because it let me put the contents of my freezer (lots of vegetables from summer) out on my balcony while I defrosted it. I thought my frig was going to break. It had been a daily debate for me: do I wait and risk losing the frig, or do I defrost and lose the vegetables.

They refer to God as the Lord, but they always use the informal you while praying to him. Many people don’t even use the informal you with their biological father.

I went to school last week and everything was as usual. People were unloading the contents of their bazaar kiosks from my neighboring apartments, as always. But when I came home, everything was still as usual, but there was a new metal door with key on my apartment building entrance. Luckily it wasn’t locked. No one had discussed this with me, although I realized the other tenants must have decided to do it collectively and they had done it very quickly, in the space of maybe 4 hours. I stopped by my landlady, who also lives in the building, to ask if I could get a key. “No worries,” she said, “no one has keys; the door won’t be locked tonight.” So I went on my way for the evening, but as I left, I saw a woman that I didn’t recognize going around in her slippers with a little box and a list of names. I wondered if there were keys in the box, but my landlady is very dependable, so I didn’t worry. Well sure enough the big metal door was locked when I came home, but they had also put in a new light, and my landlord was home when I called his cell phone. Although now, I have to go down 3 flights of stairs every time I want to let someone in or out of the building, I love it. My hallway is clean and tidy, there are no sketchy characters about and the stairs don’t smell like a urinal anymore.

Finally, this isn’t really comical, but it is strange. Several times when I have been talking to people in the USA on my phone in my apartment, I get extremely cold. I start to shiver and my voice shakes a bit; I think it must sound like I am about to cry, but as soon as I get off the phone it goes away.

posted by jjs @ 4:01 AM