Sylvia's Journal

My day was full of interruptions throwing my plan to write all day out of the window. First there was the gasman who came to deliver gas to Steve’s and Tessa’s place where the heat did not work. Despite a full tank he could not get it going. Luckily Axel did. Not having heat in something that is more like a camp in this weather is a serious matter.

Then there was physical therapy where my huge upperarm bruise created quite a stir and required the expert opinion of the chief PT. She declared I was lucky. I had not ripped a tendon (such a thing would have required a surgical intervention) but rather some fibers on the belly of the muscle. This explains why I can use my right arm but not lift anything heavy. She did suggest I see a doctor (which I did, another interruption), apply ice and keep my upper arm up (try it while you are standing or sitting). At the doctor’s office Gail, one of the nurse practitioners, had seen these kinds of bruises before and counseled patience and heat. I like the heat more so I follow her advice.

Two (planned) meetings-by-phone cut the day further into pieces and then it was five o’clock, officially ending my workday and just in time for the arrival of Nuha. We were ready to celebrate her 27th birthday. She came up by train from Boston and got to experience one last gasp of winter before she heads back to her desert home in May. Dressed in my red coat, like a cardinal, and with my camera she took off in the new (wet and heavy) snow to explore Lobster Cove in winter. “In Saudi Arabia,” she said breathlessly, when she returned, “we would call this snow like a girl who has not been married.” “Yes,” I replied, “that would be virgin snow. We use the same word.” Unmarried snow – I like it.

Nuha brought me a present and I had a gift for her. We are easy gifting objects because we both love scarves and so that is what we gave each other. Three scarves from Ethiopia for Nuha and one from Saudi Arabia for me plus a small vial of musk oil (promptly and expertly administered by Nuha behind my ears and on my wrists) and prayer beads that were selected to match the color of my eyes.

Axel had cooked a Surinam dish that had simmered all day in the slow cooker and required the making of roti, Indian bread we only knew from restaurants or ready-baked in the store. They came out alright but did smoke up the house so we had the windows open. This caused the candles on the birthday cake to go out on its way from the kitchen to the table, a chain reaction of unimportant events.

The cake with its pound of butter was yummy as long as you forgot about the butter; which Axel did but then regretted later as his stomach protested for hours afterwards.

I drove Nuha home to Cambridge with the remnants of the cake to feed to her brothers and friends. During our 45 minutes ride I learned much about how girls in Saudi Arabia find love, or at least a good match – quite a challenge, especially when you are a free spirit like Nuha. On my way back I listened to Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren who was telling us what we as taxpayers got for our 700 billion handout to the banks and companies like AIG: not much. The abuse she and her co panelists uncovered is maddening especially in light of the strict regulations we at MSH are held to when it comes to using public monies. If I don’t have a receipt for something that cost as little as 25 dollars I don’t get reimbursed. I wonder whether I should continue to believe in the basic goodness of people.

The last activity of the day was translating for Axel the last 3 weeks of Peter ‘s Zeur kalender captions. Some of these are impossible to convey in English, like the retro-curse ‘dekselse kwajongen!’ or ‘Flikker nou maar weer eens op!’ If anyone who reads this can help me, please! The many internet Dutch-English translators were stumped.