Sylvia's Journal

After my weekly massage I took an old and threadbare heirloom rug that I had brought from home to Wahid’s carpet shop on Chicken Street. He noticed it was old, very old, and beautiful. Repairs are possible but will take a long time (‘I have a lot of time’ I told Wahid). He is going to have it washed first and then he will get a quote. I wished I knew the history of the rug, how it came to America.

I learned from Wahid that the brown vegetable dyed wool ‘eats itself.’ The blues and greens and reds are still vibrant but the browns are gone. I also learned that moths like brown wool better than the blue, red or green wool fibers.

I asked permission from my boss and the US government to skip out of Afghanistan for a week in early July and head down to Kerala to attend the monsoon wedding of the son of an old college friend of mine. He is marrying his Indian sweetheart and business partner. And so, my second errand on Chicken Street was to look for gifts for the parents of the bride and groom. I found an abundance of lapis treasures and settled on a few items that are of the deepest blue with tiny gold veins (pyrite).

Back home I arranged my flights, my hotel in Delhi and explored hotels in Cochin. A break three weeks from now is certainly something to look forward to.

The rest of the day I worked on various things that had not gotten attention during the week. The US Government gets some extra hours out of me now that I have no housemate to keep me from working – especially on Fridays when Boston has a regular workday.