Yesterday

5:15 am - My alarm beeps an incessant demand to wake up...I hit snooze

5:23 am - Hit snooze...think about waking up. Realize it is a busy morning, and haul myself out of bed

5:30 am - whip up the brownies I promised Dia

6 am -  Brownies are in the oven, and I drink luke-warm tea and have left over batter for breakfast

6:30 am - Fret about the fate of the brownies on facebook chat

6:31 am - pull out the brownies, begin to get ready

6:44 am - remember that Today is picture day, and we are supposed to look 'formal'...I have nothing formal, begin to look for something nice that Borris has not destroyed

7:30 found something, brushed hair, make up on....and look for boots to cover the fact that all my stockings are holey...

7:40 - Running Late! Run to school, passing several dawdling students.

8:00 - Just made it in before the bell. Look around...all of the other teachers are in suits, I feel really under dressed in a skirt, turtleneck and boots.

10 am - free period, chill out in Maria's office and wait for coffee.

10:05 Kata walks in and tells me there will be no performances (including mine) at the ball on Saturday, as she has been too sick to organize it. I am horribly confused and begin to wonder what I bought tickets to. 

10:06 Relief sets in, as I realize I don't have to butcher the Hungarian language in front of all of Heves

10:07 Consider calling friends to ask if they want to cancel

10:08 Agi sweeps into the conversation about the ball/not ball. I still have to preform.

10:10 I go eat a brownie, and begin hard core poetry cramming.

A Concetben

5:30 rolled around on a Monday night and in the middle of east Enders, my doorbell rang. It was one of my neighbors upstairs picking me up to go to a concert at the music school.

She introduced herself as Maria, and reminded me to shut off my lights, close my closet door and grab my jacket. We walked out into the pitch-black night, and there in front of the block of flats, was a tiny little car. My knees hit my chin as I squeezed myself into the front seat. Before I even had time to buckle up Maria, who by the way is well over 60, was off like a shot. Knees at my chin, and being pushed back against the seat by the velocity of our break neck speed, our conversation was stilted, mostly because I did not want to distract her, and restricted to my 6 or 7 pat phrases in Hungarian.

The concert was lovely, and the entire row I sat in consisted of more of my 60+-year-old neighbors, or as I am pretty sure I heard my private student, who had invited me, tell her director the “Kolozsvari crew.”

During one of the speeches by the Flutist the entire hall broke out into a beautiful folk song that showed off the pentatonic scale of the traditional Hungarian music. Throughout the concert, Maria would randomly turn to me and pat me on my thigh. Sometimes I think that there is a sign above my head that invites Hungarian-speaking women over a certain age to grab me. In Transylvania, my newly met elderly host mother walked home with her arm around my waist, and hand sliding around my lower back. One of the teachers at school routinely grabs and holds me by my waist whenever she wants to talk to me. Everywhere I go, I am petted and touched.

During this concert I also experienced what has been called the Hungarian clap. Simultaneous clapping in complete unison. It was a little bizarre.

Maria dropped me off at the front and went to park her car. I started making myself tea and changed into my jammies, when my doorbell rang. It was Maria, who jabbered something at me in rapid speed Hungarian. Seeing my lack of comprehension, she pushed past me, through my messy kitchen, and into my newly cleaned dining room and pointed out the window, repeating the word for rain.

I finally understood that she wanted me to take in my giant carpet, which I had flung over my balcony in an attempt to air it and get some of the dust out of it. The two of us struggled to pull my giant floor sized rug up from over my balcony and roll it back onto the floor. I thanked her, and she darted back out of my front door.