Thursday, December 28, 2006
Here's another letter Silvia wrote to a friend last month:
Can I fix your radiator?: the story of those who tried
The third man showed up at 8:30, also after the children had gone to bed, but at least earlier than the second man, who the day before had come at 10:30, smelling of smoke and with needle-nose pliers in hand. This third musketeer held a single-handle, screw-adjustable wrench, perhaps better than the first of three ill-equipped men to try his wrong tool at fixing the leaky radiator in Mara’s room. The comedy of errors had begun with that two-handle, straight clamp wrench, which his wife, our landlady, had gone down to retrieve from their car when we discovered the leak that memorable evening weeks ago when the temperatures dropped enough to warrant turning on the heat for the first time.
We hadn’t known how the heating system worked exactly, since we were given conflicting information from all sides. The person who had found this-‘ole-flat for us had initially told us it required a card, a sort of gas account debit card on which one put money at certain locations then inserted into the household gas meter to deduct gas consumption whenever one turned on the heat. Sounded simple enough. “You will have a very warm winter,” I vividly recall him writing in early July. (Who could have imagined warped window-frames, drafty doors, and a leaky radiator back then?) At the first feel of cold weather there were incredibly long lines at those gas-debit-card charging locations. Poor people, waiting there in the cold, as if in bread-lines for food handouts, waiting not to be given anything but waiting to put down money—surely some hedged amount calculated by weather forecasts, anticipated income, and the narrow margins between comfort (from both heat energy and food energy) and the cold. We did not have to get in line, since that wasn’t the type of heating system we had. But how did our heating system work then?
Helpful people speculated. Maybe it’s central heat, where the entire apartment building heat is controlled centrally, and everyone shares the cost in a flat, fixed, monthly bill, budgeted, I am told, over most of the heating month. Others told us not to hope we had central heat, since they said it would get way too warm for our liking and the bills would be high. Look at the type of meter, it will tell you, some affirmed. We did, and saw different meters outside the door of each of the 24 apartments in our building. Finally, the people of action (2) said they would stop by soon to have a look and solve the mystery. One of them also called the Turkish-only-speaking landlord to advise him we wanted to turn on the heat. The landlord must have told her that it was apt.-individual heating, by water run through the water-heater and then through the six radiators, one in each of the flat’s rooms (3 bedrooms, living-room, kitchen, bath), since only the landlord stopped by to solve the mystery for us, and be the first to try to stop the radiator leak.
It was a brisk, cold evening, and we had just sat down to our warm dinner when the doorbell rang (well, it actually chirps winding down here). It was the husband/wife landlord duo to the rescue, well-dressed in dark suit and dark dress, probably both getting off from work. After taking off their shoes in the hallway outside our flat’s front door and stepping into our apartment in their socks (a Turkish custom for visitors), quick cordial greetings of Good evening and How are you (iyi aksamlar and nasilsin) and Good evening back and Fine (iyi), they dispersed into our space while the children and I remained seated at the kitchen nook. The landlady went straight for the water heater in the kitchen, while the landlord and Michael checked the radiators and adjusted them. Then the landlady joined in the general inspection, more, it seemed for her apartment and her belongings, than for our interest. They both entered each room without hesitation, to check the heating, of course, and when the leak was discovered, the landlady went out to the car and returned with a hand wrench. All during this time, each couple had its own side conversations going, in their own language—a language not understandable to the other couple. Michael said to me, “That’s the wrong tool; it calls for a socket wrench.” I imagined the other couple commenting on our dinner food, the cute children, the rearrangement of furniture, all the missing (hoards of ugly, dusty) knickknacks, which we put in storage, along with all the useless junk (eight 50-gallon garbage bags full of old clothes, books, x-rays, broken dishware, broken appliances, peeling Teflon pans, and much, much more), and the general good state of their real-estate investment.
With words of confidence, the landlord, with wrench in hand, walked to the radiator. From the kitchen, on the other side of the wall, we heard some banging, metal on metal, then he briefly reappeared requesting a paper towel to wipe up a small puddle and returned walking past us to the bathroom to wash his grimy hands. “Problem solved,” he smiling told us in Turkish. All is OK (tamam). Meanwhile, his wife had pulled Michael aside in the then three children’s bedroom with the 3 beds along the walls and the 3 tiny dressers (more like plastic organizer drawers 5-high and file-width) to ask if she could take one of the plastic-drawer things. Michael shook his head back in the kitchen and pointed to each of the 3 children, attempting to explain how we needed them. 2nd request: How about those large pots up there? Fine, you can take them (an important religious festival and feasting holiday Bayram was approaching in a few days). They left with their tool and a few pots and lids, all in a large plastic bag we gave them. From the kitchen table we had never left, the children and I said goodbye/good evening as they left, and they echoed it from the hallway outside our door as they slipped into their shoes. Iyi aksamlar.
The radiator started to leak almost immediately, unbeknownst to us then but discovered after we rearranged the children’s room into two rooms (by giving up an office/computer room, which is now incorporated into our livingroom) due to bedtimes lengthening with the arguments, clashes, and conflicts caused by one boy and two girls, ages 3, 5, and 7, not all sleepy simultaneously, in a dark, 4 x 4 meter room. Mara’s room now had the radiator in question, and one day at the end of a warm spell, when I told her to put on some slippers cuz the tile floors were getting cold again, she came back to show me how the slipper was so wet that “look, I can paint the floor with water streaks!”
Shut down that radiator, that is, turn the knob so no water reaches it. Then call the landlord the next day, which always requires the mediation of someone bilingual (Turkish-English), which expertise Michael’s colleagues are always willing to share. That night, at 10:30, at least two hours after the now-separated children were long asleep since their 7:30-8pm bedtime, there came a long chirp at the door. Michael was in bed, simulating reading an upright book with his eyes closed, and I told him it was probably a wrong-ring from outside the building, where someone buzzes up to get buzzed in, before then ringing again at the door. Trouble is, the buzz-in chirp and the apartment-door chirp sound the same, and people outside the building sometimes ring a lot of apartments to get anyone to buzz them in, since the intercom system between the apartments and the outside-buzz panelboard has been broken since shortly after we arrived in August. In the past, I’ve had people outside buzz our flat (and probably others) at least three times before getting in; I’ve even run into such an abusive buzzer on my way two flights down to see just who it was as she came up. When I confronted her and asked her if it was she who was buzzing without end to number 16 (our flat), she apologized and said she lived upstairs. Not the best way to meet a building neighbor.
So I ignored this 10:30pm buzzing/chirping until it was persistent enough to annoy me and worry us both that it would awaken the children. To check if it’s an outside-in buzz or an apt-door buzz, one simply has to look through the front-door peep hole. There stood impatiently shifting from one foot to the other a young, lean Turkish man with black hair slicked back, and needle-nose pliers in his right hand. “Su” (water), he explained and showed us his wrong tool as we opened the door. Shoes off, socks in, whispering voices, dim the living-room lights, tiptoe into Mara’s room, turn on her reading light, and attempt to fix it. He smells of smoke, like a chain smoker, and to his credit, when his cellphone vibrates he doesn’t answer it, but after a some call back buzzing vibrations pulls it out of his front trouser pocket to see who is calling him on the ID screen before putting it away. A few more face-tightening squeezes and Tamam (Ok). Our thanks and bye. Our whole tiny apartment smells of smoke. The radiator begins to drip again, so we shut it off again.
Turns out that was the landlord and landlady’s son, we learn after another mediated call the next day. That evening the third person shows up at 8:30, in a suit and tie. Wrong tool too. We go through the usual routine. Turn on the heat from the water heater, turn on the leaky valve, adjust and wait. Mara watches. A new discovery: adjusting something at the water-heater location could alleviate or perhaps solve the problem? Water pressure, we English-speakers wonder? Michael decides to call a mediator now, instead of waiting until the next day, after the fact. The cell phone goes back and forth; tell him this, ask him that. The man in the suit is confident (a landperson’s brother, I wonder?). All is explained and explained away, until tamam (Ok). Iyi aksamlar.
It’s dripping immediately. We laugh in frustration and go through our shut-off routine. (I tell Michael he should write a blog on the leaky radiator, the fixers, and their wrong tools; he says he has too many other things to do. I sigh, “Tamam, I’ll do it.) Our mediators call the landlord again the next day. And finally, we don’t know what she may have said or why another relative/friend wasn’t sent with another wrong tool. Instead, as we can see through the peep hole, a work-clothes uniformed plummer with a square tool box rings outside our door (someone else must have buzzed him in). He quickly sets to work flushing the radiators’ black water onto our bathroom floor (it has a floor drain), and pounding on the leaky radiator pipe to remove and replace the corroded parts. New joint, new knob, no leak.
No mediation necessary with a determined, knowledgeable man of action (and the right tools). When he says something that Michael doesn’t understand, he simply pulls out his wallet to mime pay. Michael opens the apartment door to show him the name of the landlord engraved on the doorplate. Tamam, says the plummer. Iyi aksamlar, we all say.
Can I fix your radiator?: the story of those who tried
The third man showed up at 8:30, also after the children had gone to bed, but at least earlier than the second man, who the day before had come at 10:30, smelling of smoke and with needle-nose pliers in hand. This third musketeer held a single-handle, screw-adjustable wrench, perhaps better than the first of three ill-equipped men to try his wrong tool at fixing the leaky radiator in Mara’s room. The comedy of errors had begun with that two-handle, straight clamp wrench, which his wife, our landlady, had gone down to retrieve from their car when we discovered the leak that memorable evening weeks ago when the temperatures dropped enough to warrant turning on the heat for the first time.
We hadn’t known how the heating system worked exactly, since we were given conflicting information from all sides. The person who had found this-‘ole-flat for us had initially told us it required a card, a sort of gas account debit card on which one put money at certain locations then inserted into the household gas meter to deduct gas consumption whenever one turned on the heat. Sounded simple enough. “You will have a very warm winter,” I vividly recall him writing in early July. (Who could have imagined warped window-frames, drafty doors, and a leaky radiator back then?) At the first feel of cold weather there were incredibly long lines at those gas-debit-card charging locations. Poor people, waiting there in the cold, as if in bread-lines for food handouts, waiting not to be given anything but waiting to put down money—surely some hedged amount calculated by weather forecasts, anticipated income, and the narrow margins between comfort (from both heat energy and food energy) and the cold. We did not have to get in line, since that wasn’t the type of heating system we had. But how did our heating system work then?
Helpful people speculated. Maybe it’s central heat, where the entire apartment building heat is controlled centrally, and everyone shares the cost in a flat, fixed, monthly bill, budgeted, I am told, over most of the heating month. Others told us not to hope we had central heat, since they said it would get way too warm for our liking and the bills would be high. Look at the type of meter, it will tell you, some affirmed. We did, and saw different meters outside the door of each of the 24 apartments in our building. Finally, the people of action (2) said they would stop by soon to have a look and solve the mystery. One of them also called the Turkish-only-speaking landlord to advise him we wanted to turn on the heat. The landlord must have told her that it was apt.-individual heating, by water run through the water-heater and then through the six radiators, one in each of the flat’s rooms (3 bedrooms, living-room, kitchen, bath), since only the landlord stopped by to solve the mystery for us, and be the first to try to stop the radiator leak.
It was a brisk, cold evening, and we had just sat down to our warm dinner when the doorbell rang (well, it actually chirps winding down here). It was the husband/wife landlord duo to the rescue, well-dressed in dark suit and dark dress, probably both getting off from work. After taking off their shoes in the hallway outside our flat’s front door and stepping into our apartment in their socks (a Turkish custom for visitors), quick cordial greetings of Good evening and How are you (iyi aksamlar and nasilsin) and Good evening back and Fine (iyi), they dispersed into our space while the children and I remained seated at the kitchen nook. The landlady went straight for the water heater in the kitchen, while the landlord and Michael checked the radiators and adjusted them. Then the landlady joined in the general inspection, more, it seemed for her apartment and her belongings, than for our interest. They both entered each room without hesitation, to check the heating, of course, and when the leak was discovered, the landlady went out to the car and returned with a hand wrench. All during this time, each couple had its own side conversations going, in their own language—a language not understandable to the other couple. Michael said to me, “That’s the wrong tool; it calls for a socket wrench.” I imagined the other couple commenting on our dinner food, the cute children, the rearrangement of furniture, all the missing (hoards of ugly, dusty) knickknacks, which we put in storage, along with all the useless junk (eight 50-gallon garbage bags full of old clothes, books, x-rays, broken dishware, broken appliances, peeling Teflon pans, and much, much more), and the general good state of their real-estate investment.
With words of confidence, the landlord, with wrench in hand, walked to the radiator. From the kitchen, on the other side of the wall, we heard some banging, metal on metal, then he briefly reappeared requesting a paper towel to wipe up a small puddle and returned walking past us to the bathroom to wash his grimy hands. “Problem solved,” he smiling told us in Turkish. All is OK (tamam). Meanwhile, his wife had pulled Michael aside in the then three children’s bedroom with the 3 beds along the walls and the 3 tiny dressers (more like plastic organizer drawers 5-high and file-width) to ask if she could take one of the plastic-drawer things. Michael shook his head back in the kitchen and pointed to each of the 3 children, attempting to explain how we needed them. 2nd request: How about those large pots up there? Fine, you can take them (an important religious festival and feasting holiday Bayram was approaching in a few days). They left with their tool and a few pots and lids, all in a large plastic bag we gave them. From the kitchen table we had never left, the children and I said goodbye/good evening as they left, and they echoed it from the hallway outside our door as they slipped into their shoes. Iyi aksamlar.
The radiator started to leak almost immediately, unbeknownst to us then but discovered after we rearranged the children’s room into two rooms (by giving up an office/computer room, which is now incorporated into our livingroom) due to bedtimes lengthening with the arguments, clashes, and conflicts caused by one boy and two girls, ages 3, 5, and 7, not all sleepy simultaneously, in a dark, 4 x 4 meter room. Mara’s room now had the radiator in question, and one day at the end of a warm spell, when I told her to put on some slippers cuz the tile floors were getting cold again, she came back to show me how the slipper was so wet that “look, I can paint the floor with water streaks!”
Shut down that radiator, that is, turn the knob so no water reaches it. Then call the landlord the next day, which always requires the mediation of someone bilingual (Turkish-English), which expertise Michael’s colleagues are always willing to share. That night, at 10:30, at least two hours after the now-separated children were long asleep since their 7:30-8pm bedtime, there came a long chirp at the door. Michael was in bed, simulating reading an upright book with his eyes closed, and I told him it was probably a wrong-ring from outside the building, where someone buzzes up to get buzzed in, before then ringing again at the door. Trouble is, the buzz-in chirp and the apartment-door chirp sound the same, and people outside the building sometimes ring a lot of apartments to get anyone to buzz them in, since the intercom system between the apartments and the outside-buzz panelboard has been broken since shortly after we arrived in August. In the past, I’ve had people outside buzz our flat (and probably others) at least three times before getting in; I’ve even run into such an abusive buzzer on my way two flights down to see just who it was as she came up. When I confronted her and asked her if it was she who was buzzing without end to number 16 (our flat), she apologized and said she lived upstairs. Not the best way to meet a building neighbor.
So I ignored this 10:30pm buzzing/chirping until it was persistent enough to annoy me and worry us both that it would awaken the children. To check if it’s an outside-in buzz or an apt-door buzz, one simply has to look through the front-door peep hole. There stood impatiently shifting from one foot to the other a young, lean Turkish man with black hair slicked back, and needle-nose pliers in his right hand. “Su” (water), he explained and showed us his wrong tool as we opened the door. Shoes off, socks in, whispering voices, dim the living-room lights, tiptoe into Mara’s room, turn on her reading light, and attempt to fix it. He smells of smoke, like a chain smoker, and to his credit, when his cellphone vibrates he doesn’t answer it, but after a some call back buzzing vibrations pulls it out of his front trouser pocket to see who is calling him on the ID screen before putting it away. A few more face-tightening squeezes and Tamam (Ok). Our thanks and bye. Our whole tiny apartment smells of smoke. The radiator begins to drip again, so we shut it off again.
Turns out that was the landlord and landlady’s son, we learn after another mediated call the next day. That evening the third person shows up at 8:30, in a suit and tie. Wrong tool too. We go through the usual routine. Turn on the heat from the water heater, turn on the leaky valve, adjust and wait. Mara watches. A new discovery: adjusting something at the water-heater location could alleviate or perhaps solve the problem? Water pressure, we English-speakers wonder? Michael decides to call a mediator now, instead of waiting until the next day, after the fact. The cell phone goes back and forth; tell him this, ask him that. The man in the suit is confident (a landperson’s brother, I wonder?). All is explained and explained away, until tamam (Ok). Iyi aksamlar.
It’s dripping immediately. We laugh in frustration and go through our shut-off routine. (I tell Michael he should write a blog on the leaky radiator, the fixers, and their wrong tools; he says he has too many other things to do. I sigh, “Tamam, I’ll do it.) Our mediators call the landlord again the next day. And finally, we don’t know what she may have said or why another relative/friend wasn’t sent with another wrong tool. Instead, as we can see through the peep hole, a work-clothes uniformed plummer with a square tool box rings outside our door (someone else must have buzzed him in). He quickly sets to work flushing the radiators’ black water onto our bathroom floor (it has a floor drain), and pounding on the leaky radiator pipe to remove and replace the corroded parts. New joint, new knob, no leak.
No mediation necessary with a determined, knowledgeable man of action (and the right tools). When he says something that Michael doesn’t understand, he simply pulls out his wallet to mime pay. Michael opens the apartment door to show him the name of the landlord engraved on the doorplate. Tamam, says the plummer. Iyi aksamlar, we all say.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Today is the day after Christmas, and it snowed overnight, making the city sparkle and look so clean. We also received a letter from my parents - dated October 17th! Some things come a little late, and others come "Turkish late."
Sunday, December 24, 2006
It's time for a hockey update! Unlike my league in New York, which consists of 1-2 games a week, followed by a visit to a local tavern for beer and wings, here the teams have real practices, and few games.
I have been practicing three nights a week (one with a strong top-league team, and two with a second tier team, ODTÜ). ODTÜ, sponsored by the university, is in its first year of existence, and it shows. In the practices, few have full equipment, so we run practices in sweats, but we make up for it in fun and comraderie. The players are mostly undergraduate students - all very Turkish, except for the half with ponytails and beards that make me think I've stepped back into the 60's. Most speak some English, and they sacrifice something to get to the rink to play. It wasn't too hard for me to decide to try and play for ODTÜ; they needed some experienced players, and since with my work, family, and trying to experience Turkey would make it difficult to try and keep up with the top players in the country (doesn't that sound impressive) in the "superleague". Also, as I'll mention later, if you're not one of the best on your team, you get little or no ice time during the games.
The first time the team borrowed enough equipment for a full-contact practice, pairs of skaters squared off and kept ramming into each other, laughing, like little kids.
After a month of practicing (and watching the team come together and improve quite a bit), I was told that I would need a permit to play in the games. Since there are only 10 games in the season, I knew I should get my permit soon, and so attempted to make my way through the "ice hockey bureaucracy" that is just a further extension of Turkish bureaucracy.
My first step was to fill out forms (with such important information as my mother's maiden name; I also felt a little silly listing my last team as Ale House II - our sponsor in New York), and submit copies of my passport and residence papers in person to the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation (another Soviet bloc-feeling building, with cigarette smoke everywhere - even the athletes smoke heavily). Gokturk, my coach, took me and helped me through this process. These forms were sent to USAHOCKEY (the governing entity of amateur hockey in the US). It was advised that if I knew someone at USAHOCKEY I should call them to speed up the process. Yeah, well, um... I sent an email anyway, and was pleasantly surpised to get a response that they'd send it right back.
Next, the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation had to send on my player's permit to the International Hockey Federation (based in Switzerland or somewhere). While waiting for that, I was instructed to get three pictures of myself, a doctor's note saying I was physically able to play (my school doctor looked at me and signed it and stamped it twice), and more copies of my passport.
When the IHF finally returned their acceptance, I had to travel back to the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation (with Ferhat, my team captain, in a borrowed car - we traveled through the old part of Ankara - Ulus, squeezing down narrow streets filled with more pedestrians than vehicles, and only got lost twice - we found the place after a taxi driver told us to follow a dolmus). I picked up my letter from the IHF, as well as a Turkish IHF form that approved me. Was that it? Well, no. We needed to bring the forms to another part of the city, to the amateur sports authority.
On the way down the stairs, I read the letter from the IHF - it said that I had to get the final approval by January 18th, 2006! Someone had messed up. Should we go back? No, don't point it out, and hopefully no one will notice. The Turkish IHF coverletter explains it all, anyways.
As we walked back to the car (we actually had found a parking spot close by), Ferhat excused himself and dashed across the road into a little shop. He was out in two minutes, carrying something small that he said we'd need.
The building we needed to find was next to a large sports arena, and parking was hard to find as there was a professional soccer game going on (at 2 pm?). The European-style chants rang out from over the edge of the open-air stadium as we walked across the parking lot to the sports authority. Several vendors had set up large grills, selling cooked foods (from meat to chestnuts). The groups of policemen stood around looking bored. Ferhat pulled me aside and pulled out the small tube of glue he had bought. "We need to glue your pictures on the forms," he said, pulling out the carefully typed copies he had produced since our last meeting. He pulled scissors out of his satchel, trimmed my pictures, and glued two onto forms, and paperclipped the third. Then we were ready for...
The chubby, red-dyed haired woman sitting behind the counter! She made us wait while she stacked forms up on her desk (there was a TUB of forms with photos behind her!), and then she said we needed a copy of my residence paper too, she said. Ok, we could manage that, just had to go out of the office and find a copy machine in the building. That wasn't too hard, and we were back (now there was a man being helped with about 10 applications for some woman's team, so we had a wait). Then, finally, she's looking through and - the IHF letter is in English. No, she said, this won't do. She needed to be able to read it. Well, that's what the cover letter from the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation was for - it said I was officially cleared to play. No, she said, we needed it translated.
Ferhat went out to talk on his phone, while I fretted. Of course the IHF isn't going to send something in Turkish. I asked (well, I didn't ask, but someone who could speak Turkish did) if we could translate it there (pen or typewriter). No, she said, you need to have it officially translated - there are services you go to that translate and stamp their seal to make it "official." Are you kidding me? I was about to lose it when Ferhat came back and motioned me up the stairs. Ah, that's more like it. Go to chubby redhead's superior. This was another woman, watching a BBC comedy in her office, who asked how I was in broken English, looked through my paperwork, and said she'd take care of it.
The next day Ferhat text-messaged me. I was offically a member of ODTÜ ice hockey.
My first game was last night - against a team sponsored by the traffic police training school. Before the game, Ferhat handed out candybars - for quick energy. The regular locker rooms were under construction, so we were placed in a stone-floored room - not very good for your skates. I found a cardboard box and we placed little pieces of cardboard down to form a path out the door.
Ötcan, our goalie, had been given a new, wraparound style cup, and was having fun trying to put it on. For five minutes these players laughed and joked like little kids. Fans came in and snapped pictures, and Red Bull (energy drink) was passed around. Then Gokturk came in, and everyone listened intently as he used his clipboard to give us last-minute instructions.
Once onto the ice, I began hearing the booing. The police team had about 150 fans - cadets, really, in full length wool gray coats and hats with brims, and a group from the drummers from their marching band. They all sat in one section and would keep making noise (from whistles to songs to howls) the entire game. ODTÜ was represented by about 50 fans. Both groups stood the entire game.
After warmups, we headed back to the locker room (they did the ice again, and between all periods). This may be amateur hockey, but they take it seriously.
Our game wasn't much to talk about - we got beaten very badly by a superior team, 11-3. Their players were bigger, faster, and they had a passing system that utilized their defensemen (which is where their best players played) very well. They also liked to hit - even after you got rid of the puck, you had to expect someone would come crashing into you. After years of not playing hockey, and then joining a no-check league, it was a little different to end up on the ice more than once. Also, no one talks back to the referee (I started to on a suspect call, and was scolded by the ref that no one talks to him! No one!).
I am one of our stronger players (now playing a very steady, defensive-minded defense), and played more than half of the game. That's not because we don't have enough players. It's because the coach keeps the best players out there. He basically rotated three of us as defense (and we had exactly three lines of offense, but some players only got three shifts the entire game).
After the game, the ODTÜ skated to the boards infront of the police fans/cadets and applauded the fans (their players did the same to us). Then we went and applauded as a group to our fans (still standing, still cheering). Then down to the locker room and cardboard squares.
After the game, as I tried to find a taxi (the police vans were blocking the road, waiting for their players and fans), Gokhan, my coach, came out and said we should share a cab. We talked about the game on the way home, and even though Turkish music was on the taxi's radio, and the scenery was decidedly not upstate New York, I thought about how it felt to play again. Once in the locker room (that distinct smell that hockey equipment retains is truly global), or on the ice, hockey is just hockey; that's why I went through all the trouble to be able to play here, and it seems a small sacrifice to be able to play a game I love.
Our next game isn't until January 20th. I'll keep you posted.
I have been practicing three nights a week (one with a strong top-league team, and two with a second tier team, ODTÜ). ODTÜ, sponsored by the university, is in its first year of existence, and it shows. In the practices, few have full equipment, so we run practices in sweats, but we make up for it in fun and comraderie. The players are mostly undergraduate students - all very Turkish, except for the half with ponytails and beards that make me think I've stepped back into the 60's. Most speak some English, and they sacrifice something to get to the rink to play. It wasn't too hard for me to decide to try and play for ODTÜ; they needed some experienced players, and since with my work, family, and trying to experience Turkey would make it difficult to try and keep up with the top players in the country (doesn't that sound impressive) in the "superleague". Also, as I'll mention later, if you're not one of the best on your team, you get little or no ice time during the games.
The first time the team borrowed enough equipment for a full-contact practice, pairs of skaters squared off and kept ramming into each other, laughing, like little kids.
After a month of practicing (and watching the team come together and improve quite a bit), I was told that I would need a permit to play in the games. Since there are only 10 games in the season, I knew I should get my permit soon, and so attempted to make my way through the "ice hockey bureaucracy" that is just a further extension of Turkish bureaucracy.
My first step was to fill out forms (with such important information as my mother's maiden name; I also felt a little silly listing my last team as Ale House II - our sponsor in New York), and submit copies of my passport and residence papers in person to the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation (another Soviet bloc-feeling building, with cigarette smoke everywhere - even the athletes smoke heavily). Gokturk, my coach, took me and helped me through this process. These forms were sent to USAHOCKEY (the governing entity of amateur hockey in the US). It was advised that if I knew someone at USAHOCKEY I should call them to speed up the process. Yeah, well, um... I sent an email anyway, and was pleasantly surpised to get a response that they'd send it right back.
Next, the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation had to send on my player's permit to the International Hockey Federation (based in Switzerland or somewhere). While waiting for that, I was instructed to get three pictures of myself, a doctor's note saying I was physically able to play (my school doctor looked at me and signed it and stamped it twice), and more copies of my passport.
When the IHF finally returned their acceptance, I had to travel back to the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation (with Ferhat, my team captain, in a borrowed car - we traveled through the old part of Ankara - Ulus, squeezing down narrow streets filled with more pedestrians than vehicles, and only got lost twice - we found the place after a taxi driver told us to follow a dolmus). I picked up my letter from the IHF, as well as a Turkish IHF form that approved me. Was that it? Well, no. We needed to bring the forms to another part of the city, to the amateur sports authority.
On the way down the stairs, I read the letter from the IHF - it said that I had to get the final approval by January 18th, 2006! Someone had messed up. Should we go back? No, don't point it out, and hopefully no one will notice. The Turkish IHF coverletter explains it all, anyways.
As we walked back to the car (we actually had found a parking spot close by), Ferhat excused himself and dashed across the road into a little shop. He was out in two minutes, carrying something small that he said we'd need.
The building we needed to find was next to a large sports arena, and parking was hard to find as there was a professional soccer game going on (at 2 pm?). The European-style chants rang out from over the edge of the open-air stadium as we walked across the parking lot to the sports authority. Several vendors had set up large grills, selling cooked foods (from meat to chestnuts). The groups of policemen stood around looking bored. Ferhat pulled me aside and pulled out the small tube of glue he had bought. "We need to glue your pictures on the forms," he said, pulling out the carefully typed copies he had produced since our last meeting. He pulled scissors out of his satchel, trimmed my pictures, and glued two onto forms, and paperclipped the third. Then we were ready for...
The chubby, red-dyed haired woman sitting behind the counter! She made us wait while she stacked forms up on her desk (there was a TUB of forms with photos behind her!), and then she said we needed a copy of my residence paper too, she said. Ok, we could manage that, just had to go out of the office and find a copy machine in the building. That wasn't too hard, and we were back (now there was a man being helped with about 10 applications for some woman's team, so we had a wait). Then, finally, she's looking through and - the IHF letter is in English. No, she said, this won't do. She needed to be able to read it. Well, that's what the cover letter from the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation was for - it said I was officially cleared to play. No, she said, we needed it translated.
Ferhat went out to talk on his phone, while I fretted. Of course the IHF isn't going to send something in Turkish. I asked (well, I didn't ask, but someone who could speak Turkish did) if we could translate it there (pen or typewriter). No, she said, you need to have it officially translated - there are services you go to that translate and stamp their seal to make it "official." Are you kidding me? I was about to lose it when Ferhat came back and motioned me up the stairs. Ah, that's more like it. Go to chubby redhead's superior. This was another woman, watching a BBC comedy in her office, who asked how I was in broken English, looked through my paperwork, and said she'd take care of it.
The next day Ferhat text-messaged me. I was offically a member of ODTÜ ice hockey.
My first game was last night - against a team sponsored by the traffic police training school. Before the game, Ferhat handed out candybars - for quick energy. The regular locker rooms were under construction, so we were placed in a stone-floored room - not very good for your skates. I found a cardboard box and we placed little pieces of cardboard down to form a path out the door.
Ötcan, our goalie, had been given a new, wraparound style cup, and was having fun trying to put it on. For five minutes these players laughed and joked like little kids. Fans came in and snapped pictures, and Red Bull (energy drink) was passed around. Then Gokturk came in, and everyone listened intently as he used his clipboard to give us last-minute instructions.
Once onto the ice, I began hearing the booing. The police team had about 150 fans - cadets, really, in full length wool gray coats and hats with brims, and a group from the drummers from their marching band. They all sat in one section and would keep making noise (from whistles to songs to howls) the entire game. ODTÜ was represented by about 50 fans. Both groups stood the entire game.
After warmups, we headed back to the locker room (they did the ice again, and between all periods). This may be amateur hockey, but they take it seriously.
Our game wasn't much to talk about - we got beaten very badly by a superior team, 11-3. Their players were bigger, faster, and they had a passing system that utilized their defensemen (which is where their best players played) very well. They also liked to hit - even after you got rid of the puck, you had to expect someone would come crashing into you. After years of not playing hockey, and then joining a no-check league, it was a little different to end up on the ice more than once. Also, no one talks back to the referee (I started to on a suspect call, and was scolded by the ref that no one talks to him! No one!).
I am one of our stronger players (now playing a very steady, defensive-minded defense), and played more than half of the game. That's not because we don't have enough players. It's because the coach keeps the best players out there. He basically rotated three of us as defense (and we had exactly three lines of offense, but some players only got three shifts the entire game).
After the game, the ODTÜ skated to the boards infront of the police fans/cadets and applauded the fans (their players did the same to us). Then we went and applauded as a group to our fans (still standing, still cheering). Then down to the locker room and cardboard squares.
After the game, as I tried to find a taxi (the police vans were blocking the road, waiting for their players and fans), Gokhan, my coach, came out and said we should share a cab. We talked about the game on the way home, and even though Turkish music was on the taxi's radio, and the scenery was decidedly not upstate New York, I thought about how it felt to play again. Once in the locker room (that distinct smell that hockey equipment retains is truly global), or on the ice, hockey is just hockey; that's why I went through all the trouble to be able to play here, and it seems a small sacrifice to be able to play a game I love.
Our next game isn't until January 20th. I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Today's school dessert - a plate of sliced pickles and white cabbage.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Here is part of a letter Silvia wrote to her brother Joseph - it explains a bit about paying bills here in Turkey:
"...the utility bills...in our tiny mailslot box #16 (of the Bukulmez Sok. 28 / 16), of which 28 is the building number and 16 is the apartment number. Good. Now you know what the address means, although few, too few, have used it. The mail is another story.
Anyway, the gas, electric and water bills aren’t even mailed really, just slips of curved calculator-roll-paper-like printouts with the landlord's name (who people on the receiving end of payments usually assume is my husband), this address, our usage from such a date to another date; I haven’t really figured out the billing patterns yet. So these curved slips get stuck in the mailbox by someone, I think the door man, who we all pay a fee to, not for him to open the door for us or anything upperclass like that, but rather to take out the trash nightly (except Sunday) and wash the apt. building hallways and stairways, which I’m told an excellent kapuci does daily, a good one weekly, but ours does maybe twice monthly. And he can also go buy you fresh breakfast food, like hot rolls, if you let him know in advance and give him the money, but we haven’t tried that service yet (ed. - ours won't do this. Michael). But I believe he also reads the meters outside each of the 24 apt doors and takes that info somewhere and gets the curved printouts and sticks them in the box, which I’m very grateful for if it’s true, cuz the lines at those utility places are always long.
When you get a bill you would think you could pay it immediately. Wrong. I tried once, and was told the payment window, usually a week long and starting a week or two after you get the bill, had not yet begun. In other words, I could not pay the bill until a day or two later, but not more than 9 days later. Seems easy enough. Wrong. That weeklong paying opportunity will pass quickly, as it once did for me when I went out of town one weekend and returned to find a bill one day over the week window. Actually, I did not know it was outside the normal weeklong paying window; the bank teller told me. She shook her head no and pointed to the date and said no in Turkish, hayir (like higher). Then she pointed me out the door, around the corner, up a block, to the right, then on the left side, where I found a long line of other bill delinquents like me. And the line didn’t move for more an hour--I found out as I was leaving the line, not having paid the bill yet because a child was due home from school in half an hour--because the electricity was out and so the computers were down at this pay station. (I ended up returning the next day, with two children, having kept the earlier arriver home from school that day so that I could potentially spend all morning and early afternoon in line without feeling pressed to get home in time to meet her getting off the school bus. But that day I arrived early, the computers were up, the line was short, and the process took less than 45 minutes.)
The regular stations for utility bills are the banks. Each thin strip of a bill of curved paper has on the bottom all the banks you can pay the bill at. You show the bill, give the money, get a receipt, and are done until next time. Some of Michael’s colleagues say no one goes to the banks anymore to pay their bills, they just pay online. But they must mean no one with a computer and internet access at home and the willingness to do online banking, which might be a large population, but I would speculate must be rather narrow. For I have seen many banks, many branches, all filled with many people paying their utility bills. Just take a number. Yes, as soon as you walk into a bank, you select from a touchscreen something about what business you are there to do and it spews out your number, like 438 or 192. And you immediately look at the red digital numbers above each teller to estimate how long your wait will be. On this day I got number 128. The highest number was 112, so I knew Miguel and I would be there a while, for several dings between another number updated. We even went outside for fresh air and snacks, and I’d stick my head in the door every now and then to see how much closer we were to 128. I didn’t want to find out the penalty for missing my number, like missing my payment window opportunity. But that penalty would probably just be getting another far-off number, back at the end of the waiters.
On this day I felt grateful for having my number, my place in line. You see, I had just come from the PTT or postoffice, where I had gone to purchase 15 or 20 stamps, whatever larger number they had on hand, cuz stamp purchasing is another line task, and then mailing a stamped letter is another line task, cuz there are not PTT drop boxes to put in your stamped mail. So my goal this morning: get lotsa stamps, go to the bank to pay the two bills within their payment window and get home before noon. We left at 9:30 and on our way out the apt building I decided to retrieve a bill that had been sitting in the mailbox for many days. Today was the 15th. It’s payment window began the 16th, rats. I wanted to pay it too with the other two whose payment window began on the 14th. Slim overlap, so I decided to go anyway and pay the other two.
Now our apartment is not in the most convenient location for our family without a car, as nearby there are no parks, none of our schools, no child-safe streets (but a major thoroughfare and its pollution), steeply inclining sreets with inconsistent sidewalking or none, a low-end tiny grocery market where the neighbors warn me not to buy the meats cuz they mime it stinks, and no postoffice or banks within reasonable walking distance. (Still most of the working-class families here in this neighborhood do not have cars either, so we fit right in in that respect, taking buses and walking along right with them. Taxis are a luxury, on which few of us seldom splurge.) But these unfavorable walking conditions don’t stop us from trying to get exercise while trying to accomplish our daily errands involving parks, schools, groceries, mail, and bill paying. So on this mild day, I decided to walk anyway and take along our old stroller in case Miguel’s legs tired. He alternated between walking and running and riding, depending on the sidewalk, traffic, and street-crossings. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the postoffice, our first stop.
Well after I bought all the international stamps the postman had (10--and he apologized for not having any more), I asked him if I could pay any of my bills here, as I had noticed long lines at PTTs before. He excitedly asked where I was from. Colombia, I always say, not to be falsely assumed rich or anything else unpopular, although Americans are well received too. But the Postman disagreed, he said I looked like someone from Trabzon, a coastal city on the Black Sea (Karadeniz), which I took as a compliment and thanked him. Electric I could pay here he said. So I handed him that last bill I had just gotten out of the mailbox, with the payment window date not yet upon us, and to my surprise, he accepted my money and gave me a receipt. Relief, ease, no line, no wait. He did ask if I was married to Adil Simsek, the name on the bill. Yok, I explain less and less these days. But wait, had I brought enough cash to pay for all three bills? My math mind told me probably not, and outside the PTT both Miguel and I emptied our pockets to pool the funds. I asked him for his three large 1 YTL (Turkish lira) coins in exchange for four 10-cent coins. He agreed with my deceptive exchange, thinking himself richer, and now I’m not sure if I ever told him I owed him 2.60. Guilt.
But even after this swap, I was still going to be 3 or 4 lira short to pay both of the other bills. And I surely did not want to get in line to pay one, then come back tomorrow to get in line again to pay the other, or worse let a few days pass and go over the pay window. There was only one thing left to do. Cash in some stamps. Back inside, unfortunately, the pre-lunch rush had begun, in anticipation of their 12 to 1:30 closing for lunch, which I had learned of once when I arrived mid-lunch and had to wait for an hour with three hungry kids before getting in the even longer post-lunch line. This time, only one person was ahead of me. I recount my money, I think of the gesture explanations I will use, since the Postman knows no English and I almost no Turkish. Wait, who is that woman boldly walking to the counter and standing right next to the man ahead of me?! A line cutter, not uncommon in Turkey. I ineffectively give her the mean stare but she doesn’t even turn back to receive it, she’s so bold she cuts without guilt. It takes courage for me to tap her leather-jacketed shoulder. I point, him, then me, what are you doing? She give me a blank look, “Just one envelope” she lifts and blurts something in Turkish; my look tells her I’m not happy so she uses Miguel as the deflection and smiles at him, and turns back around and a few moments later, even before the PTT man is finished serving the man, thrusts her envelope and cash into his hand.
When my turn comes, I nervously lay my two curved-paper bills side-by-side on the short service counter in that small space below the window shield separating us to our foreheads. I count out the money for each bill on top of each and show there is not (yok) enough cash (para). And like the bold woman had done, thrust a square of four stamps back at him. He was so quick that before I could figure out what he had done, he had taken a 1-lira coin from my pile and accepted back the returned four stamps and pushed me through the 5-lira bill the woman had just given him, and then started serving the next customers at my side and behind me. All without even a hesitation or pause or question. It pays to look Turkish maybe. I don’t know. Deals, transactions are made so quickly here than I feel naively unversed in this essential skill. This one was even and fair, and really a favor to me, and it makes me feel lucky today.
After my first transaction, the kind postman had motioned to me that in this neighborhood there was a bank where I could pay the other two bills, but since I this was my first time doing the bill-paying routine in this relatively flat neighborhood instead of in the steeply sloping one in the opposite direction from our apt, I looked and asked for the bank for 15 minutes before going further to the next neighborhood, a commercial district with lots of shops and banks, to find a bank where both bills were accepted. The first bank I found had the computers down. The second would accept only one bill, the third only the other bill, the fourth, yes, both bills. Hurrah, and it was just after 11:15, so I had less than an hour to be home. My mission looked accomplishable.
Waiting for my number at the bank to pay for the remaining two bills was no problem at all, given what could have happened (a stamps-refund refusal and another trip home for more cash, no dual-bill accepting bank found). But I did contemplate running across a freeway pushing Miguel in the stroller to try my luck at another, the biggest bank, to see what number and wait I drew from the ticketing machine, then gave up the thought of gambling any more. 20 or so minutes later 128 dings and flashes above the teller nearest the door. We paid our bills, and Miguel’s four coins outnumbered what I was left with. And we made it home by the speed of my aging jogging legs pushing Miguel the whole way except that last steeply (45-degree) inclining entrance to our neighborhood, ten minutes before a school bus brought another child home midday. It was an early school release for her due to parent conferences that day (which I preferred to do over the phone instead of the two-minibus rides and one hour each way; the other child’s school is 3 buses and 3 hours round trip for me, so I go there even less). But back to this morning without buses, a good morning of getting something done. Close call for me on both counts, the money and the time. But in the end I felt released early too of this month’s bill-paying tasks."
"...the utility bills...in our tiny mailslot box #16 (of the Bukulmez Sok. 28 / 16), of which 28 is the building number and 16 is the apartment number. Good. Now you know what the address means, although few, too few, have used it. The mail is another story.
Anyway, the gas, electric and water bills aren’t even mailed really, just slips of curved calculator-roll-paper-like printouts with the landlord's name (who people on the receiving end of payments usually assume is my husband), this address, our usage from such a date to another date; I haven’t really figured out the billing patterns yet. So these curved slips get stuck in the mailbox by someone, I think the door man, who we all pay a fee to, not for him to open the door for us or anything upperclass like that, but rather to take out the trash nightly (except Sunday) and wash the apt. building hallways and stairways, which I’m told an excellent kapuci does daily, a good one weekly, but ours does maybe twice monthly. And he can also go buy you fresh breakfast food, like hot rolls, if you let him know in advance and give him the money, but we haven’t tried that service yet (ed. - ours won't do this. Michael). But I believe he also reads the meters outside each of the 24 apt doors and takes that info somewhere and gets the curved printouts and sticks them in the box, which I’m very grateful for if it’s true, cuz the lines at those utility places are always long.
When you get a bill you would think you could pay it immediately. Wrong. I tried once, and was told the payment window, usually a week long and starting a week or two after you get the bill, had not yet begun. In other words, I could not pay the bill until a day or two later, but not more than 9 days later. Seems easy enough. Wrong. That weeklong paying opportunity will pass quickly, as it once did for me when I went out of town one weekend and returned to find a bill one day over the week window. Actually, I did not know it was outside the normal weeklong paying window; the bank teller told me. She shook her head no and pointed to the date and said no in Turkish, hayir (like higher). Then she pointed me out the door, around the corner, up a block, to the right, then on the left side, where I found a long line of other bill delinquents like me. And the line didn’t move for more an hour--I found out as I was leaving the line, not having paid the bill yet because a child was due home from school in half an hour--because the electricity was out and so the computers were down at this pay station. (I ended up returning the next day, with two children, having kept the earlier arriver home from school that day so that I could potentially spend all morning and early afternoon in line without feeling pressed to get home in time to meet her getting off the school bus. But that day I arrived early, the computers were up, the line was short, and the process took less than 45 minutes.)
The regular stations for utility bills are the banks. Each thin strip of a bill of curved paper has on the bottom all the banks you can pay the bill at. You show the bill, give the money, get a receipt, and are done until next time. Some of Michael’s colleagues say no one goes to the banks anymore to pay their bills, they just pay online. But they must mean no one with a computer and internet access at home and the willingness to do online banking, which might be a large population, but I would speculate must be rather narrow. For I have seen many banks, many branches, all filled with many people paying their utility bills. Just take a number. Yes, as soon as you walk into a bank, you select from a touchscreen something about what business you are there to do and it spews out your number, like 438 or 192. And you immediately look at the red digital numbers above each teller to estimate how long your wait will be. On this day I got number 128. The highest number was 112, so I knew Miguel and I would be there a while, for several dings between another number updated. We even went outside for fresh air and snacks, and I’d stick my head in the door every now and then to see how much closer we were to 128. I didn’t want to find out the penalty for missing my number, like missing my payment window opportunity. But that penalty would probably just be getting another far-off number, back at the end of the waiters.
On this day I felt grateful for having my number, my place in line. You see, I had just come from the PTT or postoffice, where I had gone to purchase 15 or 20 stamps, whatever larger number they had on hand, cuz stamp purchasing is another line task, and then mailing a stamped letter is another line task, cuz there are not PTT drop boxes to put in your stamped mail. So my goal this morning: get lotsa stamps, go to the bank to pay the two bills within their payment window and get home before noon. We left at 9:30 and on our way out the apt building I decided to retrieve a bill that had been sitting in the mailbox for many days. Today was the 15th. It’s payment window began the 16th, rats. I wanted to pay it too with the other two whose payment window began on the 14th. Slim overlap, so I decided to go anyway and pay the other two.
Now our apartment is not in the most convenient location for our family without a car, as nearby there are no parks, none of our schools, no child-safe streets (but a major thoroughfare and its pollution), steeply inclining sreets with inconsistent sidewalking or none, a low-end tiny grocery market where the neighbors warn me not to buy the meats cuz they mime it stinks, and no postoffice or banks within reasonable walking distance. (Still most of the working-class families here in this neighborhood do not have cars either, so we fit right in in that respect, taking buses and walking along right with them. Taxis are a luxury, on which few of us seldom splurge.) But these unfavorable walking conditions don’t stop us from trying to get exercise while trying to accomplish our daily errands involving parks, schools, groceries, mail, and bill paying. So on this mild day, I decided to walk anyway and take along our old stroller in case Miguel’s legs tired. He alternated between walking and running and riding, depending on the sidewalk, traffic, and street-crossings. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the postoffice, our first stop.
Well after I bought all the international stamps the postman had (10--and he apologized for not having any more), I asked him if I could pay any of my bills here, as I had noticed long lines at PTTs before. He excitedly asked where I was from. Colombia, I always say, not to be falsely assumed rich or anything else unpopular, although Americans are well received too. But the Postman disagreed, he said I looked like someone from Trabzon, a coastal city on the Black Sea (Karadeniz), which I took as a compliment and thanked him. Electric I could pay here he said. So I handed him that last bill I had just gotten out of the mailbox, with the payment window date not yet upon us, and to my surprise, he accepted my money and gave me a receipt. Relief, ease, no line, no wait. He did ask if I was married to Adil Simsek, the name on the bill. Yok, I explain less and less these days. But wait, had I brought enough cash to pay for all three bills? My math mind told me probably not, and outside the PTT both Miguel and I emptied our pockets to pool the funds. I asked him for his three large 1 YTL (Turkish lira) coins in exchange for four 10-cent coins. He agreed with my deceptive exchange, thinking himself richer, and now I’m not sure if I ever told him I owed him 2.60. Guilt.
But even after this swap, I was still going to be 3 or 4 lira short to pay both of the other bills. And I surely did not want to get in line to pay one, then come back tomorrow to get in line again to pay the other, or worse let a few days pass and go over the pay window. There was only one thing left to do. Cash in some stamps. Back inside, unfortunately, the pre-lunch rush had begun, in anticipation of their 12 to 1:30 closing for lunch, which I had learned of once when I arrived mid-lunch and had to wait for an hour with three hungry kids before getting in the even longer post-lunch line. This time, only one person was ahead of me. I recount my money, I think of the gesture explanations I will use, since the Postman knows no English and I almost no Turkish. Wait, who is that woman boldly walking to the counter and standing right next to the man ahead of me?! A line cutter, not uncommon in Turkey. I ineffectively give her the mean stare but she doesn’t even turn back to receive it, she’s so bold she cuts without guilt. It takes courage for me to tap her leather-jacketed shoulder. I point, him, then me, what are you doing? She give me a blank look, “Just one envelope” she lifts and blurts something in Turkish; my look tells her I’m not happy so she uses Miguel as the deflection and smiles at him, and turns back around and a few moments later, even before the PTT man is finished serving the man, thrusts her envelope and cash into his hand.
When my turn comes, I nervously lay my two curved-paper bills side-by-side on the short service counter in that small space below the window shield separating us to our foreheads. I count out the money for each bill on top of each and show there is not (yok) enough cash (para). And like the bold woman had done, thrust a square of four stamps back at him. He was so quick that before I could figure out what he had done, he had taken a 1-lira coin from my pile and accepted back the returned four stamps and pushed me through the 5-lira bill the woman had just given him, and then started serving the next customers at my side and behind me. All without even a hesitation or pause or question. It pays to look Turkish maybe. I don’t know. Deals, transactions are made so quickly here than I feel naively unversed in this essential skill. This one was even and fair, and really a favor to me, and it makes me feel lucky today.
After my first transaction, the kind postman had motioned to me that in this neighborhood there was a bank where I could pay the other two bills, but since I this was my first time doing the bill-paying routine in this relatively flat neighborhood instead of in the steeply sloping one in the opposite direction from our apt, I looked and asked for the bank for 15 minutes before going further to the next neighborhood, a commercial district with lots of shops and banks, to find a bank where both bills were accepted. The first bank I found had the computers down. The second would accept only one bill, the third only the other bill, the fourth, yes, both bills. Hurrah, and it was just after 11:15, so I had less than an hour to be home. My mission looked accomplishable.
Waiting for my number at the bank to pay for the remaining two bills was no problem at all, given what could have happened (a stamps-refund refusal and another trip home for more cash, no dual-bill accepting bank found). But I did contemplate running across a freeway pushing Miguel in the stroller to try my luck at another, the biggest bank, to see what number and wait I drew from the ticketing machine, then gave up the thought of gambling any more. 20 or so minutes later 128 dings and flashes above the teller nearest the door. We paid our bills, and Miguel’s four coins outnumbered what I was left with. And we made it home by the speed of my aging jogging legs pushing Miguel the whole way except that last steeply (45-degree) inclining entrance to our neighborhood, ten minutes before a school bus brought another child home midday. It was an early school release for her due to parent conferences that day (which I preferred to do over the phone instead of the two-minibus rides and one hour each way; the other child’s school is 3 buses and 3 hours round trip for me, so I go there even less). But back to this morning without buses, a good morning of getting something done. Close call for me on both counts, the money and the time. But in the end I felt released early too of this month’s bill-paying tasks."
