Tap...tap...tap...

Not having a phone is a major annoyance. It finally occurred to me to call the folks at the local office (our service is provided by a company in Arkansas) to see if anything could be done, but I basically got the same story: restoration of my service has been scheduled for tomorrow.

I suspect that part of the problem might lie with the wiring at the local switch; when I got home, I had a dial tone on my line and my only clue of something awry was a lack of DSL. When I called the business office, the fellow at the other end couldn't reconcile the fact that my billing number and the number I was calling from were different, and we went ring-around-the-rosie talking about that curious circumstance for a while.

Anyway, as you might expect, for the past few days I've been shuttling between home and either the store or the coffee shop to pick up and send email. It's getting to be a drag.

* * *Whatever I've said regarding translation of Excel files goes about double for Project files.

* * *I had a Steven Wright moment the other day, when it occurred to me that the definition of "business day" is a bit squirrely, since virtually every retail enterprise I'm aware of is open for business on Saturday.

Cheers...

UPDATE: Maybe I was told the same story, but someone at the local company (the Fairy Godmother Dept.?) went ahead and caused my phone to be switched on today. A call to Arkansas fixed a minor DSL glitch, which gives me back my connectivity. It would appear I am Back in Business™.

Mid-afternoon update...

Yesterday, after calling in an LJ phone post via Skype, I tried calling my sister-in-law in Moscow again. This time, the connection was made, and the quality of the call was quite good. (Now, if only we can get her online, we could converse without having to shell out SkypeOut shekels!)

* * *I tried my hand yesterday at making солянка (solyanka), a Russian soup whose recipe includes pickles and olives! This showed up on the dining hall menu every couple of days while I was at Baikonur, and it's particularly good with sour cream and a few drops of lemon juice. I had asked for the recipe early on during the campaign, but somehow, actually getting the recipe just fell through the cracks.

My "seat of the pants" recipe started by boiling the remnants of a pork roast to make a stock. I then removed the remaining meat from the bone, cut it into small pieces, and added it to the stock. As there was not much meat, I opened a 1-lb package of ground turkey meat and made a number of 1-inch diameter "turkey balls" and added them to the hot liquid.

Subsequently, I added one sliced small onion (fried), sliced remnants of some green onion, 2 cans of ordinary tomato sauce, 2 tablespoons of capers, one Polish sausage (large frank) sliced into 1/8-inch sections, about 1/3 of a can of black olives, about twice that amount of green olives, 5 medium-small dill pickles sliced into 1/8-inch sections, a few bay leaves, a smattering of peppercorns, a dash of lemon pepper, and a skosh of garlic salt.

It's not the soup I ate in Kazakhstan, but it's good (especially on the second day). Galina likes it, too.

Cheers...