Thinking on my feet...

I went for a walk last night after dinner and perambulated into some of our Russian colleagues outside the Polyot hotel, where they were taking a break from a rather ebullient birthday celebration going on inside. The birthday girl, as it turned out, was one of our security escorts, and I was immediately invited to stay and help celebrate (and not given much choice in the matter).

I would be surprised to find there to be much fear of public speaking in Russia, for virtually everyone I've run across at such parties seems to have no trouble rising to and on such occasions to deliver some well-chosen words expressing best wishes. (I don't know, perhaps this can be explained by cultural differences, the availability of "Dutch courage," or my being utterly wrong.)

In any event, as the toasts progressed around the table, I got to wondering what I might say in what I figured was the unlikely event that I would be asked to rise and contribute my two kopeks.

I did not think fast enough, and figured wrong.

Because suddenly, the Boss™ rose and exercised his prerogative to pass the toast-proposal baton to moi, whereupon the urgency in coming up with something - if not eloquent, then at least a peg or two above tongue-tied - became acute.

I managed to string together some words, which were well received. In the end, the "source" for my words was not far from the first three paragraphs of this post, followed by an apology for my lack of eloquence, and closing with the exhaustion of my entire vocabulary of Old Church Slavonic, "Многая Лета" ("Many Years"), an ancient birthday greeting.

(And now - <drum roll> - I must go off to support the morning meeting).

Cheers...

Notes and asides...

I managed to catch one of the office staff yesterday during his trip to town, and asked him to pick me up a 5 "standard unit" (i.e., dollar) prepaid phone card for MTS, which he did.

Entering the card number can be done via a SMS message, though I experienced a few minutes of uncertainty while the system digested the message and updated my billing data. What is interesting is that not only were 5 units added to my balance, but an additional two-something units that I thought I had lost (owing to crossing an end-of-month boundary without adequate use) were restored as well.

Thus, I am loaded for bear as far as sending SMS messages is concerned (and, I suppose, calling folks in Moscow). Calling home will require a formal application during a visit to the local MTS office in downtown Baikonur, which is not in the cards for the near future.

* * *There has been occasional talk of an insect around here called a фаланга (falanga), which is reputed to be large, aggressive, and poisonous. Not that I doubted such a critter exists, but it never stayed on my mental radar long enough for me to, for example, search Google for more information (and - more important - a photo!).

Well, last night, we found an insect inside the Fili (at the bottom of the stairs) that looked like nothing any of our group (coming out of the dining hall) had ever seen before. It resembled an overgrown ant, with a body about two inches long, an abdomen that looks a little like a half-dried grape (sort of oblate and dark green), a beige head with a dark red spot on the top and four - count 'em - dark red fangs in the front. I counted ten legs, but two of them turn out to be not legs but palpi (one on each side of those ferocious fangs, the better to grip things being eaten).

Among the names I found on the 'net for this insect were: solpugid, salpuga, wind scorpion, sun spider, and... falanga (!).

Without knowing what I was dealing with, I emptied the contents of the closest container (a can of tennis balls) and using the can and a piece of cardboard, I captured the critter, which proceeded to put on a fairly impressive - and lengthy - display of anger. One of our group attempted to photograph the thing, but the animal was not in any mood to hold still for any portraiture. After everyone's curiosity was sated by looking at those infuriated quintuple fangs, I released the solpugid (softie that I am) some distance from any Fili door, in a shady place.

I received two documents for translation to provide estimates for, and have gotten the go-ahead for the shorter item, which I shall dispatch this afternoon. No word yet on the longer item, and to be frank, I shall not be disappointed if my proposal is declined, as it is a prolix and convoluted academic paper on linguistics discussing something called "hypermetadata" (a word that, for some reason, reminds me of a "semihemidemiquaver" from music).

Cheers...