quislibet | Bureaucratic update, with unexpected boobies

My train schedule kept getting changed yesterday. But at least there were boobies.

Yesterday morning, I told J. I would be coming home on the 5:55 train, for purposes of YMCA workout planning. When I saw her at lunch, a pleasant meal shared in a pan-Asian foodcourt with her,

rojagato,

couplingchaos, and

mishak, I decided that, lunch having been prolonged, I would need to take the 6:10 train. After a couple of hours at work half spent trying to track down one of the official consulate-approved translators who would translate into French my at-last-obtained insurance letter and "he's okay" police letter, at about 5:15, I called her at home to say that the actual work the boss wanted me to finish before he left the next day for a week in Germany wouldn't be done unless I stayed and took the 6:45 train.

In the midst of all of this, there were bureaucratic victories: the aforementioned insurance letter, which involved a week of playing phone tag but was at last waiting for me in fax form when I returned from lunch, and a letter from the Fulbright Commission in France that will possibly help solve my visa problems. There was only the nagging matter of finding a translator.

Then, at 6, just as I was about to leave, one of the translators called me back, and said she would be able to finish my translations in a timely manner if I brought them to her in the next couple of hours. So I told J. I'd be coming home on the 7:30 train. I went to Copley Square, dropped something entirely unrelated to all of this off at the FedEx office, and walked towards Tremont St.

You're probably bored by now. I know I was. I bought a donut to liven things up.

But then, suddenly, when I finally arrived at the home of Madamoiselle J--- (not to be confused with the aforementioned J.) in the South End, peering anxiously at my watch, I was met by a moderately attractive woman in her 40s, wearing pink cotton pajamas with a low neckline that would have eventually exposed her breasts anyway even if they hadn't already been clearly visible through the thin material.

"Eet eez not ver-ry profession-AL attire," she said, "but eet eez ze week-END. Come on upstairs."

So I did, spent a few awkwardly amused minutes giving her my papers and writing her a check, making small-talk about my plans in France and whether I'd be watching the Olympics this weekend, and left. (To complete one thread of this story, I arrived at North Station at 7:31; by this point the YMCA was out of the question.)

Later, I told J. (not to be confused with the aforementioned Madamoiselle J---), who met me at the train station with a package of bacon (which she intended to bring home and fry up in a pan), how the translator had been dressed; J.'s eyes went wide when I told her that the translator had hinted that a glass of wine was a great way to start the weekend. "Man," she joked, "you're never going to have a sugar mama if you walk away from a set-up like that!"

It's possible that I'll have to pick up my translations Wednesday morning just before going to the consulate; perhaps we'll see what Madamoiselle J--- wears at breakfast-time. I'll keep you posted.