No Shows and Kilos

And who says that Turks don't like cats?...We had some friends over to the house this week for some 'okey'. It's a game like Rummy with little tiles that you play. It's fun, and the ladies here like to play. After the girls left, of course we had tons of food left (we always like to put out a spread, i told you that i was becoming a nice little hostess)...so we decided to visit some of the neighbs with some goodies. We headed upstairs, it had been awhile since we'd seen them. Of course, they were delighted to have more homemade Turkish goodies from us--remember the dolma from last week, but they were actually more delighted that we stayed to eat the goodies with them. And of course, it's steaming hot outside and we're inside drinking tea that's too hot for me to hold in my little hand. I can't even begin to convey the love for tea in this land to you. It's in their blood. I mean, I'm not talking McAllister's sweat tea--which i can't believe i dared to mention--but a deeper love than even that. So we're drinking tea...
and while we were there, our landlady came up to tell us that something to do with our hot water contraption on the roof is broken. I don't know all the technical Turkish terms, but don't worry, my neighbor told me she'd help translate when the water repairman came. (She doesn't speak English...) Thanks that'll be a big big help. Basically that just means she'll speak the same Turkish slower! (smile). But, i could definitely tell our Turkish had improved since we'd last seen her. If we can carry on a decent conversation and the main word we had to look up was 'tattoo' in Turkish, we're doing alright by my standards. Don't ask how that came up. Melissa and I do not either have a tattoo. We cover a multitude of subjects with the neighbors.
Back to our broken 'something' on the roof...So, she called the repairman at 6 o'clock. He'll come in 2 hours he says, (she says). Really, now? Will he? Now, this doesn't exactly seem to fit into my understanding of the Turkish work ethic or time table, but alrighty. We'll be home at 8 o'clock tonight, i think, and our neighbors are on standby for when he rings. He was a no show. Surprise, surprise. But we still have hot water today, so I'm not sure what happened. Maybe it's just the heat and people are a bit unreliable these days because we had a lunch date today with a new friend we met at the bus-stop and she was a no show, too!
I came home tonight to a message that our neighbor had come by. Good, I'm thinking, that means the water guy came. No, just kidding. Our upstairs neighbor came by wanting to borrow a bikini for the pool tomorrow. Of course. She didn't end up borrowing one because it was too big. At least she didn't tell me I was taking on kilo's. They told my roommate of all 100 pounds that she had taken on kilos during our visit yesterday. They did not tell me this, maybe the gleam in my eye when she looked my way stopped her in her tracks. (smile again). This is a very common subject among Turkish ladies at teas and such. One time our friend hulya brought the scale out at tea and had us weigh ourselves for her. Where was our 'okey' set then? Any who, all she said tonight was that the bathing suit was too big... thank you very much.