WotD: dance floor

1. die Tanzfläche
2. de dansvloer
3. la pista de baile
4. la pista de ball
5. la piste de danse
6. y llawr dawns
7. an t-urlár rince
8. parkiet taneczny
9. 댄스 플로어
10. 舞池 wǔchí

Inspirational Gimp Quote

There will be prizes for placing this one:

It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends their is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.

The kindness of strangers

"If you think that'll get you a seat on the train, you'll be disappointed," said Mr Smith. As someone who's had avulsion fractures in both feet, he knows whereof he speaks. But even the voice of experience can be wrong sometimes. I hadn't had the crutches ten minutes before a man older than my partner was giving me his seat on the 93 California, a deaf ear turned to my protests. (Thankfully he got off soon after, so my guilt feelings didn't last long.) I ended up next to a sweet little Korean halmeoni, who happened to be getting off at the same spot. When she saw me attempting to stand next to the bus shelter, she led me to a bench just around the corner (which I knew about but figured I didn't need), then kept an eye peeled for the 155 Devon. When it was in sight, she hustled me to the door, made sure I boarded before she did, then ran ahead and grabbed Priority seating for both of us. Omigod, was she ever darling.

This morning, I lay in bed too long, unwilling to face the excruciating expansion of my morning ritual. Shortly after I finally managed to drag myself to the shuttle stop (time: 18 minutes, or exactly on estimate), an old man came by on a knee walker and we predictably began chatting. When I explained what happened, he said, "That's the kind of thing you do when you're in your twenties." "That's the problem," I responded, "I'm forty!" After an uneventful commute, I finally made it into work and the inquiries began. I told my first coworker how I was minding my own business when I was viciously attacked by a bar floor. He sympathised, explaining how he had been similarly set upon by a whiskey bottle and a dormitory wall.

When I reached my department, I decided it best to burst in through the central door and get the show-and-tell out of the way tout-de-suite. After I sat down, my staff came up one by one to offer, in turn, a glass of water, moon cakes, and advice on dealing with crutches. Then I hobbled off to lunch (after boning up on the vocabulary I'd need to explain my accident in Spanish); Don José was the first to see me. "¿Pegaste?" he asked; "Bailando", I explained, and he perceptively asked how many beers were involved. Had I given it sufficient thought, I would've brought a plastic bag for the box lunch I bought, but instead I tried clutching it by the corner. I must've looked pretty pathetic struggling with its loss of structural integrity because a young man turned to me and said, "Sir, can I carry that for you?" But I protested, being within site of some coworkers staffing an outdoor tent. They had no bags, but one of them offered to carry my lunch down when he shift ended. "Don't be silly!" I told her; "Oh, you don't be silly!" she responded and I acquiesced.

I'm not going to get used to this because I don't expect it will last, but it's nice to get a dose of genuine solicitousness all the same.