February 28. Drove J to the airport. Too bad she's leaving - I wish I had gotten to know her better. We had a good talk on the drive out. Afterwards, I went to see S to sign a contract for some work that our foundation is paying for on some solar panels we had installed at two orphanages. After that, it was off to Metro to spend the afternoon buying food to take to said orphanages. It's a lot of work to buy enough food to make a difference at homes with 90 and 120 kids, respectively. Not to mention loading it all onto the truck. This incidentally marks the third day in the past month or so on which I have had occasion to purchase sugar in amounts which exceeded my body weight, a fact which amuses me for no discernible reason.

March 1. Chestita Baba Marta! For me, the day's festivities consisted of driving up with a few other people to an orphanage in Berkovitsa, where they had invited me to their programme back in January, just to make sure I'd be there. We've gone to this particular home quite a lot, so I have a lot of friends up there. The programme was amazing, especially considering that it's a home for mentally handicapped kids - it was an actual musical, complete with dancing, dialogue (with almost no prompting), singing and costumes. I was quite impressed. As always, N - one of the kids who, after being trained by some American volunteers that we brought to the home, now styles hair for the 90+ residents - fervently admonished me NOT to cut off my ponytail, but ardently recommended that I let him give me highlights. "Do you know how good you'll look with highlights?" I also saw another N, an absolutely adorable but severely traumatised little girl who is fairly new to the home. She had the cutest, most amazingly curly hair - HAD, before they had to buzz-cut several of the children to stem a lice infestation. It's been a month, and I could still cry every time I even think about it, let alone see her. She's one of the emotionally isolated ones that sits rocking all day, but she likes me for some reason. When I first came to her room, she was crying about something but came to see me. I held out my arms to her - she swatted them down, turned around, and backed up into me. This means: "Put me on your lap and bounce me." For not being able to talk, she certainly does get her point across.

March 3. Food deliveries. A lot of the homes are currently in the process of being transferred from the national Government to the regional governments, and no one knows what's going on. The director at one home told me she hadn't received any money for two months due to bureaucratic foul-ups in the changeover.

What do you say to that? "I brought you food." What else CAN you say?

March 4. Sat down for coffee with an acquaintance that I hadn't talked to in forever but randomly ran into on the street. It was good.

We'll see each other again, I think. That night, went to hear P sing jazz. Enjoyed it greatly. Also got to actually talk with the (newish) American ambassador, who really does speak Bulgarian like everyone says. Colour me impressed.

March 7. This was not my day. Let's start with the fact that the internet went out sometime the night before and was not to come back on until the next morning. No e-mail, no webcomics, no MMORPGs, no news, no pirate downloading of the Daily Show for my Jon Stewart fix, no website work. It's funny how much you come to depend on something that is in no way shape or form necessary to survival - in the hunter-gatherer sense, as Tyler Durden would say - and not only need it as a quasi-addiction, but expect it as an unalienable right, becoming not only indignant but positively frantic when it's taken away.

Today was also the day that I had agreed upon with V, my family's landlord, to meet him at the bank and arrange the transfer of this year's rent. So, I sit down, fill out the forms, and say: "I need your account number." He pulls out a somewhat crumpled, faded bank printout for some transaction or another - I never did figure out exactly what - and hands it to me. A thorough examination reveals but one account number listed anywhere on the sheet of paper. I point to it and ask: "Is this your account number?" "Yes." So I fill out the forms, look over everything, and double check: "This is the account where you want the money sent, right?" "Yes." You see where this is going, I'm sure.

I missed the first phone call because I was outside with my dogs. I got the second phone call about 5.30pm. "Hello, this is Raiffeisenbank, may I speak to P (my dad)?" You know how sometimes, after the first sentence of a phone call, you just know that it's not going to be good? This was one of those times. It wasn't like I had just missed a digit when copying it down, either - it was a totally different number. The people at the bank were surprisingly understanding, and, roughly 45 minutes later, we finally got the money sent to the right account. I hope.

Later, I went with N to a restaurant that I had to review, only to find that there were no seats available, either that night or the next. So much for getting the review in by Friday. Our backup plan was to go to a vegetarian restaurant that she had heard about from a friend. When we finally found it - by accident after having given up looking - there were no tables there, either. As I said, this was not my day.

March 8. International Women's Day, and also my little brother's birthday, a coincidence which amuses me far more than it does him. If you ever want to feel old, pause to consider how old your younger siblings are getting. But oh well. No point in complaining - life is good, even if people six years younger than me are now 19.