Like a Rolling Stone

These are soldiers outside the royal palace in Sofia. Those are big feathers on their hats. I think the leader has the tallest feather. The Scotsmen had the same thing (albeit different hats). Seems to me that this would make you and excellent target during a battle, but maybe it is reserved for officers or infantry who are not on the front lines.

Today, we are going to a conference on women's political participation. It should be interesting, lots of rhetoric and the usual suspects who show up to all these discussions. I suppose I am now considered a "usual suspect" at these events as well. The main difference is that I tend to not say anything publicly, just to my colleagues sitting next to me. It is truly amazing how some people can stand up and say absolutely nothing for 15 minutes and the chairperson does nothing to stop it, even though it is clearly inappropriate. The other interesting thing is it is always the same people doing this. Regardless, I always learn something about Macedonia, women, etc. and it gives me ideas about how to run a good meeting.

I went running last night and it felt so good. My pace is definitely getting faster. Damjanka came over later to check out my bathtub slowly draining and my mice situation. Yup, I have mice. My friend was teasing me that I wanted a pet and now I have several. I tell you if it is not the internet failing to work or being run off the sidewalk, it is mice in my apartment. I have heard horror stories from Jennie and Ste when they returned from Italy and there was mice poop and destruction everywhere. I heard similar horror stories from my boss at the law firm. Here's how Damjanka dealt with the situation: looks under the sink, sees droppings, goes upstairs to talk to the neighbors about chipping in to deal with said mouse situation because, apparently, this is a building-wide issue, comes back down to my place 45 minutes later, tells me that we will deal with it this week and as far as the tub is concerned to buy drain-o. Sounds simple enough and it is always good to see her. Today, I sent Damjanka an email asking if she knows a good cleaning person. I figure some people do spring cleaning, I'm going to do fall cleaning. Manuel, Maria and my parents are coming in the next month. It's time. And I don't want to clean up mouse droppings.

Back to summarizing the National Action Plan for Employment so we can figure out some entry points. You remember this National Action Plan: women are unemployed so clearly, childcare is not a priority since all the women are unemployed.