Staurday night (well tempered) fever was the code name for my and Claudiu’s joint birthday celebration (Claudiu’s birthday was on the 28th, and I am about to turn 40 very soon) at „The Oak” restaurant (15-ish km away from Timişoara, on the outskirts of a dendrologic park). The location of our get together was exquisite: furniture, design, services were irreproachable. Some chill out pop songs went on and on, but we didn’t mind that, as they were quite nice and relaxing.There were 12 of us (Oana said we were some sort of apostles by the number) and we had a big table on the first floor. In fact, the whole floor was ours for about four hours. The eldest presence was my ex-teacher, TG (35 years older than me), who said he was delighted to be among us. Theodor (34 years younger than me) was the youngest one. I happened to be the second eldest one there. So, apart from the three of us, were Claudiu & Tatiana, Michelle & Cornel, Oana & Alex, Octavian & Marius. I was showered with presents as soon as we reached the lounge, so I didn’t have much time to brood the problem of my ageing. I got some nice shirts and a sleeveless pullover (from C&T and M&C), a book on the fabulous theatrical performance of Goethe-Purcărete-Şirli-Manţoc’s Faust we had just seen in Sibiu (from O&A), a book called The Meaning of Icon by Nikolai Tarabukin and a card comprising a sermon in a nutshell, saying that my good wishes be granted so that I will be granted the blessings of salvation (from MM), and a bottle of fine red, red wine stay close to meeee etc. (from OC). We gave some little presents, too. I think I surprised Claudiu with a dictionary of the marine (he later started devouering as he was having supper). Two 2009 calendars reproducing fine Orthodox icons painted by Georgios Kordis went to C&T and M&C respectively.
We couldn’t miss talking a little about politics in the end, as Romanians elect a new parliament on the 30th, the Sunday of St. Andrew, the First-Called Apostle. We admitted that never before have we been so confused about who to vote for.
