Arrived a bit late, had enough time for a cup of coffee waiting for 7:30 and my connection to arrive. As we drive to town, he informs me that there have been changes so we had to go somewhere else to get the key for the apartment (Laura is not in Buenos Aires and she supposedly had arranged for people to take care of the things). We get the key and go the apartment.
I go upstairs and the renter is still there acting surprised to see me. But, he lets me leave my luggages in “my room” – luckily he had taken the other room. The deal was that I would return by 11:00; I would let in the cleaning woman; she would clean the place and prepare it for me.
I returned at 10:45, the apartment was unlocked with my stuff in it and not a trace of the guy or the cleaning woman. I wait and wait, no one shows up. I e-mail Laura and she informs me that the cleaning woman cancelled on her (and me, really). The long story short, no cleaning, no new sheets o towels – nothing – dirty dishes in the sink, garbage bags on the floor, it is a mess.
Well, I somehow accepted that I just had to live with it, but my feeling for Laura and her distance management is souring by the minute. I go downstairs to the 3rd floor apartment to see if the other Laura’s tenant, “a nice woman from Albuquerque,” had an idea. She did not have any ideas what to do, but had some clean towels for me.
I hook up my laptop to the internet hub in the apartment – the connection is very unstable, off and on.
It’s now time for the class with Mimi Santapa. I am looking forward to it and can’t wait for four o’clock to go to Callao 86, quarto piso. I got up there and I was the first student. Mimi did recognize me from last year and was glad to hear from Gordon and Wanda. The class was okay, but, I am loosing my enthusiasm for Mimi. Especially after I practiced with her assistant (I can’t remember her name, the one with long blond hair) and tried to lead a sequence which I sort of invented for myself, tried with several partners in Tallahassee and it worked every time – all of them loved it. Well, this assistant got stuck at one point and refused to make a step as marked complaining she could not read the mark. She asked Mimi and Mimi had hard time with it too. That really discouraged me – either I was totally inept at it or both Mimi and her assistant were not really up to it. It sort of bothered me.
(I tried that same lead several times again in the days to follow with several other women and it worked every time. On top of that, I showed it to Ana Maria Schapira during my private lesson with her today – Friday, Feb 15 – first to her assistant who danced with me – she liked it and said the mark was perfect – then Ana Maria wanted to feel it and she agreed that the mark was very clear and she liked the sequence saying she had not seen it before. So, I am now thinking something was really wrong in Mimi’s class on Saturday.)
Anyway, that made me not want to join them at Al Arranque today. I just went home and decided that I had a long day and needed to rest. Went to the small grocery store downstairs, loaded up on some supplies and called it the day – a very long day.
