Musings from an overworked translator

The joy of a mid-day off June 19, 2008

One of the joys of freelancing is the ability to take time off whenever you want. After practically burning myself out translating a really term-dense medical assessment, which I delivered last night, I decided to take the early afternoon off to run errands and treat myself. I have a couple jobs on my desk, but they are all pretty manageable. I had to pick up my Father’s Day gift, a print of Cleveland my dad picked out on my laptop (I love the Internet!), so I made a list of all the things I needed to get done and spent a few hours driving around town and into downtown Cleveland. I got a little side-tracked (ok, lost) and drove through an extremely dodgy part of town (East Cleveland, which is the foreclosure capital of the world) on my way downtown. The Plain Dealer wrote an article on the situation in East Cleveland this week – little did I know I would be driving through that exact part of town just two days later. It was interesting seeing all the once-beautiful homes in a terrible state of disrepair. Some of the homes must have been breathtaking in their day.

I hit the local German import store, Hansa Import Haus, to stock up on Jacobs Krönung coffee and ended up buying some Lindt and Ritter chocolates, cheese, jam, good German bread, and several kinds of beer (since it’s summer I’ve decided to try Warsteiner’s new line of Radlers – beer mixed with lemon, orange and/or cola flavoring). I look forward to trying them on my balcony. Having lived in Salzburg, I am a big fan of the Radler and the Almdudler (which tastes a bit like ginger ale). Afterward, I treated myself to a nice café au lait, Perrier, Niçoise salad, and a strawberry crepe at a little French bistro and creperie, Le Petit Triangle Café (formerly known as Le Oui Oui Café) down the street from Hansa Haus.

I ran a couple other errands and stopped at the local library to pick up a book I ordered through Search Ohio and to browse their DVD collection. Now I am home, refreshed and ready to devote myself a marketing survey. But it definitely feels like a Friday…