Happy with the outcome

Happy with the outcome. Short trip south, long enough to have all action items done. Very efficiently indeed - the introduction, the talk, and the first-time acting as assembly chair. Piece of cake in the end.

He's currently stranded at an airport's lounge, as was quite a norm not long ago. He's having a snack for lunch (sandwich and small beer) while he thinks about the last 36 hours, with time to kill before checking in. The Italian couple at the table beside him go and grab their meals in turns. The man waits keeping an eye on the luggage as the woman comes back carrying some food on a tray. Off goes the man next. He hears - loud and clear - the phone conversation of a man in his fifties sitting at another table. He is telling someone what he's having for lunch (macaronies) and giving details on some relative's recent surgery - rather specific details, somewhat disturbing. A bunch of sexy ladies stand up and head towards the departure gates, stopping at security control to take off their belts and shoes. A few tables back a man plays cards with his son as his mother, oblivious to the ongoing amusement, reads a magazine reporting the empty news of worldwide glitterati and cheap celebrities. The man seems upset about the way the kid plays his cards and gives him continuous advice on how he should play to win and grab the money of their virtual bets. He's concerned the child is giving too much information in every hand and warns him about this fact, taking it even to a higher plane as he convincingly patronises him about the importance not to ever give too much information. At the far end of the cluster of tables there is a small room where what looks like a civil servant spends his boredom playing solitaires on a computer. "Do we play seriously now?" the gambler asks his son. The kid is anything but convinced and seems to be playing only for the sake of his father's satisfaction.

Tables around him, the reminiscer and writer, get filled and emptied with ordinary people just like him, going about their doings in their most natural ways. No effort is involved in those actions, no complications arise in those casual conversations. All this, he reflects, we know how to do it, to greater than lesser precision.