All in a day

Abbas, my framer, was going to be ready with my frames so I went to Panjim early. I saw the frames. They were great looking & quite well done. But  the mounting was not. It was work on a stubborn handmade I had got from Auroville papers, which made edges not stick flat. Besides, the professional man that he is, Abbas had followed instructions fit to a T. What he did not interfere with was a glaring trapezium of a paper. One corner was too close to the frame but the other three were far and further; they were not equidistant. I was disappointed with myself for not realizing that the perpendiculars of the frame would enhance the crookedness of the painting. I gave him fresh orders to put a cut mount so as to repair things. He complied but I had lost another day.
  I met an old friend on my way back & we agreed to have a drink. After a couple of beers he warmed up and called another friend. This chap has had quite a few jolts in life. His health is bad: he has had two heart attacks already but he drinks like a fish and eats shit food. To console himself he keeps three different drugs in his breast pocket. With that combination dose he hopes to prevent the fatal third heart attack. But he smiles and eats oily stuff and drinks a lot.. I hope he lives to recover some from the lot he has lost.
He too got rather nostalgic. As students we knew a girl. He was fida on her but she was crazy about another friend of ours. He had her number which he gave me, I called and she answered. We agreed to meet for fifteen minutes or so. I paid-up and left them to drink more.
Julia is as sweet as she was but I felt something deep in her was broken. I looked deep in her to see what and I saw ruins of several dreams. Her brother was taking them out to dinner. I said goodbye and left her. Her seven year old Sean was thin from eating too much candy.
Back in the bar my two friends had company. Another journalist had joined them and they were drinking. My friend, the first one I met, had graduated from beer to whiskey. Their eyes were drooping and they looked drunk and spoke in slurred bhasha. When I went to the loo, I looked at my reflection. I looked OK.
The new man was a big shot journo, what with a job in Delhi and all. He was floating ideas like balloons at some country fair. He was ready to talk on any subject under the sun. However when he spoke about Sri Aurobindo I suspected that his research might not be based always on facts. He talked engagingly though and he ate like a starved man! He loves chicken.
At 11 o'clock my first friend wanted to drop me home on his two wheeler. He was tottering. His eyes had difficulties focusing, but he insisted on bringing me home. I resisted as best as I could but the lecture he began giving me on principles of responsibility proved more painful than the prospect of dying in an accident. Off we went on his scooter. In the night the road divider lights up. The whole road is aglow with tiny red rectangular lights. My friend rode along on them making me anticipate a skid or something dangerously risky, but later when I thought about it, it was his 'sextant' of sorts, for he rode throughout quite steady. After dropping me in Calangute he was going all the way back to Parshem, a village 32 km from where we said our goodbyes.
Later on in bed I tried figuring out how much booze I had consumed yesterday from around two in the afternoon till 11 ock. I could not add up for before I could, sleep came over me.