Present Perfect

So, a ten day stay back in the land of home. Arrived on Friday. Noticed I had turned ill on Saturday, fever and cold lined with snot. Got up fairly early and went to An's house because Kristien is the best woman for this wedding. Hung around all day, meeting people, eating finger food and drinking. Then time for the wedding party. It was fun, and dinner was great. Good idea for possible future wedding - have dessert buffet until late in the night.

Sunday

Sunday was spent taking a walk in the forest and laying around being tired. Monday morning I took the train home, and about two minutes after I left the train I noticed I was missing a whole bunch of stuff. I left my suitcase on the train. Grumbled, went to lost and found, filled in papers, got phone numbers, and went home. Started calling around for the suitcase, asked the people at the end station to check the train again, found the suitcase, asked to fax to get it sent back, and so on. I was relieved enough to have it located and too angry at myself to protest to all the calling back and forth I had to do.

Monday
Still sick as a dog. During lunch, we got a call - my grandmother suddenly passed away in her sleep. Left me speechless. All sorts of stuff needed taking care of, so I wasn't as productive work-wise as I was planning to be, and not as friendly to people as I normally try to be.
Went to the sauna with Jeremy, which helped my cold a little, and it was nice to go there and relax again, especially given the conditions.

Tuesday
Worked. Did stuff. Went to see Collateral with Peter, pretty good. Afterwards Peter and I crashed some party at the cinema. People had to show some ticket at the entrance of the party but we sneaked in easily inbetween the crowd. I'd never expect something like this of Peter - it's nice to know someone like me gives someone like him the courage to do so :)
Took turns guessing what the occasion was, and Peter guessed correctly that it was a recruitment party for PriceWaterhouseCoopers. We got very depressed looking at the future elite of our society, had the photographer take our picture for the in-house magazine, ate and drank a little, then we left while taking some game with us.

Then I noticed I lost my cell phone. I'm turning into my dad. Went back in the projection rooms (which is good to know for the next time - we can easily see four films in a row if we want to), but it was already cleaned. Harassed cleaning crews, until my cell phone turned up again. Phew.

After that, went to my grandmother's house to help out uncles and aunts with sorting out and sending out notice and invitation letters. It was nice to see how stuff like this is done, chaotic as it may be, and it was nice to see them still being able to laugh at each other. Went home at two with my tongue raw from licking stamps. I'm going to miss that big old house, damnit. Went back home at two.

Funeral's on the same day as my best friend's wedding where I am the best man. I timed the ride between the wedding church and the funeral church, and we figured out I should be able to make the trip from wedding.city.hall to funeral.church and back to wedding.church without missing a thing. What a week.

Wednesday
Finally got my new identity card. Worked all day. Had lunch with a good friend - the fun thing is that we exchange a voucher for a free meal each time we go eat together. Guaranteed lifelong friendship. Quickly dropped by record store and comic store. Bought eight CD's (among wich The Blue Nile, a bunch of local stuff, and the Bloc Party EP, yay !) and the Star Wars box set. San Andreas not out yet, have to get it on friday before I leave. Managed to lose my debit card in the record store, but to be fair this time I lost it deep in my wallet. I went back and forth between the two stores three times. I swear/fear I will be my dad very soon. Worked some more and fixed some bugs again after calming the masses stressing out about perceived bugs vs. real bugs, and fixing some network overloading at the office.

Joined the gang for the Sports Wednesday I helped launch. We played volleyball, and I had a blast. Again an opportunity to think about friendship. I realized a) I miss friends like this and one day I will come back home and b) I really need to get my ass in gear and make sure we do similar stuff in Barcelona. So come on Benjamin, let's play some basketball.

I hope the rest of the week will be slightly less disturbing in theme. Kristien, come on down and soothe my fears.

So, a ten day stay back in the land of home. Arrived on Friday. Noticed I had turned ill on Saturday, fever and cold lined with snot. Got up fairly...