Counting the days

I arrived safely back in Stuttgart nearly a week ago, on Thursday morning, after a suitably boring flight (no upgrade this time, alas). The plan was for me to help move the office to G and U's new, not yet completely renovated, house, and you can guess from the subclause what happened to that plan. (The original plan was for us to move at the end of June. It is to laugh.) I took Friday off, spent it unpacking and washing clothes and hanging about in Second Life, then back to the office Saturday morning for the first half of the process: moving the library, model workshop and inactive-project files to the new house (which needs a name, I'll think of something).

Naturally things were taken that should not have been (empty file folders, milk for coffee, the kettle for making tea, the system CDs for repairing the hard disk that of course started throwing out error messages today. (shrugs)

I am really going to miss Rose Street. I have come to love it here, being at ground level in the midst of a dense city neighbourhood, and with a bakery on the corner and three supermarkets and two dozen restauraunts and cafes in walking distance. And I'll miss the people walking past, all the little kids looking in and grinning.

The new place will have absolutely none of that. It is at the dead end of a residential street, 14 minutes on foot and 52 metres uphill from the nearest tram stop, or 5 minutes and 8 metres downhill from the nearest bus stop. It's a storey up from the untravelled road, behind a forecourt full of cars. There is a kindergarten four houses along the street, but that's it. No bakery, no butcher, no cafe, no restaurant: just No. The nearest place to obtain food is at Farmers' Market near that tram stop. It was suggested that we might use the kitchen in the "house" part of the building, but I confidently predict that U will quickly tire of that — if we ever start.

I am missing the hell out of the wedding party, that was such a wonderful time and such a lovely bunch of people. I'm working on a few posts about it and matters arising, but not really getting very far with any of them. I talked to Noctis (the groom) about this, and he kindly agreed to have a look at them in raw form. His reply: words to the effect of "You started well, grasshopper, but there is much that you have not understood." And it is certainly true, his further comments opened my eyes to many things I had overlooked or misunderstood at the time.

I'm considering sending Susan to the next DanceClubConference meeting (there will be more meetings, we were determined that the joy must continue). I think she would possibly have more and different fun than Udge did.

[Updated: I've just remembered something. This post points to the event that started the process that lead to the weddingdanceconference.]

Summer has peaked, and we are starting the slow downhill slide towards autumn. It is pitch-dark at 9:30pm as I write (waiting for the disk-repair utility to finish work). Ah well, it's been a good summer mostly. The weather in North America was pretty well perfect: sunny, warm but not hot, always a pleasant breeze.

Which reminds me that there was a whole 'nother week after the wedding that I have not yet talked about. I managed to meet about a quarter of my SL friends this summer! After Toronto, I went to North Carolina to meet two others (great fun), then took the train up to New Jersey to meet four more. The connection to these six was the meditation group that Susan belongs to. Ha, I hadn't thought of that before: the two halves of the holiday corresponding to my two identities.