Isn’t today date nice to look at? I’m a nerd for numbers sometimes, so maybe it’s just me. Though for me the 24.04. is always nice to look at. More on that further down.
After two consecutive posts on Saturday and Sunday I thought I might be in a groove to keep going with the daily posts. But after over 8 hours in front of my computer screen on Monday my better or rather saner judgement decided to not spend too much of my remaining free time also in front of a screen by typing up often insignificant ramblings from my life. I don’t know why it took me so long to work out why this might be a bad idea. The same goes for Tuesday of course. Today – Wednesday – was a shorter work day for me, because we get the afternoon off on our birthdays. Mine is today. Hence the “nice to look at” date. Of course a part of me wondered if mentioning this here could be seen as fishing for compliments (or rather well wishes I guess) and if I maybe should not mention it at all. Which is ridiculous, because it is a fact. It IS my birthday today. In the future for this blog I should more often remind myself of a Frank Turner lyric “I’m the one who’s got the microphone here”.
My day started crazy fangirling at 3 AM (I did say crazy, didn’t I?) with watching a 30 minutes Q&A with Frank and Aaron David Roberts, who accompanied Frank, band and crew in 2022 for the “50 States in 50 Days” endeavour in the USA.
After the Q&A the first of four episodes was aired as well (on Veeps), but I went back to bed. So, a bit sane after all. It was a good Q&A all in all, I saw many friendly faces – or rather names – I know, which is always lovely. A few days ago I left a question each for Frank and Aaron on an Instagram post that asked for question. Aaron, who sort of was the host, picked one of mine.
“I’ve got one from dennasus” (he pronounced it den-NA-sus stressing the middle part, whereas I’d always more stressed the first part DEN-na-sus, but I usually don’t often think about how to pronounce it, because it’s a written/read screen name most of all) “I’m going with that [way to pronounce it]” to which Frank then replied: “That’s Susanne. I know her”. Which was lovely to hear, as you can imagine. I mean, I know that he knows me and that he knows that I am dennasus online. I’ve been actively fangirling online and offline long enough now, so I shouldn’t be surprised. And I wasn’t really. But I was still delighted. What can I say?
When I got up after measly two more hours of sleep – and I hadn’t gotten that much sleep earlier in the night to begin with – for a moment I wasn’t sure if that delight really had been worth it. But yeah it was. Of course. As always.
With my first coffee I unpacked my friends’ presents which I had brought back from the UK last week. It’s always nice when we meet around birthdays, because since Brexit sending stuff across the channel comes with so much nuisance and costs.
Shortly after 7 I sat in front of my work laptop to get a few things done, before I would have to head off around 8 to in-person work meeting at 9. I usually would have started work at 9 and then finished the things I needed done for work today later in the afternoon. But “afternoon off” meant I should get that done before my meeting, which was okay with enough coffee next to me. The meeting also was fine with many “happy birthday wishes” from everyone once my supervisor congratulated me in front of everyone. In this group of co-workers / collaborators we get along well, so that was no surprise. My supervisor was so kind to head to the cafeteria in the office building next door after our meeting was done to get me a piece of cake. I stayed in these collaborators’ meeting room to keep working remote for a video chat with my immediate team, because I wouldn’t have made it to my office in time. More congratulations via video, a successful / constructive meeting, a few more tiny tasks to check off and that was my workday done.
It’s so strange how naturally “working remote” now seems to be, even for us in the public sector, which from my experience is often enough the last sector to adapt modern ways of working.
Did I mention at some point that I’ve still got technical difficulties working from home since I switched to working via laptop accessing the network instead of using my personal computer to remotely access my desktop computer logged into the network? IT couldn’t/didn’t really help yet and I was about to contact them AGAIN, when a coworker mentioned their – slightly different connection problems – were solved by using a newer Cat7 Ethernet cable. No idea why. I thought I give that a try as well, before bothering IT again.
I checked if I could order such a cable from either the two smaller electronic retail chains with branches close by, to be picked up at a branch. No chance. Only online purchase available and it was the same with the bigger retail chains where I could have picked it up on my way from work. So I ordered it from Amazon after all, which I try to do not that often, because I know what it does to the local and smaller retail. But I really didn’t want to long to wait for it and Amazon delivered it today. Tomorrow I see it if solves my problem.
I used the afternoon off to run a small errand and then drop by Bro3, who has taken over birthday cake baker duty from our late mum. I complained about my family a lot when I was younger and in therapy last year as well, though complain might be the wrong word for that. It is the family situation I grew up in and yes, it “messed me up” in a way, but complaining about that doesn’t really help. I make the best of it all and it’s up to me to deal with it in my own way. At the moment I often hear from other friends and their difficult relationships with their elderly parents, which get worse and worse with years passed. I might not have grown up in the warmest, closest family unit, but we got and get along and are not threatening each other with lawyers by now! What’s the quote from Dostojevsky? “Every family is unhappy in it’s own way?” I’m too lazy to look it up now.
All I’m saying I’m okay with how things are in my family by now and I’m grateful for that.
One of the “not so warm / close” family effects is that I don’t really make a big fuss about my birthday. I don’t have to do anything special, go out, celebrate with people on that day. I’m fine just having the day off from work and NOT use the time off for errands or sensible stuff. The weather was the know mix of rain and sun today, so there was no point in planning to spend it outside (on my own, which I’m fine with as well). So after I visited Bro3 I went home. And had a long nap! Because I did not sleep enough last night as mentioned above. That’s fine for a birthday for me.
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