wedding match

i can't quite recall when, but my phone woke me up yesterday and the credit card company was on the line, concerned that hotmail's verification of my dadness was a hack attempt. i like that they're on the button :)

i woke up for my antibiotic breakfast of the dead, totally struggling to raise cutlery to mouth after having expended all my energy perambulating from bed to kitchen and back. at least it was the last one!

i took the bus to the doctor, using the stop's poster to keep myself upright in the glaring, bleaching sunlight. it was hot, and i was so tired that i knew that my postural low blood pressure would have me fainting if i sat down and tried to get up again. the bus was packed so i had to stand, and i swayed the entire ten minutes there.

i like my doctor. he calmed me down and gave me some advice for the next couple of months; he explained to me - a couple of weeks too late - that two of the courses of antibiotics i was on are major downers, so it's no wonder i was barely functional. i should be back up and running by tuesday :)

i don't know what stopped me from getting on the bus back, but as it pulled away i remembered that i needed to go past the clinic to pick up my travel insurance papers. they hadn't arrived yet - i sat reading while i waited. leary on drugs doesn't stop providing insight and wisdom from the moment he gets serious (chapter three). i heartily recommend it to anyone with at least two braincells to rub together.

i napped a bit, got up to put in the last of my eye drops and went to work. happy hour was meant to be ten minutes of speeches and then food, but the marketing guy is a complete tit and he spent half an hour explaining his job until someone in upper management had had enough and cut him off. most of us were doing everything in our power not to fall asleep standing, and there was a lot of eyeball rolling :/

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the lead and i went over my fix - he's happy with my code, just not with me rewriting things, although he insisted that it stays as i left it. it's something i struggled with during my past three years of ultra-sensitive real-time development: if something can be fixed, fix it. then test it properly. i feel that leaving shit in your codebase because you're too scared that you'll mess something up is an indication of two phenomena:
1. a badly designed system
2. a developer who doesn't understand what he's doing

neither of those are good for business.

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i was made privy to some interesting information, and find myself in a peculiar situation. for the next week i'll be helping to train the new guy, and i have a feeling that when i return i'll still be top dog in the department. this is a good place to be in regarding my backup job security, but a terrible place to be in office-politically. sort of like the story with nql, only this guy's not a complete prick.

small mercies :)

i breezed home for a quick shower and a pre-wedding shave: seeing myself clean shaven is awkward. especially now that i have hair on my head :P

i walked past cafesito, and said hi to one of the regulars who was shocked to see me tidied up, clean-shaven and wearing nice threads. that made me smile :)

seeing grootbek after our online episode was a bit strained, but we discussed it a bit later and we're all cool again. it turns out that the only person who was offended by the sharpness of my response was ru55; the rest of the guys all found it funny :P

i napped most of the way - i don't really have much in common with the anglo-immigrants because i spent too much time hanging around israelis and doing my own thing.
now, i guess, is the best time to address the issue of the evening: what is it with people match-making at weddings?

i sat down to eat, and ze british german informed me that one of the girls fancies me. i didn't respond. later on in the evening i found myself chatting for a while with a really interesting girl - although decidedly not to my taste aesthetically, she seems pretty sharp and nice enough. after about half an hour she mentioned one of the other girls by name, and i seized upon the opportunity: "i don't know who you mean - i'm terrible with names! what's yours?"

of *course* she was the girl spoken about earlier. how silly of me :P

i broke away from all the following conversations involving who should hook up with whom. and the only girl who caught my eye made me feel like a paedo. she's legal, but barely. and i'm always a bit cautious when it's family of friends... even more so than with family :P

speaking of families of friends: SxS's parents and i had a very funny conversation at one point. my hair was mentioned, and i let them know of my plans to grow dreads. first order of business? "no, no! it's actually possible to have clean dreads!"

it's strange - i'm about to go and stay with him and his brother's family for a week, and the connection we all share has become familial over the years. what i find weird about this is that it's in spite of their being south african - i found myself contemplating that a couple of times during the evening. as it was, i was invited to the wedding because that's just how their families roll - the children's friends are treated as family and it would be inconceivable not to invite us to siblings' events :)

speaking of which - the bride (ru55's sister) is a wedding make-up artist and she had it all done perfectly: it was a beautiful wedding. ru55's wife was a bridesmaid, so i got insider info on just how tightly wound everything was until it all came together :P

speaking of whom:
1. meeting her brothers for the second time was a bit awkward, because i totally didn't recognize them :(
they're really nice guys, but we didn't really get much of an opportunity to chat.
2. i'd forgotten we'd discussed how clumsy she is - or just plain unlucky. she managed to cut her foot on broken glass on the dancefloor... in retrospect i should have taken a photo of the area when ru55 carried her out for bandaging, because someone had thoughtfully brought a candle and placed it in the middle of all the blood, and it looked like the pretty remains from a blood ritual :P

it was a pity that i couldn't drink, and i didn't have much energy to dance. the music was alright (i'm always fussy), and everyone was having such fun!

i crashed on the bus back to tel aviv, and would have zombie-shuffled home if one of the girls hadn't been desperate to relieve herself... she was a bit suspicious of me even though our mutual friends assured her that i was okay, and we marched to my place at a pretty serious pace. once that was dealt with, we all said our goodbyes and i showered and got into bed to enjoy the sleep of the week :)

i woke up a couple of times, read a bit more of selling out (it just keeps getting better!), and eventually decided that i needed to get out of the house. so i brought my netbook to cafesito and am about to... start my day?