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Blue Moon Socializing
Aug. 1st, 2004 11:10 amYesterday was Isabel's last but one day here in Germany. Isa is a friend and former class-mate who studies in Toronto *envies* and has come over here for two months to do an internship. Now her time here is up, so yesterday she invited to her farewell-party.
I had thought there would be, dunno, a few former class-mates and that would be it.
No, I found myself surrounded by half her family, half her neighbourhood and the few former class-mates I had expected. Which was somewhat more formal. And all that without Jörg's help to remind me of the procedures of socializing. *sigh*
After some cake and some small-talk and the usual attempts of Isa's mother to give me career counseling (she has given up trying to convince me to study Chinese instead of Japanese; now she suggested I might try applying for a diplomat's job at the Department of Foreign Affairs. I actually had that in mind, once, but politics and diplomacy isn't exactly what I'm good at, and while the prospect of changing my homestead every fourth year sounded appealing to me two years ago, after two relocations, it's not all that nice anymore) we were treated to a slide-show of Nils' and Isa's trip through Canada last year. (Isa's mother forced me to add where I had been, and I mixed up Lake Huron and Lake Superior. So embarassing.) They had travelled through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI, so there were a lot of places I knew as well, like the Niagara Falls or St John (don't mix it up with St John's, which is in Newfoundland, which, in turn, shouldn't be mixed up with New Zealand), Magnetic Hill, the Revolving River, Halifax and the Flowerpot Rocks. But I've never been to Quebec as yet, and I must admit that of Ontario I know no more than the Toronto airport, Midland (on Lake Huron, not Lake Superior *cough*), some Really Impressive Forests, the River Where My Host Family's Friends' Cottage Was and Niagara. My more expansive family travels had taken me through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland in one year and British Columbia and Alberta the year before. So I still have to go to Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, PEI, Nunavut, the North-West Territory and the Yukon Territory *OMG, I still know all Canadian provinces and territories by heart I'm so proud* (don't you love the sound of Nunavut? Heh heh. Nunavut. Nu-na-vut. It sounds so cute and cuddly. It also sounds like some place whose inhabitants have 200 different words for snow.) - - -
Dammit, now I want to go to Canada again.
Afterwards, we got loads of wonderful, home-made sushi and had some fun on Benny's expense, who took a whole roll in his mouth at once, almost choked at it, declared he would never eat sushi again and emptied two water bottles at once. We recommended some wasabi to kill the taste. He took half a spoon.
That got us to talking about hot spices and peri-peri and automatically got me talking about South Africa, which, thank Eru, Isa's mother didn't hear or else I'd probably have had to make a slide-show about that. But since we young people were sitting somewhat apart from the - wait, grown-ups doesn't do - from the family and neighbourhood visitors, we could talk about pretty much anything. Still, it was kind of depressing how soon we slipped into the same topic-mode like the others, i.e. The Job/ Studies, Entertainment, Politics...
My brother, who had just returned from France, came to visit as well. To my great shock, he ate five sushi rolls. My little brother, eating sushi. Either he's matured a lot or he's just playing the picky child around my parents and grandmother. Hm.
Suddenly, he pointed to the horizon and asked "What's that?" It looked really strange - something greyish that, at the lower end, glowed with a fiery red light. We watched for a while, and it turned out that it was the full moon that slowly rose behind a strip of cloud. But at first, it looked like an UFO. And it remained red for about an hour. Red, not blue. Someone remembered, though, that it was Blue Moon. But red Blue Moons are the more common sort anyway. Um. Yes. That sounds really strange.
Unfortunately, no one had a camera.
Around 1 am, when all the neighbours and the family (including Isa's parents) and Sarah and Agnes had left for some while, we finally called it a wrap, tidied up and left. I called poor Jörg, who had just fallen asleep (but if I hadn't called him, he'd probably have complained today, and besides, it's bad enough he isn't here anyway, so at least I want to hear his voice before going to sleep. Gah. Two more weeks. I don't know how to get through them, now there's no more unversity to keep me occupied. Then again, I'll have to leave him for at least half a year for my semester abroad, so I guess I shouldn't complain either.)
I wanted to go to FeenCon today, but I slept so long that I couldn't have been there before 2 pm, and it closes at 6 pm, so that wouldn't really have made sense. So it's a good thing after all the DTG didn't need me to help, since then I'd have felt compelled to somehow get there anyway.
- - -
( Soziale Fellpflege und Mondfarben )
- - -
I had thought there would be, dunno, a few former class-mates and that would be it.
No, I found myself surrounded by half her family, half her neighbourhood and the few former class-mates I had expected. Which was somewhat more formal. And all that without Jörg's help to remind me of the procedures of socializing. *sigh*
After some cake and some small-talk and the usual attempts of Isa's mother to give me career counseling (she has given up trying to convince me to study Chinese instead of Japanese; now she suggested I might try applying for a diplomat's job at the Department of Foreign Affairs. I actually had that in mind, once, but politics and diplomacy isn't exactly what I'm good at, and while the prospect of changing my homestead every fourth year sounded appealing to me two years ago, after two relocations, it's not all that nice anymore) we were treated to a slide-show of Nils' and Isa's trip through Canada last year. (Isa's mother forced me to add where I had been, and I mixed up Lake Huron and Lake Superior. So embarassing.) They had travelled through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI, so there were a lot of places I knew as well, like the Niagara Falls or St John (don't mix it up with St John's, which is in Newfoundland, which, in turn, shouldn't be mixed up with New Zealand), Magnetic Hill, the Revolving River, Halifax and the Flowerpot Rocks. But I've never been to Quebec as yet, and I must admit that of Ontario I know no more than the Toronto airport, Midland (on Lake Huron, not Lake Superior *cough*), some Really Impressive Forests, the River Where My Host Family's Friends' Cottage Was and Niagara. My more expansive family travels had taken me through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland in one year and British Columbia and Alberta the year before. So I still have to go to Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, PEI, Nunavut, the North-West Territory and the Yukon Territory *OMG, I still know all Canadian provinces and territories by heart I'm so proud* (don't you love the sound of Nunavut? Heh heh. Nunavut. Nu-na-vut. It sounds so cute and cuddly. It also sounds like some place whose inhabitants have 200 different words for snow.) - - -
Dammit, now I want to go to Canada again.
Afterwards, we got loads of wonderful, home-made sushi and had some fun on Benny's expense, who took a whole roll in his mouth at once, almost choked at it, declared he would never eat sushi again and emptied two water bottles at once. We recommended some wasabi to kill the taste. He took half a spoon.
That got us to talking about hot spices and peri-peri and automatically got me talking about South Africa, which, thank Eru, Isa's mother didn't hear or else I'd probably have had to make a slide-show about that. But since we young people were sitting somewhat apart from the - wait, grown-ups doesn't do - from the family and neighbourhood visitors, we could talk about pretty much anything. Still, it was kind of depressing how soon we slipped into the same topic-mode like the others, i.e. The Job/ Studies, Entertainment, Politics...
My brother, who had just returned from France, came to visit as well. To my great shock, he ate five sushi rolls. My little brother, eating sushi. Either he's matured a lot or he's just playing the picky child around my parents and grandmother. Hm.
Suddenly, he pointed to the horizon and asked "What's that?" It looked really strange - something greyish that, at the lower end, glowed with a fiery red light. We watched for a while, and it turned out that it was the full moon that slowly rose behind a strip of cloud. But at first, it looked like an UFO. And it remained red for about an hour. Red, not blue. Someone remembered, though, that it was Blue Moon. But red Blue Moons are the more common sort anyway. Um. Yes. That sounds really strange.
Unfortunately, no one had a camera.
Around 1 am, when all the neighbours and the family (including Isa's parents) and Sarah and Agnes had left for some while, we finally called it a wrap, tidied up and left. I called poor Jörg, who had just fallen asleep (but if I hadn't called him, he'd probably have complained today, and besides, it's bad enough he isn't here anyway, so at least I want to hear his voice before going to sleep. Gah. Two more weeks. I don't know how to get through them, now there's no more unversity to keep me occupied. Then again, I'll have to leave him for at least half a year for my semester abroad, so I guess I shouldn't complain either.)
I wanted to go to FeenCon today, but I slept so long that I couldn't have been there before 2 pm, and it closes at 6 pm, so that wouldn't really have made sense. So it's a good thing after all the DTG didn't need me to help, since then I'd have felt compelled to somehow get there anyway.
- - -
( Soziale Fellpflege und Mondfarben )
- - -
