Move along, nothing to see here...

[oloriel]

At any rate, that's what it feels like.

This night we finally got the first long-expected summer storm, to little avail: Today was still too hot, until about an hour and a half ago another thunderstorm came along. With any luck, it'll cool things down for a couple of days. At the very least it's finally brought rain, which is already a good thing. It was too bloody hot and too bloody dry these past weeks.

On Thursday, the youngest cousin on my father's side of the family had his first communion, for which reason we went to Neuss and a church which has apparently been built during the great age of concrete and which was desperately short of seats. They actually had an usher who asked if people had seat reservations! Which we knew nothing about, so the charming usher decided that well, then everybody would have to stand. Even the kind of heavily pregnant among us. [Insert your own ironic remarks concerning pregnant women and "no room for you" here...]
Fortunately my uncle actually had reserved seats so I could sit, and he managed to find us before the uncooperative usher got hurt (or at any rate ranted at). A few months ago I would have laughed, but by now I actually do get problems when I try standing around for too long...

Shortly afterwards, said uncle called in a semi-panic because my grandfather was having diarrhoea and whether any of us had the same problem and OMG EHEC?!?!?! My mother pointed out that as my grandfather had just started taking new antibiotics it was rather more likely that his intestines just didn't agree with them. Indeed. But let's panic first! Health scares, you gotta love 'em. *eyeroll*

Other than that, there's too much to do around the house and garden and I am no longer physically capable of doing it, which is not as enjoyable as it sounds. Am vaguely frustrated about that, no matter how proud I am of my bump. Upon which the first stretch marks have appeared, alas, all around my belly button, which is now under a lot of strain...

Offspring is now awake every two-three hours, which he generally likes to show by squirming and twisting and pushing his pointy little knees and elbows into my tender insides. When he chooses my belly button to drill into, I kind of get mental images of the Alien kind, like my belly is about to burst. Intellectually I know that, aside from the taut skin, there's also a layer of connective tissue and fat and muscle and amnion and stuff, but it certainly feels like the lil' critter is hiding immediately under the surface! In-between he had a very hiccup-lasty phase, when he would get the hiccups at least five times a day, but by now that generaly only happens about three times. Perhaps he's learned to drink in moderation? ;)
Also, I have begun to lactate occasionally. Mooooo. I know, I know, you probably didn't want to know that! :P

A while back I saw my first 3D movie (Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides). Didn't really want to deal with that (the 3D technology, that is), but it was either that or watching the film in German, with, oddly enough, a new voice for Captain Jack Sparrow (the "normal" German voice of Johnny Depp, but what good is that if the character sounds all wrong?). So English and 3D it was. 3D was, as expected, occasionally impressive but on the whole more annoying than enjoyment-augmenting.
But I liked the movie. Completely ludicrous, of course, and don't ask me about the role of the Spanish, but it was surreal fun, and that's all I was looking for, so that's fine.

Tomorrow I shall pretend that I'm a student again and will go back to ye olde alma mater in a particularly pathetic feat of nerdy fangirlism (OMG NOAM CHOMSKY IN COLOGNE SQUEE!). Let's hope I'll manage to get a seat this time :P

And that about sums up the current goings-on, I think! Move along, move along... ;)