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jenepelIt's Tuesday, so I'm back at work, back to normal. I guess.
The weekend was great, although my dad's retirement party was a bit of a letdown. He's been there 35 years, so I just kind of feel like it should have been something bigger than it was. At least he's not the type to take things personally, but I do feel like we didn't get involved enough or something. Of course, when you announce your retirement two weeks before the party and your kids live 2 hours and 2000 miles away, it's a bit difficult. So I don't know. I did give a little speech which was mostly off the cuff as they only asked me right before the thing started. But people laughed, so I'm calling it a sucess. Whatever. Anyway, if the ceremony was small, at least the food was great. I ate so much that I thought I was going to die afterwards, and it was possibly still worth it! When we got home my mom and I collapsed on either end of the couch with our books, so full we couldn't even have a cup of tea (!) and alternately read and napped for about three hours. Pure laziness.
Laziness was nice after Sat which was all cleaning. But I am finally free of the flat of doom! YAY! Well, almost free, as I am still paying final bills and giving meter readings, etc so we can get (most of) our deposit back. Surprise, surprise, evil!landlord wasn't satisfied with our cleaning of the flat, so he's going to take the charges for a professional cleaning service out of our deposit. Great. I kinda figured that though, even though we scrubbed tons and Katie's mom even came round to help. She did the oven and all the hard kitchen stuff, but he wasn't even happy with that. And of course I was the only one there, so didn't do a good job of fighting back. Oh well. We'll see how much money it is and then re-assess I suppose.
Sat night I got the rest of my stuff over to the new flat and then newflatmate and I, plus one of her friends, went to an awesome Indian restaurant. It was definitely worth re-visiting. It was also all the way out near Wembley, but since our only plan for the night included riding the tube, that wasn't a huge deal. Then we got on the district line and finally the circle line (where the party was supposed to be) with a few beers to see how it would go. We were leuisurely sipping ours, just chilled out and talking, but wondering where all these crazy, crazy tube-partiers where. Then we got off around High St Ken to see what was going on, and heard a ton of yelling. Turns out we were going the wrong way on the circle line! We went down the other stairs to find an entire train packed with yelling, drinking people (one guy mooned us) all knocking on the side of the train and wanting it to go. They had it delayed by 30 minutes or so - I have a feeling they delayed the line all night to discourage the party, wonder if it worked at all. Anyway, we took a few pics and then decided seeing it was enough, actually getting on the cars looked terrifying. So we left the tube and continued our (much calmer) party with another beer on the top of a double-decker. Then we went home and watched Dr Who on BBCi player. Which was AWESOME! So very excited for next week.
Monday I had taken off work, partly b/c of the retirement thing and partly because of my best friend from HS visiting. She lives in AK now, and had two others from there also visiting, so we went to Cambridge for the day. It's been ages since I've been there anyhow. We gave them the fast tourist day - the colleges, the market and a bit of punting down the Cam. (Which is basically like small Gondolas, only you get to do it yourself.) The guys turned out to be pretty good at punting - I think we only hit one wall and no one fell in, so that was good. (Actually, over many many years of taking many many people out on the Cam, we've only had one fall in, so that's pretty good I think. And that was in the part with the rapids under the bridge where you aren't really supposed to go.) Then we had a quick pint along the river and they dropped me at the train station so I could get back home, where I pretty much collapsed until I woke up for work this morning. Most of what I've been doing is socialising, but it sure takes it out of you!
Oh and look at my new userpic! I made it out of this old Absolut ad that was done by an artist with my family's name. No relation though, I don't think. (The novelist either. Too bad!)
The weekend was great, although my dad's retirement party was a bit of a letdown. He's been there 35 years, so I just kind of feel like it should have been something bigger than it was. At least he's not the type to take things personally, but I do feel like we didn't get involved enough or something. Of course, when you announce your retirement two weeks before the party and your kids live 2 hours and 2000 miles away, it's a bit difficult. So I don't know. I did give a little speech which was mostly off the cuff as they only asked me right before the thing started. But people laughed, so I'm calling it a sucess. Whatever. Anyway, if the ceremony was small, at least the food was great. I ate so much that I thought I was going to die afterwards, and it was possibly still worth it! When we got home my mom and I collapsed on either end of the couch with our books, so full we couldn't even have a cup of tea (!) and alternately read and napped for about three hours. Pure laziness.
Laziness was nice after Sat which was all cleaning. But I am finally free of the flat of doom! YAY! Well, almost free, as I am still paying final bills and giving meter readings, etc so we can get (most of) our deposit back. Surprise, surprise, evil!landlord wasn't satisfied with our cleaning of the flat, so he's going to take the charges for a professional cleaning service out of our deposit. Great. I kinda figured that though, even though we scrubbed tons and Katie's mom even came round to help. She did the oven and all the hard kitchen stuff, but he wasn't even happy with that. And of course I was the only one there, so didn't do a good job of fighting back. Oh well. We'll see how much money it is and then re-assess I suppose.
Sat night I got the rest of my stuff over to the new flat and then newflatmate and I, plus one of her friends, went to an awesome Indian restaurant. It was definitely worth re-visiting. It was also all the way out near Wembley, but since our only plan for the night included riding the tube, that wasn't a huge deal. Then we got on the district line and finally the circle line (where the party was supposed to be) with a few beers to see how it would go. We were leuisurely sipping ours, just chilled out and talking, but wondering where all these crazy, crazy tube-partiers where. Then we got off around High St Ken to see what was going on, and heard a ton of yelling. Turns out we were going the wrong way on the circle line! We went down the other stairs to find an entire train packed with yelling, drinking people (one guy mooned us) all knocking on the side of the train and wanting it to go. They had it delayed by 30 minutes or so - I have a feeling they delayed the line all night to discourage the party, wonder if it worked at all. Anyway, we took a few pics and then decided seeing it was enough, actually getting on the cars looked terrifying. So we left the tube and continued our (much calmer) party with another beer on the top of a double-decker. Then we went home and watched Dr Who on BBCi player. Which was AWESOME! So very excited for next week.
Monday I had taken off work, partly b/c of the retirement thing and partly because of my best friend from HS visiting. She lives in AK now, and had two others from there also visiting, so we went to Cambridge for the day. It's been ages since I've been there anyhow. We gave them the fast tourist day - the colleges, the market and a bit of punting down the Cam. (Which is basically like small Gondolas, only you get to do it yourself.) The guys turned out to be pretty good at punting - I think we only hit one wall and no one fell in, so that was good. (Actually, over many many years of taking many many people out on the Cam, we've only had one fall in, so that's pretty good I think. And that was in the part with the rapids under the bridge where you aren't really supposed to go.) Then we had a quick pint along the river and they dropped me at the train station so I could get back home, where I pretty much collapsed until I woke up for work this morning. Most of what I've been doing is socialising, but it sure takes it out of you!
Oh and look at my new userpic! I made it out of this old Absolut ad that was done by an artist with my family's name. No relation though, I don't think. (The novelist either. Too bad!)
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Date: 2008-06-03 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 06:50 pm (UTC)