Did I mention that yesterday it was raining?
Well, apparently, it wasn’t.
TODAY, it IS raining! And it makes yesterday seem like nothing at all.
That’s all I have to say 
The rain in Spain ………. or, rather, Milan
4
Stuff I have done and not done.
Well, let’s see what I’ve done.
Firstly all the windows have curtains now. Well, except for the kitchen, they had curtains before. What they now have, in addition, are nets. It means I can walk around naked without anyone seeing 
Not that I do that – it’s just that now I can ……… if I want to
The bedroom has dark blue nets and the lounge, cream-coloured nets – floor to ceiling stuff (well, not ceiling, but top of windows). It makes the flat seem more private. I like it.
The kitchen used to have a cross between nets and blinds. These have been washed and are now back up. I leave the shutters open all the time in the kitchen and although no-one can see in unless they crane their necks, it’s nice to have that feeling of privacy.
And I have a printer/scanner/copier – and it seems to work, well, the scanner and copier work anyway. This means I can give people the stuff from my lessons without having to do stuff at work. Or, at least, when I’m not AT work, I can still give them stuff. OK the quality is not the same high quality but at least it doesn’t stop me or mean I have to do a ton of scanning when I get back. I must try out the printer, of course.
And it’s all wireless stuff so it means I can move it so it’s out of the way – but that’s a job for tomorrow, or Friday.
I say tomorrow or Friday because I need to move some stuff to make room for it. And moving some stuff means moving some other stuff. And that means trying to sort out the bedroom …. a bit. And that’s not for now.
I also tried to watch Black Swan again. But it kind of fell apart when I had to sort out the printer and so, halfway through, I gave up on it. I don’t think I actually like the film very much. I took note of TSM’s comments abut it being a psychological thriller but, you know, at that level it just fails so badly.
Tomorrow is shopping and lunch with FfC. Or the other way around. I don’t mean nice shopping – just grocery shopping. I was going to do my favourite pasta today – pasta with broccoli – I have broccoli but, horror of horrors (considering the country I live in) – I HAVE NO PASTA! To be honest, I was a bit shocked. How can I have used the last bit of pasta and not got some more? I was devastated and somewhat embarrassed. But I have a lesson tonight so not really enough time to go out and get some and come back and cook it (AND get the printer working). So on a priorities basis, pasta will be got tomorrow. Well, not cooked tomorrow ‘cos I will be out to lunch. But Friday, maybe. Not Thursday because F HATES broccoli. And cauliflower. He is a bit strange, sometimes. Thursday I might do a Shepherd’s Pie for him – as I know he likes that a lot. And, maybe, Rice Pudding, which I haven’t made for ages. Or we use one of my Groupon vouchers – else they will have run out. Yes, probably that. It’s a holiday, after all.
Oh, yes, and it’s still raining. This is exactly why I didn’t want a holiday now. Grrrr.
p.s. My student for tonight, M2, just Skyped me to ask for the meaning of quadrifoglio. I looked it up and the answer was four-leaf clover. I thought it must be wrong and he means something else but he was happy with the answer. Now, why on earth would someone want to know the English for quadrifoglio? Why? What sort of conversation is he having that he needs to know that?
It could be much simpler.
I had measured, of course. Using my trusty measuring tape.
It said ’18’. I’m looking in the shop and see the rail I want. It says 120. Good, that will do all four windows.
The rods said they were extendable to between 30 and 40 so there was a lot of extra that I wouldn’t need.
I am using the rods for the kitchen. I got up at 6.30 this morning and, despite having had two large mugs of Italian coffee (so, about 4 or 5 for an Italian), I’m not quite ‘with it’. I find that the ‘extension’ comes out completely quite quickly and have to modify, slightly, where I make the holes for the holding brackets. It’s OK. I think one of the curtain-things is a bit higher than the other. For me it’s OK. F might mention it though. After all, we did ‘hang the pictures on the floor’ before committing them to the wall in his place – to ensure the spacing and everything was right. Oh well, I can always lower one of them. For me they’re fine and do the job.
I didn’t really think about the extension parts coming out of the rods.
I measure the rail. I measure 18.
Hmmmm. Hang on, this isn’t right! I won’t be able to do three windows, let alone all four. I feel a bit peeved. They have lied ……… of course …….. on the packaging.
I measure again. And put the rail up to the window. No. Whatever it is it isn’t 120 as it says on the package. I get the tape measure and measure the rail.
Ah, yes. The 120 is centimetres and the 18 is inches. Damn! Now that means I have to and brave the rain this morning to get another rail.
Why can’t everything be done in inches? So much simpler, after all!
I’m not convinced.
“Why are we waking so early?”
And it is early. It’s 6.30. I’m on holiday. To be honest, I would prefer to sleep but it’s better having him here than not and, anyway, I have loads of things I want to do; that I should do; that I should be doing instead of typing this. I have convinced myself that it is better to get up with him.
“Because you are going to Venice”, I reply, adding, “Shall I put it for another 5 minutes?”
He doesn’t answer but I do it anyway.
He starts to get up.
“Do you want coffee?”, I ask.
He mumbles something in a sort of English but the answer is yes, so I get up too and make the coffee.
After he’s gone, I check the weather. It’s supposed to be raining hard but I can’t tell with the windows closed. I go to open the bedroom windows to air the room – something I do now because it’s a habit he’s got me into. I’m not really a fresh air person unless it’s warm and, whilst not exactly cold, it is not warm.
It is raining. I check the forecast again and it’s going to be like this until lunchtime. It’s not good, we shall have to go out.
I get ready.
I think about texting him to say ‘be careful’ but he has probably already left. I’ll text him later and, anyway, he’ll text me when he arrives, I expect.
It’s market day today in the street near mine. I was (if the weather had been good) going to wander through the market and maybe buy some stuff. I shan’t bother now. Now I’ll do the things I should do; the things I should have done before and other things I can do now that I bought some stuff yesterday.
“Yes”, I keep saying to myself, “it’s better that I got up early.”
Although I’m not altogether convinced, really.
The Facebook Network
I think I’m not that much different to most people (although that is a rather sweeping statement, I know).
But, in general, I think that most people have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. It has certain points that are useful, some things that are nice to have and some things that are concerning (or, at least, concerning to some).
It is useful that I am able to keep in contact with some friends, scattered around the world. This is particularly good as I don’t live in my country now. This is good because it ‘reminds’ me of them. They post something and I know that they are there, maybe I even make a comment.
It’s nice that it reminds me of birthdays – some people I would never have known their birthday! It’s nice to be able to see photos of them and see that they’re doing well.
I am careful about the information that I put up. My email is hidden. My mobile phone number is not there. I have not said which school or university I went to nor where I work. I don’t want people to be able to randomly see this information. My details are restricted to Friends and not to the Friends of Friends or, even the whole world. If I am a friend of yours (with a few exceptions) you can see everything I post. It’s OK. If you’re not a friend of mine, there must be a reason.
Unfortunately, Facebook changes things from time to time. Recently, it showed you a list of Friends’ phone numbers. Soon it will be passing your details on to other internet addresses. These things I really don’t like. And, yet, by default, it does this without telling you it has done it. That is more than a little annoying.
So, I both love Facebook for what it does for me and hate it for being like a very annoying best friend, who tells your mates things that you would prefer them not to know.
I didn’t want to watch the film. I couldn’t think of anything more boring. However, The Social Network was anything but boring. It was made interesting with the basis being two lawsuits against Mark Zuckerburg with flashbacks as to what had actually happened. I think it painted Zuckerburg as some sort of visionary that, perhaps, was not the reality but, what it really did, from the start, was paint Zuckerburg as an obnoxious twat as far as personality went.
From the beginning, he was hateful. As the film went on, he was hateful. By the end of it, he was hateful. He didn’t have a redeeming feature – except he could program well. He reminded me of some of the worst people (and I stress this is personality-wise) that I have met in the computer industry. People you could not go for a beer with and have a decent conversation. People that, actually, I could deal with at work but once outside work the only thing you wanted to do was kill them. Mind-numbingly, boring people. With a big minus on the social skills.
Oh yes, of course, I would love to be as clever as he is. I would love to have thought up some thing like this and be a billionaire now. But not for the price of having a personality lower than that of a slug. He probably doesn’t feel lonely but that is because he is the head of Facebook but I wonder how many of those friends that he has are real friends; how many would come to aid him in his hour of need? Not that he should care, one way or another.
But, the film was, surprisingly good. Or, rather, it was interesting. It was not slow and laborious and boring as I thought it might be (although it had its moments, as in all films).
Would I watch it again? Probably. Although I’m not sure it will be quite so exciting as the first time of watching. Still, if you haven’t seen it, you should, if only to understand the way that Facebook became as it is now and the dysfunctional characters behind it. For me, it is not entirely a Social Network, hence the title. It is a social network, in some ways. But whatever it is, it is certainly the Facebook Network.
Printers; I want to learn English NOW!; Update to weather and stuff.
Those of you who know me or who have been reading this blog for long enough will know this is me.
I have been putting it off for about 3 years. But now it’s simply not good enough and I really do need to do something about it.
I am going to buy a printer – which has a scanner and a copier as well. I did a lesson today and I need to scan the resulting log sheet AND copy a couple of other things. I am not in work for over a week so I have no choice but to get one.
About bloody time really, to be honest. As usual (like the shirts I was going to buy the other week (and for the last couple of years) but didn’t),I keep ‘managing’ until it just becomes so difficult or so much of a pain or I have no choice.
I am, indeed, very lazy!
Or, maybe, very, very tight 
Either way, sometimes, I do seem to make it difficult for myself.
Maybe I’ll get shirts tomorrow too?
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Today, for the second time in four days, I get told that the person wants ‘to be perfect in English’ – giving themselves an impossible timetable. Of course, it’s not ‘impossible’, just highly unlikely and impractical.
But, what does one say?
I want to say, ‘Did you learn Italian in one month?’
But I don’t. I say nothing or try to guide them as to the impossibility of this.
One wants to be in the UK soon. The other has, kind of, told her new employers that she speak English well and is now, rightly, scared that the reality won’t match their expectations. And, anyway, we spent the whole lesson talking about her inability to progress to the third date with her boyfriends – in spite of me trying to move on to different things.
Hmmm. Does this make me a bad person? Should I just say, ‘Don’t be stupid’ or something?
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The weather forecast, unfortunately, was right. Heavy and prolonged rain. In fact, heavy rain all day. However, the forecast for most of the rest of the week has significantly improved. On the minus side, F informed me last night that he was going to work some of Friday after all. Ah well, it’s not a disaster as we hadn’t planned anything. But I think I might try and persuade him we should go to Mantova for the day next Saturday
Good and bad
What would you like first, the good news or the bad news?
Obviously, that’s a rhetorical questions since a) it’s my blog and b) I’m writing this rather than asking you in person.
OK so I’ve decided that you shall get the good news first.
The weather is getting a tad warmer. As my regular readers will know, this makes me much happier.
Also, F comes back tomorrow night. But not late, I think. I think he lands at about 6 or 6.30. I will, as usual, pick him up from the airport. Again, I am so much looking forward to him being back – almost excited – like a child!
The third bit of good news is that I have decided to take the first three days of next week as holiday. Actually this is, in some way, being forced upon me. Some stupid rule in this company has been made up that means that any ‘left over’ holiday from last year has to be taken by 31st March. It’s stupid because I would prefer to take it sometime in May or June when the weather is really nice.
You may ask why I am only taking 3 days when I have over 6 days left? Well, Thursday and Friday are ‘forced’ holidays. Thursday because they have decided to celebrate Unification Day. Apparently it’s 150 years on Tuesday since Italy was first unified as Italy and for this year only they have declared the day a ‘bank’ holiday. Then Friday is a holiday because of this thing called a ‘bridge day’ – bridge days occuring when the holiday is on a Tuesday or Thursday, where the bridge is so that the company doesn’t open for just 1 day.
Actually, I had a student last night who is from Veneto (i.e. somewhere near Venice). He said that Venice won’t be celebrating because they didn’t join the union until a couple of years afterwards so, for them, it’s not yet 150 years. In fact, doing a bit of reading up it seems that 1870 would be a better reflection since it was only during that year that Rome became part of the union!
Anyway, they’ve decided on March 17th as that was the day that the first ‘parliament’ was held in the capital – which was, then, Turin.
OK – enough history. The effect of all this history being that I will be on holiday all next week.
This is an end to the good things.
The bad things are that, although it’s getting warmer, it is also going to start with the rain thing. That’s from tomorrow. Worse still, it’s going to continue raining all through the weekend and at least until next Thursday.
The other bad thing is that I am on holiday all next week ……………………….. when it is going to be raining. Exactly why I don’t want to be taking holidays now, ffs!
I have a blanket.
I have a blanket ……………… in my mouth.
Also, to coin a very old phrase, I came over a bit queer as I was walking up the stairs to the office this morning. And everything has to be a little more ‘deliberate’. Like breathing.
I blame A. He ordered a bottle of wine and then said that he couldn’t drink much because he had already been drinking. Oh yes, and then I had a Mirto which may not have helped. But it was his birthday or, rather, it IS his birthday today.
That’s why I got away with paying for the meal. I said that, as it was not actually his birthday, I could pay for it.
Still, the wine was good and nicely fits in with my ‘wine diet’. Although I must admit to breaches on the ‘Mars Bar front’, since I picked some up the other day and have, some nights, had one. Still, I am managing NOT to have bread at lunchtime.
So, in reality my so-called non-diet remains a non-diet. God knows what I would be like if I really had to stop eating anything. Well, actually, I know. I would be crap.
So, the blanket in my mouth also doesn’t really taste very nice and I might even go and clean my teeth again in the hope that it will help.
Now that I’m older, the ‘coming over all queer’ bit is not nice either. I always think ‘Is this it?’ – a little like the start of Meet Joe Black, a film which I love and not only because it has Brad Pitt in it (although in this film he is particularly sexy – it was his best period for looks, imho).
And I’ve started having these quite strange happenings in the morning.
The alarm goes off and I set it to snooze for another 5 minutes.
Except that, when it goes off, as I am waking up, I think that this is already the second time it’s gone off. And then I look and spend a few seconds (which feels like minutes) working out that this is the time of the first alarm, not the second. So I put it to snooze. I turn over in snuggle up in bed but, by then I am awake because I’ve had to do some thinking and stuff and so I get up within a minute or so.
Or I worry that I’ve made a mistake and dismissed the alarm.
Either way, I get up and so don’t get the extra 5 minutes after all. Bah!
But tomorrow will be perfect. F is away. I do not HAVE to get up and so I will sleep in. And then I will have a leisurely coffee and then take the dogs out. This has been a very busy week and, not helped by last night for sure, I am very tired.
You’ll be pleased to know that my blanket seems to have become a little less fluffy in the time that I’ve written this. Onwards and upwards. It is Friday, after all
More or less, God
In this case it was as I got out of the shower.
Usually, these crazy thoughts occur when I’m under the shower.
A realisation came to me. It was, kind of, about my father but it could be anyone. And, in some way, it was about me. No, not in some way. It WAS about me. It was a bit like a waking dream, dreaming whilst I am awake which, in any case, is a mute point since, at that time in the morning, there is a blurring between being fully awake and fully asleep.
Anyway, back to the point of this. I realised that, those people whom we put up on a pedestal and think that they ‘know’ everything are, in fact, like me. I mean to say, they may know something or some things really well and in depth – but they don’t, in spite of what we think, know everything.
When you are a child, your parents are like gods. They know everything. Except, of course, they don’t. They know more than you. That’s really not difficult. As you grow older and learn more, you start to question their knowledge, their experience. Or, at least, I did. I also questioned their values since my experiences and my knowledge suggested that their values weren’t shared by me, aren’t shared by me.
Their place is usurped by others – who, again, know more than you. Until your increased knowledge and experience makes you realise that, in fact, these new people don’t really know more than you, have not really experienced more than you. Or, rather, may have experienced more than you but in different ways or have different experiences. People’s knowledge on certain subjects may be more than yours. That doesn’t make them god-like.
And then you get to my age and you realise that no-one knows like you do. They may know more than you do about a thing but in something else they know less. They may have experience in some things but they don’t have your experience.
In fact, no-one has your knowledge and your experience. How can they? It doesn’t matter who they are.
This fact does not make you a god either. Unless we are all gods, in which case it does.
But, it’s an interesting change in perspective.
It doesn’t mean that other people don’t deserve your respect. Indeed, in my opinion, all people deserve your respect as they have knowledge that you don’t and have experienced a different life to you. It doesn’t mean they can’t lose that respect if they turn out to be idiots or jerks. But they deserve a reserved respect …… just in case.
Of course, as I stepped out of the shower and dried myself, all these thoughts I have written down didn’t fill my head, exactly.
No, what I started thinking was that I didn’t know everything and hadn’t experienced everything and that’s how it must have been for my father when, at the age of 5 or 6, I thought he DID know everything and HAD experienced everything. And I wondered if he thought the same as I, even when I was thinking he was, more or less, God?
Black Swan
I watched Black Swan, in English. This is another ‘just in case’ thing. F has mentioned that he wants to see it – and that would be in Italian.
To be quite honest, I had read some reviews that didn’t exactly praise the film. And, anyway, ballet is not really my thing, even if I did treat V to the ballet at La Scala some years ago and, surprisingly, quite enjoyed it. I guess ‘live’ is different, as it usually is.
So, although I didn’t particularly want to see it, I thought it better to watch it in English first.
First I had to get it from work to home which proved a little more difficult than I thought it would. Then, at home, I couldn’t get it onto the Mac but had to put it onto the laptop. The resulting CD had no sound on the Mac. Nor on the laptop! So, a couple of night ago, I sat and played the original file through the laptop.
This is not ideal. The picture quality is good but not as good as on my Mac. The sound quality is not really good at all. Very tinny, as one might expect. And, of course, I was also doing other things on my Mac so found I had to rewind a bit a couple of times.
It was an ‘interesting’ film. However, to me, it seemed as if it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. Was it a would-be horror movie, a psychological thriller or a movie about relationships? It was, in some ways all three – but in trying to cover all three things it failed to cover any of them well.
The relationship and development of the mother’s character could have been much better; the complexity of the relationships could have been clearer; the development of the other dance characters would have been useful, if only for comparison with the ‘star’, to see that she was different.
I don’t want to give anything away in case you intend to see it.
For me, I would say I was right not to want to go and see it as it left me with a feeling that things had been missed. Of course, that could have been because, whilst trying to see the film AND work on my Mac, I actually missed things
Still, as I say, it was interesting. I will watch it again but I won’t be too bothered if F doesn’t want to go and see it in the end.