Psycho tells me I'm easy to live with. Since we lived in the same apartment for several years, I guess she'd know. Actually, we've lived in so many apartments over the last seven years or so that I'm sure I could write a new, multi-locational version of Feng Shui and make millions.
When I first arrived here in France, Psycho kindly let me stay with her. At that time, her place measured about twelve square metres, including the shower, kitchen and lounge-cum-bedroom. It still amazes me that we were able to live on top of each other (as it were) for so long without using carving knives to express our emotions. Her neighbour was also a total loon, screaming through the walls that she knew Psycho was listening to her and beating those same apartment-dividers with heavy implements if she made any noise.
Soon afterwards, I moved to my own place. Three times the size of Psycho's flat, it still felt small because it was so badly arranged. The owner sub-let it to me on the black market - a fact of which I was unaware for some time - and I managed to find a parking spot for my car in an underground garage. I rented the spot from a lady descended from Cecil Rhodes, no less: she was racist, snobby and generally what one would expect from someone who thought her empire-building, narcissistic, murderous predecessor was the best thing since sliced South African. Er, I mean bread.
Psycho moved in with me there for a short time, finally getting away from the loony bitch and forcing me to carry furniture down six flights of stairs from her old place. We both missed seeing the Eiffel Tower out of the window at night, but being woken up at four in the morning by my pet rat nibbling on my fragile bits soon made me forget that and concentrate on more important matters.
Shortly afterwards, Psycho moved into her own place again. Smaller, but more pleasant. I also managed to find a better home (bigger and nicer) and moved. We lived apart for some time. Eventually, the lease ran out on her place, so she moved back in with me for eight months or so, while we found another apartment for her. I stayed where I was.
Her new apartment was just down the road from mine, which made my evening visits one hell of a lot easier, but this time she had a whole collection of madmen living nearby. The schizophrenic in the apartment below hers thought that burning cardboard boxes in his sink was a good way to keep the evil spirits at bay. He also thought that writing on the walls, insulting the residents and dismantling furniture was a good thing. He was less enamoured by being carried off to the hospital by four policemen, however.
The alcoholic mother next door with the spoiled princess child was quite reasonable most of the time. At least, that was my opinion until she asked me to come and tell her daughter to respect her. Yeah, right, she's going to listen to some long-haired guy who drops in next door. That's gonna happen. At least they had two cute cats.
The sex-crazed dancer living opposite was also a nuisance, cornering her and trying to kiss her, proclaiming everlasting love and going through all the usual "I'm a romantic, honest" bullshit that French men seem to think will convince any female to sleep with them. She put him back in his place, although he never gave up.
Eventually, I bought my own place and moved out, of course. Psycho now lives in my old apartment, where the neighbours are friendly, it's quiet, it's secure and she feels great. With the plans for the recent future now well under way, I shall be moving back in to save money (once mine is sold).
So, as I say, I'm easy to live with. I have no idea what this means or how it's possible, since I can't say that I enjoy sharing my living space. In fact, I haven't invited anyone over to any of my apartments (except Psycho and the friend who urgently needed somewhere to live) for over five years. My home is my castle: bring a battering ram, siege towers and some sappers and I might let you in. Bring chocolate cake and your chances improve. Otherwise, stay away because I'm a mean-spirited, self-protective emperor within my domain.
Apparently, though, this is not true when I live with Psycho: she thinks I'm thoughtful, generous, understanding, flexible and self-sacrificing. Of course, it could be the mind-altering drugs I slip into her tea every night that make her think this, but that's another matter. I should probably begin slipping those into my own tea.
Of course, all this raises the (albeit rhetorical) question: should I tell her she's not easy to live with or lie through my teeth?
At last, Friday. This week has been a long list of rushing around and last-minute urgent calls for help from silly users who don't know what they're doing. Yesterday was the perfect example of this, with two users from the same group asking for things: the first wanted me to undo what I'd spent a couple of days doing last week (at her request...) while the second was running around panicking about missing data. It would help if she ran the right report.
I'm still not 100% sure about the profession liberale thing for the apartment - the syndicate still hasn't phoned me back. I've called again and, failing a response before lunch, I'll call them this afternoon to say I'm assuming their answer is yes unless I hear otherwise by the end of the day.
Oh, some good news, too - apparently there's been a change in some fiscal laws or something this year and we're allowed to take back a part of the company savings thingy. That'll be a nice bonus of a few thousand Euros! Cool!
Today's Spam Count: 125
Running Spam Total: 1694
*Please note that the title of this entry has absolutely nothing to do with the content.
Silly user group. Last week they decide they urgently need one thing, today they decide they need the opposite. *sigh*
Today's Spam Count: 155
Running Spam Total: 1569
The last two days have been busy. That's not to say I have been running around like a headless chicken, trying to deal with events and meetings and so on: it's been a more intellectual kind of busy, with plans changing.
Psycho and I had an appointment at the bank yesterday, for starters. She's reclaiming the huge deposit I made as security for the rent on her old apartment, so we had to go and sign papers and so forth. She also wants to close the associated bank account - and put all the money into my account, since it was a loan to begin with - before we go to the UK. There's little point in keeping several bank accounts open over here, so we'll be keeping one each and closing any others.
My banker is great: she's totally cool. Unfortunately, the rental agency still haven't unblocked the deposit, so we couldn't get our grubby little hands on it yesterday. Now, I know the agency wants to stiff us for extra funds on the deposit, since they say we are responsible for the degradation of the flat, but that's just a ploy to renovate everything at our expense. Thankfully, my banker is, as already stated, great. She informed us that the deposit at the bank has absolutely nothing to do with repairs: it's purely for unpaid rent. We always paid rent, so the agency has to unblock it and we get our cash. She's even going to hassle them on our behalf. Yeah, baby!
While we were at the bank, she also informed me that they have an internal estate agent who matches customers looking for places to live with customer selling them. That sounds cool: she's going to organise that for me, too, which will hopefully move the apartment a bit quicker. Too cool for words, she be.
It's also occurred to me, just this morning, that I buggered my thinking of how to deal with the move and finances. I had been expecting to put a huge cheque in to my account for the flat sale, which I would use to reduce the mortgage and pay for the move to the UK. While driving in to work, I realised that the bank's unlikely to leave the mortgage there without an apartment as security! That's screwed my neatly laid plans, but I'm sure I'll find another way to deal with it all.
One of the agencies trying to sell my place called yesterday afternoon - the good one, not the expensive one - to ask a couple of questions, too. Apparently, the chap has someone who might well be interested but needs to know if he's allowed to perform a profession liberale from the premises: in other words, work from there. I'm checking with the building syndicate to make sure, although there's nothing forbidding it in the Book Of Rules (which dates from 1979!). Provided it's permitted, I may have a buyer! Woohoo!
Apart from that, there's a growing list of things I need to deal with: a letter to the EDF people to get Psycho's name on the bills (so she can be covered by my company medical plan), dumping the security system on my place, checking my contract to see how much notice has to be given, finding Pie's vet book so I can ensure everything is in order for his jabs and tests... the list goes on and on.
No rest for the wicked, as they say.
Today's Spam Count: 140
Running Spam Total: 1414
Oh, now she did it. That Ms Jafer went and mentioned chocolate mousse cake (in Canada, is it chocolate moose cake?). I have now been craving chocolate mousse cake since I read the comment. That's about 18 hours. Believe it or not, I even dreamed of eating chocolate cake.
Aaaaaaaaaaargh!
Today's Spam Count: 139
Running Spam Total: 1274
Just before today's entry, I thought I'd include a spam count because I'm a sad geek like that. I've decided not to bother deleting it, but instead to just let it sit there until I can figure out a way to forward the messages individually to SpamCop (note to Scary Ross: that is not a heavy-handed hint). Spam grows. See spam grow. Grow, spam, grow!
Today's Spam Count: 270
Running Spam Total: 1135
This weekend was somewhat shorter than usual, since Psycho and I visited her gran on Sunday afternoon. She lives about 80km away, so it takes an hour or more to get there by car, but we hadn't seen her for ages: the trip was worthwhile. Unfortunately, Psycho's been suffering from a bit of insomnia recently and I was up 'til the stupid hours of the night playing Rome: Total War. Bad planning - we were both half-asleep by the time we got there!
Still, her gran's a nice lady and we had a splendid time. The only thing missing was her amazing tarte tatin - basically an apple pie, but not in the heavy, sugary sense. She makes the best ones I've ever tasted. These days, she's getting on a bit and it's a lot of effort, so she'd made a simpler, Alsatian version, rather than the usual. Still yummy. I have half of it sitting in my fridge: thank the Gods that Psycho is still on her diet and doesn't want any!
After a difficult period, I seem to be coming out into the sunshine once again. I haven't written very much since getting back from Amsterdam and that wonderful theme song written by Miss Jafer which I can't get out of my head! This is mostly because I'm a lazy slacker, but also has something to do with figuring out some difficult problems and having some free time to use on better things.
There isn't too much to update, in reality: life goes on. I haven't had any luck selling the apartment yet, which is annoying. People keep coming over, looking at it and getting on their snobby bourgeois high horses and so on, but no offers yet. There have been a couple of interested parties and I've dropped the price a little, so I'm hopeful: that's the only thing I need to get done before all my other plans fall into place.
Work is annoying me even more than usual these days: twice already this week (and a couple of times last week) I've been bitten on the arse by being too nice. I'm fed up with going out of my way to help people, then having them come back and whine to my boss (or someone much higher up) when something in what I produced out of the kindness of my heart isn't precisely 100% how they want it to be. I have therefore decided to be an utter bastard and not help anyone any more: if they need something done, they can damned well go through the "proper channels" and have it produced by the new offshore support people in India. Bugger them if it takes three weeks instead of two days: that's their problem and they deserve it for being ungrateful pond scum.
On the gaming front, I have finally stepped away from The Sims 2 a bit. Unfortunately, I stepped into Rome: Total War, which is an absolutely brilliant game. I beat it last night as the Julii - after about ten days of intensive play - and so am now going to try to do well as the Gauls. Apparently, the game is "almost impossible" to win as them (or as Carthage), so I have to give it a go!
Other than this, not much news. One of my aunts died two weeks ago, which was a bummer: more so for my mum since the aunt died of the same thing as my dad. That undoubtedly brought back some nasty memories, as mum was up at the aunt's place (with another aunt) looking after her. Death sucks.
Back to work, I suppose. I'm amusing myself by following the offshore guy's attempts at developing the latest report. He's only called me for help four times... in the last ninety minutes.
Oops.
Sorry, things have been both relaxed and rushed at the same time, both of which have broken the habit of writing my journal. Bad Spike.
So, uh, what's new, pussycat?
Holy cow, what a fortnight. For those of you overseas with your own version of what used to pass for the English language, a fortnight is two weeks.
Amsterdam was pretty much as I expected it to be: dull and boring, with too much work. Still, it was a pretty good trip in the end, since I was able to get a lot of sleep, play way too much Sims 2 and generally chill out. The people I was up there to speak to are also really cool, so it was lots of fun despite being very pressured time-wise.
The Canada trip looks like it might well be cancelled now. Unfortunately, the lady who runs the Canuck service has already gone through this whole thing three times before, so she's pretty resistant to having us travel up there and invade her team's work for a couple of days. Ho hum. Works for me, since I hate travelling, but I would regret not being able to share coffee and a doughnut with Ms. Jafer. That would have been very cool.
Outside of work, things are still pretty difficult. In some ways, they're getting better: I spent the three-day weekend over at Psycho's, since she'd been looking after Pie while I was away. It's cool to see that we still get on really well and can live in the same space without killing each other - in fact, it was lots of fun. The cats are pretty stressful, though, since Biscotte is still very scared of the spud and he keeps chasing her, despite being disciplined not to. That's something we'll have to figure out before moving.
Still no one buying my apartment, either, but it's only been six weeks or so at most, so I'm not too surprised. I had a rather neat idea on that front, though, since I am apparently allowed to suspend mortgage payments for 12 months once during the loan period. As I'm selling, I figure I'll do it now and stop paying the monthly fees, which will help me put some cash aside for the move. Neato.
It looks like my ADSL is finally up and running now, although I need to check tonight. When I got back from 'dam, the Freebox was flashing 'PPP', which was unusual. I changed ISP recently and it had simply been trying to connect during the 'off' period before the new provider kicked in, so I was pleased to see something happening. Unfortunately, the new ISP requires a PPPoE connection - that is, a username and password - whereas the old one just connected. I haven't received the proper modem or the welcome letter yet, but this morning I phoned their helpdesk and told them I'd lost my details... and they gave me them... so tonight I may be back online! Woohoo!
Time to edit all the notes from Amsterdam. Only twenty pages or so...
I would like to dedicate three small words to all those people out there who think it's a great idea to build feed collectors, lists, directories and other forms of database for all the blogs on the web, but don't actually bother putting any kind of anti-spider mechanism into them and consequently get me an additional dozen spam comments every day:
I. HATE. YOU.
Thank you for your attention.