Samstag

[cosmolinguist]

I slept appallingly last night -- nothing special except maybe overtiredness after a long day, and my usual chronic insomnia.

But everything else about today has been pretty great.

We strolled around in nice sunny weather and found a nearby cafe for lunch (after a somewhat lackluster breakfast of "things we could find in the corner shop last night": nutella on toast, and potato chips) where we could sit outside. I had a lovely veggie sandwich on a bagel (accustomed to protein for breakfast instead of sugar, I have rarely been so glad to see a hard-boiled egg in my life!) and we even had a G&T with it so diffrentcolours could say it's Gin & Teutonic.

After a little bit of rain and the dismaying realization that, having brought all my zip-up hoodies with me so that they'd still be usable post-surgery, the zipper pull on the one I was wearing has somehow gone missing since the last time I wore it and it was fine. It's my heaviest and most water-resistant of the three hoodies I brought with me, so a real pain as it's much less water-resistant if I have to try to hold it closed by crossing my arms in front of me!

But luckily the rain didn't last for long. And after some more walking around, including a nice park and admiring many Good Dogs, we met up with an internet friend of mine who's one of my favorite people on fedi where we know each other. We had coffee and she played her shinobue, a Japanese flute for me. Then we had dinner at her favorite vegan Japanese place (she's a longtime vegan who used to live in Japan so she knows what she's talking about there!).

And after saying goodbye to her at the Hbf, we came back to our Wohnung via Lidl, where I pushed the shopping cart and threw into it anything that I thought I might like to eat and especially things that are very easy to prepare: a little pizza, falafel, pesto, gnocchi... We can have mueli or yogurt for breakfast tomorrow! And after I refused to have anything to do with the nespresso pod machine which is the only way our Airbnb provided us to make coffee with, D found and talked me into allowing us to get a little pourover thing. He really wanted to be able to make me coffee, bless him.

A very good first day: I know now how the shower works, I've unpacked my stuff, I've met a friend who's even more fun offline than they are online, we have easy food. I even bought myself a new book as a treat: when I realized that my current library books are about things like Nazis and psychological warfare, I got a book about baseball that I read most of as a library e-book and adored but then it disappeared! Can't be borrowed any more! (The rules about e-books in libraries are heinous.) But I could buy it from the Kobo store for £8, so I did that.

Comments

[otter]

Too many arbitrary rules that make it harder to enjoy things. Yay for a good first day :)

[forests_of_fire]

Yay to good days and people who are as awesome offline as they are awesome online!

[angelofthenorth]

Gin and teutonic is terrible. Is he going to Sicily next for gin and tectonic?

Apart from that he really is an excellent human. Glad the tourist bit is going well.

[cosmolinguist]

He is such an excellent human.

He told his mum that joke too, and she said (as usual) that he's channeling his father; apparently he comes by this honestly. :)

[barakta]

Friends sound wonderful as does having D to encourage you both to have the nice things like coffee.

Does the thing with the broken zipper have the option of adding a piece of string or something to make it work? Possibly-helpy We have 'add on' zipper pulls (like https://www.zipperstation.co.uk/store/Zipper-Pull-Cords-U-shape-p161181101) for some of our stuff, especially mine cos too-small-zip-head is a hand issue for me, and a bigger thing is easier or having a loop I can hook my finger into is less precision-requiring. The string as bodge could let D zip you up/down if needed. Or a local sewingy type place may know where repairs could be done.

I can also recommend Becky Chambers new book if you want soothing. I reread wayfarers after evil leg surgery cos everything made me cry and I knew they were overall lovely and sweet.

[cosmolinguist]

The entire zipper mechanism is missing! otherwise I could've bodged something but it's totally gone. So bizarre as I didn't notice anything the last time I wore this hoodie!

[diffrentcolours]

We did find a local sewing place while mooching around yesterday that seemed to do repairs, so that is an option.

[brittdreams]

Yay for good food! Right there with you on protein over sugar for breakfast. I'm currently having a chocolate croissant and tea for dessert.

Curious about the baseball book and hope you enjoy it.

[cosmolinguist]

We got croissants from the grocery store so I baked them this morning and had one with jam after I'd my real breakfast. :)

The book is The Shift by Russell Carleton, it's a decade or so old now but it's a really good description of the state of the game as it absorbed the sabremetric revolution of moneyball. I was thinking D might like it -- I've accidentally made a baseball fan out of him. :)

[jesse_the_k]

No accident at all — your baseball enthusiasm is simply infectious.

[cosmolinguist]

I call it an accident because my previous partners were at best uninterested in things like sports, or American things, or both, and more usually would tease me about them. So I expected to continue to have baseball as just my weird thing I watch and read about and think about by myself. But D really got into it and it's been such fun to share something I like so much with someone I like so much.

[gender_euphoric]

I read that as “from the kabob store”more than once 😆

[cosmolinguist]

haha! I don't know if you guys even have Kobo there, it's not a brand I started hearing of until I moved to the UIK, but it's been a long time since I left the U.S. so things have come along there that I don't know about too!

I've been a KOBO user for 14 years

[jesse_the_k]

They're all over the world, including USA — and they have a kickback scheme with my local queer bookstore, similar to Libro‘s system.

Re: I've been a KOBO user for 14 years

[cosmolinguist]

Oh cool! I'm just so used to mentioning offhandedly things that turn out to be completely alien to my friends on one side of the Atlantic or the other that I just assume that these days. ;)

[moem]

Just in case it's helpful... most bakeries in Germany offer breakfast and lunch (as well as coffee or tea with cake). They're often very good places to have breakfast. Breakfast is a thing the Germans do well.

[cosmolinguist]

Yes I'm so delighted to be among good breakfast people again! (Or at least, the originators of some of the culture I grew up in, maybe that's why Germany makes sense to me. ;))

[silveradept]

A good first day, especially with Good Dogs and having enjoyable and easy to make food.