Monday 26 April 1999

Pic of the day: The almost speechless supertoddler. (See below.)

I'm back! Had a couple of really good days. Spring took us by surprise. Poor Supergirl, she can't be out in the sun this summer. Not much, at least. But she seems happy enough. Next week she'll be back in Germany, I don't think she's crying over that. When she's been there a while, she longs home to Norway. When she's been here a while, she longs back. Unsurprisingly, my feelings are less mixed. She's a fantastic friend, always interesting. This time she had picked two CDs which we bought. One was with the Corrs, seemingly yet another good Irish pop band. A special edition, if I recall correctly. The other was even less familiar to me, Garbage (I think the album was called "version 2" or some such). There were two really dreamy tracks on it, which we played again and again and again and again. I can still vaguely hear them buzzing in my head.
Her "little" sister, unsurprisingly, preferred "Girls just wanna have fun" from the album "12 deadly cyns" (or some such, strange title) with Cyndia Lauper (sp?).

We spent much of Saturday running the mall, Supergirl carrying her brother's son. The little toddler was acting all lazy, though he was cheerfully standing on his own feet in the escalator. He can only speak a few words, and usually will only moan in public. He made an exception, though, when she was in the try-on booth changing trousers. As the little tyke observed her in a state of severe undress, he exclaimed "Magnus!" and tried to open the door. That was the first time he ever mentioned my name, and pretty close to the first thing he said on the whole trip. Nice little guy.

For dinner that day we had tacos. Of course, someone had grabbed the wrong spice mix - chili con carne instead of taco - and so it tasted slightly different. Not bad, though. Taco isn't exactly my favorite food (that would be Italian food, such as lasagne, cannelloni and tortellini). But it certainly ain't bad either.

Sunday turned up more of the supporting cast, including the bride from the wedding I wrote about in March. Joyfully pregnant, she turned brown at the merest touch of the sun, to the low-key despair of her sisters. The groom, though, is a teacher and so spent the sunday sweating over some kind of test his pupils had taken. I didn't see him at all. The cute young lady with the thesis also showed up finally. All in all another wonderful day.

And then I came home.
Well, not quite that easily. I took the night train, though in a sitting wagon. It certainly wasn't the newest model. Probably they've set in all they could find, as lots of people now take train rather than using the new national airport Gardermoen. This airport is known for sudden delays. It certainly looked like every seat was taken and then some - a few people seemed to just wait around, without a seat reservation. Luckily I had mine, albeit barely.

The previous afternoon, I'd taken my jacket off in the heat, and the tickets had slid out of their pockets. Late that evening, the hostess asked me what time my train would go, and I could not remember the exact date, so went to check my reservation. To my great surprise, it wasn't there. The next morning I found it. It was run over by a car or two, but still legible.

Anyway, I managed to eke out a couple of hours sleep from the trip, and came to Kristiansand ca 04:20 in the night. Rather than trying to go home, I went straigh to work. But not only did I grow really tired. My stomach and surrounding areas were upset, and I even developed a deep cough. I went home from work early, and have spent parts of the day sleeping. I feel better now.