it’s been a rough couple of days. exhausting, and sometimes crappy.

but today i got to climb the tent!!!! miko took pictures, so i’ll post them after i get them from her. yay! it was fun, i put on a harness and doug went up with me. first we climbed a ladder to the bottom of the slopey part, then we walked up its bouncy surface. i could see pretty far. i could see all the people coming to see the circus. 🙂

first, dick’s reaction to cirque:

he loved it. we had a moment there where we thought we weren’t going to get in. the box office gave me a coupon for one, and a lecture on how friends don’t count in the staff last-minute listing. i texted miko, and she fixed it!!! yay!

and here’s what we found when we got back:

that’s james, jane’s cat, with his i do believe, VERY FIRST MOUSE! congratulations, james! but sorry to inform jane that her apartment has mice… fortunately, she now has a mighty hunter!

gotta run!

ok… that’s just a picture of last friday’s dinner with matt, ivo and marieke. i had given them tickets to cirque, then they came over for mole enchiladas, guac and margaritas, even though it was rainy and not so nice for sunshiny food.

tonight miko has been so lovely as to arrange more tickets for me, because dick still hasn’t seen it… but it’s still possible we won’t get in. we’ll see.

this morning, when i went down to get my bike and ride to work, this is the image i was confronted with. it took me a couple of minutes to process, and then i realized that indeed, my bike was gone and both locks cut through.

dammit.

i didn’t have enough money for a new strippenkaart to take the bus and metro, nor time, so i ran back upstairs, got jonathan’s keys, and rode his bike to work.

it sucked. at his tallest setting, my knees were still pumping high, and really strained my bad left knee. i won’t be doing it again. so i’m going to need to cough up money for a new stippenkaart.

dammit.

and we’re dead broke right now. in the hole at the bank and everything. sucky sucky sucky.

i come into work at 10:00 every morning but sunday, when i come in at 8:00, and monday, when i don’t come in… in this order, this is what i do:

1. check to see if there’s any dirty laundry to do, and if so run it.
2. begin putting angel costumes into dryers.
3. plug in ipod
4. retrieve necessary hangers for angel costumes
5. get coffee from kitchen
and then the day continues… i won’t go into more inane details.

note step 3. the ipod. at 10:00, when i come in, i am the only person in the artistic tent, which is the large tent behind the “big tent,” where the dressing rooms, practice spaces, wardrobe department and physio department are. the cleaning guys come in soon after, but they have their own ipods, and don’t care. i play my music loudly because i’m all over the space with the costumes at that time, and there’s no one to disturb.

the hula hoop girl, masha, sometimes comes in to practice in the mornings. usually i don’t see her come in, and am surprised when suddenly i am being drowned out by HER ipod, plugged into a different stereo, on the other side of the tent. since hers was the louder stereo, i usually either turned mine off or gave up trying to hear mine for the rest of my shift. which began to suck, because she plays exactly the same bad russian pop every day.

so around a week and a half ago, i decided to talk with her. so i approached her and here is how the conversation went:

S: hi! so, i think you don’t like my music…?
M: (general stare)
S: well, that’s fine… i don’t mind. i don’t like your music either. (big big smile)
M: (general stare)
S: so, listen, i had an idea: if i move the speakers for my music closer to me, and turn them so they face my little work area, my music will not be so audible to you, and you won’t need to drown me out with your volume. so you could turn yours down, too. what do you think?
M: (general stare)
S: (big smile, eyebrows raised)
M: uh, ok…
S: thanks! that’s great! i’ll go take care of that right now!

so i went over, turned mine down. so did she. and about 30 minutes later, i asked her if it was working ok for her, and she said, “yeah”.

the next day, another performer, rosha, came over to me and asked me if it would be ok if she and masha turned up their music so they could practice their routine. i tried to explain that i wasn’t trying to stop them from what they needed to do, just that i thought we were playing unnecessary stereo wars. rosha repeated the question. so i said, sure that would be fine, thanks for checking…

🙂 kind of funny, really. i didn’t mean to sound like a music nazi, just to find some way we could peacefully coexist. oh well. at least now i’m not subjected to the same repetitive song every day.

so, my beautiful machine cleared customs yesterday afternoon. i went this afternoon to pay. tomorrow it will be picked up by the mechanics, and they will prepare it for clearing RDW next week. yay!

here is a picture of my baby in the “hazardous materials” corner of the shipping warehouse. covered with shipping labels!

at 5:57, the shipping company called me. customs has cleared my bike. i will go in tomorrow and pay… (that’s the icky part).

at 5:59, i called the mechanic. he is going to try to schedule the pickup of my bike from the shippers for tomorrow afternoon, or friday morning. he’ll make sure it is totally good to be cleared at the DRW (something like DMV)…. yay!

soon, soon…

yesterday after work, i took the metro then the train then the bus to the shipping company near schiphol to give them the paperwork they needed to present to customs.

and i got to see my bike!!!!! oooohhhh, it’s beautiful! and mine! and here! and mine! and here! yay!

so here’s the run-down:
1. customs will decide it’s clear (probably within a day or so)
2. i will go to shippers and pay… probably a lot
3. mechanic will pick up bike from shippers and take to shop
4. next week, mechanic will replace fork seals and brake pads, plus any other things necessary to clear european standards.
5. i will apply for a one day temporary license plate, so that i can drive to the inspection office.
6. they will inspect it that everything is to european standards.
7. i will receive the paperwork (if i don’t have to do it again), and can apply for a permanent license plate
8. i will receive a permanent license plate
9. then i can ride.

no, i have NO IDEA how long this is going to take, but it’s pouring buckets on us here right now, so the weather is cooperating to make me feel less bad about the fact that i’m not riding AT THIS MOMENT.

which is good, i guess. but it’s quite rainy.

i tried to take a picture of my bike sitting in the warehouse, but the battery was dead on the camera. damn it.