There's nothing much to say about Friday night except that I was in bed by 10pm. The previous night (my birthday, if you'll recall) had seen a rather impromptu gathering of friends at a bar I'd chosen but never been to, and it was successful enough that I wasn't at home and in bed until 2 or 3, and was wrecked at work all day on Friday. (Most pubs and bars close at 11pm in London, so I'd thought I would've made it to bed at a decent hour, but I just happened to pick a little dive that stayed open til 3am on a Thurs. Go figure.) Thus, the early bedtime, and the sleeping for THIRTEEN HOURS. It was amazing. I love sleep.
Late Saturday morning when I finally got up, after a quick cuddle session with Baerbel (God, how I love living with people!), she and Karim and I all went to our adorable little corner coffee shop for cappuccinos and pastries and wi-fi. I read an article in the Guardian magazine about Texans and the war which made me sad, and we wandered around for a little while before going home. Karim and Carrie caught their plane to Portugal, and I drank a lot of tea and bummed around the house.
At one point, mid-roomcleaning, I realised I wasn't sure where my phone was. I called it on the house phone - and got the "switched off" message. My tummy sank. I never turn off my phone, and it wasn't close to being out of battery, which meant that someone else had it. Retracing my steps, I realised I had oh so cleverly taken it outside with me at one point when I'd been drinking tea on the stoop, and then even more cleverly gone back inside without it.
I'm an idiot.
An idiot without a phone.
But there was nothing to be done about it that afternoon, so I banged my head against a wall a few times and then skedaddled off to work. It was a loooong cycle ride of nearly 15 miles, and it was the location that I often have to run more or less single-handedly - I set up lights and sound, run lights and sound, make announcements, work the door, and organise the acts - so it was already looking like it was going to be a busy night for me. Usually I have one of the managers there to help out and give me the paperwork, etc, so I wasn't too worried... but noone had showed up by 7:45, and the doors open at 8. Finally the bar took a call for me - my boss's girlfriend had been trying to get ahold of me for hours to tell me to start early - the first act at my location was the second act at hers, and to make it to the latter gig on time he'd have to rush. Which was fine. No sweat.
Until 8:45 rolled around with a fullish house, a 8:55 scheduled start, and NONE of the comedians had showed. No MC, and none of the three acts.
This is when I start to panic just the tiniest bit.
Into this insanity, enter Darrin (who, as an interesting sidebar, is the spitting image of my ex. If I hadn't been so stressed and distracted I would've flirted my little tush off. Perverse? Yes. But leave me my little guilty pleasures). He informs me he's one of the acts for the night, which confounds me because he's not on my list of acts for the night. A call to Pete (my boss) clears up the confusion - Darrin had been cancelled but he'd never gotten the message. Good thing he hadn't, too, because by now, though the second act has shown up, noone knows where the MC is, and the first act has just walked in the door but he's too late to do his spot and I have to shove cab fare in his hand and hustle him out the door so he can make the OTHER gig. Long story short (too late), Darrin MCed, the second act went on first, the third act went on second, and there was no third act. And I survived to tell the tale. Barely. Whew!
But the night wasn't over yet, for as you may recall, I had cycled 15 miles to get to work, which meant I had the same trek home. Through central London, at midnight on a Saturday, which was teeming with drunk people. Teeming. So I'm biking along, albeit warily, and of course this guy decides to jaywalk in front of me. I see him coming, and I'm dingin' my little bell and slowing down, but of course he either willingly ignores me or is too drunk to care, so I end up clipping his heel. He's fine, I go down. But I'm back up again like a jack-in-the-box, full of righteous wrath. (I have to say that I think this is a benefit of living in a big city - you get much better at standing up for yourself in the face of rude behaviour. And granted, he served as an easy outlet for all the stress I'd experienced over the course of the evening, but I still say he deserved it.) Knee skinned, trousers torn, fingers snapping in a Z formation, I gave him what for. I think he was a little taken aback by the rage of this little white girl, and only halfheartedly engaged in verbal combat, managing to mumble that my lights should be more bright ("Yeah? Well, you should be more sober!"*) before running away. Grrr. Stupid drunken ass. Still muttering expletives under my breath, I fixed my chain which had come off in the scuffle and continued homeward.
But not for long. Two miles later, a flat. Fuck.
I locked up my bike and walked the rest of the way home. I don't know how far it was, but it was more than three miles. Bleagh. It was nearly 4am by the time I finally made it to bed.
Sunday was much nicer. Despite the fact I got very little sleep and a later start to the day than planned, it was a lovely lovely day. I met up with Cecile for breakfast in Hackney, which was just what the doctor ordered in so many ways. Cecile is in the morning group, and as a result we'd never really gotten the chance to hang out before - she was one of those people that I always knew I wanted to get to know, but never had the opportunity. Well, the opportunity presented itself on Sunday at The Bohemian, and over a lengthy breakfast we talked, and laughed, and shared our experiences, both joyful and not, from the past year. She then agreed to run errands with me, which brought us to a bike shop by Brick Lane, and on a very lengthy meander through East London to Canary Wharf, where I got a new phone! For £20! And it's so much fancier than my old phone! She helped me choose a ringtone (the one I've settled on, however temporarily, is AMAZING. It's called "Amazement" and is basically the sound of a group of people going, "ooooOOOOOOoooo! .... ooooOOOOOOoooo!" over and over again. It cracks me up.), tried to teach me how to speak with a French accent, and we sang musicals and Disney tunes together as we walked down the street. A particular highlight was singing "Part of that World" from The Little Mermaid, I in English, she in French. She's a keeper, that Cecile. It was a beautiful day, and a very real connection that I'm so happy to have made.
By the time I got home at six I was exhausted. Though I'd had plans to attend a fundraiser-cabaret at Madame JoJo's with Baerbel, I couldn't bring myself to leave the house, so I curled up with some microwave popcorn, cheap phone calls to the States, and the 1971 Get Carter, starring Michael Caine. Comfy, content, and all alone.
Or so I thought.
Turns out we have a mouse. He's adorable, but I have reservations. One mouse is cute. Many mice? Not so much. So I left a note for Karim asking him to talk to the estate agent about it (as well as further insulating the front doors - there's definitely a mouse-sized gap under them that is doing nothing to deter an all-out invasion) and went to bed.
And that was my weekend! Worth the wait? I hope so.
*Not actually my retort. My actual retort was not nearly as cutting or clever. I think it was something like "Well, at least I have lights!" Ooh, zing.
