Coming around again

November 11 is a national holiday in France (commemoration of the end of World War 1), and in accordance with French traditions, KS and I took a looooong 4 days weekend.
We drove to Italy, in order to see my parents, and I also had a meeting with the partner in charge of HR in the Milan office.
So on Monday morning I dressed up a lot (black suit, 4 inch suede boots and my fave white coat with a white fur neck) and I drove to Milan.
(Why did I drive? Because both trains AND local trasports, tube, everything was on strike. Note to self: you will endure this A LOT once in Milan)
The meeting went GREAT. The partner was very friendly, and he’s sending me the agreement to sign over the week. I still don’t know the exact amount I’ll be gaining, but we talked briefly about it and my hopes are high. I’ll start there on March 2, 2009.
A part from that the weekend was pretty uneventful. We played games, went for walks, enjoyed a bit the Bro’s kids, talked a lot with the Parents. The Sponsor has turned out to have a chronic illness affecting his bones that lets him in ache, but he’s on meds and he feels better (still, he’s taking so much cortisone, if I took all that cortisone I would probably fly instead of run).

Something completely different and unexpected happens… It needs a bit of flashback to be explained.
Since I was a little kid (6 years old or so) I had a very close friend who also was the son of a friend of the Panther, we’ll call him Emi. Growing up we spent a lot of time together, and I missed him a lot when he left for one year for the USA, when we were 17. He was a total geek, but an adorable one, great at telling stories (and making up stories also!), great to exchange books and movies and stuff. Anyway, in high school I had a best friend who was a half Polish half Italian chick, and to make long story short, one day I introduced them to each other, since I thought they had things in common. They got together and I was glad about it, we would do a lot of things together and so on.
When we left for college, Polish Chick and I soon got into a HUGE fight, and for weeks I could not understand why. Then one day on the train I met Emi, and he was as friendly as usual, so we chatted and I avoided talking about Polish Chick, figuring out it was an issue between her and I and it would have been unfair to have him take a position. This until he got a call from her: as soon as he mentioned we met on the train, she hung up on him. He made a face and explained me that Polish Chick was deadly jealous of me.
WTF??? Emi and I never even held hands!!!! And I was so NOT into him, I mean, he’s totally not my kind and they had been together for 2 years or so! Plus, if I had been attracted to him in first place, I wouldn’t have introduced the two of them the way I did!

Anyway, Emi tried to be nice, but soon enough I lost touch with him as well, because what’s the point in being friend with someone who is not even allowed to wave you hello if you cross in the street? I still had news from time to time of the two of them, by Emi’s mother who would tell the Panther, but that’s it. Also, at the time it really hurt losing both my best friends at once, and I really felt lonely for a while (until I made friends with Andrea The Hunter, at least). Even once the pain was over, I always regretted those two friends who were not cool and to whom I could talk about geek things like fantasy books or weird movies, with whom I could dream of adventures for a whole afternoon in an abandoned garden…

Almost seven years have gone since the fight, and a couple of days ago, he asked me as a friend on Facebook. A bit weirded out, I immediately checked his status: single. He had got on Facebook 3 days before, and I was his 5th friend.
So to resume things, we were best friends for 13 years, then his girlfriend forbid him to talk to me for almost seven years, and as soon as they split (because apparently they just broke up) he contacts me. Is it me or this whole thing is a little weird? Makes me thing of the Guns’n’Roses song:
“But it’s been 14 years of silence, it’s been 14 years of pain; it’s been 14 years that are gone forever and I’ll never have again!!”

The worst thing is that I worry about her. Over the years I heard through the grapevine a lot of things: that they didn’t see friends anymore ‘cause she was jealous of everyone, that she totally depended on him. Even worse, I know that her parents fled the country because they were so in debt they had everything taken away, since they both had stopped working, and apparently they disappeared somewhere in Eastern Europe and even her did not have any more news from them.

This people dumped me seven years ago, erasing years spent together just with a few words, telling me they did not need me, and here I am worrying about them…

Mama I'm coming home

I’ve been waiting to find a way to write this for almost a week. But I did’t come up with anything good, so I guess I’ll just have to jottle it down someway.

The Milan office hired me.

*me doing happy dance*
I’m going down there on Monday to sign a few papers (and to discuss benefits), but it’s done and confirmed, I’ll start there in March.
I am really glad, because lately my office SUCKS big big time, and I really wanna drag my sorry ass out of here…
The Parents were so happy that the Panther went almost histerycal. Then they asked me 10 millions questions (like which part of the city are you going to live in, when are you going to hunt for apartments, what are you going to keep of all the stuff you have in France, blah, blah, blah). Then they went histerycal again.
And honestly? With the Sponsor not going well and all these things going on, the mail of confirmation couldn’t arrive in a better moment!
KS was happy for me, we had of course discussed the thing before I officially applied for Milan, so it didn’t come out of the blue. The plan is that he should move also two or three months after me, to join me, but of course he’ll need to find a job. However, it is likely that he will manage to be transferred within his company (they have a desk in Milan as well), so hopefully everything will go well.

The Parents also promised that they will come over with a truck in order to help me collecting my things and move (or if they don’t feel well enough they’ll have the brothers do it).
I don’t have a lot of rubbish, but my stuff can be described as:
BOOKS. This is the main part of it. I spend thousands (literally) of bucks every year in books, I really read a lot. So, in three years spent here, I have collected A LOT of books, and I have no intention of throwing them away.
PLANTS and FLOWERS. I have a lot of them and love them, and I have no intention to leave them behind (also because KS is NOT reliable when it comes to taking care of plants). Of course a few of them will be offered to friends, but I really want to bring along the biggest and most expensive apartment plants, because anyway I would need to buy new ones in Milan (I hate living in the city, since I’m a country girl I need some green in the house).
CLOTHES. I don’t have tons of them though. And I’m seriously going to take old things to charity and maybe sell a few things on e-bay.
COOKING STUFF. I bake and cook all the time. You may know that I dream about having a catering or a restaurant one day. So I cannot leave this stuff behind, or I’d need to rebuy it. So I’ll have to move a LOT of baking pans and moulds, my cupcake carrier, my kitchen aid,…

Well enough for today!