Uncle Biek

I was invited to come over to my sister and Stevie’s house for a barbeque and yesterday was the day. On my way over there I ran into a lot of traffic so I arrived much later than I hoped. Luckily everyone was still awake and with their new daughter the two are usually busy enough anyway so they hadn’t noticed it or even missed me yet.

As soon as I got in I got to held Sofie which since the last time I had her in my arms seemed less of a fragile baby but a bit more sturdy. Stevie handed her over to me and she just kept on sleeping while lying on my chest. It’s still a special feeling to have a little one like that so close. She looked very content and clearly liked the outside world.

Meanwhile little Eva was doing her very best to be all sweet and cuddly and even though so overdid it a couple of times she overall was adorable. Having a sister all of a sudden must be hard on her, though she seems to understand a bit better that Sofie is there to stay. If only we could explain it just a tiny bit better to her, I bet that would make all the difference.

After the lovely barbeque the kids were put to bed and we, like we do almost every time I’m there, watched a good movie on their big screen home cinema. And that concluded a very nice day.

I really wouldn’t mind having more of those.

My so called wanabee snooker career is going down the drain at the moment, and fast too. Ever since I got my new glasses I’m having more and more trouble looking down the table with my old set and it’s becoming very frustrating and irritating. And that’s putting it mildly.

Problem is that apart from a slight focus adjustment I’m now also having cylinders in my new glasses which I admit work absolutely fantastic. However when I now use my old ones to play snooker with it’s like pressing a button that reads ‘automated headache countdown’. Ten, nine, eight, seven …

I already can’t even focus the end of the table at the beginning of the evening and it’s not getting any better for the duration of the evening. After an hour or two it’s becoming increasingly hard to get a object ball halfway up the table into focus.

So you can imagine that a four to five frame evening just takes too long right now and almost by default leaves me with a blasting headache in the end. Naturally the quality of my snooker game doesn’t really profit from this. At all.

The solution is a rather simple one: I should get me a set of snooker glasses pronto or, as Bas suggested, maybe look into switching to contact lenses which of course is the perfect solution for snooker. There’s no looking against or over the frame with those.

Something needs to change, one way or the other. This isn’t working. I’ll make a pitstop at the opticians this week, or the next at most, and see what they have to say about all of this.

Last night I had a little adventure with my two ounce bird Zippo as he ended up in uncharted area, both for him and myself.

As usual when I open his home he does a few insanely fast ‘laps’ around the room then lands on his home and goes back inside. As if he’s trying to prove he’s still got it.

Probably due to the fact that he’s had a terrible start of this life he’s stamina isn’t that great so when he continues to fly laps he simply gets tired, looses altitude and will, if he doesn’t reach a place he knows he can land on, end up on the ground where he’ll catch his breath for a minute and move on. So far so good, both he and I are used to that procedure. :-)

Last night however he was flying around me while I was making diner (sometimes I think he loves pasta just as much as I do) and flew around for quite a while. Since I was a little late with diner the problem was that it was getting darker and Zippo just can’t see very well in electric lit areas.

So what does a little bird like that do when he’s loosing visual? Correct, he goes up. Way up, Birdseye view :-) I may have more space since moving but the ceiling still isn’t all that high so while trying to find a place to land on he was getting tired again and, you guessed it, started his involuntary descend.

Now Zippo has been in a strange place or two since I’ve got him. He’s been under couches, on top of and inside the kitchen cupboards, in the sink, behind the TV, between the plants, you name it he’s been there. As of last night we now have a new location he’s visited: behind the fridge.

Yeah, that’s right: I said fridge. I saw him soar by and when I realized where he was heading I was too late catching him. So he crash landed behind the fridge. Luckily the front of my fridge at floor level has an opening so lying flat on my stomach I could see him sitting beneath the machine on the ground, looking around a bit.

When I tell you that Zippo isn’t scared of anything I mean exactly that. No matter what happens around him he just tilts that little head of his and assesses the situation before making any sudden moves. I whish I could do that sometimes.

And there he was, new territory, new outlook, new view and a definitely lower ceiling than usual. I think that was what he was wondering about most: not having much room to take off. Then he spotted me looking at him. Finally something he recognized :-)

He was sitting on one of the sports that run underneath my fridge and had a little trouble stepping off as he couldn’t see very well what was beneath him. For all he knew he might have been hovering over who knows what. But then he took the big step, walked toward me, climbed from under the fridge and flew to his home again acting as if nothing happened.

He never fails to amaze me that little one, it was good to have him back. :-)

Tell you what: (and yes, I know that this will a) not come as a huge surprise, nor will I b)e very unique with this :-) I could get used to having long weekends. Very much so. No really, I honestly could. It’s pretty cool to have a few days extra off every now and then, but when they extend a weekend they almost feel like small vacations all by themselves. Splendid!

Normally my weekend lasts about a day and a half tops or usually, for example when I oversleep a bit on Sunday, even less than a day so when that get’s extended to three or four days it’s a huge bonus.

Naturally, having so much more free time in one weekend all of a sudden calls for some tight planning of course. Or not, whichever is easier :-) I’m no planning guru, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m exceptionally great at rushing towards deadlines at dazzling speeds and upon arrival ‘bending’ them a little when needed.

So, after thinking about the planning for at least a few minutes, it looked a lot like this:

Wednesday: evening off.
Thursday: day off.
Friday: day off.
Saturday: first the shop, then take the rest of the day off.
Sunday: … heck, lets take the day off, just because I’m worth it :-)

There, you see? Planning isn’t that hard after all. A walk in the park. And as soon as I was done with this official planning business, I started to form some sort of sinister plan of what to do with all my newly acquired off days *grin*

This longer weekend  didn’t come all that unexpected of course so a rather large chunk of the time was already booked solid without breaking a sweat. Bas and I have been wanting to go to the Renn Museum in Nurburgring for some time now but somehow never got around visiting it. Now seemed like the perfect time.

Unfortunately Mother Nature (she again … ;-) let us know (in time) that it may not be an very good idea to sit in  the car for the bigger part of the day and lurk around the museum for a few hours so in the end we didn’t go. Yet. We will some day, promise. :-)

Instead we had a pretty cool race weekend and lots of fun like we always have. So much fun even that our initial plan to call it quits at a reasonable time last night didn’t work out entirely like we hoped (notice how it didn’t say ‘expected’ here ;-) so I didn’t get too much sleep last night.

I’ll make up for that loss tonight … maybe.

As of today I’m now to be officially called Uncle Biek² as at 13:25 my second niece Sofie Bono, daughter of my sister and bro in law, was born in prefect health.

I was at work, just fetching coffee for the colleagues (again), when the phone rang and Stevie told me that another daughter of theirs had seen the light and was all okay. Just like the last time I was very happy I had chair close by. I’m just a sucker when it comes to things like these happening so close in the family.

After congratulating him and my sister I went on my way and drove up to the hospital they were in to have a first glance at the newly born. And at 48 centimeters long, weighing 3110 grams she was a stunning beauty to behold.

- WELCOME TO THE BIG WORLD SOFIE -

I’m so glad everything went as smooth as it did, it’s hard to describe just how big a load was lifted from my shoulders when I heard she was born and everyone was doing fine. I didn’t sleep at all on the night from Monday on Tuesday, even though nothing much could/should happen. It’s just that I get very nervous when something is ‘up’ with the family, just can’t take it very well.

The first pictures of Sofie have been uploaded to a brand new album at Uncle Biek²’s Visuals: The Sofie Bono Album (which, I’ll admit, has both a nice ring to it and features greatest hits only ;-)

I’ll probably sleep better tonight :-)