Poor Lina (our tabby three color cat) was rubbing her right eye ferosiously this Monday. After 3 hours of hoping it would get better on its own (there was nothing to be seen) we decided to go to the vet. Turned out that there was a tiny scratch on the cornea that needs to be remedied with an ointment, 8 times a day for a week!

Lina has never liked being picked up, now she absolutely hates it because it means being constrained and getting nasty stuff into her eye. We try to make it as stress free as possible but it has to be done. Fortunately the eye looks much better already; no more redness of the third eyelid, no more squinting. Today she'll get 8 treatments and this weekend we'll settle for 3 or 4 a day because we'll be out of the house for some time. (The vet was ok with that)

Alas, next Monday poor Lina has to visit the "nasty woman in the nasty smelling building to which you can only get with a nasty smelling vehicle that makes lots of noise and bounces around too much", (i.e. to the vet by car) for a check up.

Lina has been to the vet more often than Melisse. They both have to go once a year for vaccinations but Lina also has had an ear problem, first stages of the flu, throat ache and now this eye thing. While Melisse has fallen three floors down out of the window and only came up with a fright (no vet visit needed).

Well, if you want a pet you have to take care of it. I'm very glad we can provide our kitties with a nice home (with environmental enrichment) and good care, even if they occasionally hate us for healing their hurts.

This Saturday we signed the purchase contract (koopcontract) of the house. Tonight at 00:00 the three day reflection period ends and then there's no turning back. We're not planning on canceling.

There's some blah concerning the mortgage. Via a mortgage adviser we're trying to get a mortgage loan at ABN Amro bank. They advertise with 'discount' on the mortgage if you get a 'young professional' package with them, so we signed up for that. But now they're saying that this discount only counts if you go to the bank yourself and not via a third person. What the hell? What difference does it make?

If we do not get the discount we'll find someone else and cancel the bank accounts, we just opened, again. No use in signing up for a 3rd bank when there's no advantage to it.

After the visit to our purchasing agent Saturday morning we went to Matthijs's mother and spend a leisurely day there. We fixed two broken clocks while we were there, had lunch in the sun in the backyard, made pancakes for dinner. We picked up a bunch of boxes for the move and some plant pots and a new supply of apple/pear juice.

Saturday evening there was a balfolk in Utrecht where we ran into Maglok, Steelweaver and Jo. We had a nice evening. Especially the second band, Decibal, was very good. We didn't stay for the session afterwards because we wanted to sleep at home and thus had to drive about 2 hours to get back to Enschede. How I long for the shorter travel time once we're living in Amersfoort!

Sunday I woke up at 10:00, did some laundry and woke up Matthijs. We spent they day filling the first boxes with books. We have about 6 to 7 meters of books! After that I re-potted some of our pepper plant seedlings. I think we got about 60 seedlings. Some of them won't make it, but I have good hopes for the pepper production this year.

Next weekend we go to the birthdays of Cora and Rene and on Sunday my mom's. Weekend after that two more birthdays (Matthijs' cousin and brother), weekend after that leviathan special and then finally some we-time again (for now..).

Op het VA forum las ik het bericht dat Geert G., een mede-larper, is overleden op 32 jarige leeftijd waarschijnlijk aan de gevolgen van een hartstilstand. Nou kende ik Geert niet goed maar zijn vrouw wel, voornamelijk van Symbols. Ik wens haar en hun dochtertje veel sterkte met dit plotselinge verlies.

Dan besef je ineens weer dat 'het zomaar gebeurd kan zijn' en het deed me denken aan een tegeltje dat mijn oma op de wc heeft hangen. Een banale plek, een simpel gedicht, maar zo'n waarheid....

Ga nooit weg zonder te groeten,
Ga nooit weg zonder zoen.
Als je het noodlot zult ontmoeten,
Kun je het nooit meer doen.
Ga nooit weg zonder te praten,
Dat doet een hart zo'n pijn.
Wat je 's morgens hebt verlaten,
Kan er 's avonds niet meer zijn...

Last Friday I made a chocolate cake for Matthijs. It was built out of chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, dark chocolate (molten, poured over it like frosting) and some white chocolate as decoration. The white chocolate made the Superman logo. We dug right into it so we didn't take a picture.

Why? Because Matthijs is my superhero. He takes pleasure in reading mortgage conditions, paying taxes and other (mostly financial) stuff that I (and probably the biggest part of humanity) get bored with within one minute. At the moment he's doing most of the work of buying a house. Next to that he is also good with Gum Gun and he has fixed the exhaust of our car for the second time. (it was a new hole)

So he definitely deserved the cake. We still got half of it left because it's quite heavy on the stomach. So little pieces at a time.