Well, it has been kind of a peculiar week, but I guess nothing should really surprise me these days.
About this time last Friday, as I was gearing up for the weekend, I placed a spontaneous order for the sheet music for an album by one of my favorite composers. I have been playing (or learning to play) stuff by Ludovico Einaudi for a little over a year, and the guys music is just incredible. I have made a few nods in his direction in this space, but last Friday, while hearing a certain a piece, I immediately logged on and placed an order for the piano music and was pleased that it would be delivered via normal shipping the following Wednesday. I had no problems with the wait, as I have plenty of other music to play already.
I then proceeded to meet up with some friends for dinner. Earlier, one of them had phoned me with the request to borrow a little cutlery, plates, and a mug, on account that they moved away a few months ago, and their Frankfurt apartment is empty; save for an inflatable bed. I packed the items into a small backpack, brought it along to the restaurant, and we all enjoyed catching up. Afterwards, we made a beeline for the pub and spent the next couple of hours getting very drunk. It was a nice evening, and when I reached my limit, I paid up, said farewell, and headed home.
Saturday morning took a while to get going. I finally got out of bed around 10, which is very unusual for me, but after a few coffees felt pretty good. Then, I happened to check my phone and found a message saying, "hey Bryan, we forgot the bag last night. hopefully someone turned it in at the pub."
Crap.
At noon, I walked over to the pub and asked Maria if by chance the little backpack was there. She checked, found nothing, and I got a little antsy. Two minutes later, my friends walked in, hoping to find the back back as well, and they apologized for forgetting. As I said, everyone had had several drinks the previous evening. I was a little irritated, simply because my flat is furnished (including said items) and one day, probably many years from now, I would have to make sure the flat had those items. Sure, I could go buy some new plates and whatever, but it would be a little bit of a hassle.
Rather than worry about it, I just had a beer, then headed back home to do a few things around the house, including making my shopping list. I had no real plans for the day, save for the trip to the supermarket, and I really did not want to let the afternoon get away from me. So, I got my act together, took the 15 minute shopping trip (I am speedy) and returned home to check the mailbox, where I found that the local logistics guy had come by with a package for me. Fortunately, the card indicated that he had left the package with my neighbor, so I rang her doorbell and was delighted to find that she had my new sheet music, ordered just hours before. I will give credit to the powers that be and am really glad that I did not spend an extra 25 euro on faster shipping.
Suddenly, I had a new plan for Saturday afternoon, and that was to sightread the new music. The album is called "In a Time Lapse," and is just incredibly melodic. Listening to this composer makes me feel like playing piano, and it is hardly as if I need a lot of encouragement to play already.
So, each day this week, I have found time to sit down and work on playing my new music. Einaudi, in my opinion, is quite a magician. The music he writes sounds so simple (in fact the genre is frequently referred to as minimalist), but playing it is more complicated than it initially sounds. True, I only trained for a certain amount of years with piano, and perhaps my skill level would have been higher had I played in university. However, I do have ability, and quite like the challenge of learning something new, even if it only gets played in the privacy of my own flat.
I continue my physical therapy on my back, but this past week finally got into the gym for a little light training, also, and that has been a nice relief. I went almost 2 months without going in the gym and that was not easy for me.
Meanwhile, it has been hotter than shit in Frankfurt, to the point of almost being unpleasant. I have to pick my words carefully, because I know where I come from, and it can sound a little whiny to complain about the heat. I have a couple of friends who share my distaste for super hot weather (one guy actually has to go stay in a hotel when it gets like it got this past week), and we have stayed in regular communication, hoping that something would break and the temperatures would drop.
That actually happened last evening around 18h45. Finally, a huge, albeit brief, storm came through and basically cooled everything off. I had just gone in the pub when my phone chirped and I saw a message from the (hotel heat) guy saying "yippee the weather is better." I was about to respond via text when I noticed him getting out of his car directly across the street. He grabbed a beer and then we stood outside and did a little rain appreciation dance.
Then, minutes later, the storm passed, and we continued dancing and drinking at the barrel outside the pub.
Like every Friday morning, I woke up looking forward to the weekend, not so much because I have anything really planned, but rather, simply because I won't have to work. Sure, I need to work on that mentality just a bit, and as you might have read in some of the previous posts, I am trying to put some effort into something new.
As I drank my first coffee, I decided to check my expenses for the month and also opened the mail that I brought upstairs last evening when I emptied my postbox. I was a bit surprised to find a reminder notice from Deutsche Bahn; They had not yet received my payment for my annual travel card. I had been sitting here the whole month checking my bank account each day to see when THEY were going to take out the funds. For whatever reason, this time around I received a bill.
No problem. I logged into my account and started making the online payment transaction. With my bank, I receive a text message giving me a little code every time I do a transaction. This keeps things very secure and works really well. That is, as long as your receiving phone is working.
Very few people know my "private" mobile telephone number, because I have not really used it in almost 8 years. However, I do use that number for my banking transactions. The number that most people use to contact me is actually my "work" number, but that's another topic.
I heard the text message alert on my private mobile, but then the device would not respond. It is a really old BlackBerry and it has been several weeks since I have had to make a bank transaction. Apparently the software kind of locked up which is normally not a huge issue; one simply just need to reset or restart the mobile. So, I did this.
Once the phone restarted, I was prompted to enter my pin number, and because I do not really use this phone, I never remember the pin. My problem today was that I could not remember where I had stored the pin information. It has probably been over a year since I last had to reboot the phone, so I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what to do.
I checked the last place I remembered seeing what I thought was my pin, and was happy to find the little scrap of paper showing the pin number. I was not pleased when my phone said "pin fehler" and indicated I now had 2 more tries before the phone would lock me out.
This whole time, my online transaction was sitting there unable to be completed, and I figured in a few minutes that would also time out and log me out of the transaction. So, I went to my "scary drawer" which is the top drawer in a bureau that sits in my living room. Everything from old birthday cards to extra charging cables to random happy meal prizes goes in the drawer and I had remembered that I had hastily shoved a bunch of stuff in there right before my parents arrived to visit two months ago.
Bingo, I found a little proper scrap of rub-off paper that showed my pin. I entered that in my phone, all the while thinking, "I thought that the paper had a little red color on it."
Pin Fehler. Only one more try.
Indeed, I had found one of the pin card things that Telekom had sent me, but it was not the most recent one.
I was starting to get a little antsy because I really really wanted to avoid locking my phone. I have recently decided that I probably don't need the phone any longer but the urgent problem is that, in order to make any kind of change to how I receive my transaction code information my bank I have to give a transaction code. Therefore, if I wanted to change the mobile telephone number with my bank so that they send all future codes to another number, I would have to first obtain a code (via my old number) in order to validate the transaction. So, I was one try away from being in a real pickle.
All while this was happening, I had "In a Time Lapse" playing in the background, and as is pretty regular with me, I had to make my morning trip to the bathroom, which added a few minutes to this whole ordeal. Neat.
I almost broke my rule of only one cigarette per hour (kind of a new rule) but I was at a loss (one might even say lapse) as to how in the hell I suddenly could not find my correct pin number for my private mobile.
I pulled myself together, took another trip through the scary drawer, this time taking things out of the drawer instead of trying to rummage around through the same shit five times. I found two stocking caps, a sharpie that I had been looking for for months, an old watch, two more old BlackBerrys, and then I caught a glimpse of a little piece of paper with some red on it. My PIN!
With a whoosh, I entered the number, saw that it was accepted, then took a quick bathroom break, and finally returned to my laptop, where I logged back into my bank, set up the Bahncard transaction, then received my transaction code on my private mobile, then completed the bank transaction. Task completed.
Only one final thing to do, which was to not put the private pin back in the scary drawer.
And now, it is time for the weekend. See you out there.
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