Some days …
Late last night, we launched the new website we’ve been making, for the bank I work for. We’ve been working on it rather long and rather hard, especially in this last stretch, and we’re damned proud of it, and it looks great, and it’s accessible to the blind and visually impaired, and it’s finally live. We celebrated with beers at a pub (whiskey for me; beer is from the devil) and then straight to bed, beat.
This morning, all kinds of people congratulating us on the new web. Even the hard-to-please graphics artists and web-designer types raving about it in online forums. Relief, minor tweaks and fixes, bliss, relaxation, laughs. Wine-and-cheese baskets delivered to our office. Lunch with the rest of the IT department at the patio outside their offices. Fresh pineapple and melon in the blazing sun; one of the warmest, sunniest days ever recorded in Iceland. (So were the previous several days, but we mostly missed them)
And then my phone rings: my piano has arrived. I’ve been waiting for it all summer. Got it delivered this afternoon. Beautiful tone, beautiful touch. I’ve never fallen as quickly as this; I love it dearly. My neighbors less so, I’m sure. But it has silencing equipment: flip one lever and the hammers don’t hit the strings so there’s no sound other than you tapping the keys — except of course from the headphones. So I get to play it all night if I want.
Dinner on the sidewalk outside a café in the evening sun with family; “supernachos”, sandwich assortment, white wine, pecan pie. My nephew being his cute two-year-old self and enthusing about nearby cars and motorbikes. A huge gob of bird shit sploshed all over the guy on the next table … not me! Centertown astrew with skirt-clad women who are all kinds of beautiful. Harley Davidson folks out in force; when you wait to cross the street, they are the ones who stop for you.
Got back home. Played Albeniz and Bach/Busoni and Shostakovich for as long as my energy lasted. Went out and bought oatmeal. Got back and played some more.
Dayaaamn, this was a good day. If my body would let me get away with it, I’d stay up and make it a double.