So we’re thinking about going to Pukkelpop or Werchter next year instead. I guess we’re just suckers for the Belgian festivals or something.  Werchter will be edgy though, because that’s only a couple of days after Graspop, and while the hardcoreyness of the expedition appeals to me in some way, I also wonder if I’m up for it. Time will tell I suppose… we’ll just have to wait for the lineups next year.

Meanwhile I’m very glad that the Lowlands people got good weather this weekend, despite very doomy predictions earlier this week!

Also for ourselves. Olli and I had a good weekend just at the house with the two of us. Some quality lazy together-time that the both of us really needed… it’s strange how you can live in the same house without seeing much of each other sometimes. But we had good times. During Olli’s time at the jam studio I went to the hairdresser to get my hair cut and re-dyed (I was sporting Shakira-like roots that were showing, rather uncool). And while the cut turned out great, the re-dyeing of my roots didn’t go so well. So in the morning I had to go back and they highlighted the whole thing. I’m somewhat blonder than I was (seriously, I haven’t been this light-haired in YEARS!), but it looks rather cool. Also, I’ve been watching a lot of Eureka. I’m halfway season 3 now, and very much in love with the silly lightness of the show. It’s not pretending to be high art, but the characters are genuinely sympathetic and there’s enough fun in the series that you want to keep watching to see what happens now.

Olli and I went to the dog park with Bodhi as well, and this time he was off the leash the whole time. And it went great!! I’m so proud!! He did have a tendency to run ahead, but he would always wait up for us when we called out to him – or when we were out of view, he would search for us. Even when there would be other dogs involved that he wanted to play with. He’s focused on us enough to be able to go places with him without him on the leash now – things like the dog park and the beach. Walking next to roads is a big no no; if he sees something on the other side of the road, he’ll be gone before you know him and we’d never forgive ourselves if he’d be hit by a car.  So we’re really proud of Bodhi, he’s doing so well at the moment.

We’re also able to leave him alone to go get groceries now, or to go to Feedback to check out new amps or something. Which is also something we did on Saturday. Of course then I had to fall in love with a pearly white Ibanez bass guitar with the most slender neck that I’ve ever seen… *sighs* I’ll be going to my bass guitar lessons weekly now, so if I do feel like I’m doing well enough, I’ll buy that bloody thing. It’s soooo gorgeous. Maybe to celebrate, when I can play “21 Guns” by heart, or something.

Oh, and as for what we did today? Olli downloaded Warehouse 13 this weekend. We just finished Season 1. Speaking of which, I think he wants to watch more episodes before bedtime. So I’ll be off. Later

On Fridaynight Lie and I tagged along to the jamstudio with the boys, only to find that Kat had also joined us. So we watched the boys perform together like the true fangirls that we are (I don’t think the boys ever had this many spectators in a jamsession) and when it got too loud we went to the bar part of the studios and had drinks together. Booze and talks and laughs. We had a great time, and it was a good evening.

It went by way too fast for my liking anyway. Now that Derek is leaving to the UK in a couple of months I guess I’m just trying to cherish the moments when we’re with the boys, because the dynamics will undoubtedly change when he’s gone. He’s always been one of the constants of the group, someone who’s always been there ever since we kind of all decided that we’re all awesome way back in 2000, and even though he’s supposed to visit often and the UK is not that far, things will definitely change. Not how we feel about each other, because when he’s back we’ll undoubtedly pick up where we left off, but still… I’ll miss him. The only constant is change, I suppose. Gloomy thoughts aside, we had a great time.

On Saturday the weather was gorgeous, so Olli and I spent it buying a parasol (finally!) and working in the garden. I slept a bit in the sun as well, and gained a tiny fraction of my lost tan back (yay!). We BBQ’ed in the evening, had a couple of drinks, and then crashed on the couch to watch more of season two of Eureka. Sundaymorning we took Bodhi to the Dobbeplas, which is a bit of a park with a pond where dogs are allowed to run free. Bodhi had a blast. We let  him run free, without being on the leash, and it all went perfectly. He is actually listening when we call out to him, unless he finds something more important (like other dogs to play with). But we can catch him easily when we want, and he’s perfectly okay with being around us. In an environment like the park area he’s able to play with other dogs as much as he likes and run around and whatever, so that’s great. I was kind of shocked though how many people there have dogs like Bodhi – adopted from countries like Greece and Spain and Bulgaria. The people there immediately guessed that he was foreign because he’s shy around people on the first meeting… seems like he’s a lot better off than the dogs that are walking around there, some are completely traumatized from what they’ve been through. Bodhi has been so bloody lucky.

When we got back from the park it was noon, and I went to fitness (!).

I’ve been horrible about going to the gym ever since we came back from vacation in Italy. As in… I’ve gone once a month, if at all. And with pleasant pasttimes like boozing and BBQ my weight was doing things that made me very unhappy, so this week I told myself to get off my lazy ass and I went to fitness on Thursday and today, on Sunday. It was… brutal. I had to set back some weights and settings and the readings that we did during evaluation showed me that I lost about half the progress in bodyfat loss and lung capacity that I gained in the first months when I started my fitness routine.

Bad, bad Lannie!!

So now it was back to the fold, and holy crap I’m already hurting. Since the pain usually hits after 24 hours I really don’t want to think about the state I’ll be in around tomorrow evening. Yet still; it’s all for the good cause, right? Here’s to being slimmer and muscled… it’s going to be worth it!

Instead of regular birthday presents, Olli and I decided that we already got a big present this year in the form of our puppy Bodhi. Bodhi was rescued off the streets of Bulgaria by the Rudozem Street Dog Rescue team when he was a puppy of roughly six weeks old. They took care of him, raised him, cuddled him, fed him (and a lot of his friends) and put him up for adoption to a loving home here in the Netherlands. They have done so for Bodhi, but also dozens of other puppies and dogs that are abused and left to die every single day.

The thought that Bodhi might have brothers or sisters out there on the streets breaks my heart, and I hope that the awesome people in RSDR will keep up their great work.

They need money and donations much more than we need our presents, so we hope that you’ll help us support them in their cause.

If you would like to give us a present, you can go HERE!

Thank you so much!!

We dropped him off at the dog pension this morning because we’re going to Graspop tomorrow afternoon. It was a complete bitch to leave him there, because he was really scared and refused to go inside. Thankfully the people there were really nice. I hope he likes his bench mate, but knowing Bodhi he’ll probably have a blast. Now all I have to do is resist the urge to call every day to ask how he’s doing. :’)

In other news… I had a training day at my new job at C, and I already found some things that I know I’ll do well on. I get along well with my direct colleague P so far (she reminds me of my mom, heh) and for the rest the company seems really fun and the people are young & sociable. And the commute is doable, 40 minutes from door to door. So far so good!

Tomorrow it’s 24 June, which means that Olli and I will be married for five years. We wanted to plan to do things, but with us leaving for Graspop and having to pack and clean and everything we thought we’d just take it easy tonight and have some fun together. We’ll do the official things like planting our tree and going to dinner later. There’s other things to do first, like rocking out and throwing the horns during great gigs and stuff. I can live with that as well.

Just a couple of reasons why it is so awesome to have a puppy in the house: walking into the livingroom, where Bodhi is snoozing on the couch. He looks up, sees & recognizes you, and wags his tail. Just because he’s happy to see you.

Or the way he curls up when he sleeps, like on the picture on the right. We call it Puppy Calzone

<3

- I went to bass guitar practice and worked on my borked technique (I let go of my strings too quickly, it seems).
- I lazed in the sun with a book and got my first bit of tan while Bodhi was running up and down the garden. It’s great to look somewhat healthy again. Yay! I don’t look like I’m a week dead anymore!
- I went to the vet with Bodhi, and it all went flawlessly. He got his shots and is in perfect health. He’s growing well and is bound to gain quite a few more kilos although he seems to have pretty much reached his full height.
- I played Final Fantasy 13 and fought my way through the Fifth Ark (damn that took long), whooped Cid Raines’ ass (while feeling the dude had a point, I felt sorry for him. also, he wasn’t all that hard of a battle for me – I did well enough, took me three times to beat him) and then proceeded to get my ass handed to me by two Eidolons in battles after one another (screw you Bahamut, screw you Alexander). But then the kicker came when I entered the great planes of Gran Pulse and Olli dared me to go and attack the incredibly huge monster (think the eliphaunts in LOTR) that was stomping around there and minding its own business. I poked him with my sword a little so the battle would commence, and then the beast took one step…. and killed me unceremoniously with over 10,000 damage. It was frigging HILARIOUS!
- I cleaned the bathroom (always an adventure )
- And Olli and I jammed together tonight, and now the tendons in my lower arms (not to mention my poor callused fingers) are telling me how much they hate me.

Wasn’t that exciting?

Next up: The Great Laundry Offensive!
But that’ll be tomorrow.

STUPID LANNIE! I keep forgetting how awesome it is to play bass. While I am still able to play “Resolve” by the Foo Fighters (and make it sound cool), my technique completely went to shit. So I’ve scheduled in some more lessons to work on that, and I need to practice. Feel free to tell me to go practice, oh awesome people of the internet. I will appreciate it.

In other news: it’s Easter Weekend, and that means that a bunch of us is going to hang out in Gent and drink Belgian beer. I am muchly looking forward to that. Bodhi is with the inlaws, and doesn’t seem to miss us much because he’s BFF with their dog Luna. So nothing to worry about, we’re just going to have fun

It really sucks because it was going SO well, and now we just have to be so careful with him. The gate at the top of the stairs looks like a hoard of beavers dropped by, and he destroyed two plants yesterday (including pots, by the way. which he’d dragged into his bench). He also freaks out completely; he was hyper for hours when Olli came home after three hours of leaving him alone. I took him on a very extended walk yesterday and let him play with all of the other dogs we came across. When we were home, he was exhausted. There’s some training that you can do with him to teach him how to be home alone, but it’s going to take some time. Subconsequently we can’t leave him home alone for now, and that means I can’t go with Ol to the jam session tonight.

On the bright side though, I do have Final Fantasy 13 now, so I think I’m just going to play the snot out of it. We booted up the game last night before I went to fitness, and it was already very tempting indeed to just skip out on fitness and just… play. However, I was strong. I went to fitness. And tonight is going to be gamenight.

Bodhi was doing so well with being left alone as well; I was so proud of him. But of course just as I was telling a colleague about how awesome our puppy was doing (especially last weekend, when we had the girls & IJdo for company when tabletopping) Olli gave me a call and told me that during our absence Bodhi had broken through the gate at the top of the stairs and had been dragging all of Olli’s shoes through the house upstairs where he played with them.

Not my shoes, just Olli’s. It’s hilarious because he didn’t damage the shoes at all, he just cuddled with them. I think he just missed Olli immensely.

He hangs onto Ol more than me anyway, which was to be expected. Bodhi likes me, he’s affectionate enough when I come home, but he likes Olli better.

And it turns out he isn’t very happy to be left alone yet. So we’ll have to put some more time in teaching Bodhi that it’s okay to be alone once in a while, unfortunately. But that’s what happens when you get a puppy, it’s ok.