That, And A Burning Back

Yesterday was quite the day. I didn't leave the house once, except for a little bit of grocery shopping, but a lot happened. Let's start at the beginning.

Yesterday morning Pauline was talking to our good friend 'German' over MSN. He told us that the guy who moved to Canada, Steven, is about to get married. In three months he's up for the marital vows and such. Seeing how he is a very, very, very good friend of ours we're happy and sad at the same time. A good friend getting married is quite the big thing, as you might know, but he's getting married in Canada (and therefore becoming Canadian) and most of us are students so we might not make it.

His girlfriend, Ashley, is quite well situated. In other words, mullah is sheer limitless in her family and her aunt comes off as a freelance filanthropist at times. Steven said she might drop a buck or 200 on some tickets so at least some of us can attend.

I'm not very sure whether I should go or not. I spent countless days and nights at his old place in his cramped room amidst the total mayhem he has created there over the years. We were best friends for a very long time. His friendship and advice mean the world to me. Still, the ones who decide to go have to chip in for a few hundred. I could manage if I put aside a lot of money in the coming months, but it would mean saying goodbye all the planned expenses in the coming months. Not only something as trivial as a new game console, but also new contact lenses and a slew of new clothing will have to be put on the backburner. Marriage or no, that seems like a big sacrifice to make for a few days of Canada goodness. On top of that, I've never been in a plane before. I'm quite hesitant to hop on, to be honest...

But well, we will see. Maybe Ashley's aunt suddenly becomes more generous than she already is. But I'm not hoping too hard, to avoid disappointment. I'll just focus on supporting him and his marriage from this side of the pond for now.

That was shock #1. A more literal shock came that afternoon. I was playing some Prince of Persia: T2T and I was stuck on a rather frustrating combat sequence. After going out for a while to do shopping and taking a break from gaming I decided I had to progress, I had been so close before. While trying something strange happened. Suddenly my back started to hurt like someone was sticking knives in it. I tried standing up, sitting down again but nothing seemed to work. Eventually I laid down on the bed and that seemed to work, thankfully.

The funny thing is that I did nothing when this came up all of a sudden. I just sat on the couch. OK, I'm quite the skinny person and I'm rather tall so my back's just asking for trouble, but I had never experienced such a severe pain in my back before. I hope this is not some kind of regular occurence...

But yeah, I was still crippled, figuratively speaking. After sleeping for a bit things slowly started to move again, and now this morning my back only hurts when I'm bending over. At least I can properly stand again.

Yesterday night I was in no such condition. I still had a hard time standing up and sitting in normal sitting positions, so Pauline and I decided to stay home and not go to the pub. We invited 'German' over and he unintentionally caused shock #3.

As we were talking the phone went. It was Frank, after hearing about my back he wanted to come over to check on me. Saying he did demand some coffee he hung up. I wasn't in a totally devastated condition so I stumbled to the kitchen to make some coffee. We don't have a coffee making machine, we still make coffee the old-fahsioned way, with a kettle.

However, the German had been grocery shopping and he had put everything in our fridge for the time being and left the plastic bag he was carrying it in (we get plastic bags at supermarkets here, not paper ones) on the furnace. The furnace I was about to put the kettle on. I did notice the plastic bag but figured it was too far away from the fire to be potentially harmful. Wrong, I tell you. I was dead wrong. I put the kettle on the fire and left the kitchen. A few seconds later in the living room we noticed a burning smell. Pauline went to the kitchen and discovered a complete burning ravage. She quickly put out the fire, in a few seconds the plastic bag had completey burned and lied all molten over the furnace. I knew plastic could melt, but I had never figured it would vanish in a few seconds.

This morning we've been cleaning up the mess. Apart from a few burnt spots there's so serious damage. Thank God. I screwed up majorly....

As a last note I want to say that I got Pauline to pick up Final Fantasy IV Advance for me, as I'll spend most of today and tomorrow lying down as well, I think. Impressions will follow after I've spent some more time with the game, hopefully uninterrupted by marriage plans, breaking backs and burning kitchens.