Oh snap, you guys. Best. day. ever! When I was looking for a pair of flipflops early this morning to wear for the day (the barefoot thing isn’t really acceptable in, say, Ikea or the post office), I only found a pair of simple black ones. Bought for a couple of bucks at Old Navy and worn in Kentucky until the puppies chewed them up, they really are my favorite pair. Yeah, they don’t look nice anymore but they’re the only ones I have here: everything else dozes safely in my closet at the Maastricht apartment. So. As I was going through my old closet here at my parents’, I also found this bag:

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Yes, it does read Pretty & Chic across the front but if I turned away from all things cheesy-English-on-German-products, I’d have nothing left to choose from. I don’t think I’ve ever used this bag before but I was surprised to come across it, and decided to take this with me for our day of hauling more trash from my granny’s house to the dump which, in case you care to know as much, stinks to high heavens in this friggin’ heat. Anyhoo. I took the bag – my camera, my current read, my MP3-player, my hairbrush inside, took the flipflops, and headed downstairs to get ready to leave.

Suddenly, though, I realized there was something in the little backside pouch of the bag! Yes yes yes, THE PLOT THICKENS. And, I swear, this next thing happened in slow motion! LIKE IN THE MOVIES. I reached inside, felt around, and -

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ZOMG!!! It’s my iPod nano! My long lost lover, my beautiful, beautiful lover! I don’t handle these things with grace or reservation or even any type of rational reaction: I’m not gonna lie to ya, I screamed. The goodbyes I had said two years ago! The peace I had made with myself! The grief over having lost my own beautiful little piece of the Apple cake (see what I did there?) on the beach, that summer of 2007. The anger over not having been more careful. The exhaustion of having searched for it everywhere; the car, my friend’s car, the most bags, pockets of jeans and sweaters – for days. The discomfort and dissatisfaction of having have had to return to some random MP3-player. All that lay in the endless symphony of ridiculous profanities I happily screamed in my father’s face. He was equally surprised at my find, and, seriously, we were this close to dancing and singing hallelujah.

Luckily, because I’m lazy and can’t throw things out, I still had the iPod docking station in my room, and that wonderful, wonderful iPod is now charging. Yes, it still works! It’s sitting right here next to me. Heh. It’s, you know, old. It’s scratched horribly on its back, and the touch navigation thingy is already a tiny bit gray-ish/off-white. And let’s face it, these first iPod nanos weren’t all that great, especially their battery sucked majorly! It barely ever lasted three hours, if I remember correctly. But otherwise! Otherwise, it is: so small, so thin, so shiny white, the only iPod nano – I think the first version of the nano series that was released after the iPod minis – I ever actually liked, the only Apple product I ever owned, my only big purchase overseas (yes, this, too, was bought in Kentucky), MY GORGEOUS SLIVER OF MATERIAL LUXURY.

And! There’s 421 songs on it that I can’t wait to check out because, you know how after two years you don’t even know what kind of music was awesome back then? How, even after a month, your playlists might have completely changed? Oh, I cannot wait to listen to the music on this thing!

You know, my grandmother’s move is still not over, and it’s tiresome and boring and lots of work, and my mom apparently suddenly has some serious issues with her eyes, and today was in fact the first day of my father being officially jobless which means that he is feeling kind of down, and also he is pretty sure he’s lost his wallet which has EVERYTHING in it but if you’re guessing that I am milking today for all the happiness I can, you would be right, and if you’re wondering how life is going for me, personally, here is your answer: ‘s wonderful, ‘s marvelous. Oh happy day, oh happy day.

PS – My dad found his wallet in my grandmother’s car that he had actually taken to the dealer yesterday evening to be scrapped. He went back in hope to catch it before Total Destruction. Turns out, a salesman had already found it and put it aside. He hadn’t, however, bothered to call or anything which – how goes that lovely saying? YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID? But so I guess, at least partially, it’s my dad’s lucky day, too.

PPS – There’s no way it’s July already. Nuh-uh. We’ve been having 31°C/92F weather for days now. Which does seem like a sign of July. HOLY CRAP.