What a silly expression that is; "Hen night". Nevertheless, I went to one last night. Actually, it started at ten in the morning, right after I'd picked up a couple of parcels from the post office (the film Divorcing Jack, which was very good; the book Watching the English by the anthropologist Kate Fox, more on that later; and the original Broadway cast recording of La Cage aux Folles, which was a very good substitute for the Norwegian never-ever-to-appear-on-any-type-of-(uhmm...legally-made)-recording show) - we met at the bride-to-be's place (which just happens to be the groom-to-be's place as well; probably annoying the hell out of all those "conservative activists" out there - MUCH more on that later) for breakfast, having text messaged with her fiance to check how far she'd got into the waking-up process. Due to the extremely successful organisation by the maid of honour and her sister, we had a great day and evening. We were going to an amusement park (the only one around for hundreds of miles) but the weather gods didn't appreciate that idea, so we went for plan B, which was going bowling. At this point I must make it absolutely clear that in Norway this is a perfectly legit pastime for anyone from any kind of "class". I doubt the King has gone bowling, but I bet his children have at some point. After the bowling we went back to the maid of honour's place. She gave birth to their first child three weeks ago, so the father went along with their very hungry son wherever we went. They both looked very proud and it was a joy watching the whole family. Anyway, I digress. As the evening went on, we gave the bride-to-be lots of tasks (more like questions, really) and weird presents. The customary drinking-till-she-gets-sloshed ritual never occured, because frankly, none of us are particularly fond of that. We just spent the evening talking and laughing a lot and the thirteen hours went past like a dream. It seems that everyone had a really good time.

Something very strange happened, though. As both the maid of honour and bride-to-be live less than five minutes away from me, I popped home to pick up my umbrella and camera before going to the bowling alley. On my way in, I shared the lift with my downstairs neighbour, you know, the guy who's an alcoholic drug addict (I'm sure he's both, you see) and who keeps me up half the night with all his noise if I'm not wearing earplugs. On my way back out, we shared the lift again, and he made an attempt at a smile and struck up a conversation (!!!) He asked if I was the one living upstairs from him and when I had confirmed this, he asked me if he made a lot of noise (!!!) Being a person who hates rowing, I said, rather vaguely, that well, I could hear his TV in the night. "I'll turn it down." (!!!) I said it's usually after eleven I'd like for it to be a bit more quiet, and he said "Sometimes I fall asleep in front of the telly, you see." (Oh, you don't say?!!) Then, to be a bit forthcoming I asked him if he could hear a lot of noise coming from my place. "I don't hear anything coming from your flat. You shouldn't worry about that. I'm deaf in one ear." (!!!) We then talked about this and that all the way to the tube. I couldn't believe my ears. And I'm not even deaf in any of them! (Touch wood, btw.) Now, I'm not going to take anything for granted, but at least it helped to know that he can't usually hear me. That way perhaps I can start walking around like a normal person instead of tip-toeing around in my own flat, like I'm doing now. *snarls*

Current track: Armand van Helden - Gandhi Khan

Labels: film, literature, musicals, online shopping, party, personal