Blogging instead of working. It's what I do.

So, where to start? Oh yeah, the whole mother/letter thing. Well, I gave up. I realized this upcoming trip to Finland is something I really REALLY want to do, and that telling my mother so close to the departure date would seriously jeopardize it. I guess you could call it weakness. Anyway, I figured telling her right after the trip wouldn't be so different from telling her before, when it comes to the impact it'll have on her. And I'm at least sparing her sleepless nights wondering whether I'm with him and what we are doing. Are you guys disappointed in me? I would totally understand if you were.

It's just that things have been pretty great at home these days. Suitors have not popped up in conversation again, and my mother and I having a good relationship. And I have to say, I'm hugely excited about going to Finland again. My SO and I really need this, and I haven't been there or seen his family in over six months. Also my visit will coincide with Juhannus (midsummer) which is basically the most important celebration in Finland (well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit there.) It's a weekend where everyone goes to their summer cottage with friends or family and spend the time drinking, grilling meat and swimming (and possibly dying in fires or drowning) and just having a good time. I've been to Finland during midsummer 2011 (that one visit during which we got engaged) but since I hadn't met any of his friends yet (with the exception of a former roommate whom he was living with the first couple of times I visited) and we weren't too comfortable with imposing my presence on people who didn't know me, we skipped it and stayed in Espoo instead. It was an interesting experience in that the whole capital area was almost deserted, but for tourists and some locals. We just walked around and saw places and ate and stayed home and it was great. But I kind of feel bad for making him miss it, because he really loves Juhannus. Anyway, this year we're married, so I guess it's a bit different, and I have met (and got on great) with a few of his friends, and the rest are apparently looking forward to meeting me, and most importantly, they decided to stay in my in-laws' house this time! Which is a relief because it's a proper house with running water, a great kitchen and two bathrooms I mean summer cottages tend not to have running water, and they have outhouses. I know my SO's family's cottage does. So if we stay at their regular house at least I know I'll be comfortable. My SO is a bit nervous, I guess, since he feels he has the responsibility to keep people in line (his friends tend to be a bit wild when under the influence) but I'm sure it's going to be fine. There's no lake or river around, but there are a couple of sandpits within reasonable driving distance from the house so we'll be able to swim.

As I said in the other thread a few days ago, I was having trouble with the Air France website because I wanted to change my flights date. Back in March when I booked the ticket, I picked June 16th and AF had recently added an earlier flight to their schedule which leaves Algiers at 7:00 and makes it to Helsinki at 16:15 (which is fantastic, considering that to this day the earliest I could get there is 19:15, and that felt like a wasted day) so I picked that too. Then I realized it was a bad idea because I have a wedding to attend on the night of the 15th, and such things usually end around 2 or 3 am, and if I want to be at the airport in time for my flight we'd have to leave home around 4:30. I don't mind a sleepless night if it means gaining a whole day, but I'm not sure what my father would think of it, since he'll be doing the driving. Anyway, I tried to change the flight for June 17th, and the only available ticket was for the 10:20 flight, which arrives at 19:15. It was already an expensive change, and the prices kept going up (last I checked it was 180 euros) and I never managed because their online payment part of the website kept crashing. So I decided to keep the ticket as it is, and not worry about it too much. Thing is, this wedding I'm attending is that of the son of the woman who tried to set me up with that guy I talked about. I really really really don't want to go anymore, but I kinda promised my mother I would (my older sister was invited but she's not going, and I guess my mother wants to have at least one daughter with her to keep her company, even though her friends will be there). I can't tell her about the trip yet (I usually tell her about two weeks before I leave, since these are supposed to be business trips) but when I do I'll have to make it seem like I had no choice but to take such an early flight, on that very day.

Anyway, more about that later. I got some really good news yesterday, though it's not at all about me this time. A little back-story: I work for a car rental company. Well, technically it's a leasing company, except the client doesn't get the car in the end, we take it back. We're part of this big international group and have mostly multinational companies for client. Given our activity, we work A LOT with car manufacturers such as Renault, Nissan, etc. Also, we have a car delivery department that takes care of ordering new cars for our clients, registering them, delivering them, etc. My best friend at work (whom I actually know since uni, let's call her S) is head of that department, and she has drivers who take care of moving those cars out of the manufacturer's to the clients. Anyway, back in Sept 2011, we had ordered a car (a nice model, pretty expensive) for one of our clients, and then the client cancelled (because their employee who was supposed to drive it died, so it was already ill-fated) so we sent Renault a document cancelling the order and everything seemed fined. Until, several months later, we got mail from Renault asking us to pay for that car because they had delivered it to us. They never did, but somehow they had documents that proved that we did get the car. One of the drivers (let's call him A) was quite busy with moving Renault cars the day of the delivery (we got several cars out that day, for other clients) and I guess he was a bit careless with the stamp he uses on official car documents (invoice, delivery certificate, etc.) so it's safe to say the stamp was used fraudulently by people from Renault, who stole the car and probably sold it as spare parts. We found out later that this wasn't even the first time such a thing happened for them. But anyway, since we couldn't pay for the car, they pressed charges for theft (not directly against our company) and the police got involved. It was a very long and painful process, and in the end, S and A were charged with theft and conspiracy. Anyone who knows them would laugh at it. They are some of the sweetest people I know, and both have very young children (babies, actually) so you'd think they don't really fit the profile of car thieves. They had to do depositions with the police and go before a judge and it was so horribly scary because the danger of them ending up in jail was very real (and S's baby son got severely burned with boiling water earlier this year, so you can't imagine the levels of stress she went through. Luckily he's quite recovered now) Eventually S was cleared of the charges so only A remained.

Well, yesterday the judge acquitted him. Greatest news I've heard in a long while! Everyone was so happy here. And then he told me that he was going to tell his wife all about it that night! For eight months, he never said a word about the possibility of him going to jail for two years! That's just crazy. I'm not sure if he's very brave (he wanted to spare her the worry, after all, since she's raising two very young girls, and it must have been terrible for him not being able to confide in her) or very stupid because if the outcome had been different she would have had a huge shock. But I guess it all worked out in the end!

Ok, that must have been pretty boring for you. Sorry about that :P