{micro maique}

Back in the city, and slowly back to work. Busy week, in the end. Most of the items on this week’s report would need a bit more text. I could not find the time, and mindset, to do it.

• ✏️ movieStar went back to school, this time for real, no more breaks planned at the moment. She is starting swimming classes as well. She loves school, and the teachers love her back. Her colleagues are nice, smart, and she goes in every day full of confidence. I think she has awesome self-esteem. And super polite so far. Love her more every day. I’m well aware this is what most parents say about their children, but it’s impressive how much I love this girl.

• 📷 Almost as soon as we got back, I had work to do. A couple emails from the agency I work with/for, and a few more portraits were scheduled. Good, money coming in. One this week, a few on the next one, and another lifestyle shoot for a brunch place. Busy month, all things considered.

• 🦄 tinyMovieStar’s godmother flew into town, on a quick two day visit. She was attending a show opening, and a quick Rosh Hashanah celebration. I do wish she’d move back to the city, to the country, but it’s hard to compete with London. She would like it as well, I believe.

• 😪 Attended an homage for a colleague from the newspaper who, very sadly, passed away a couple of years ago. Met a few colleagues from the old newspaper days, people who have retired in the meantime. It was another fun moment of the week, and the photography exhibits on the venue were also cool. Most of them.

• 👰🏻🤵🏻 Saturday was wedding day. movieStar’s best friend got married. It was raining when we woke up, but things got much better after a while, despite the downpour forecast on all apps. Go figure. We had a wonderful time, as we’re friends with most people who were attending. Lovely day for our dear friends. Relaxed It was a long one, though, that ended with a dinner at a cousin’s place, complete with both of my brothers-in-law.

• 📺 Finished the Telemarketers thing. Started Spy Ops, Extraordinary Attorney Woo (thanks, @Miraz and @pratik), and one more episode of D.P. as well. It was a slow TV week.

• 🍿 STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie. Liked it.

• ⭐️ This week’s entries to the September 2023 Photoblogging Challenge were a mix of old and new. That’s the only way I’ve been able to keep up. Days 13, 14, 15. Miserably failed days 16 and 17, while having fun at the wedding, and crashing a bit on the day after. Will I be able to get back on track?

• 🛒 Finally added some items to my Vinted account, after making my first purchase. Call me surprised, but I also sold my first item on that first day. Adding more stuff, obviously. The feeling here is a lot more relaxed than on other apps we have available, people seem more polite too.

• 🎂 Birthday celebrations extended into Saturday. At my parents (late lunch due to work), and then at my in-laws (late due to late lunch at my parents). It was good, happy, and then I had to rush back to the city, leaving the movieStars behind. I needed to get to bed very early, waking up the following morning at 5:30AM.

• 🥇 Sunday was the last day of my assignment for the week, with the main event taking place. I was shooting some photos for one of the main sponsors of the Lisbon Half Marathon, and Sunday finally took us to the finish line. Sports are not my favorite subject, but this one has a particularly sweet cherry on top of a rather bland cake: we get to cross the 25th of April bridge, with no traffic. It’s one of the main reasons for people to take part, as it’s the one day of the year that cars are not allowed in there. 30000 took part. Epic, as expected. But I do have to say that hanging on for dear life on top of a roofless double-decker bus, on a bridge as tall as they come,… not too nice.

• 👨🏻‍🔧 Monday was Drop the Car off at the Mechanic Day, for the yearly check, and inspection. If everything goes according to plan, I drop it off, the mechanic does his thing, tells me everything is fine, the old car is ready for another year, and takes it to the inspection, saving me the trouble of doing it myself. I then get to drive around in my father’s car for a couple of days. It’s nice for a change, and tinyMovieStar is also happy to see the “Holiday Car” again. On Thursday the car was picked up, having gone through the usual maintenance routine (oil change, new brake pads,…) and the yearly inspection. Dad paid for it, too, as a late birthday gift. Very much appreciated. We’re ready for another year, as long as gas prices don’t spoil it even further.

• 📷 Micro.blog Photo Challenge is in its third week, and it’s been a great one so far. Photos for days 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 have been posted.

• 📺 Schitt’s Creek (yes, again) has turned out to be a huge surprise for me. I’m loving the show, and this week’s episodes were sweet. Cried a couple of times! Talking about surprises, F1: Drive to Survive still keeps us entertained, even though both of us couldn’t care less about F1. And we’re saving Ted Lasso for later, when we can binge it.

• 🍿 No book reading this week, but looking forward to Jake Adelstein’s new book, Tokyo Detective. Comes out on the 29th. Can’t find any info on the English version, hopefully this is not a French-only edition… I remember him talking about how easy it was to publish in France vs. the US.

• 🎙 Unexpectedly I listened to a couple of episodes of Danger Close with Jack Carr. I’m blaming Jake Adelstein, as he was a guest on the show. And always looking for the next episode of Dynamite Doug. It’s a great show.

• 💖 One of our friends had a late birthday present for me, and we met for the delivery. She thought about turning it into a 2-in-1 situation and, since she’s one of tinyMovieStar’s favorite people in the world, she joined us when we picked her up from kindergarten. We then moved to the playground, and the ice-cream shop, and then we needed to get some play-doh, and some snacks, and then home to play, and bath time, and dinner. She left at 10PM, tinyMovieStar wouldn’t let her go, but we all needed to sleep. She cried her heart out, and only relented when D told her that she would be in her dreams, and maybe she could do the same? The little one understands love. That’s her favorite thing. First thing she said when she woke up the following morning? “I wonder if I was on D’s dreams”

• 📱 some.pics (have I talked about this one before?) is a cool new service that was added to the omg.lol empire and, no surprises there, it’s sweet. You get your own domain for the photos you share, with a cool looking page (mine here). On top of that you can use those photos on your weblog.lol blog. Nice. The upload is mostly done on the website, but Gabz asked for a shortcut to do it. Gabz gets what Gabz asks for, so I rolled up my sleeves, and did it. The shortcut is not the nicest one, but it gets the work done. If you’re part of the omg.lol family and want to give it a try, feel free to get it here. Instructions and such available on discourse.lol (yeah, that’s also a thing, we now have a Discourse server too).

• 👰🏻 On Friday we celebrated the second date of our wedding, the religious one. Since I’m posting this very early in the day, I’m still unaware of what we did to mark the date. I can, however, tell you (again) that I feel I’m the luckiest man alive.