Last weekend, I have been mostly upgrading. My computer. Better said, its operating system. From Windows ME to Windows XP. Home Edition.
It's amazing how much time goes into such an upgrade. First the preparations: backing up the "important stuff", writing down what "precious thingie" programs will be lost, taking note of possible problems. Then the installation itself, which, blissfully, went pretty smooth. And finally reinstalling all the familiar little applications that make our (my) life oh so much easier. In the midst of the brand new environment.
It is a bit comparable to moving into a new house or apartment. There is the newness, the excitement, the bewilderment also. But in the midst of all that, during the first hours in the new place, there is the comforting presence of your 'old things', mostly still wrapped in boxes, but they are there. They made the journey with you.
All right, enough about that. I like XP so far. Which is nice. I hope it will grow to like me too.
I think it is the lack of sun that makes my brain foggy. Half of July passed, and no sign yet of true summer. Hooray.
Walking onions Could someone please remind the WeatherMan up there of the location of Belgium? It seems that He is passing us by this year, summerwise...
Today I watched (on video) the football match between England and Brazil. Of 1970 that is. In Mexico. England lost by 1-0. Host country at that time was Mexico. It was scorchingly hot then. Nostalgia broke out with me like sweat. Don't get me wrong. At the moment the match was played I was barely 4 years old. But somehow, somewhere, distant memories creeped up. I will never be the type to say "ahh those were the days". Those were NOT the days. Today is the day! Gary Lineker from the BBC (where the match was broadcast some days before the World Cup 2002 match between the two countries) called it "the best match in a world cup ever" (or something like that). I don't know about that. But it was fun watching an event of 32 years ago. The stars of then are now older men or have died. The stars of today will soon be older men or dead. On the football shirts hardly anything of print. The back number and that's it. No ads, no player's names. A surprisingly vivid camera. And even, scarce but still, some exciting phases rerun in slow motion.
The game seemed slow to me, might have been the heat. 1970. Bobby Moore and Pele.
On the side ad panels, one for a "cassette tape recorder". Hair styles that today would give cause to mockery (or maybe not, considering everything is coming back). Everything is coming back.
Something else I saw on TV today: an episode in a documentary series on our national channel, called "Grenzeloze liefde" (love without borders). Flemish people who fell in love with somebody from abroad and moved over there to start a new life. The most recent episode was about a woman who fell in love with an Argentinian guy and who went to live with him in Patagonia. It was sweet. It was tough but it looked sweet. The first couple also in this series that was not well off moneywise. They just made it to the end of every month. Or how, when material things fall away, one might discover again the things that really matter. (By accident I learned through an Internet page that the couple in the end got divorced, but let that not spoil the mood).
Finally, someone very dear to me compares us, human beings, to walking onions. I hear you say "huh?". Just like onions have many layers, so do we. Some of us will walk for ever, carrying layers that are barely touched. With others, layer after layer will get peeled off, through choice or because of circumstance. Only when the onion is "peeled", the true nature is exposed. The peeling might be liberating, it might be painful. Just now, I found out through a quick Google search that there actually is something like walking onions or Egyptian onions. The vegetable, that is. Now you did not really expect a link to that, did you?
