  avignon was lovely . four days of laziness and poolside bronzette punctuated by three-hour long meals, apricots falling from trees and refills of roswith evenings dedicated to parties in mansions perched on mountaintops and never-ending aps in town. all but mattias from stal were in avignon, so familiar faces abounded. simon and leila dropped by on monday: we celebrated with a barbecue. went to urlLink sixpack , did a little t-shirt gift exchange with julien ( urlLink this for him). the urlLink guy that owns the store used to graf with julien back in the day, they were even going to do some t-shirts together but never did. julien's parents were cool, very chilled out and like to eat, which suited me fine. his grandparents were hip too, i especially liked his grandfather.
we had lunch with them twice. the second time i came out of it a little frazzled, a bit choked up. they reminded me too much of my own grandparents, who are not doing well at all right now. so today is my mother's birthday. i rang her this morning, she was at the hospital with my grandmother. my grandmother sounds good, but she's not yet deemed well enough to get out of bed. i also spoke to my grandfather, who was at home. he left the house for a fifteen minute walk today!
diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, prostate problems...they are getting old. i am having trouble fully realising this simple fact. also just finished the russian debutante's handbook . it was loads of fun. i am slowly making my way through the pending pile. i am very much enjoying being a ble to read without feeling guilty. 
