Meeting new people

It's always nice to meet new people. Especially if they turn out to be fun and smart and pleasant. I met several this weekend.

First of all, I get to add yet another name to my list of famous people I've talked with. (Not that I actually keep, say, a written list, but it is nice to be able to say that I've had lunch with Neil Gaiman...) Mr. Alastair Reynolds was, as I already mentioned, visiting the Turku Book Fair. A very nice chap. I got my book signed at the fair and so on, but the best part was that he was nice enough to come to a local pub to sit down and chat with a bunch of us Turku sf-fans.

I was so totally tired after a three-hour dance workshop I had in the evening that I almost didn't go to the meeting at all. I thought it'd be just the same old faces I see all the time anyway. :) Well, luckily Tero had sent me a message and told me that Reynolds might be visiting, too, so I decided I'd go no matter how tired I was. Besides, the thought of cold apple cider began to nest in my head. And it nested well, too - boy, the cider tasted good when I finally got to it!

The result of the evening - some promised materials for next year's Spins (whee!) and interesting discussions about the nature of history and writing and what have you. It was indeed nice to meet this fellow.

Second new person I met was the teacher of the dance workshop our dance group organized this weekend. She is one of the best oriental dancers in Finland, a very liked teacher, an extremely skilled choreographer and simply a nice person in general.

I hadn't been on her courses before, so I had been waiting for this workshop for quite a while. We were going to learn a dance with a veil and zills. Wow. It was a multi-piece song with some balady, a short drum solo and a separate finale. Not an easy dance to learn in 6 hours. But we did it anyhow. Even I was able to remember almost everything, which in itself is a small miracle. My brain doesn't deal with remembering choreographies too well... All this, of course, tells me something about the teaching skills of Sirke. So, as a result of this meeting I have a whole lot of sore muscles and a beautiful choreography I can use. (Now I only have to get a new dress I can wear!)

The third new person I met was one of the newest people I've ever met in my adult life. I went to see the baby Ville in the hospital today. Ville is Tomi and Hanne's firstborn, who had, in fact, been born at the time I wrote my previous post. So he was a two-day-old today. I probably haven't held anyone so young since I was four myself. That was when my little brother was born and I'm sure mom&dad let the big sister hold the baby for a while. Sure, there have been quite a few babies around lately, as my friends have begun to procreate, but I haven't been able to visit them in the hospital.

Ville was such a tiny and cute little thing. Slept (like a baby, duh...) through the whole ordeal of everybody taking pictures of him all the time and only wrinkled his brow a little when passed around to everyone who wanted to hold him for a while. Hanne had a happy smile on her face, although she said she's still a bit tired from everything. No wonder, I suppose. Tomi looked just as happy as he was photographing his son. They'll be such good parents, I'm sure of it.

And to add to the list yet another new person I met this weekend, I also have to mention that I met Venja today. She's Shimo and Petra's second daughter and she was also very cute and sleepy when she came to visit Hanne and Ville with her parents and big sister, Iria. And I got to hold her, too. Aww.

So what was the result of meeting the two babies today? Well. I'm not exactly having any more motherly thoughts than before, that's for sure. I simply can't imagine being a mom, which doesn't mean I don't want to have children one day, because I do. I suppose it's just that the "opportune moment" hasn't exactly arrived yet. One of the reasons clearly being the fact that I'm single... :)

I guess what seeing all these happy parents with their kids really does to me is to make me think about how difficult it actually is to achieve that much in life. First you have to find a person to share your life with (and darn it, there aren't that many good candidates around! *mutters*) and when you find that someone, it still doesn't mean that the family bliss will begin 9 months after the wedding day. So I hope all my friends who have a happy marriage and healthy children know just how lucky they are. I can't say I consider myself any less lucky at this point of my life, the feeling of happiness just comes from different things. Which is fine with me. And as my grandma says, I still have time. Or as my other grandma says, it's a shame I'm alone. :)

In any case, I'm very happy for Tomi and Hanne. Ville is going to be a fine man one day, I'm sure.