*sigh*
I could get used to this.
Wandering into work to find flowers on my desk.
Strange things twist and lie uncomfortably in my mind in Paris. I am not as I was. But perhaps, beneath this mane of hair, I am greater than before.
The presentation of these flowers was especially cruel, a great, white, PC-sized box with my name printed austerely on the delivery label. I briefly wondered why they were delivering the test machine that I'd ordered three months ago on my last day. Right up until I pushed it to the side and glimpsed the faint-green scripting from "au nom de la rose" across one bleached cardboard side.
Brimming with strangely curled tea roses and a book about the fairytales and gyspsy rumours of the wild roses that explode in chaotic swrils in the jardins de Rodin (and nearly make up for the plastic-surgery look of a bouquet of a dozen reds in any cheap valentine's shop which has so long led me to rile against rose bouquets in general), I had to dig to unearth the meticulously scripted card on tea-stained paper:
"Ch�re Gila,
Toute l'Equipe de K______ se joint � moi pour te remercier pour la qualit� de ton travail ainsi que la bonne humeur que tu apportais dans notre Equipe. Nous te souhaitons le meilleur pour le futur.
Bien � toi,
BigbossguyWho'sDaddyBoughtHimTheCompany"
Looks like we're going shopping at lunch for wine bottles and Kir and petits-fours for that afternoon "pot" after all.
And it's good to know that a weak australian beer and smooth-as-anything single-malt (18 year old Glenlivett) chaser (yes, I even get my drinks backwards) still leaves me with enough brainpower to install an ftp server chez moi last night.
Of course, sometime between testing it this morning and getting to work, my connection went down, but...
...the attempt was nevertheless heroic.
Especially when a certain very silly young man exclaims excitedly how cool it is that "His girlfriend can install an ftp server!"
Ahhhh, c'est beau la vie.
And there's just something about walking into a random Australian pub at Chatelet on a Thursday evening to meet up with the Qu�b�cois that I'll be heli-skiing with in March, and falling into the graceful lilt of their voices.
How I miss that twisted grammar, the heady accent.
And when Yet.Another.David (but not my David, alas) suddenly spins on his heel to glare at me and announce "You're that PKI expert I've been hearing about"
The swell of pride is a difficult thing to not succumb to.
Half an hour later I earned that buttery whisky as the area soon cleared to make room for our wild gestures, him explaining the needs of his project, and I all too happily dredging up concepts all too long left unused, SSL handshakes and identity keys and self-signed certificates and random numbers.
Strange though, to be there as a woman (and not the one of the guys that I still am in my northamerican head), back against the bar and ring of men standing awkwardly and occasionally stepping forward to put a hand on my arm, tell me about their glorious salaries and villas in Espagne, and other incomprehensible things.
Somehow Tuan and David, though, talked to me as a person, even a fellow geek, despite my tendencies to drop into an english accent when blistering too fast to remember how to say "signature hash" or "fuck you hippie".
___________________
And the afternoon sleeps so peacfully (Elliot, I know, I have no culture)...
Fran�ois and Nicolas fighting for time to ask desperate last questions about certificate chaining (a terribly stupid practice that they only seem to do in Europe, WHYYYYYYY do they do business this way???) and Thierry and Nathaniel and Anne and Anthony and Lionel shyly asking for phone numbers and e-mail addresses and promises to come by for lunch and offering strangely intimate bises.
Strange, how if they showed this affection to each other on a daily basis, their productivity would be a different beast altogether. A sweet, furry one with claws only on the outside.
...and when I recognized Martine's cell phone ringing at my desk, even though she left for the caribbean yesterday...
I had the momentary shock of remembering how it feels to be happy at the office. Genuinely happy to be at your desk and rolling with the world.
I have learned a great many things here despite and possibly due to the frustration of the hemming and hawing and utter lack of businesslike conduct.
I have been given a slice of maturity, and this I can never rescind.