I'm still childishly fascinated by staring at the test tube as it fills with blood - I'm especially taken by the red foam. Heh.

I remedied the low blood sugar by immediately eating two honey-filled caramelles. Now there's an amazing sugar-shock to the system.

My grandmother turned 82 friday, and I finally saw the new Star Wars movie. No, the two are not very related, but were equally important.

Yes, my long wait was finally over and I can tell you that it felt glorious. No, The Phantom Menace is not to be released in Swedish theaters until August 19. I saw it on a *mumblegrumble* video. See, as late as last Wednesday I loudly proclaimed that I was of course going to hold out until I could see the movie in a movie theater but... I didn't count on the fact that a relative would come bouncing into our livingroom friday and rub it into my face that he had seen it just 10 minutes ago at a friends house.

After much begging and pleading, he drove back and got the movie for me. I'm telling you, it was AGONY having the tape there right in front of me, yet arguing with myself wether I should wait or not.

Fortunately, I didn't have to decide - my friend Ninnie called me and came over. It was the first contact we'd had since the day before I left for Ameirca, i.e. August 1998. As always the minute she walked in it felt like nothing had happened - we'd both changed a bit hairwise, but it was the same giggles and same topics discussed. But more on that later.

Around 2.30 am Ninnie fell asleep on the other couch in the livingroom and my brother came home to watch TPM. Do you really think my brain would be able to handle that both my brother and my cousin had seen it and I had not? HAH!

We popped it into the VCR, turned on the surround system (how Ninnie could continue to sleep is beyond me.) and flipped on the bid screen tv. OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Loved it. Loved it Loved it Loved it. I really don't give a shit if some claim 'it didn't feeeeeel like a Star Wars movie' - I found it excellent. I giggled a lot, bit my lip several times, oo'd and aa'd and got a bit enamoured with the Jedi's as usual, held my breath during the pod race, grinned and felt odd pride over Natalie Portman who I've digged ever since her debut in one of my favourite movies ever, Leon, The professional.

I really, really loved it. It felt like a great first part. It definately feels like a movie I will want to watch many times more, just as the old Star Wars movies. So there.

I must say this though - had it not been that we have a big screen tv and surround sound, I wouldn't have wanted to see it for the first time at home. As it is now, I'm more eager than ever to see it in the theater.

And that was that.

I also rented another good movie yesterday called The Hanging Garden. It even had Sarah Polley in a small part! Well. My judgment was 'very good movie'. My brother's judgment was "..but it was a damn homo-movie!!"

It was so neat to see Ninnie again. It's odd, really, because she seems to be the one person I don't go out of whack with once I leave for a while. Our friendship has handled 3 year long interruptions when one or the other has gone abroad for about a year at a time, and yet despite the fact that we never write letters or call during those years away, the second we meet again things are just as usual, as if we've only been away a week to gather new stories to tell.

In other news, I'm on my way to spend the day with a friend who I haven't seen in at least a year, maybe two. She called me yesterday and among the things we talked about were the fact that since we last met, she has been diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis (sp??)). I can say I was shocked, but that doesn't fully cover it. I feel rather numb about it - she didn't seem to have a problem talking about it, but I don't have much experience of the illness apart from a few general things, so I don't really know what to say about it. I don't really know how I'm supposed to act, either. I'll just go with her flow.

Is it just me, or does it seem as if the older we get, the more we discover that there are so many illnesses and bad things that seem to happen most people we know? That came out wrong, somehow.