Bonanza of Minutia

Despite well-meanng advice, I haven't made much of an attempt to find a new job. I have continued to learn, and there is no doubt I know significantly more than I did at the start. I have made a few phone calls recently that I wouldn't have made earlier, and have sent out a few faxes and emails that didn't need so much correction, but for the most part my writing still requires heavy reworking. I am still not at a point where I have skills that would make me truly marketable.

The week before last we had a madatory celebratory dinner that ran til 11:30 PM (read: I got to bed at 1 AM) in a week where I was overloaded. I still am furious, but I just had 1,5 extra days off and I am OK for the moment. My scheduling this week is going to be tight because of the vacation days, but perhaps I can rack up a little comp time for the move. Last week, I wound up back in the office Thanksgiving morning, which I was supposed to have off - doing recalculations for a project I thought I had finished weeks ago. The higher up who had signed off on the project was speeding away to Switzerland, but his failure to process my "It won't work like this" meant I was in the office wanting to scream "Happy $%&$ Thanksgiving" under my breath from 7:30 to noon Thursday.

But then I was swept off to little America by my sister mg or the Mooslet and MG and all was right with the world . . .

Everyone else at the office is a bit swamped, too. We've been offered "too many" projects, and the normal down-time of the year (sauere Gurken Zeit) is going to be anything but - apparantly it was last year as well, and that was one of the reasons I got hired. So here we are.

But we are in good health, my parents and in-laws are in good health, my sister is here, and we are moving. There are things I want (even more than better kitchen tiles) that we haven't gotten yet - but for the next 15 minutes, I have a bit of space from it and a little peace.

off to write some Christmas cards in my 15 minutes - take care ya'll

Scattered but good.

Lawdy. I do not want this blog to turn into some kind of emotional Twitter.

Things are not any better than they were, and my German and I find ourselves older, wiser and back at square one, but I am strangely relieved to face it all (the housing search) with a clean slate. I am headed to Paris for the first time in two days - how sad can a girl allow herself to be?

MG left his wallet at a wedding on Saturday and it was safely recovered by S., the most organized bride ever. Even the weather bent itself to her overwhelming planning powers. (There will be pictures when we get the camera back!!) We spent Sunday afternoon with more amazing folks in little America-in-Germany. We had our rental car searched with mirrors and I touched all of the couple's American major appliances. They fed us and spoke English and once in a while, I noticed a big word coming out of my mouth. I didn't know words like that were still in there somewhere. Tonight I am headed off to yoga class with a young lady of superior courage and wit. And the weather is gorgeous.

Clearing my aborted blog posts, here is my jotting from yesterday:

Reading this my be nearly as depressing as having it happen to you. My apologies. We didn't get the apartment, but thank you for being so kind and wishing us well.

More from last week

This isn't a rant. It's a whine. Even finding a place to rent is complicated. We missed a good chance a few weeks back, and missed another one I got really excited about over the weekend. My dear German is going to one open-house tonight - the "last" one, but I don't have the impression that we are so appealing that a land-lord would be looking to take us over the "competition".

I want guests, or at least just to be able to extend an invitation instead living in my house of moldy shame. I should just be excited an glad that there are dream apartments out there, and not so disappointed because there is always a little something wrong with each of them (5th floor walk-up, no balcony, too loud) we don't look at places with yucky bathrooms anymore. I really -really- want to move on to the next big step in my life and we don't do that until we do this. So we will continue doing this.

In happy news 3 days of splendid weather and a totally decadent brunch followed by several hours in the Landesmuseum with concepts of Egyptian beauty followed by lots of Egyptian-influenced work by the Beuron School, which totally rocks, btw.


A link to the St. Hildegard Abbey near Rüdesheim - photos of the chapel.

Even if we had a place, I cannot move on, i.e. even think of reproducing until I am out of my frieky name phase. At the moment I am all about "Traudl" and "Lorelei" and "Tristan"*. We cannot give our children these names without everyone thinking we are great big na$i's**, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

* The "Tristan" obsession is not a new one. I had a secret crush as a child on Tristan Farnon from the "All Creatures Great and Small" series. The actor went on to play another BBC fave of mine - Campion.


The best part is that Tristan has become strangely popular in the past few years, breaking the top 150 names, and making me slightly less of a dork (ok, I can dream).

Want to see how popular your name was in the past 15 years (in the States)? Thank you Social Security Administration.

** Google searches amuse me, but I don't want anyone looking for neo-you-know-what material coming here.