moving

You guys! Are so cool, and there are new people in my comments (hi! welcome!) and comments I want to answer but I still don't have my own internet, am still grabbing moments here and there with DrBob's computer when he goes to the gym or the bathroom or something, and it's just difficult in the time I have. I'm sorry about that. Also, blogrolling.com has eaten my password, so I had to start a new blogroll, but I didn't get around to digging around in my blogger template to put the new code in. The blogger template's kind of a pain, actually. Which brings me to my point:

A Thing I didn't tell you, but it was true neverthess, is that I've been considering leaving Blogger for awhile now. I've been sniffing around LiveJournal, WordPress and Typepad for awhile, and I decided that I like WordPress. The interface is spiffier, I like the templates better. Someday I'd like to download the WordPress software and move my blog to my own site. It'll be awhile before I have time to do that, but I set up a free blog on their space, and today seems like a good day to start new there. For reasons that will be revealed when you click over (sorry for the sentence fragment, but the previous sentence was just getting too damn long).

So I hope you'll follow me to my new digs, change your links and stuff like that. And bring some tequila. Here's the address: mamalala.wordpress.com/

Song du jour of the day: Moving, by Kate Bush

I don't always want the truth

Do you? Are you sure?

So I was having coffee yesterday with one of my new neighbors, Susanne, who is very nice (all my new neighbors seem to be quite cool - not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm glad), and I mentioned that one of the things I miss about the States is common courtesy from service people. Like "Can I help you?" or "Have a nice day." Now I've heard that Germans think Americans are superficial, but this is the first time one's actually said it to me: she said, "But it's not really sincere, is it, it's just superficial. They don't really mean it." (I'm translating and paraphrasing here.)

I've been thinking about that today. Americans who read this: when you say something polite to a stranger, are being truly honest? Do you really want them to have a nice day?

Now here's a better question: does it matter? Look at it from the other side: You walk into the post office, all you want is a stamp, what would you rather hear? "Can I help you," from someone who may not really mean it, or "What the hell do you want," from someone who really does mean it? Fake manners, or honest hostility?

I think I'd rather have the fake manners. I don't really need random strangers going out of their way to make my day even more unpleasant than it already has to be. I mean, I value truth and all that, and from my best friend I'd rather have complete honesty. But from a cashier at some store? Not so much.

So this makes me wonder about Germans. Do they consider rudeness a virtue?

Hmmm... what do you think?

Song du jour of the day: Where is the Love? by the Black-Eyed Peas

They say...

... we'll have our dsl connection "early next week." They've said similar things, a lot, and been wrong every time so far. The ISP and Telekomm have to work together on this, and so far our ISP has been great, but Telekomm demonstrates exactly why monopolies are bad - they know you can't go anywhere else, and they treat their customers like crap just because they can.

This is one of those differences that I think is interesting between the U.S. and Europe - a few Europeans have asked me why cel phone service was so patchy and took so long to get going in the States, and the answer is easy - because our regular phone service actually works. In Europe, demand for cel phones was huge from the start because people couldn't WAIT to get away from Telekomm (here) and Telefónica (Spain). A lot of people dropped their land lines straight off and just relied on cel phones all the time - it was more expensive than regular phone service, but not by much (they still don't itemize phone bills here, so they can charge whatever the hell they want and there's no way you can appeal), and "service" is a laughable misnomer for the shameless incompetence that characterizes every Telekomm "worker" (another misnomer) we've ever had the misfortune to speak to. I've heard Telefónica is at least as bad.

Anyway. This is all just to say that I'm still grabbing moments here and there on DrBob's computer, because I still have no regular internet access, so posts tend to be under-edited, overlong, and incoherent. I'm also having lots of cows about my schoolwork, which is being totally neglected and making me hugely nervous because I've always been a total Hermione and this quarter I am a Bad Student. Crises at work? Illness? Moving? Subsequent loss of internet access? No excuse. In 2000, I had a baby mid-semester and didn't miss a single assignment. I don't do this. My teacher is being really understanding, but I still feel like a worm.

All of this ranting is probably a way to avoid talking about our meeting with Ignatz's therapist today. I guess, since some of you actually know who we are, and since my bloggerID is linked from DrBob's class webpage (bad move, honey), I should not do the details, but it was, um, frustrating.

Song du jour of the day: Fortress Around Your Heart, by Sting

Yay, I lost again!

Only this time, losing was a lot harder. Yep, there's a parent council at Ignatz's school too, and remember me being one of seven candidates at the Sniglet's school? Um. There were fewer, this time. That is to say, there were none. Less than none: not only no volunteers, but no one who was willing to be drafted. I even asked Ignatz, awhile back, if Mrs Lallet's daughter signed up for French (I was pretty sure she would, and I was right), because I was wondering if we'd have to elect a new speaker this year.

Okay, quick background on German schools. Umm, one thing is that they provide basic religious instruction here (four separate classes: Catholicism, Lutheranism (remember, Europe doesn't have a zillion little freaked-out variants of basic Protestantism - they sent all those weirdos to the Americas in the 18th century), Islam, and ethics), which I think is a good thing because they don't tell the kids that they have to believe it all, but they do tell them the stories, which are a good thing to know so that when they read or hear about a pillar of salt or a widow's mite, they know what that means. It's the same reason I think English speakers should at least read Shakespeare, because half of what you read has some figure of speech or metaphor drawn from one of his plays, and you want to know what's going on.

Anyway. What I DON'T like, and what would be soundly illegal in the U.S., is that they divide the kids into classes by religion. They do this because it makes scheduling classes easier, and I understand that, but of course in the States it's been well-established that administrative convenience does not justify sex discrimination (Reed v. Reed, 1971), so I'm guessing it wouldn't be an acceptable excuse for religious segregation either. Anyway. We've protested, but there's nothing we can do on our own, so, you know, whatever.

So they keep those classes together until sixth grade. Halfway through fifth grade, each student chooses what second foreign language they'll start next year (the first is English, started in third grade, and it's compulsory) - our school offers Latin and French. Then in sixth grade, they're divided up by language, again to make scheduling easier. So that's why it mattered that Mrs Lallet's kid took French, because she wouldn't be in my son's class anymore, and we didn't have an automatic speaker. We had to elect one.

It's very difficult not to make eye contact with 25 people all at once, even if you're sitting all the way in the back of the classroom, as I was. Nobody wanted the job, and finally the teacher went around the room and made each of us say why we couldn't do it - the person with the most pathetic excuse would then be dragooned into acting as the parent-teacher liaison. My excuse was twofold: I'm a foreigner and I only understand about half of what is said to me; and my husband works out of town so I'm not available in the evenings because I have to be home with the demon spawn. It worked, I don't have to do it, but it was a harrowing evening. I think I may just volunteer next year, to save us all the trauma.

That is, if things have settled down. I've just moved house, and have to finish up my server-side technology course and look for a job. Once I get a job, I will be like a normal person, in that when people ask what I'll be doing in six months, I'll probably know. As it is, I might could squeeze in a few evening hours a week right now, probably, but I don't know if that'll still be true in two months, or four months, or six months, so I can't commit to something that'll last through next July.

Of course, if DrBob gets a job anywhere other than Munich, he'll be out of town all semester, and I really won't have any evenings free until the Sniglet's old enough to be left home alone. Oook.

Song du jour of the day: Don't Fear the Reaper.

Two people have now sent me this song, which is doubleplusgood, because I can throw away that ancient Blue Öyster Cult tape which I only kept because of that one song. Yes, a cassette tape, an ancient means of recording data - the damn thing's older than Samirah, but not as old as Monty and me (yes, I know it should be Monty and I, but Monty and me is so nice and alliterative - besides, language rules are effectively shaped by common usage, and we may not want to accept the validity of this particular construction, but it will be legalized someday - maybe not in our lifetimes, but it won't be much longer. I'll betcha). And yes, I have loved the song since I was six, even though I will never again be able to hear it without saying to myself, "Needs more cowbell."

Well that was interesting...

If, by "interesting," you understand "a fucking nightmare from start to finish." Umm, I don't write a lot here about my relationship with my husband's best friend, because it's too complicated. He's... well, my husband's best friend, and my firstborn's godfather, and both my kids really like him, but he and I don't really get along, but I have to be nice to him, and sometimes he is nice too, and then I decide to forget about all the other stuff and that's when he strikes. I can never decide whether he's evil or just Really That Clueless.

He came to our house on Sunday. And he cleaned a lot (um, hello? MY house), and rearranged furniture and reorganized things that I now have to fix and restore and put back. He kept saying I could say no to his suggestions, but when I did, he ignored me and did them anyway. And I can't trust him to be civil, so I have to be on guard all the time (on guard? what for? It's not like I can retaliate in any way, since I have to be nice to him, see above) so I can't relax when he's in the house, which he was for TWO DAYS. And some of it was good, he found some special wood-polish and made the interior doors look not-so-crappy. And some of it was bad - some of the tools are on one shelf now, and others are on a different shelf, and then there's one wrench - part of a set, mind you - that now lives in the kitchen? For some reason? And some is both good and bad - he trimmed the bushes in the back yard, thank you, and now there's a big pile of branches and crap waiting for me to cart it away, thank you very much.

And he stayed overnight. In MY office. DrBob's office has a sleepable furniture in it, but it's the only room with internet, so it was logical for the Best Friend to stay in MY space, the only place I can be ALONE, instead. (Well, okay, I can hide in the laundry room. I did that a lot, actually.) But see how that worked? It was logical for him to sleep in my office, so I couldn't object without seeming irrational. And the doors really did look crappy, and he really did make them better, but somehow that gave him the right to mess with everything, and he always made it sound so logical and anyway it was always just a suggestion and I could put it back if I wanted (tell that to the plants he cut up), and I could never object without sounding both ungrateful and unreasonable. So I just skulked around the house like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and got increasingly pissed off.

When Ignatz got home from school yesterday, BF dragooned him into reorganizing his room, steamrollered over all his objections, kept him busy for two hours (making changes that we will now have to un-make). Ignatz had made plans with a friend, and he was now late, so he rushed through his homework and sprinted out the door. BF checked his homework, marked all the errors, and told me to make Ignatz re-do it. Which I couldn't, because I was taking the Sniglet to his first soccer practice (awww...), but I talked to Ignatz later about it. We made a deal: he doesn't rush through his homework, and I don't let anyone drag him away from it, for any reason.

So now it's over, he's gone, but I'm still twitchy because he kept talking about "next time," and I have to be ready whenever the question arises with a list of reasons why "next time" is not going to happen, and um, that's bad. Because I hate, hate, hate conflict, and when I know it's in my future I get very jittery. Also because every time I turn around I see something he changed that I now have to change back.

AAARGH.

Song du jour of the day: Get Out of My House, by Kate Bush

boogie, boogie, boogie!

Right, right, I'd forgotten that the Sniglet already has a fiancée - I hadn't actually gotten around to telling him about it yet, but I've remedied that, and even shown him her pictures. He's not too impressed, to be honest. I told him that by the time he's ready to get married she won't be a baby anymore, but I don't think he believes me. I'll work on it.

So happy Friday the 13th, y'all! I went back to work for the first time in forever, and I discovered that I really like my job when I only do it for six hours at a stretch. The ten-hour thing, not so much.

And when I got home, I had MAIL! (Okay, html sucks, 'cause if I could I'd be drawing little stripey and shadowed letters and stars and lightnings and stuff, like in The Monster at the End of this Book, but I can't. Grr.) from Samirah, and it is two CDs which will be fabulous as soon as I listen to them which I will pretty soon. And I am fantastically happy about them, and also nostalgic about when I had time to make fabulous art-collage envelopey-casey-things for stuff I sent or gave people. I still have the instincts, but not the time or headspace - this, for example, took me maybe five minutes. I'm glad he liked it, but I think it looks as rushed as it was, and he deserved better.

So my Friday the 13th was actually pretty good. They usually are.

Song du jour of the day: I Put a Spell On You, by Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

hee hee

On the way home from school yesterday, the Sniglet told me about Elena, who is "verknallt in me. That means she love me." I asked how he felt about her, and he said "Okay. But not verknallt."

Later, and apropros of something else, he said "I hope I can find a wife when I grow up." I said "oh don't worry, there's lots of women around. Oh hey, why don't you marry Elena?" He sighed heavily and said, "Okay. I'll see what I can do."

Song du jour of the day: Isn't It Romantic, by Ella Fitzgerald

peekaboo

Gotta make this quick because I'm using DrBob's computer while he's at the gym. No, no internet yet, though he can pick up on the next-door neighbor's WLAN signal (because his office shares a wall with the neighbor's office, and mine's on the other side of the house). We should be back online with our own signal next Monday.

It's going well, but it's an enormous job because we didn't really summon help, but decided to do it all ourselves. There's a big, but diminishing, pile of boxes in the middle of our new living room - my fault, that: he'd just sock it all away in the basement, I'm the one insisting that every item start its new life in its proper place. Even so, I'll have a heap of organizing and rearranging to do, but every little bit I do now, when I don't have internet, will save me time that I can later spend surfing. Dude.

And the old house. Once we got all the Stuff out, it looked like a family of Tasmanian devils had been living there. Now the spackle-fairy (i.e. DrBob) has been there, so it looks blotchy but not quite so structurally unsound. Next is the cleaning, every minute of which I so far hate. But someday it will be done, and will stay done since we got the Tasmanian devils out - oh, speaking of evil-minded rodents, apparently there's a weasel in our new garden! How cool is that?

Anyway. It's progressing. My schooling is not, and I'm trying really hard not to get totally stressed out about it. Partially succeeding, because I look fairly relaxed, but my skin's a mess. Well, this too shall pass. Meanwhile, I love my new house, while at the same time finding it very hard to believe it's actually mine. Well okay, half of it's really the bank's, but they're letting me live here, and even that is hard to believe.

Song du jour of the day: Buddy Holly, by Weezer

au revoir

Okay, this is the actual, official moving day, so our internet will be turned off at some point today, or maybe very early tomorrow. In either case, they said it'd take them two weeks to turn it on at our new house, so I will be mostly netless until then, barring an occasional net-café visit or something. So be good, okay? Don't trash the place.

See you soon.

I didn't win! Yay!

Okay, a number of people (and that number is two, but I know the rest of you are thinking it) asked me why I ran for the parent-council-thing if I didn't want to be on it. And it was partly because, you know, parents should be involved and stuff, and also because every year in Ignatz's class there have been fewer candidates, until last year there was nobody, and after about two minutes of absolute silence Mrs Lallet said "Oh all right, I'll do it. Again." She's been on the job since they were all first graders. I figured nobody'd want the job, so I should step up.

And that is more or less what I said when it was my turn to introduce myself. And then the other candidates were all sparkly and saying crap like "I served for five years on the kindergarten parent council and it was so much fun!" or "I've never done it before but I just love organizing things and I'm so excited about this opportunity!" After that it's a wonder I got any votes at all, but I did. I got two votes, which is exactly how many votes Jonas's mom got, and she didn't even show up at the meeting. I have to wonder what some people were thinking.

So I didn't win, and I survived another parent-evening. All good.

The shelves are over at the new house, most of them. Tomorrow starts two days of packing and maneuvering furniture up and down stairs and cursing and saying "How the HELL did we accumulate so much effing STUFF!?"

I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Song du jour of the day: Wait for Me, by Hall & Oates. But not just any version, oh no. The live version at the end of Hall & Oates's Greatest Hits. I know what you're thinking: Hall & Oates? Greatest Hits? Isn't that an oxymoron?

No. No it is not.

Back to Life... Back to Re-a-li-ty...

Well, so that was vacation. During the kids' summer break I wasn't teaching English (because most of my students have school-age kids), and I took leave from work for August and September, and I was going to get so much done with all that extra time! Only I didn't, and I can't even really blame it on my illness. It was laziness and the illusion that I had all the time in the world. So now I still have to finish this database course and move house, only now I have to do it while losing Fridays to my job and teaching English on Wednesdays. This is not going to make things easier, is it? I'm so good at making plans, and so bad at actually doing them.

Or envisioning the consequences. This moving thing... one of the basic elements of my grand plan is to get the shelves over to the new house so we have a place to put the stuff when we take it over. So now all the contents of my kitchen shelf are on the counter and I can't really use my kitchen. Um, oops? Sensible would be to move the shelves and the stuff over on the same day, but DrBob had to leave for this conference-thing at noon, so we only had time for the first half of the plan today. The second half of the plan is supposed to happen on Saturday, but the number of things we have planned for that day is probably in the high thousands. So we'll see what actually gets done, eh?

Song du jour of the day: Halloween on the Barbary Coast. By the Flaming Lips.

Is it time to give in to despair yet?

My to-do list today:
clear basement shelves
plan tomorrow's English lesson
grocery shopping
put together the two wardrobes we got at Ikea yesterday
write Samirah to say Ooo, yes please!
mail stamps to Melanie and Ruby

That doesn't look impossible, does it, for a day's work? DrBob and I, together, managed to finish ONE of the Ikea wardrobes (this one). That was it, that was all we accomplished today. Sheesh, we told everyone we'd be out of this house next Sunday, but if every little thing takes an entire day to do? Or longer, since we'll all be faint with hunger shortly, since I didn't go grocery shopping and there's no FOOD! Also, DrBob has a conference to go to, and will be gone from Thursday to Saturday, so I have to do it on my own. Without lifting stuff. Because I am strictly forbidden to have a relapse on the whole pneumonia thing.

I'm so tired.

Song du jour of the day: Little Black Heart, by A-Ha. Don't try to cheer me up, just cyberslap me and tell me to get the hell over myself.

Moving week - Los geht's!

Well, Saturday the brother-in-law came over and helped DrBob move some of the heavy stuff to the new house, which was way fun for me - I love watching boys flex their muscles. I spent Saturday putting DrBob's books in boxes, he spent Sunday taking them out of the boxes and putting them on his shelves (in the new house, that is). In about half an hour we'll go to Ikea and see how many fights one couple can pack into one day, that'll be fun. And then tonight some potential renters will come to look at the house (what, already!? I know!), and some more on Tuesday. It's lovely, our couch is gone so the living room looks huge, and the fifteen or so cardboard boxes provide an excuse for the dust. I managed to get most of the filth removed, but of course I have sons, so that'll last until they're home from school.

Anyway, that's me not blogging, and not even doing much worth blogging about: measuring rooms, putting things in boxes, taking them out of boxes, cleaning, I'm sure you don't need the grisly details. Wow, did we ever manage to accumulate a lot of stuff in five years! And I'm gonna feel really guilty about throwing so much away, but really, I just can't keep holding onto all this crap. Did you know I was into rubber stamps as a teenager? And I still have the dratted things? I've been trying to think who would want them, and frankly, I'm drawing a blank. I thought of having a Vicki-style potlatch, but the postage to the U.S. would ruin us financially and I don't have that many friends in Germany. Ugh.

Speaking of friends in Germany, we need a couple big strong guys to help us next Sunday (I'm not supposed to be lifting things yet). We pay in pizza and beer. Any takers?

Song du jour of the day: La Vie Ghetto, by Wyclef Jean.

Oh! AND, I discovered today that one of the kids in the Sniglet's class lives in our new neighborhood. Fellowmom neighbor, yay! Also, I'm running for the um, parent-council... thingy. What do you call that in English? I'd say wish me luck, except that I really don't know whether I want to win or lose.

Things I've been meaning to tell you...

I had to bail on the 9/11 Mixmania, which made me really, really sad because I put a lot of time into the song lists, and then my computer pooped out on me. Rats, drat, and also darn. So I'm not signing up for the next Mixmania, even though I want to, because I don't know if I'll have my computer fixed on time. Well, I probably won't, because I don't actually know what's wrong with it.

But you can! Please? For me? Also for you, because this is a really great group of people and you should get to know them and reading their blogs will make your hair shinier. Go sign up for Jim's Halloween Mixmania, because it's way fun and if I can't do it, it'll make me happier if you do. It really will.

I am feeling somewhat better, thanks Elemmaciltur for asking. Almost normal, mostly, except for some reason I keep getting drunk, and then there's the hangover, and it's always too late when I think "heywaitaminute... wasn't I supposed to be taking it easy?" But, you know, there's always a good reason for it. Like, "But the second beer was FREE!"

I know, I know. Gotta stop that.

Apropos of which, yes I had a friend from Back Home visiting, a college friend, which is lovely. You need people who remember what you were like at 19, and love you anyway. And of course she had only a few days here, so we went to Munich yesterday to check out Oktoberfest. We had something like seven hours in the city, so I thought we'd have a beer (a whole liter of beer, which is about a quart to you normal people, with a higher-than-usual (especially if you're American) alcohol content), look around, and then go see the city. Hah. You sit down at one of those tables, you're not getting up again until it's time to get up and dance. On the benches (because the tables are too slippery with spilled beer). Seemed like the most natural thing in the world after the second tank of beer, which was bought for me by someone, and was therefore FREE, so I had to drink it. We sat with a group of lovely Australians and some Toytowners and had um, a lot more fun than you would think you could have, sitting on a hard wooden bench, eating giant pretzels, and singing along with an Oompah band. For seven hours.

After which I put Krystal on the train to Paris, caught my train home, brushed my teeth (probably), and collapsed in bed, only to wake up at 3 a.m. and realize I was still drunk. That part really wasn't fun at all. Remind me not to drink anymore, okay?

Umm, what else? Oh, we set an Official Moving Date of October 1st (i.e., when the phone and internet and everything are supposed to switch over), and then found out that my big strong brother-in-law couldn't do it then, howbout this Saturday? Yep, the day after tomorrow, all the heavy stuff goes, so I'm trying to get all the laundry done and clear shelves and, you know, Not Freak Out or anything. Because I distinctly remember planning to do this right, use the time I had to be organized and sensible about moving. What the hell happened? Oh, right, I remember - I was me, instead of someone, you know, organized and sensible. Oops.

Also, the internet people say it'll take them two weeks to flip the switch, so we'll be without internet for two weeks. Egad, it makes me woozy just thinking about it.

Okay, I think I've talked long enough to lose all but my most dedicated readers.

Song du jour of yesterday: in however-many hours of standing on a bench, swinging a giant beer glass and singing at the top of my lungs in a tent with about 9,000 other people, the only song I can actually remember is Hang on Sloopy, as presented by these charming fellows.

Okay, on my to-do list for tomorrow: grow up.

still here, sort of

Got a houseguest from Back Home today and tomorrow, so blogging, as you may already have noticed, will be pretty light. I'll get back to you on Thursday. Probably.

Song du jour of the day (more like week, now) is still Tout Est Permis, because it's Oktoberfest.

about school, mostly

Well, there's the first week of school, survived. The Sniglet came home from his first day (thursday) disgruntled because he didn't learn anything, which is such a typically Sniglet thing to say. Heh.

Ignatz is starting Latin and Informatics this year, very exciting. He is under orders to come home and teach me everything he learns.

So both my kids are back in school, yes only now - Bavaria has the latest holidays in Germany, as far as I know. That's why we take our vacations so late, so we only have to share the road with other Bavarians, and not with all 80 million Germans. The Bavarians alone are bad enough.

So this is good, this school thing, because I can sort of establish routines now. Everything goes out the window during the vacations. But also bad, because I have to go back to work and teaching soon, which will leave me less time to move and finish my class.

Also, we're moving. Bet you'd forgotten about that, huh? You'd think I'd forgotten too, if you could see how little I've done about it. We got the keys, though, and we can go over to the house and grin to ourselves from time to time. I took Mrs Next Door to see it, and she discovered another room that we hadn't noticed. A little half-room off the attic. Yes, duh, but we're lucky to have intelligent friends.

What Ignatz said today: Mama? Don't you think our freezer's a bit too cold? I think it's because it has too many popsicles in it.

Finally, the song du jour du jour (because it's in French!). Tout Est Permis, by Noyau Dur, discovered today via Pandora. I love this! Click the videos link on the Noyau Dur site to see/hear Tout Es Permis.

More from the peanut gallery

Vicki said...

That's a hefty tag on health insurance. What happened to socialized medicine?

This is socialized medicine: those who have more (that's us) pay more, so that people who can't afford health insurance can still get medical care - the price we pay for living in a healthy society, and mostly I think it's worth it. We are pretty solidly middle-class, but our rates are at the top of the scale, because there are a few flaws in the system. One is that costs are high in general because nobody ever tries to rein in the pharmaceuticals giants, who are laughing all the way to the bank, believe me. Another is that if you have even a little more money than we do, it's cheaper to go with private insurance, and a lot of people do that: they pay lower rates while they're young and healthy, and then when they get old, or develop a chronic illness, their private insurance drops them like a hot rock. Then they come back and sponge off the public fund that they couldn't be bothered to contribute to when things were okay.

What that means is that the many Germans who can't afford health care depend on ordinary middle-class families like us, because the people who have money don't pay into the system.

Melanie said...

And hey, haven't your cast of characters aged yet? (Still 11 and 5?)

Nope, still 11 and 5. DrBob turned 40 in March, but the rest of us don't age. It's too expensive.

elemmaciltur said...

Weren't you allowed to knit in the hospital?

Probably, but the placement of my IV needles didn't give the range of movement I would need for knitting: I couldn't use the fingers of my right hand for four days, then I couldn't use my left arm at all for another day. Plus the yarn would've gotten caught in the IV tubing, that woulda sucked.

Actually, the reason they let me out is not because I'm better, but because I'm ambulant - because I can take the meds in tablet form instead of needing them intravenously. Technically I'm still sick, and supposed to be taking it easy.

kimberlydi said...

Take every single antibiotic... You don't want a relapse.

No, I sure don't. Last time, with the bronchitis, they didn't give me enough antibiotics, that's why the pneumonia hit me - because I stopped treatment before I was well (NOT on purpose, because they under-medded me).

Still, going on two weeks of antibiotics now, and it's doing bad things to my digestion and my teeth. I will take them all, but I don't know what condition I'll be in by the time they're all done.

Let me just take a moment here to state the blisteringly obvious: Being sick? Sucks.

Also, while I've got you here, I wonder if anyone has an instruction manual for husbands, as mine seems to be malfunctioning. He's sick, but refuses to go to the doctor, because he's sure the doc will only say he needs to cut back on stress, and he can't do that, so he's driving us all crazy swanning around like La fucking Traviata not getting better of course, and his mood is affecting all of us. Clearly, he needs a tune-up. Or a pipe wrench to the head.

Song du jour of the day: Machinehead, by Bush

Well that was stupid...

Pneumonia. I mean really. What a stupid thing to happen right when I have so much stuff to get on with. Apparently stress is a major factor - stress? Moi? I have the best life of anyone I know, I don't have stress. (DrBob: Why didn't you tell the doctor that your mom died of lung cancer last year? alala: I dunno, why, is that important?) Anyway, it was all a big, dumb waste of time - not being in the hospital, that's a good place to be when you're really sick, and I was - the being sick part. That was dumb. And a waste of time.

And it's not quite over. Another... uh. Hospital doc says another week of antibiotics, regular doc writes me a prescription for five days. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, does it? And I'm supposed to take it easy, while moving house and getting up early to get my kids to school, that starts tomorrow - would've been today, but everybody gets a day off because the Pope's here, something that ticks DrBob right off, but whatever.

What was I talking about? I dunno. I went on vacation not knowing how sick I was, but pretty sure when I got back that it wasn't good. First day back I went to the doctor and was not at all surprised when she tossed me straight into the hospital. Which was lovely at first, to be taken care of for the two days when I was in a fever-induced daze, but when clarity returned, I was dreadfully bored. And they made me stay another five days.

Song du jour of the day: Truckin', by the Grateful Dead. What a long strange trip it's been...

feet greet

Many thanks from alala for the kind wishes! There are no complications and she's recovering, although this is apparently a longish process. alala's increasingly annoyed by hospital life; definitely a good sign. The treatment involves an intravenous drip, orthopedic stockings (very sexy, see above), some really neat gadgets she has to use to bring her lungs back to full capacity--and 'food'. My theory is that the organic matter served instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner is supposed to trigger archaic survival instincts and mobilize the body's resistance. The only chance to escape this culinary rogue regime is to get healthy. Here's a sample of 'food' (administered 9 September, 12:00 CET):






Health insurance receives about €1,000 monthly from us. I know now that the money is well spent.

Dr. Bob's medical report

Hi, I'm afraid that I have to dissappoint those who are waiting to read about alala's Balkan adventures: Istria is not part of the Balkans, and I'm not alala but the "scarily multilingual academic" (who is somewhat linguistically scared about having to go public without alala's proven editorial help). The trip was great, and now she's in the hospital with a pneumonia. It was probably an overdose of recreation. This pneumonia is a pretty nasty thing, but, given the circumstances, alala's fine and in good spirit. We hope that she'll be back next week.