Home Stretch

Two more days of living in this house. The phone and internet will be shut off sometime tomorrow, but the furniture won't be removed until Wednesday. Lance was going to arrange for us to move into the hotel tomorrow, but I figured there was no sense in us paying for the extra night (the military only covers 10 nights, and staying tomorrow night would make it 11) if we still had furniture here until Wednesday.

I wish I had thought this out better. I would give anything to be out of this house right now. Living here is making me miserable. I alternate between the laptop, a novel (which I finished last night, so I no longer even have reading material), and a variety puzzle book. Tomorrow, I won't even have the internet. Well, I might for awhile, but I don't know when they'll be shutting it off.

Two more days...and then we'll be living in a hotel apartment. We'll have a TV. We'll have internet. We'll have carpet and comfortable furniture and a kitchen stocked with dishes. I have never looked more forward to staying in a hotel in my life. Plus we'll be in the center of Geilenkirchen, so I can get out and do window shopping or take a power walk out to Burg Trips. It's a little less boring than being here.

Anyway, I started packing. I have two suitcases to fill and I'll have even more stuff than that, but whatever doesn't fit will be shipped to Washington. Thursday, we'll be here at the house clearing away trash (i.e., the household things that we plan to discard) and cleaning up. I don't plan to be too thorough about the cleaning though, since we're paying for the landlord to bring in a professional cleaner. She called me last night, and her rate is much much lower than we expected. Lance already told the landlord that he expected it to run about 200 euros (he pulled that amount out of thin air...neither of us has ever hired a professional cleaner, so we have no idea what it costs) and her rate is about half that.

Saturday, we turn the Crap-Mobile in to the junkyard (and they aren't giving us one single, solitary cent for it...bastards!) and get a rental car.

Two weeks from today, we'll be in-processing at McChord. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Two weeks from today, we start filling our rental car full of stuff we'll be buying for our new home.

Today, Lance pulls our medical files from the clinic (now let's just hope neither of us needs to go there in the next couple weeks). Tomorrow, he turns in his NATO flight suit and chem warfare gear...and he goes back to wearing US Air Force uniforms.

We're in the home stretch now.

In Search of Coffee

My friend Tiffany invited me to have coffee with her today, and needing to get out of this house, I readily agreed. I also haven't seen her in awhile, and I wanted to see her before I'm gone for good. She offered to pick me up, so I let Lance take the car today.

We wanted to try the new coffee shop that opened in Gangelt a few months ago. The building that houses this coffee shop was once the location for the local Wasserwerks (water company), and it's actually a pretty cool building. The coffee shop is very elegant looking.

Unfortunately, it was also not open. Open every day but Monday. How random. (At least it has great hours all those other days...opening either at 9 or 10 am and staying open until 10 pm).

So she made a quick decision to go to Cafe Schluypen in Geilenkirchen, which is where I usually meet people for coffee and sweets. It was getting on lunch time, so I ordered a cheese brotchen with my macchiato. So simple and yet, so good (all it is is a buttered roll topped with cheese, but it's just so yummy).

We got caught up for about an hour, and then she had to go pick up her little one from the German Kindergarten on her way to drop me back off.

Now I'm waiting for Lance to come home. He tried to get our medical records today, but I apparently have to sign out my own records...they won't let him take them. And I seem to remember signing a form that gives him the right to pick up stuff on my behalf, but it apparently went missing. So now he has to take me there to get my medical records, and we'll swing by the dental clinic and get those records as well.

So much for doing any job searches today. Although that seems to be an exercise in futility, more than anything else. I am eyeing a job that is still open in the Kent School District, but it was supposed to have closed by now, and I am assuming that the only reason it's still open is because they have found nobody suitable for the position yet. If it's still open in another week or so, I'll apply (it's not a teaching position...it's doing administrative work...I may have teaching experience, but I am also not certified, nor do I have any interest in getting certified).

A Man of Many Talents

A short while ago, I was stretched out on the bed listening to the Nutcracker score. Lance had been downstairs working on his online courses.

Suddenly, I hear his footsteps pounding up the stairs.

And then he leaps into the bedroom and starts twirling and sashaying about, just as "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" comes on.

That is why I love this man. He isn't afraid to sacrifice himself on the altar of dignity just to get a few laughs from his wife.