update from happyland

hi all, this is b guest-blogging -- sorry for the blog silence the past week and a half (and we know, that's two episodes missed of cat blogging, tsk tsk). let's just say things haven't been going terribly well, and p hasn't really been feeling up to blogfully wallowing in our miseries. here are some of the highlights.

- last monday max planck told me that while p can still get health insurance through them, they (badly) misquoted me the premium, so what had been really great coverage at a really great price has now turned into really great coverage at a really expensive price (well, actually it's still a pretty good deal for what it does, but it's more than we need and is at the upper limit of what we were hoping to/can pay). p has looked a bit into obtaining insurance elsewhere, but neither of us is eligible for government insurance, and we have every indication that it will be impossible for her to get private insurance (besides the plan through max planck) that will cover her thyroid/chronic fatigue condition.

- on thursday we had our appointment with the immigration office to get our residence permits for the year -- this was supposed to be a breeze according to max planck, remember? well, they were wrong. p didn't get the permit. without it, sounds like she can stay for a total of six months, then she has to leave for three months, and then she can come back for another three months. i realize that in some perverse universe the situation could actually be worse, but this is a bit of an ass-kicker, what with her health and all. there appear to be only three ways she can stay the whole year: 1) we get married, 2) she gets a job (and not just some chump job -- she'd have to earn at least €700/month for it to count), or 3) a miracle. without going into detail, let's just say that 3) is probably the most likely of the lot.

- on friday we picked up the keys to our new apartment. this was supposed to be a good thing, and the place still looks great and has those fantastic balconies, but... well, when we first looked at it a couple weeks ago, we noticed that it had a funny paint smell to it -- but tenants in germany are typically required to paint their apartments either when they move in or when they move out, so we figured it must be that the guy who was leaving had just painted it. only when we opened the door on friday the smell was still there! and lest you think this would just be some minor inconvenience, any funny paint/chemical smells would surely be devasting to p's health -- so it felt like a real heartbreaker. p called up the landlord friday night to ask about it, and we met with him and this other guy saturday afternoon, and as soon as we opened the doors, they were like "it's the floors!" have you ever heard of anything like that before? i guess the scent is just coming from natural oils in the hardwood floors (for the cognoscenti, european beech, says p). at least that's what they told us, and i'm completely inclined to believe them. this is a HUGE relief, at least for now. never say never, but natural oils sure don't seem like the kind of thing that would give p problems. here's keeping our fingers crossed.

- last and most notably, p has just been feeling generally quite shitty -- lots of muscle pain and soreness, dullness in the head, all the usual good stuff, really. bonn is a wonderfully pedestrian-friendly place, but part of the package is that you end up having to walk a lot more than, say, we did in chicago. we're hopeful that things will calm down once we're in our new place, but the sad fact is that we still have lots of setting up to do, and the powers of mail order are limited.

so that's the worst of it at the moment. we were originally supposed to be in our new place by now, but after the scare on friday we decided to try to buy some time, and currently the plan is that we're getting a mattress sent sent to our old place, and once it arrives we'll take it and ourselves over to the new place for good. there should be some pictures on the way.