Visa Visa!

Here's P's week in news and photos! The big news is that I got my visa extension this morning! Technically it's a "temporary residence permit" and it's good till mid-February 2008 - gives me plenty of time to deal with getting a real residence permit. Wonderful not to have that breathing down my neck anymore!!

Without further ado, here's your Friday catblogging: Oscar enjoying the newly Oscarproofed front balcony.
What's Oscarproofing, you ask? Well, you can kinda see in last week's balcony pic why our balcony might be unsafe for an unattended, untame cat. The gap under the railing is big enough for a wildly rolling cat, and the divider between our balcony and the neighbors' would be deliciously easy for an intrepid cat like ours to subvert.

So until last weekend, balcony access had been restricted, the balcony doors kept shut even through lovely weather. Pretty unfortunate - these doors want to be open! Here's a pic of the dining room and kitchen area. (I think we're going to get a rug for this area at some point.)
I'd been thinking about how to solve the Oscarproofing problem, and for a while I had some pretty cockamamie ideas involving vinyl siding, metal sheeting, wood boards, and/or plastic under-rolling-chair-mats, cut down to size, punched with holes, and bound to the grid of the balcony, blocking off the gap under the railing. (Brian was pretty skeptical about the project.) Luckily, the perfect solution (if I do say so myself) dawned upon me before I sunk the family fortune into a half dozen plastic mats: wire mesh! On Saturday we went to this crazy über hardware/home decor store, Knauber, seeking wire mesh, and there it was, in the garden section, made for building rabbit coops! On Sunday we set to work with the wire cutters, a spool of wire, and the mesh, and before long we successfully cooped in our own little animal! Here's a picture of the final product: the square grid is part of the balcony; the mesh comprises little hexagons.
And here's young Oscar thwarted in his attempts to sneak under the divider to the neighbors' balcony - yes!
Before we made these modifications, Oscar was pretty scared of approaching the edge of the balcony; he knew he was looking at open space leading to a five-story drop. But now, he's so confident, so comfortable, it's almost frightening! But we've done a damn good job, and now the balcony below waist-height is basically a cat-impermeable box. He's safe, and we are pleased! This weekend we'll tackle the back balcony.

In other news, here's a rant for you. In mid-July, before I left Chicago, I stopped by the Medical Records Office at the U of C Hospitals to request a copy of my records. I left with every impression that the dude I talked to was about to photocopy my records and drop them in the mail. Six weeks and many phone calls later, my medical records show up, not in Germany, but in Flemington! Lovely. I picked them up when I was home in September. Putting my records in chronological order in anticipation of my endo appointment, I noticed a teeny tiny problem: no records from endocrinology or neurology, and nothing but lab work since 2005! Fucktards! The dude on the phone seemed to appreciate the situation and assured me that his supervisor would get on the job at once and send the rest of my records to Germany, but I know what such assurances can amount to. The reason I'm not boiling mad about this is that my endocrinologist had the good sense (and distrust of the records office) to send me on my way with a small file summarizing my endo treatment, enough to tell the doctors in Cologne what they need to know. It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which medical paper-shuffling is shot through with incompetence!

Here's a photo of a recent lunch: bitter seared radicchio with fresh mozzarella and white beans with fennel. Yum!

Looking forward to a weekend Oscarproofing and celebrating my right to three and a half more months in Germany!