I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

Yes, yes, another month has passed with my lazy self neglecting to post on El Bloggo. I suck. I’m sorry.

In all fairness, there hasn’t been that much going on over here. Hubz has been working really hard – usually in the office six days a week, and rarely home before 8pm on a weekday. The upside is that he’s enjoying the work, and seems to be getting recognition for his efforts. I’m proud of him! I don’t mean to complain here – once you have just one friend whose spouse is deployed, you realize that a little interruption like overtime is just a drop in the bucket….and I LOVE the fact that nobody’s shooting at him :)

Okay – so what does a Military Spouse on foreign soil do without kids or job to keep her busy? Hmmm…well, judging by my activities of late – darn little. She lets the housework slide a little (since tomorrow is also available for cleaning) and the meals get a little less creative (it’s suddenly such an EFFORT to cook). I know, right? Poor little rich girl gets a free ride to Europe and falls apart? I think I’m starting to realize the amount of self worth I derived from my career. I’m kind of working my way into a new and strange identity over here – and apparently none of those steps down my new road includes a propensity to do laundry :)

So, after about two months of floundering around my gilded cage, I dug in. I looked into jobs on the base (which are few and hard to know about without an inside track), and took a German Class (21 other bored housewives, two mornings a week – AND I can now count past 12 - yay!!!), and finally stumbled upon a volunteer recruitment website run by the base. On a Friday morning I responded to five jobs that interested me, and by Friday afternoon, I had a hit! It turns out that the Army Substance Abuse Program (ASAP) needed someone to step in and help run their campaigns. It seemed like a good fit, and all in all, I am enjoying the experience.

Amazingly, the laundry is now getting done, and putting together dinner is holding more appeal (when Hubz is actually home to eat it!). Things are starting to turn around a bit. I’m not completely there yet, but I at least have a few days in my week with a distinct purpose and direction. I knew that living overseas was going to be a learning experience...but who knew what I'd learn would be about myself?!?

TRASH TALK

First a caveat:  This blog is public.  That means anyone who knows the web address can read everything I've posted.  I could have protected it with a password or forced all of you readers to become members of it to see it - but that's a hassle and who needs another password to remember these days!!  

Since it is public, I’ve tried really hard to keep this blog anonymous.  This was a decision I made for many reasons:  1) my husband is a frequent topic.  I am the one writing this thing, and many of my experiences involve him (God help him).  However, HE did not make the decision to write a blog, and I’d like to protect him from things he didn’t want perfect strangers who many stumble upon this blog to learn about him.   Of course I consulted him before starting this, and he was supportive, but on a day to day basis, as new information is posted, there may be something in here that he wouldn’t want, say an employer who Googles his name to learn.  2) I am a woman.  I am security conscious.  I don’t need folks I’ve never met (or worse, those I have and wish to protect myself from ) to be able to pry the lid off of my head and read my daily thoughts AND then be able to find me.  That is something that would make me the tragic subject of a “Movie of the Week” on Lifetime, and that’s a role I’d prefer to skip!  3) I have friends.  They also share my life experiences.  I don’t want to have to ask them permission to write about what we did yesterday every time I spend time with them.  My spidey-sense tells me that this would probably not make me very popular either!!

It is reason number three that brings me to my next disclosure:  I’ve decided that for the purposes of this blog, I’m going to name all of my friends Jane.  That way, it will be clear enough that I can tell the stories, but confusing enough that no one will know any one Jane’s secrets :)

So, let’s talk some trash!  Germany is very eco-conscious – a fact that we like a lot.  There are towns here that will not allow vehicles that don’t pass a high emission standard.  (Period.  Your polluting car stops here, my friend.  Our town does not want what you’re putting out there. Park it and then walk on in, if you want).   There are rules about leaving your car idling too long (30 seconds is the max – even at a red light).  And then there’s the garbage.

Our courtyard has 3 different bins for garbage collection.  One says Paper, one is clearly compost.  Then there’s another one.  It wasn’t immediately obvious what goes in there. Also, when we walk down the street, we sometimes see these yellow bags filled with what must be recycling. And NONE of the containers seem to accept glass!  Hmmmm…  (Note:  I broke a wine glass the other night and it has been sitting on my kitchen counter.  A painful reminder of my clumsiness AND an indicator of just how ignorant Hubbz and I are!!)

We saw a roll of yellow garbage bags at the hardware store last week, so we bought them.  The ones we’ve seen on the street have (German) instructions on the outside indicating what goes in them – and they’re fairly large.  These were small and without instructions…..hmmm…wrong bags.   Recently, at a different hardware store we saw another roll of yellow bags.  They looked bigger.  The band around the roll of bags stated they were 5 liter bags.  We shrugged and bought them.  Same bags as before – no writing, no instructions….hmmmm.  And, come to think of it, none of the cans in our yard had yellow bags collected in them. So what do we do with them once we fill them?!?

Finally, while we were in Italy last week, we asked Jack and Jane who were travelling with us about the bags.  They have lived here for a few years, so they’re our go-to answer folks.  They broke it down like this.  We were right about the compost.  The paper can accepts only paper – but nothing that’s been coated with plastic or wax (no juice boxes or milk cartons).  The other can was for trash – stuff that doesn’t fit in any of the other categories.  Our glass items needed to be deposited in receptacles around the neighborhood.  There are little igloo looking things where you separate your brown glass, green and white glass from each other.  But what of the yellow bags?

The yellow bags (called gelbesacks) are for recycling plastics and plastic coatings.  They also take Styrofoam and metal cans.  You can’t buy them at a store – they’re free.  But you have to get them FROM CITY HALL.  Apparently, one of the rooms in our basement is for gelbesack collection.  On retrieval day, our hausmeister (or building manager) carries them out to the street as he does with all of the other trash collection.  

Thank goodness for Jack and Jane.  We SO want to be good neighbors – and in rule-loving Germany, we know that doing so means following the procedures correctly.  Turns out Jack and Jane are out of gelbesacks too, so Jane and I are going to meet on Thursday morning for a little field trip to city hall.  It turns out, there’s also a vegetable market out there three days a week, so we’ll hit that also.  Who knew trash could be an adventure?!

A WEEKEND IN ITALY

First and foremost, I MUST wish my Grandmother a happy birthday! I know she won’t read this until much later, but I hope she knows that I am thinking of her today and sending her a great big hug.  She’s a neat lady, and one of the hardest parts about this adventure we’re on these days is that I am too far away to reach her directly.  I love you, Gram!!!!

So – the adventure du jour is a weekend trip to Bella Italia!!  Hubbalicious has a business trip to the base in Naples, and I am going along like a good trophy wife should!  We have lots of friends stationed over there, so a long weekend isn’t really long enough to fully enjoy the people, let alone the sites.  But we’re going to make a good first try at it and promise to try again as soon as we can :)

Our plan is to stay on base tonight so Hubbz can bounce down to the meeting in the morning.  Then I’ll work from the room on base until checkout time.  Hopefully by then the boys will be done and we can make our way to our friends’ house.  This couple has been a part of Hubbz’s life since college years.  I haven’t spent any large amount of time with them, so I’m looking forward to the opportunity to get to know them better.  They live on base with their two little kiddos :)  We will spend Friday night with them and then take a ferry over to Sorrento on Saturday – which is one of our favorite cities in the world (so far!).  I am using one of my meeting planning connections to book us a room in Sorrento for Saturday night.  They are putting us up for free!!  I am certainly going to miss those perks when I finally finish my work!  Then we’ll zip back across the bay of Napoli to the Naples Airport for a late flight back to Deutscheland :) Wish us bon voyage!!