The lyf so short

we usually lack the time to do so. But I'll try to make a start, at least!

Firstly, thank you very much to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday! It was an OK day. Because it was a birthday, OK is disappointing. Your messages made it a little more special, so I really, really appreciate them. I'll try to thank you all personally, but in case I'll take a bit longer to do that, I already wanted you to know that I'm very grateful. <3

A very happy belated birthday to everybody whose birthdays I missed! Especially hamnar, of whom I was today reminded because bossman told me to contact "our IT guy", but not to be surprised because "he lives in the Far East".
Moi: "You mean the Near East?" (Most of the new guys on the team are from the Near East, except for new boss colleague, who is from the Ruhr area.)
Bossman: "No, the Far East. Saxony. What's it called. Here, thingy, Freiberg."
And I thought OMG FREIBERG IT GUY CAN IT BE hamnar?! OH CRAP YOU FORGOT HIS BIRTHDAY!
It wasn't him, but I still felt really guilty!

So yeah, "the team" and "colleague" and "bossman". I'm a grown-up Hobbit now, which apparently included stumbling into a job. That was another funny thing. You may remember that I've been freelancing for a regional magazine. Just after Easter, I got a call from bossman that he wanted to talk to me about something. So I, feeling apprehensive, went there. First, bossman plucked an article by me to pieces. Then he asked how I was envisioning my future with their magazine. I thought Oh, here goes, I'm gonna get the boot, so there was nothing to loose, so I said "Well, if I get to make a wish, I'd like permanent employment, really. But I can only work part-time because of my kids."
Bossman: "How many hours part-time?"
Moi: "Like, 20?"
Bossman: "Well, you can't replace S. (the editor in chief) on 20 hours."
Moi: *WTF HAVE YOU SECRETLY BEEN OFFERING ME THE EDITOR IN CHIEF POSITION WTF WTF* "Yeah, I know."
Bossman: "We can call it a traineeship though."
Moi: *WTF WTF*
BUT I am apparently a ~raw diamond~ and bossman is a ~visionary~.

The proper technical German term is Volontariat, which sounds like volunteering, which isn't really what it is - it's a paid traineeship. The misleading term comes from the olden days when teens, being not yet of age, were put into apprenticeship by their parents, whereas you put yourself (voluntarily) into a Volontariat, which generally requires having finished university (at which time you have come of age, even in the olden days when the legal age was 21). Anyway. I got myself into a voluntary paid apprenticeship?
I basically came back home from that only to learn that in fact, the mother-in-law won't be able to look after the kids even 20 hours a week (+ driving) after all. So either I'll get them kindergarten or daycare spots REALLY SOON (hahahahahahaha) or the traineeship will be over before it really started. Haha.
(Also, this is basically ALL MY PROBLEM. Because Jörg has OTHER PROBLEMS. Guess who encouraged me to apply for stuff BEFORE the childcare situation is securely resolved? DING DING DING! To be fair, Jörg has been fighting pneumonia the past weeks, but it was ALL MY PROBLEM before the pneumonia hit him, too.)

The editor in chief has been replaced by the guy from Dortmund. Who is nice. But although he's got more job experience, I don't really feel that he's more qualified than I am. Except in that his wife takes care of his daughter. So he can work full time. So he is boss colleague and I am the trainee. BECAUSE I'M A GIRL.
Before you can get your feminist boots of rage on (and believe me, I'm sometimes tempted to do so), I have to admit that it can be quite a relief to be only the trainee. Like, boss colleague had to stay in the office until 19:30 today because Something Important (TM) came up. Whereas I managed to leave at 5 pm, yay.
Or today:
Bossman: "And one of you can coach the Syrian guys."
Boss colleague and I: "AHAHAH WE'RE JUST FINDING OUR OWN FEET HERE!"
Bossman: "C., can you do that?"
Moi: "Um, not sure I can do them justice in my time here?"
Bossman: "OK, J., you do it! You can start by organising this and that appointment ~"
Boss colleague: "....... I'm just finding my feet?"
I'M SO HAPPY I'M A GIRL.

The Syrian guys are the result of bossman being a ~visionary~. It's not enough that he's running a regional magazine that manages to do decent journalism in the middle of nowhere. He also wants to run a regional magazine for refugees. Awesome plan! But do you have to start a complicated new project when your editor in chief is leaving the team and you have to teach two newbies the ropes? Except with the whole new editorial team for the additional magazine, there actually are six newbies on the team? With whom you not only have to set up a whole new thing, but also battle German bureaucracy? YMMV.

BUT it's been tremendous fun so far. Which is very dangerous, because I'm like "eh well, I'd be blogging now anyway, so I can as well feed the magazine's Wordpress calendar a bit". So I keep on working at home. Instead of updating you all on the EXCITING THINGS going on in my life. (I'm trying to be positive and say EXCITING rather than SCARY CRAZY.) I'm terrified it won't work out in the long run, because I like the job description and, in spite of the warnings from the parting editor in chief, think bossman is pretty cool. And finishing a traineeship would certainly be useful in the future. Still not certain that I want to be a journalist forever, but at least it's high on the list of things I want to do. Even though I'm already discovering that I'm actually lacking the ambition to be more than a ~raw diamond~. I'm happy with being a ~raw diamond~. It must be tiring being a Silmaril.

Speaking of which, when I came home all exhilarated after the traineeship offer only to be met by indifference and awkward news, I had to go and write a lot of awkward, repetitive Nerdanel and Fëanor bickering for Golden Days. The new chapter is now 9 pages long, completely stuck, and probably a horror to read. I haven't yet had the heart (or time) to give it a second look. The trouble with writing as a job is that I can't really turn to writing as a leisure activity anymore.

Anyway! Exciting times. I hope I'll figure out the childcare issue. And the work/life balance thingy.

How can it be March already? The year only just began! There's still snow outside and everything!

Aside from many serious things that I really should write about some other time (some other time?), this means that it's only a coupla weeks till my 33rd birthday.

After my experiences in past years, I can't really be bothered to organise a party, but then again, thirty-three. An important number, when a Hobbit lass comes of age. I'll be moping forever if I don't at least try to get a couple of people to come and celebrate. (I'm assuming that even grown-up Hobbit don't stop moping.) Then again, I'll also be moping forever if I try to get people to come, and they don't. Aaaaaagh what to do.

Also, as my birthday is also my grandfather's birthday, and he's turning 90 this year (HOW CAN IT BE 2016 ALREADY?), I'll probably need to pick a different date. (If I celebrate in the first place.) BUT WHICH ONE. No, not the same. Our circles of friends don't really overlap, and 123 isn't as cool as 144 anyway.

Cannot cope. Off to Mordor...

This completely useless and incredibly grown-up post was brought to you by Lyra Needs To Hear Herself Thinking, Apparently.

Right. Back to B2MeM.

In more important news, a huge thank you to all of you who thought of my birthday and spoiled me with images, lj posts, messages, postcards or virtual gifts! I hope I responded to all the posts and will manage to respond to all the messages, but in case I somehow overlook your lovely birthday message, please feel thanked and hugged this way!
(((((Y'ALL)))))

I have to admit that I spent the week before my birthday in a sort of state of pre-emptive emo-ness because after the past years, I was certain that nobody would remember my birthday again. And what with me turning 30, too. (A sure sign that you can be 30 without being grown-up, I assume!) I did you a great injustice! Now I also sort of regret that I chose not to plan any real-world, real-place celebration, because maybe more than 4 people would've managed to attend for a change, who knows? Not quite certain whether I'll have a party at some later point, or whether I'll let this OMG SPESHUL anniversary pass and instead prepare to throw a huge party in three years' time. 33's a great number. A Hobbit's coming-of-age party, so to say? Attractive idea!

Anyway. Thank you for proving me wrong! ♥

Here I am, back online after a weekend full of work and sunshine.

We cleared out the one-time pigsty and removed the last walls between the two attic rooms; we battled ivy and lugged heaps of stones from one barn to the other; we planted things and put up poles and painted the old steel joists. A cat got stuck under the ridge of the roof. And I turned 25 and got three cakes. And a sock wreath.

But all in due course.

I enjoyed my birthday party a lot (I hope the guests did too, except for one who I know didn’t; she left early and apparently had some trouble finding her way home; I would feel sorry for her if she hadn’t behaved so oddly) even though the preparations were rather stressful and I got stuck in a traffic jam with three of my guests, which cost us nerves and time.

When all the guests but ladyelleth and Eestima had gone, my brother returned from putting up a May birch*. As he was busy doing traditional stuff anyway, he followed another tradition, this time a Westphalian one. It goes like this: When you’re a woman and you turn 25 and you’re still not married, you get a Schachtelkranz. The reasoning goes that if you’re 25 and unmarried you turn into a alte Schachtel (old baggage, as Granny Weatherwax would say), so people collect boxes (Schachteln) and make a wreath which you have to hang from your door for 25 days. It’s sexist, but there you go. Men get sock wreaths instead of box wreaths (I assume this has to do with the humorous shape of hanging socks; this custom comes, of course, from the days when you didn’t have pre-marital sex.)
Now 2008 is a leap year, so everything gets turned around (technically the girls would’ve had to put up May birches for their beloveds this year, but nobody researches this stuff properly these days) and I, despite being a girl, was entitled to a wreath of old socks. And my loving brother made one.
However he said he couldn’t resist the old Schachtel thing, so each of the 25 socks contains in turn a small box. And a Kinder surprise egg (whatever THAT is supposed to imply! At this point you have to know that Kinder means “children” in German…)

Since we got all the partying done in the night from April 30th to May 1st, my actual birthday was free for – further work on the house. (May 1st is Labour Day, so there was no work or university to attend; besides this year Ascension Day also landed on May 1st. I am mispleased. If this hadn’t been a leap year Labour Day would have been the Wednesday and Ascension Day would have been on May 2nd, giving us a practically free week, but as it was…) But as the weather was so beautiful we did as much work outside as was possible. The pigsty is now ready for renovation; we removed the remains of the old roof except for the steel joists which we de-rusted and painted with protective lacquer. Some friends from Jörg’s former judo club joined us and helped putting up some more poles for the fence, this time without damaging any pipes. ladyelleth stayed until Sunday, too, and Jörg’s mom helped as well so we had a lot of hands around for a change. Jörg’s mother had made a birthday cake for me, but as we were so many it got eaten within a few minutes, and she made another one the next day, which again disappeared immediately, so she made a third one for Sunday when there would be only three left to eat it. It was eaten rather quickly anyway…
All the while I had a Middle English song stuck in my head. If there’s one thing more embarrassing than a stupid earworm, it’s a stupid earworm in an obsolete language. Then again, I normally get church songs stuck in my head while working in the garden – my theory is that the people who used to work there in the olden days were very religious and kept on singing hymns while gardening so the soil took them in and still emits them whenever you stick a spade in. So Sumer is icumen in is at least different…

My parents dropped by on Thursday to hand over some presents before going on to my grandfather’s birthday celebration (he and I share a birthday, alas), issue an invitation for dinner on Sunday, and say that they always had bangs of conscience when they saw us working and they couldn’t help. I managed not to say anything sarcastic.

When, late on Sunday, after we had dropped our debris-buckets, hammers, shovels and other tools, and after we had taken the dinner invitation and returned from my parents’, we opened the door. As often happens, our cats saw us arriving and came inside with us.
This time, however, Caesar – our uphill neighbours’ cat – came along as well.
Caesar has been growing more courageous around us for a few weeks, once even walking into our kitchen although he went back out quickly and before our cats saw him there. He has been seen frolicking with ‘náro and Darcy, too, so apparently they have befriended each other, more or less.
That friendship didn’t extend to suffering him in their inner sanctum – i.e., our house – though. Our kittens growled, Caesar fled upstairs, our kittens followed. What came next was a concerto of threatening cat noises (which sound very un-catlike and more like Roland’s threatening battle-noises, kaneda will know what I mean). ‘náro had his ears cocked to the side and his eyes wide and dark; he looked, I am sorry to report, rather a lot like Pikachu. Caesar was obviously terrified of the fluffy Pokémon and ran up the stairs to the attic, again followed by Pika-náro and Darcy.

Long story short: They chased him as far up as he could go, which is under the ridge of the roof. There he was, and though we managed to lure them to the living room, Caesar couldn't be moved to come down again. So 'náro and Darcy had to spend the night in kitchen and living room while we hoped that Caesar might climb down from the ridge during the night.

But noooo.

Ten hours later he still sat up there, and we were forced to find the longest ladder and pluck him off the roof. He was afraid of moving, but when Jörg held him, he was all cuddly. Once he had been carried down the stairs he jumped off Jörg's arms and walked out (I can save myself, dammit!). End of drama. Also, end of sleeping.

Four days of no work - no paid work, that is - and all motivation to return to the real workplace is gone. Even though today was fairly relaxed, it was sooo frustrating.

*A Rhenanian custom. During Beltane night the guys put up May birches decorated with paper strips in front of their beloved’s window. Traditionally we did not have that plague of a holiday that the Anglo-Saxon world celebrates on Feb.14th, so we have various variants of pre-Christian celebration of love customs instead. In the past ten or so years St. Valentine’s Day has taken hold and partly replaced the original customs, much like Hallowe’en trick-or-treating is spreading even in areas that have other similar traditions such as the wassailing on St. Martin’s Day. Bah.

- - -

( Nachlese )
- - -