My ear infection is turning out to be a bit of a complication. I had to go and see a specialist yesterday, as my hearing did not really seem to be improving. It turns out that the nerves in my ears have been damaged – the infection has basically poisoned them. I have lost 25% of hearing in my left ear and 5% in the right. The 5% are seemingly negligible, but the 25% are worrying. I was given a local anesthetic and my ear drum was cut to drain the fluid out of my ear. I am now taking 100 mg of cortisone every day, doctor’s orders – which is also the reason why I am sitting at my computer at 4 am today. Nice side effects, no? There is a possibility my hearing will return. If it doesn’t, however, it seems I will have to get a hearing aid. I still can’t believe this. I am perfectly aware that this is not the end of the world, but I am 29 years old. Is this kind of thing not to happen a lot later in life? The Lad managed to put things into perspective for me again by reminding me of the two little ones (twins) in the Munchkin’s kita class who are dependent on their hearing aids at the age of two. Still, I am struggling to deal with this new development.

Confined to the bed with something apparently close to pneumonia and the mother of all inner ear infections, it would seem that there is ample time for me to post. Unfortunately, a long period of hesitation has proven yet again ill-advised for me, as the only result is a tangled, messy heap of confused thoughts, completely impossible to be formed into coherent sentences. Upon inquiry, my random topic generator has produced ‘employment ramble’ as choice of the day, so here goes. Please forgive my febrile musings.

The Lad is still looking for a new job. So far, so anxiety-inducing. I suppose we were hoping things would just somehow fall into place and we would be spared the whole unemployment benefit (please fill in eleventy million forms and tell us where you hide your money) experience.  No such luck – the next job center appointment will take place this week.

While we are on this particularly joy-filled topic, I feel compelled to add that my bosses are still trying to dispose of me. My ‘Elternzeit’, as the maternity leave is referred to in Germany, will end in May this year.

At my office, I’ve been considered an inconvenience and therefore strategically bullied ever since I announced my pregnancy. Now that the end of my Elternzeit is nigh and I have refused to just ‘go and look for a different job’, as I was asked to do during the last meeting, my lovely bosses are pulling out all their stops to keep me from coming back to the office.  The latest news here is that I was asked to accept a severance package of some kind. My lawyer – a friend of the family – whom I consult with frequently at this point, advised me to request said offer in writing. Just yesterday,  I received an email from one of my bosses who proceeded to inform me that she is not willing to put anything into writing and instead wants to call me this week to talk about things further. I am unsure how to respond to that – for now I have sent a reply saying that I won’t be talking to anyone over the phone in the next few days, as my sense of hearing is almost non-existent what with the infection and all that.

In any case, it’s a real shocker that my German employers wish to unburden themselves of me, a young mother of one. Knowing my boss’ sentiments, I did of course see this coming.  It’s not that statements like ‘I will only employ women outside their fertile years from now on’ tipped me off or anything.

What really depresses me in all this, though, is that noone even pretends to be surprised. This is just how it is. Oh well. What a shame. Women, or more specifically mothers, continue to be the weakest link in very many ways and it’s just a universally accepted fact. And, even more infuriatingly, I couldn’t even really do anything about it,  should I feel so inclined, because the Lad and I would be unable to pay the legal expenses.

Right now I am basically just sitting around, waiting for things to happen to me. Good times. Lovely feeling, that. No pressure or strain involved at all. Is it wrong that I wanted to kick my boss in the teeth when she closed an email with ‘greetings in a very difficult time for us all’? A very difficult time, indeed. Especially for someone who has no children and lives off a manager’s salary. The poor, poor thing.

On Monday, the 23rd of November, I got into work like any other regular day. I went to see my buddy J for a quick chat, but only got a ‘Sorry dude, now is not the time’. He seemed somewhat worried but I had no reason to suspect anything, so I carried on with my day. After an hour, curiosity finally got the better of me and I asked J over the office communicator whether he could tell me what was going on. His response was an unsettling ‘Dude, did you not hear the rumors? People are getting fired! I am deleting user accounts as we speak’.

My heart sank a little. I was called to a meeting at 11:30 that morning with no reason or subject given. But the whole team was called and they could not be firing the whole department or even a few of us in front of the rest, surely?

As we all got up to leave, the manager came over and asked me to follow her – to another meeting, on another floor. My heart stopped!

I was taken into a meeting with four other people, two from neighbouring departments and two from what seemed to be management, but I did not recognize them at all. My manager left.

‘As you know, the old CEO left a few months ago and the new CEO has been very interested in saving money. One of the areas he is looking into is personnel and your positions have been targeted for termination.’

That’s right, about a month before Christmas, I got fired!

‘We would like you to sign this document as proof that this meeting took place and also ask you to take this contract with you and return it to us signed before the following Monday. The contract is for your severance package and the agreement of your termination with the company.’

My contract will be up on December 31st. This is really nothing any of us saw coming.

One of the girls that was getting fired along with me piped up: ‘So what now, do we go back to work?’ Management replied: ‘No, we ask you to leave the building immediately, take what you can from your desk and call us for an appointment if there are any personal files on your computer, as you will likely not be able to log in by the time you get back to your desk.’

I remembered that J was deleting users at this point. I briefly wondered if he knew about me beforehand. Of course, later I checked with him and he said that he only got the user names the instant they got to the meeting. My name was on a little queue and he did not see it until I had left the building.

Right now there is a mad rush, looking for work, trying to figure things out, but to be honest, I can’t see anything happening until after the New Year. Everyone is worrying too much about Christmas and their parties to even think about employing new folks.

So, I apply and wait. I started a course on JavaScript (part of web design) which should be a good stepping stone into pastures new.

1. A feeling of self-worth and direction, of ability and capability.

2. A sense of something else, something beyond my misery and the realization that there ARE perfect things in my very own life, even though almost everything seems somewhat off right now.

3. A new job for the Lad.

Picture time! Our baby will be 18 months old in 12 days. She is sporting 3 1/2 teeth by now, her current favorite pastimes are climbing everything that seems remotely suitable for it and putting things in order – I have honestly no idea where she gets that from.  Our little girl charms everyone with her generally cheerful disposition – wherever she goes, she smiles and is friendly with people. I love that quality about her so much, I attempt to soak up her positive and happy attitude and try to make it my own. Anyway, on with the pictures. I always try to reduce the amount of photos I want to show to three or four when I sort my way through the recent pictures, but end up using way too many regardless. I can’t promise that’ll change anytime soon, I am afraid.

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A little while ago, during my lunch break, I took some time to look for a new camera bag. I have had my eye on a Crumpler for a while now, but it’s pretty hard to find one in a store that you can examine. To my surprise, I found we have a Crumpler store here in Berlin.

So making my way there (with my camera in my old bag), it starts to hail BB pellets. I start to make for cover. The ground is uneven and I trip. Trying to save my camera, I put my other arm out and *pop*, out it comes from my shoulder socket.

Yep, I dislocated my shoulder right in the middle of the street. I drag myself to an empty store front and sit for a while, trying to assess the damage. I briefly think that maybe I have in fact broken something, so the first thing I come up with is that the Lass will be worried about me. I don’t know why I think like that. But above all, I do not want to have to call her about an accident, because I can’t stand making her cry. All of a sudden, I am popped back into the present by my arm going back into my shoulder. OW!

You know how its’a big ‘Die Hard’ thing that John McClane can pop out his arm to defuse a bomb? Well, I would have exploded. I am a wuss like that and this kinda pain has me flattened.

I sit for a while longer, trying to get myself sorted, when I notice a guy in the café across the street just staring at me. For the longest time he just watches me, apparently not even asking himself whether or not I am ok. That’s city life for you, I guess. Unless you actually fall on someone, they just simply won’t care.

Anyways,  I am off work for now and I have been lazing around, trying to recover.

A friend just told me that it took him five years to get his arm back to normal again after a similar incident. Somehow I don’t think being off ill the next five years would go down so well with my work.

The last couple of weeks have been quite strenuous for us. When I collected the Munchkin from Kita one Thursday, I heard a little girl in her classroom cough quite badly. I felt reasonably sure then that we would be graced with the appearance of a cold sometime soon.

The Munchkin was restless throughout the following night, but seemed otherwise ok. On Friday then, her condition deteriorated after I picked her up from Kita. Her temperature rose up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and I was unable to lower it for any length of time. She also developed a terrible cough and became increasingly lethargic. When she seemed to have trouble breathing and her overall condition worsened, the Laddie and I took her to the Emergency Room.

Turns out our baby was suffering from acute spasmodic laryngitis (spasmodic croup) and obstructive bronchitis, so her breathing pathways were basically blocked both ways. The doctor explained to us just how dangerous spasmodic croup can get and gave us a room on the pediatric ward of the hospital. We (the Munchkin and I) stayed there for four very restless and exhausting days. The Lad came to be with us every day from about 7:30 am and left when it was time for our little girl to sleep. Our nights at the hospital were filled with frequent visits by nurses and one alarm or other going off approximately every ten minutes or so, startling awake both the Munchkin and myself.

At some point during our hospital stay, the Lad voiced what I had been thinking about all the time, too: We have never been this scared for our daughter. I felt utterly helpless and useless, seeing my baby hooked up to the monitors, getting poked with needles, taking cortisone, inhaling every few hours. My poorest child. I took comfort in the fact that I was very close to her all through this time. The Munchkin spent the first night at the hospital sleeping on my belly. For the remaining three days, she snuggled up very close beside me at night – thankfully they had pushed two beds together for us, so our sleeping situation was similar to what we’re used to.

We arrived back home last Monday and the Munchkin spent the remainder of the week with me. Yesterday was her first day back at Kita and she seems to have missed that part of her routine a lot. Leaving the classroom on Monday, I read that scarlet fever is an issue at Kita right now, too. I guess I should get used to that kind of thing.

In other news, the Lad celebrated his 27th birthday on October 8th. Due to our stay at the hospital and the resulting stress and chaos, I was unable to make his special day truly special for him. We did spend the day together, but things were just really unorganized, messed up and generally lacking. By October 7th, a feverish cold had knocked me out, too, so I was basically rendered useless once more. I feel absolutely terrible about how this year’s birthday went for the Lad – I hope I will be able to make it up to him somehow.

Our Munchkin is asleep, the Lad and I will snuggle up now, have some homemade chicken soup, watch a movie and hope the next illness isn’t looming on the horizon just yet.

The Lad really made my birthday extra special this year. The day itself did not start out too well for me, as I was feeling quite sad about being alone until the evening. Apparently, something or other was going on in the office that day, hence the Lad couldn’t get the day off. I really, really love it when we spend our special celebrations together, so this day’s feeling of loneliness added uncomfortably to the general feeling of depression and anxiety I’ve been experiencing lately .

Anyway, we got ready for the day and I dropped the Munchkin off at Kita as usual. Back at home, I settled down in front of the computer, took some birthday calls and messages and got a lovely E-Card from Cello_Mum *mwah*. I’d resigned myself to a day of vegging out on the couch, watching a movie or something, until I’d pick up our baby from Kita again, when the Lad suddenly called and told me to go to the car. He’d deposited a note there that instructed me to drive to IKEA and call him again from the main lobby area. Curious, I went on to drive to my designated destination.

When I called him from the store, the Lad directed me to a locker, gave me the combination of numbers I needed to open it and told me to follow the last instruction I would find.  In the locker I found a present and a travel guide to Paris, in it a voucher for a breakfast at the Café Les Deux Vents. ‘Amelie’ lovers will probably recognize the name. Anyhoo, in yet another note I was told to drive back home. At that point, I half expected for the Lad to suddenly materialize from somewhere in the store, but alas, no such thing happened.

I went back home and entering the apartment, found myself in the Café Les Deux Vents. The Lad had invested a lot of time and effort into transforming our living room into this:

A breakfast in France *swoon*. I adore this man so much! Because of monetary restrictions, we have not been able to go out for a meal, go on a holiday or anything like that for a long while now. Even so, the Lad frequently manages to create a great atmosphere on days like this. True love, I tell ya!

A bit later in the day, we also had a bit of this:

What’s a birthday without a Chocolate Fudge Cake? After we had our cake, we went to pick up our baby together and all spent a marvelous day with beautiful weather in Berlin. Minus the initial feeling of depression, I had a really lovely 29th birthday! I’m thinking I’ll celebrate my 29th for the next 5-7 years or so.

In other news, my birthday money allowed me to feed my current obsession. It’s been a long while since a story captured my attention and I’ve resisted for the longest time before I finally succumbed to watching Twilight. Well, it’s only a few days later and I have all the books, the DVD and the Soundtrack in my possession. I am very terribly, incredibly drawn to the figure of Edward. And Bella, of course. Yes, their story. The love, the passion, the suffering, Rob Pattinson…Where was I? Yes, sorry. So I kinda like Twilight. Sort of. It’s more of a mild interest, really. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have got some reading to do (day three of owning the books, currently reading volume 3). Ahhh Edward, you are haunting me in my sleep.

It’s the Lassies birthday today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGEL!!!!

If you wish to send her an e-card you can send them to nomagicpill@gmail.com. Of course you can also comment if thats better.

More details to follow!

Just a quickie post.

I can’t say where. I can’t say how. But that’s me with the Oscar that Jon Landau won for ‘Titanic’.

Oh and yeah, that’s Jon Landau….SQUEEEEEEEE!!!

And yeah, the Oscar was heavy!