The Dutch Files

Yeah, I thought thát title would draw your attention…

I really have no idea what to tell you today. My mind is a bit of a blank today. For no special reason, just blank… Nothing bad, just really, empty…

So I thought I might show you what I looked like when I just got out of the shower… I thought I’d share that with you. So here you go…

Oh come on! Puh-lease!!! You didn’t think I’d throw the full body version on my blog to put it out there, did ya? You must know me better than that by now. Always the tease, never dishing out the full monty! Nevah!

Yeah, so when last week the mechanic came ’round to do the annual check up of the water heater and central heating system, I had to clear out the water heater space. It’s a small space but Holy Mother of God, the amount of shit one can stuff in there amazes me every year, when I take everything out.

I have the ironing board in there, and a small ladder, two large containers (one with all kinds of bath&body stuff and one with electrical wires, tools, lamps and all that shit) a container with decorations, gift wrapping paper, several extension chords, a footbath I hardly use but can’t do away with either, a vacuum cleaner, empty plastic bags, shopping bags, ya know… stuff like that…

I always take this annual opportunity to look thru all that shit, especially the 2 large containers, and clean them out. I think I’ve developed hoarding tendencies, cuz this year I’ve learned that:

• I have no need to buy any deodorants for a while
• nor hairspray
• nor toothpaste
• nor tampons (yeah, I knów you’ll all be thrilled to learn about that one)
• nor lamps
• nor paper hankies
• nor towel hooks (I have four pairs in there, WTF?)
• nor shampoo
• nor USB wires
• AND that I in fact DID have an extra (new) toothbrush. Sorry Yvonne! (she stayed over the other night and she asked me for one and I was convinced that I didn’t have one… *cough*)

Oh and Hon? Recognize the post picture? That one is still waiting for your return over here…

Yeah, I am set for all of those for a while… I did notice I am almost out of toiletpaper though… Well, I still have a huge batch of paper hankies, so if it comes to the crunch…

Psssttt… By the way… you’ve just read my 1000th post on this blog… Just so you know…

OMFG! I am NOT a happy camper. Just when I thought I kinda had my finances in order… well, except for the car loan that I will be paying off for the years to come and the credit card and shit…

But at least I had an overview of what was going on again… and was not working on extra extra extra costs anymore… I was even working hard on planning the summer trip to Boston and New Yahk… (still determined to go though!)

Yah… for about 10 seconds… cuz that all changed yesterday… It was a fun day… [insert sarcasm]

First I got the bill from the dealership for the 2 tires I slashed last week: 240 euro’s ($ 306)… that leaves me just 10 euro’s ($ 12) from the money I earned with finishing a thesis lay out that very night.

* SIGH #1 *

Then I received an sms informing me that my latest mobile phone bill was available online… I made the huge mistake of checking that one just before going to sleep… It was 74 euro’s ($ 94)… Yah, it kinda fucked up my ability to sleep… The invoice informed me that that amount will be withdrawn from my account on Oct 23, the day befóre the paycheck comes in… Yay…

* SIGH #2 *

Then I spent the whole fucking morning waiting for the mechanic to come over to do the yearly check up of the water heater and central heating system… He finally dropped by 2.5 hours after he was supposed to come over. He finished within 15 min but didn’t leave before pointing out that I had a blockage in the overflow-chiffon… Something that was out of his “jurisdiction” and for which I had to call the landlord… I called the landlord who informed me that the fucking 550 euro ($702) rent/month I pay does apparently not include having a plumber come over to fix that blockage… So I called the plumber who informed me that it was at leást gonna cost me 90 euros ($ 114) ex taxes for them to come over and fix the blockage íf they don’t run into additional problems…

I called The BIL and asked him whether he could possibly have a look at the blockage before I spend my money on a plumber and he’s graciously offered to come over and try to remove the blockage tomorrow night… I hope he can fix it…

* SIGH #3 *

I had a huge row with The Ex about The Kid needing an appointment at the orthodontist… The Kid is living with me and therefore insured thru my health insurance, for which -obviously- I pay. The health insurance only reimburses 85% of orthodontist bills. So seeing as he does not pay childsupport and I pay all the costs for The Kid including insurance, taxes and all that shit, I figured he might wanna spring for the surplus 15% or at least 50% of that… No such deal… I think he’d rather have his kid have crooked teeth for the rest of his life… So I guess I’ll be springing for the 15% myself… as I ám having the kid see the orthodontist… I will be shopping around for an good but affordable one though…

* SIGH #4 *

And then to top it off I am forced to be working from home next week as The Kid has Fall break, daycare is closed and The Ex, well… ya know… Let’s just say The Kid is with me all week… And all of you with and without kids know that being home for the week is álways way more expensive than spending your days at the office…

* SIGH # I’ve lost count *

Yeah, I’ll be off to the office now. I have to try get rid of the everlasting backlog, plan 2 conferences, straighten out BB’s work and make sure I know where everything is before she leaves (checked her mailbox and PC harddisk and it’s a disaster area), and do interviews with possible temp secretaries. I got sent 6 resume’s yesterday and 4 of them I chucked in the bin straight away. WTF is it applying for a secretarial position and bluntly refusing to do meeting minutes!?!?! Sheesh! I do not hire secretaries that refuse to do secretarial tasks… Puh-lease!

Oh, and I’ll of course in my mind be figuring out how to survive financially until payday… These are times that I SO hate the fact that this world revolves around money and I could totally go for the suggestion of The Kid to just do away with money and make everything in life free…

So I was informed recently that I need to travel to Boston in July 2009. I will be attending a conference for the same society that I travelled to Chapel Hill for in September (and consequently got to see, hear, and feel The Guy! Heh…).

Thing is, the fucking conference is in the first week of The Kid’s summer break…

Yah… and he’s with me in that particular week and well, don’t even get me started on attempts to change weeks with The Ex… You’d think I had asked him to slam his dick inside a George Foreman grill! Sheesh!!!

Hmmm… lemme enjoy thát visual for just a minute… BRB…

OK back… Well, The Ex acting all difficult was to be expected seeing as he’s “sticking me” with both the Fall break in 2 weeks AND the whole fucking Christmas Break (which will mean taking 3 weeks off work within the next 3 months, sigh), cuz he’d rather go on holiday with the g/f than spend time with his son.

But anyway, I digress. So I was left with 2 options of which the 1st one, not going, is not really an option… So I am looking into getting the funds together to spring for a ticket for The Kid and taking him with me to Boston in July. Fortunately it is still a long way away, so hopefully I will have plenty of time to try and scrape the money together, and as I will already have a hotelroom available because of my conference attendance… I guess chances are The Kid and myself are gonna be on Boston next year!

I’ve already told him that he’s most probably gonna go with me. And even though it is still almost a year away he is totally psyched. Especially when I told him that I was thinking of adding a few days in NY to the mix… IF I can afford it (yeah, I know… travel won’t be that bad but getting an affordable hotelroom will be a bitch, I am sure).

I have to register for the conference before the end of next month. So by that time I WILL have to decide on what to do and I am mostly leaning towards going and taking The Kid with me. Even though I have to work a few days, and he’ll have to tag along, I am sure he will love it.

Yeah, that was basically all I had to tell you today… Boston or bust, right? I’ll keep you posted!

Yeah, I’ve got good news and bad news… It’s kinda entwined so let me just start off right away…

I pull about 36-40 hours át the office weekly and then at least another 8-10 hours more from home in the evenings and weekends. Some weeks more than others, depending on the workload. Right now it’s probably much more but I’ve stopped counting.

It does not bring me in enough cash to make ends meet. So I have extra jobs, several of them: I recently started doing the secretariat to the Dutch Vascular Internal Medicine Society, that’ll be a few hours/week. I designed the website for a webshop of one of my best girlfriends (HouseOfWonders) to which I will remain webmaster. And I do the lay out for the PhD thesi of PhD students (many of our own departments but word is spreading so I am currently spreading my wings to other university medical centers in Dutchyland). It keeps me excruciatingly busy at times but also brings in money that I very much need to keep afloat. And the good thing is that I can do most of this in the evenings when The Kid is asleep or in the weekends.

So yesterday, coming back from a hell of a fucking busy day at the office, I rushed home, rushed off to have dinner with a friend and after that went off to one of the PhD students that I am doing thesis lay out for to finish up the last little things on her layout. We managed to get it finished and I got paid for the job (i.e. GOOD NEWS)… We had a glass of wine together to toast the soon to be finished and printed thesis and then I got into the car and went home. It was late and I was friggin tired, but at least there was a few hundred euros in my pocket that could pay for some bills (i.e. GOOD NEWS)…

I drove home and just when I started going down the exit on the freeway and was about 10 mins from home…

*BANG*

Yeah, that would be the sound of really BAD NEWS… My car started to swing uncontrollably, I put on the breaks and managed to park it at the side of the road without a scratch… Um… yeah… except for both front tires… They were diminished to shreds… Shreds! I had blown both my front tires!!! WTF? (i.e. BAD NEWS)… I walked back a bit to where I think it happened and yup, sure enough… It looked like a pair of cars had recently been in a collision out there and both drivers could apparently not be bothered to clean up their shit. Glass and other shit all over the road. Yeah, thanks you assholes! I called the Dutch Automobile Service that I am a member off and half an hour later they were towing my car to my dealership that was about 8 min further up the road, I dropped the keys and a letter to my dealership in the letterbox and walked the last few miles home… after midnight… as the tow truck fucker guy could not be bothered to drop me off (i.e. more BAD NEWS)

I was totally bummed when I came home. It meant that the few hundred euros that were burning in my pocket would go straight to the 2 tires that I blew… So much for extra cash… AND I would have to do the pain in the ass thing of getting the bus to and from work the next day ánd take a few hours off in order to be at the dealership in time to pick up my car. And the bus doesn’t go there so that would mean the few miles of hiking back there too… (for now I think that was all of the BAD NEWS)

So I got up yesterdaymorning… Showered (I did have a realllly steamy one), got dressed, make up, hair, got my shit together, left the house and rushed down the appartment building stairs to try and be at the busstop in time… Only to find my car parked in its usual spot in front of the appartment building! With 2 brandnew tires on there!

Um…. What the hell? How? …

Now I must say that my dealership has been my dealership since I was 19. They know about my current situation. They know I álways need a replacement car to borrow when my car goes in for repairs as I can’t get shit done without one. Then it dawned on me. I walked around to my mailbox, opened it and sure enough there were my carkeys and a note from the dealer. He had come to the shop early and had found my car out there and my keys in the letterbox and had one of the mechanics rush the new tires on my car and drop it off at at my appartment building before I was off to the office. Cuz he knew I would need my car…

Yeah, so that would be the GREAT news…

I love my dealership! They are surely not the cheapest way to get my car fixed most of the time but they never charge me for the replacement cars they give me and well, they do shit like this for me… Obviously the invoice was in there too… in my mailbox. And it’s gonna cost me most of the money I earned with the thesis lay out… But there is no money that can pay for the wonderful feeling of people coming to your aid when you least expect it!

P.S. of course after that some potential bad news had to fuck my day back up… the medical center’s HR dept informed me that due to budget cuts the request to replace BB and put out an add for a new secretary had to pass thru the Budget Committee and that there is a very real chance that I will not be allowed to replace BB… Which would mean running the whole fucking secretariat by myself… Can you hear the sizzling of 2 fulltime jobs melting together into one really assholy big one? Cross everything you can cross for me, again… Cuz seriously… Hell No!