It's Official ... There's not enough time in the week

I'm not sure I like going back to work ... it intereferes with my life. Ugh!!! Then again I sometimes try to do too much. Actually I am in awe of you bloggers who do the eight million things you do, blog about it, and oh, by the way, raise children in a multi-lingual family. You know who you are. I secretly envy those of you in business for yourselves; until recently, I did not have that privilege in Germany, so it was not a so-called middle road that I could take. No, I had to jump back into the wage-slave class if I wanted to stay in Germany. But I suspect you work longer hours than I do, so I'll check the envy at the door, at least for a few more weeks while I figure out where this thing is going. In the meantime, here is where the time goes ...

I start the day early in the morning driving an hour south to the new job, where I check in around 8 a.m. Not so bad ... I had earlier hours in New York. I stay at that until roughly 7 p.m. I also worked far longer than that in New York. The Partnerin and I had a good laugh when, during the interview process, the head of the group told me that they work long hours, sometimes as late as 7 !!! I rarely see the Partnerin before 9, but I am mercifully home somewhere between 8 and 8:30.

I'm still taking Chinese courses, but I realized that to keep up with the homework I either needed to carve out a chunk of time on the weekends or find it during the week. Enter Deutsche Bahn ... the train adds roughly 30 minutes to each end of the commute, but it gives me roughly 45 minutes of quality study time each way, so I've been taking it once or twice a week. Just as well, and it saves the poor car from a few hundred kilometers per week.

I haven't had German classes for some time, but I still get together with the kids from time to time for drinks, dinner, and we even go clubbing. The Russian is helping me brush up on my 20-year old Russian language skills in exchange for giving her a chance to brush up on her English. My old chain of command would have had a cow if I had known a smoking hot babe from Novosibirsk 20 years ago ... then again, I think she was only 5 back then ... and no doubt one of the millions destined to be on the receiving end of the weapons we had pointed in that direction and waiting for the turn of a few keys. World-wide delivery in thirty minutes or less, guaranteed. Ah, for the good old days of the Cold War, when the world was a safer place. But I digress.

I didn't want to carve out time from the week ends, because that is when I want to do some flying, travelling, or wandering. This past weekend included a round-robin flight from Egelsbach to Aschaffenburg to Mannheim to Koblenz and back. No photos unfortunately because although the sky was cheerily blue, the haze was phenomenally thick ... I was legal VFR (visual flight rules), but glad I could fly Instrument if I had to.

I haven't touched a golf club in three weeks, but I still bake bread ... in fact, have a loaf rising in the oven as I type away at this, having just finished dinner. The Partnerin, finally home, is sitting on the couch laughing her head off to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Funny the things she likes ... West Wing, Queer Eye, and a couple of others. Oddly enough, I'm watching a lot less television ... I wonder which one of us is the real American here.

And now that I think about it, I really should read a few other blogs and try to post thoughtful, or even dumb comments. One of the community once wrote about how we don't write for comments but then again we do ... a lot of truth to that. Hope you are all well!