It came to my attention,yesterday, in a really inconvenient way, that someone had accessed my debit card information, produced a replica of my card, and gone on a 758 dollar shopping spree in my name, at a Walmart in New York. Because I live in Germany and my husband lives in Iraq, the bank could see that the transaction was riddled with fraud, and will, therefore, not be holding me liable for the disaster it has wreaked on my finances. Also because I live in Germany, it is going to take longer to mail another debit card-which is also inconvenient. Too, due to certain political/economic factors of my host country, very few places take VISA-which makes buying winter clothes for my kids this weekend a tricky business. It is true too that the dollar is getting slammed by the Euro, and making it increasingly painful to shop here-which increases the appeal of internet shopping, which increases the likelihood of having my financial information compromised again.
To add to these lovely pecuniary phenomena, my children have proven their skills at getting my attention in the shrewdest and most non-congenial ways. Without going into details about their behavior, I can say that I screamed EVERY expletive belonging to the German and English language SEVERAL times over, AND broke every dish in my house (except the plastic ones) today. My kids have the fear of God in them, I have the fury of Hell, and there doesn't appear to be any promise of the situation abating.
When, upon buying a glue gun at the Post Exchange today, and finding there were no glue-sticks to go with it, I exerted every iota of self-control I had in me, and went to the German hardware store, OBI (pronounced Oh-bee). At OBI, I found glue sticks that were a slightly different caliber (i.e.METRIC), and got one jammed into my newly purchased 110 volt, American one (made in China), whilst examining the possibility of "making due". I thence had to buy a German 220 volt glue gun with accompanying glue sticks in order to build a small boat for my son's "raingutter regatta" for Cub Scouts on Monday.
The only theater for miles and miles and miles that plays movies in English is on Post, plays only one movie at a time, is closed Mondays through Wednesdays, and if we are lucky, plays one kid-friendly film per millennium. That cycle reached its apogee tonight at 1830 hours. It is an unspoken rule that parents of school-aged children attend such events, due in part to their obscure rarity, and in part to social custom. The only plus side to having gone tonight was that my daughter chose to attach herself to a friend of mine and her kids, and only ruined their viewing. I'm sure that Karma will make its way back to me in time-perhaps tomorrow in church, where I will most likely be struck by lightning.
Where does our strength come from? Where does the spring of patience start? If I knew it came from the top of Mount Everest, I would climb there to get it. It is just such a paradox of thought to be busting my ass day in and day out for the little fruits of my loins, who have no immediate appreciation for it. I have a sliver of faith in me that things will "come around" or get better, or whatever, but that goes only so far in the face of discouragement. I feel like I have been doing this forever, and we just barely hit our year mark-in other words, we still have a year until my husband can come home. My kids will be a year older, my house will have another year's worth of hand prints on the walls, my breasts will be a year saggier, Tatum might even be potty trained-what changes!
I'm sorry for the rant-I'm not trying to get pity-I have found it doesn't help. I just needed to blow off steam-in the cosmic-cyber realm-I wish there were dishes to smash here too, but I guess you can only have so much fun.
Well, I better get back to my school work, the raingutter boat and the laundry. Hey-at least I don't have to do the dishes tonight, right!?