The next day.

So here is the down point:

All signs point to my job vanishing in two months. I'm great at writing emails to people, but chances are high that the entirety of the English-speaking department will be moved over to England in November, and I can probably either go with them and have a job or stay here and have no job. Again. And it's not like going with them is an option, because hello, England? Boyfriend?

The Irish girl I work with says that she is used to this by now. She has had multiple odd jobs here in the past three years - she's been a nanny too, of course - and is sort of lassez-faire about the whole thing. Both she and the other expatriate I work with (he's a Canadian former airline pilot who came to Germany because hello, it's Germany, and now he can't find a job and is therefore working in marketing, writing emails with a 22-year-old) are experts at this.

They stay because, well, things aren't any better in the US and Ireland right now. But the constant rotation of jobs seems to have hardened them into people who shrug and take what they can get, and it scares me.

Two days ago, a woman approached me on the street and gave me her phone number. She said, in swift German, that she owns a customer-service firm and is always looking for new representatives, and that if I wanted a job I should call her. I had no idea why... I think it was because I was wearing a bright red dress and looking very conspicuous. I halfway think she's a madam, and I halfway think she's terrifying, and I halfway am considering calling her, just because I have no clue what else exactly I am supposed to be doing here.

I forgot August!

Aw damn!

I looked at the list of my blog posts in the corner today to discover that I have updated precisely once a month for oh the past five months. And now I've gone and blown it by forgetting August - I am a once-every-two-months blogger instead of a once-a-month blogger now. Tarnation!

Oh well - I hope you'll cut me some slack, maybe-dear reader, since it is only the first of September. Also, a hell of a lot happened in August, especially considering that I initially thought it would be kind of a nothing month.

I initially thought this because the month began with me getting fired. Not fired, insists Nader, laid off - which is technically true. I didn't do anything wrong, really, not that I know of... it was more that the family I was nannying for decided I was not very necessary now that half of their children (read: one) were heading off to boarding school, and that the housekeeper could more-than-capably perform my job. Hats off to them, I thought as I pedaled away from their house for what I hadn't that morning known would be the last time... I'd realized this fact about a month ago, and had naively thought that it wasn't nearly as apparent to my bosses. I had apparently been mistaken.

So there I was, fired. I did not cry. Instead, I went shopping, and then Nader and I toasted my unemployment by going out for Indian food.

That was denial.

When Monday came, however, I felt the beginnings of crushing despair - the same kind of despair that had gripped me in March, back when I realized that my visa was only good for another twenty days. How would I survive? What other kind of work could I DO?

I spent another couple of days wallowing and making various declarations. "I will not work again," I said. "I will live off my savings!" (Yeah, right.) "I will become a novelist!" "I should probably just go back to nannying, it's all I'm really good at." "I shall learn to play the ukulele!"

And then, on Wednesday, my friend Alexa sent me a link to a job opening.

And then I applied for it, after much foot-dragging and ukulele-purchasing.

And then I went for an interview.

And then I got the job.

And then I applied for a visa, and they pushed the start date back a few weeks. And then I waited to see if the German government would allow me to work.

And then Nader finished one of his exams, and he was like "Hey why don't we go to Prague?" and so we went to Prague, which is (like Paris) absolutely as beautiful as everyone says it is. More so. And it is seedy, but in a sort of pleasant way, a way that makes you think you can get stuff for cheap, even though that is only due to the fact that their money has a deceptive exchange rate with the euro (24 krone to one euro? Who the hell can convert that quickly? I sure can't, and wound up buying a seventeen-euro salt and pepper shaker set because of it).

And then we took a bus back from Prague.

And then on the next day Maggie visited!

Maggie, my best friend from high school, is a wholesome person who enjoys hearty things, and so together we visited farmer's markets, went on ten-mile bike trips, hiked a mountain, and cut a bouquet of mums to adorn our tiny apartment's little black table, the one that tends to leap out of nowhere and stab people in the knee.

And then I put her on a train to Florence, where she would be studying abroad for the next four months. And then I, jealous as the train pulled away and already missing her quiet presence in my hammock, vowed to visit her as soon as possible.

And then I went to four improv workshops (okay, this was throughout the month, but for dramatic purposes we'll say it happened all at once)... and this group of dramatically-enthusiastic young people from places like Israel and British Columbia and okay America was asking me to be on their secret improv troupe, and I was saying yes, and I start practice next week. And we'll see how Germanprov goes but I am highly optimistic.

And then - we're caught up - it was today, and suddenly I was starting my new job, which is a marketing job at a hip firm that operates by sending people free stuff and seeing what they say about it. And my job is answering people's emails in a polite and mildly witty manner, and I think I will be okay at it, and moreover there is a FREE COFFEE MACHINE.

So there. Now I can write all the stupid non-updatey posts I want, because I have told you EVERYTHING and you are probably satisfied. Right? Hopefully? Right?

Kisses!