I had enough. (Pat had long past that point.) You need to know that our bedroom is also my office to understand this. I feel lucky, because it could also be our kitchen. Working after breakfast would be fun (nice smells of coffee), working after cooking not so much (smoke filled air?). But, no matter what, you have to be able to move through the room. I wrote, some weeks ago, about the three page letter and contract I received from German Telekom, just because I had opted in to International Calls (you pay a bit more but get free calls to many different countries).

That was the beginning. Of. Forms. And. Contracts.

Some weeks later, and our bedroom and with it my place of work, turned into a jungle: just imagine all the trees that had to die to make all this paper. Briefe, Bescheide, Anfragen, Bestätigungen, Beschlüsse,… had I really grown up in this country of paper work? You need a personal assistant to do the filing for you! And lately, they started to send reminders. We had not answered their original queries. They want to show us that we can’t get away, there is no place to hide, wishful thinking that they might just forget about us is just that: wishful thinking. How do they do this? How do they find the time to follow up on all this really, at the end of the day, completely and utterly unimportant stuff? Today was the end. I decided to become a real German, and i mean real, de verdad, and filed. For the whole morning. I won’t ever in my life find the papers I am looking for again. They’ll be hidden in one of these huge files that I produced this morning. But – alles hat seine Ordnung. Und Ordnung muss sein. Right?

Fewer numbers, more details. Less drama, more reassured foreword looking confidence. He had a date, in the rose garden, in spring time. Today, this became two. Second day without oxygen, none whatsoever. A leg that looks like normal, with the swelling down from the thrombosis (though he is still getting blood thinners). No antibiotics for ages. Almost everybody saying that they had seen him moving his arms, hands, legs.

He had physios with him today, Occupational Therapists, Respiratory Therapists, and Music Therapy. A really brilliant nurse had organized the viva-la-Thekla for him. By the time visiting started in the afternoon, he was absolutely and completely exhausted. What a programme. While we never understood why therapy stopped over the weekend, today was the first time we thought that taking off Sunday, getting a day of rest, was not such a bad idea.

I don’t think anybody ever promised Pádraig a rose garden before. Now, he has two dates. And he’ll better keep them!

Rosenstolz – Wenn Du jetzt aufgibst

Today’s German Music Tip
Rosenstolz, Wenn Du jetzt aufgibst (2008).
What’s hot
Dates
What’s cold
Loneliness
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Da muss doch wohl ein Ausweg sein…

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