The Call

The call has finally happened! Yesterday morning the man from Dubai called, we talked for a while and he said a woman from the human resources department will get in touch. So, it’s going to be more waiting. My mind is in a swirl, flying to Dubai, then flying back, compiling the list of things that will have to be done: sell the house, sell the car, dismantle this life to start a new one. Both me and Maggie have done that once already, more than a decade ago, and it hadn’t been easy. Nor is it any easier now. The reality is that there’s no concrete offer yet. We are still dancing the first dance, where partners circle each other carefully, matching steps, but shying away from the pirouette. The more elaborate moves will come later. Or, may not come at all. In any case, it is a nervous time thinking about it and waiting for an email, a call, something…

When we came home from work last night, there was a surprise in our backyard. A fence. The builder built the back side fence, leaving the rest for us. It made us both want to scream in despair. The fence is merely 4 ft tall! It gives no privacy, it’s uneven and looks like a child was playing with lumber and nails and built a fence on our yard. Almost every thing concerning our new house has been a small-scale disaster, and this is just the last on the long list of disappointments. It amazes me how many things the builder managed to screw up. I wonder if they get a special bonus for each screw-up? They’d be very rich by now if they did!

Outside our unhappy micro-cosmos the world is the same insane place: the death toll in China keeps rising, passing way over 40,000; down south Obama and Hillary survived another Tuesday election and claimed victories. He won Oregon, she won Kentucky. Obama says it’s over, Hillary says it’s not. Makes me ponder what kind of person goes to politics and runs as a presidential—or any other—candidate? If it’s to judge by the stars’n’striped neighbors, the candidate has to have certain attributes to succeed: must be power-hungry, maniacally egotistic and ruthless. Not really a kind of person you’d let near your daughter…or your grandma, for that matter. Though I can’t fathom what people see in Obama, he’s all but won the primaries. Hillary, on the other hand, still hangs on like a pit bull, her jaws locked, but her bite has gone empty. Dignity seems to be in a very short supply among the president-wannabies. I always thought nothing can be as bad as George W. Bush’s tenure, but now I’m not sure anymore. God help us all next year!