Unexploded Nee

Well, turns out I am not working as a tech writer at the moment. The company I applied with is so dynamic that there was a reorganization before they could hire me, so there was no longer a job to hire for. It was very upsetting at first, but a friend who works for the company feels confident I will find a place there in the long run, so I am trying to be sanguine about the whole thing. In the meanwhile, I have finished translating one book and have started on another.

John and I have gotten into the habit of filling our terrace with plants in the summer. Most of them are seedlings we want to keep a closer eye on or want to protect from snails & slugs, like these chili plants I bought John



But some probably have a permanent home there, like this rose "tree" John bought me



Still, I need to get up in the garden today and give my potato plants some TLC.

We are hosting a young man from Sweden while he attends language school for a few weeks this summer (son of a friend of a friend), and it is a bit weird having a teenager in the house again. He's mature and mostly self-sufficient, but he is just young enough (and inexperienced at traveling by himself, plus didn't speak much German when he arrived) that I find myself mothering him. Makes me appreciate having a grown child even more!

Luckily, our friends have a daughter his age, and she was kind enough to take him around one afternoon at our request, but they hit it off so well that he has been included in gatherings with her friends the last few days, which has made him feel less homesick and more confident in his language-learning abilities. Shacking up with someone who speaks a different language is probably the best way to learn another language, but making friends is good, too.

He is also lucky that he arrived after I stopped being in puffy rage mode. With my IUD, I hardly ever have a period anymore, but I still do occasionally get PMS (basically). This last time has really brought home to me how the body can make chemicals (hormones, etc.) that will fuck up your brain, and you might not even notice the change, at least not at first. I am usually a pretty cheerful person, and love a laugh, but when the last wave of hormones struck, I had no chill. Hell, I had negative chill. Reading Wil Wheaton's tumblr and blog, I can see the parallels with mental illness. I realized I was not myself and was being a jerk, but the best I could do was apologize to John and just try not to let my knee-jerk responses out. Oh, and hope that it would pass sooner rather than later. I think I have come out the other side; luckily, it is about as infrequent as my periods, so I hope I won't see it again any time soon.

Nee in Germany was puffy but she struck like a cobra