{hello, is it me you're looking for?}

cheesy 80's lionel ritchie songs aside, have you been wondering what happened to the haus maus? oh i'm here. i'll be more regular i promise. things are getting a bit hectic for me right now since i have 8 weeks before flying to germany for the remainder of the year and there's a lot to do before i head off. mostly work related, because i don't want to tote over a pile of unfinished business since i have a lot to do while i'm in europe this year. like furnish an apartment for one... so far, i've ordered a bed frame for the new apartment, isn't that just super exciting and amazing? no. it's not. it sorta stinks because i should have made more progress on this whole ordering bit. but i have a little drama to share and we all like drama so come closer. listen to this. the company i ordered the bed frame from said that they only take cash on delivery and that the bed will take like 10 weeks to arrive. first gripe = cash on delivery? um. who does THAT? i think perhaps THEY do, yes, but aside from them. that is so very odd. so this news came a few weeks ago which means that if the planets line up the delivery boy will arrive around the same week that we fly into our completely empty apartment. or perhaps they will play with us and show up a month later. who knows! it's germany! and they just do stuff completely insanely differently when it comes to furniture delivery i guess. as a reader suggested, i'm going on a field trip to ikea this week down in massachusetts to jump around on a few beds. ha! imagine that. i'd actually love to literally jump on a mattress in-store. would that not be the funniest thing ever? and of course, 'jump around' by house of pain would have to be blaring loud so that the audience could have that full 'mrs doubtfire' experience. you know what is even scarier than the whole idea of a 35-year-old girl jumping on an ikea mattress in-store? that i can rap every single word to jump around. oh yes. my girlfriends and i played these stupid rap games where we'd see who would mess up first (i was 22, cut me some slack). i never realized how well a rap song could stick until about a week ago. jump around came on sirius radio in the car and i blared out the lyrics as loudly as i could. with the windows open. at a traffic light in new hampshire near some old man in a pick-up truck. hey, i've got mad skillz. this is new hampshire, the state motto is 'live free or die'. i decided to live free. or is it more like 'live, freak'. anyway, i will go to ikea to find a mattress and then order it in germany and arrange for it to be shipped to my apt there. let's see if they also want cash on delivery or no, wait. wire transfer. did you know that almost everyone in germany does these wire transfers, like handing out your bank account to complete strangers is just so very normal. my god, with all the con artists in america that would last about a week. anyway, if you order anything, even from small stores, they ask for your bank account number and then they just take the amount out of your bank. there is something disturbing about this and i'm not really sure why. it's like handing someone the keys to your apartment and trust that they will enter it, remove the can of soup that they wanted, and leave only with that can of soup. not your flat screen or cd collection or sofa. i feel a little uncomfortable with the wire transfer thing, i rather give them the amex card or my paypal card, but my freaking bank account? since this wire thing is completely normal in germany and safe, i have nothing to worry about. but it is hard for me to get past mentally. i suppose all americans living in germany had their initial fears, or is it just me? i will part ways with you for now, but i shall return sometime next week to share some more news on this whole partial relocation.