After a long plane ride-made longer by the fact the plane left Frankfurt two and one half hours late- I am back with the S.O. in the hellhole metropolis of Shopping Mall USA.
This was not a trip by choice-thanks to Alabama's ridiculous immigration laws, they would not let the S.O. renew needed paper work like her driver's license and other items by mail. She has to present her :presence" documents "in person."
Now why that had to involve me-is something I can't answer My plan had been to put her on the plane over here-make sure she had a place to stay, and the cat and I would enjoy a well deserved respite from her nonsense. I thought it made perfect sense-especially since I can't afford on one plane ticket, much less two. ( And what plane tickets I can afford are for destinations far east of Germany-not West, this puts a hole in my timeline to get back to the promised land for a "me" trip).
But then she called my bluff-begging me to come along . She offered to pay for own ticket. I took the money from her-and made the arrangements to return to the place I really didn't want to come back to. Even if it is only for a short while. Part of her ongoing scheme to keep me from enjoying myself, I guess. Certainly the odds of her doing something to perk up my spirits are slim to none. But she will make damn sure we hit the malls-of that I am quite sure. (Nobody rides for free!)
And I really hate the reason-and this is a great example of why these so called-"tough" immigration laws don't work. All they do is penalize legal residents of the US, which the S.O. is. She is a legal resident of the US and also of Germany now. However her German residency rests ( as does mine) on keeping all of our US paperwork in order.
It really pisses me off. Because of what I do-this woman has already been investigated by the federal government at least three times already. Her stuff is in order-she is an Alabama and US taxpayer for God's sake.
But still we have to be here.
I am going to use the opportunity to do some needed work on our house-and in so doing accomplish the checks needed to make the tenant happy and justify my "active management" of the property.
Shopping Mall looks pretty much the same as I left. Not much has changed-the flight in was the usual small Canadair nonsense. There is nothing remarkable about this town-there are literally hundreds like it.
Except for all the fat people.
That's the one thing that is pretty remarkable after a long stint out of the US-just how many really fat people there are here. Germany gets a bad rap for that-but I'll tell you, at least in Stuttgart, you don't see the number of big people that you see here. At least among the women.
So for a few days at least, I'll be in and out, up and down a step ladder, installing some needed additions. Hopefully it will save some money-and I won't kill myself.
And we are going to get some dental and other medical appointments done. So its not a total loss. We have a dentist in Germany-but this way the dentist will have to fight with my insurance company, not me.
As it should be.