No one can tell!

On November 17, 2016 By StevenIn Life At Home2 Comments

The other day, I arrived home to find this little tableau at my front door.

I have to wonder at the thought process of the delivery guy. Did he really think that nobody would think to look behind the out-of-place welcome mat to see the package? Is the delivery guy one-third possum on his father’s side?

Maybe this is an offshoot of the “fake it til you make it” approach to life, doing things a certain way in the hopes that nobody will call you out on how wrong you are. Or maybe I’m overthinking it.

Editor’s Note: I’m attempting to blog every day in November with CheerPeppers. I don’t expect to succeed because life be crazy, but any blogging in excess of my previous post-free month is a win, right?

Rentenversicherung? Isn’t that the musical with all the HIV stuff?

On November 16, 2016January 26, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany6 Comments

This statement will only be understood by a few of my readers: I mailed my V901 form about a month ago to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund in Berlin.

Here’s what that means for those of you who don’t speak German Bureaucracy: Rentenversicherung is German for pension insurance. Every person who earns a paycheck in Germany contributes a portion of their check to the pension fund, and the German government does some form of matching. It is in this way that people create retirement funds in Deutschland.

While I was in Germany, I was “localized.” This means that I was on German payroll, German benefits, German vacation allotment, and so forth. My 401k back in the US sat, stagnant, with no contributions for those three years, but a part of every check went into the Rentenversicherung. Three years of monthly contributions is not a fortune, but it’s still a tidy little sum of money that I’m eager to reclaim.

While I could wait until I reach retirement age to get a tiny check from Germany every so often, there’s a way to get this money which is much more useful to me now. Americans who pay into the German pension fund have an option to file a form to request that their contributions (but not the matching funds from the German government) be paid out to them. The V901 is that form. There are a few guidelines:

You must not have stayed in Germany for more than five years.
You must not have lived in Germany for at least 24 months prior to filing your claim. Or anywhere in the European Union, I think.
You must not be averse to filing a really complicated eleven page document through regular mail. I wanted to go to the German Consulate in Miami to do this, but they said I just needed to mail it directly to Berlin.
If you’re not American, a completely different set of rules applies to you.

I mailed this out over a month ago, and my response was a letter yesterday from an office in Hamburg with, you guessed it, another form to fill out and mail back!

v901

How many forms do you think I’ll need to fill out before this claim is completed?

Hours could seem like days.

On November 15, 2016November 15, 2016 By StevenIn Life At Home5 Comments

Today’s Nanopoblano post is kind of a cheat, because I feel like I have only a few words today. (Few words and kind of a head-ache.) Numbers, on the other hand, I have lots of. My brain doesn’t spin down much.

From today, it will be:

1 day to the Pet Shop Boys concert.

6 days to my elder brother’s 50th birthday.

7 days until I start my last week of On-call for Mr. Company. (And another few days after that until I get a full night’s sleep again without interruption.)

9 days to Thanksgiving. Earlier in my career, I usually had to work Thanksgiving. That doesn’t happen any more, but I kind of miss it. There was always a camaraderie among those who were tapped to work a holiday. Plus the food was always provided by management. Those mashies were delicious.

13 days until the start of the four-way Supergirl-Flash-Arrow-Legends crossover event on the CW. I am so fricking excited to see Supergirl interact with more of the established Arrowverse characters, you have no idea.

17 days to my birthday. I’m not super enthused about this one. I’ve got bigger things on my mind right now than reaching 44.

18 days until Amelie and I go to see the B-52s! That’s gonna be a fun show.

21 days until my niece turns 6. I could swear she was a toddler about five minutes ago. I have no idea what to get her this year- for a little while, I could just get something related to Frozen and it would be a winner. I think if I got her another Frozen-themed gift, her mother might lynch me.

22 days until I move out of my apartment. At this point, my to-do lists have their own to-do lists. I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff.

25 days until the next time Amelie and I visit a sci-fi convention. There’s a little one here in Ft. Lauderdale, which should be fun. The guest list for this one is not bad, including James Marsters, Summer Glau, Sam Jones, Judge Reinhold, Tim Russ, Billy Dee Williams, and Joey Fatone! (I’m enthused about all but one of those. Betcha can’t guess which one!)

30 days to the end of my job. Which means I should really go to fewer concerts and whatnot. (In reality, I am working far fewer than thirty days until the end- it’s just thirty calendar days.)

And, as a final treat,

30+1 days until the next Star Wars movie, Rogue One, comes out. This is the first feature film set in the Star Wars universe that isn’t about the Skywalkers and the Solos. I’m pretty jazzed about it.

What’s the next thing you’re counting down to? Where will you be in 31 days?

Jerry’s Fork Drawer

On November 14, 2016November 14, 2016 By StevenIn Life At Home3 Comments

Jerry left Mr. Company all the way back in January.

We all knew the end was coming for our business unit, but he found another opportunity he couldn’t pass up, so he beat the rush. Once he was gone, I got to nab his seat. Finally.

Our department is set up in two rows of cubicles, divided by a walkway. The back wall is enclosed, and all the cubicles face forward. This means that nobody can sneak up on you in my department. Traditionally, seniority means a seat further back in the row.

When I came back to the US in late 2014, I was not given the second seat from the back. It should have been mine by right of seniority, but Jerry had been sitting there for a while and the powers that be didn’t want to do a multi-person move. I wound up a few seats ahead, with several newer people between me and my proper seat. Over the course of that first year, people moved to other departments and other rows, but Jerry kept his seat until he left at the start of the year.

I moved in after a suitable mourning period of at least ten or fifteen minutes. While I was getting set up, I discovered that he had left an enduring gift. It was plasticware. Lots and lots of plasticware.

In our main lunch area, the company provides plastic utensils in a little fork-knife-spoon combo, contained in a cellophane bag with a tiny crappy napkin. For the past year or so, Jerry had been eating his lunches at his desk. He used the spoons for his little chocolate puddings.

kozyshackindulgentpudding A quick aside about those puddings: Kozy Shack briefly made these little dark chocolate “Indulgent” puddings which were surprisingly low in fat. They were also fricking delicious. And super addictive. Jerry wasn’t the only one who ate these; I bought them every time I went grocery shopping. And then one day, they stopped appearing at the grocery store. Soon, I couldn’t even find the lame flavors of the “Indulgent” line. Jerry and I were both completely verklempt! These little chocolate puddings were that delicious. After a few weeks of no restocking, I reached out to the Kozy Shack company via their Facebook page, and they confirmed that yes, indeed, the Indulgent line had been discontinued. No explanation was given. I still weep for their unforgotten flavor.

But I digress. Wildly.

Jerry had been taking the little fork-knife-spoon packets from the atrium, and he would use the spoon for his pudding. The fork and the knife went into his top desk drawer for later usage, in theory. Or maybe he just wanted to see how many he could collect. By the time I took over that desk, it was really quite a lot of plasticware.

I decided right then that I would try to use as many of them as I could before the end. Most of the forks were used for my own lunches over the next few months, and the spoons were always a scarcity. The knives, though, they just kept going on and on.

This blog post was nearly called “Every day, I use a knife.” That title has been in my little list of bloggery reminders for months. It’s true, though- every day I do use at least one knife. I use it to stir things into my tea or water. I use it to mix up instant oatmeal. Sometimes I even use them to cut things.

My last day is a month from tomorrow, and I’ve gotten Jerry’s Fork Drawer down to just a little bit less than what you see in this cup. Even using one or two a day as creatively as possible, I really don’t think I’m going to make it.

What’s the most pointless challenge you’ve ever set for yourself?

The Dog of Wisdom

On November 13, 2016 By StevenIn Life At Home1 Comment

One of my all time favorite memes is actually a fairly new one. The Dog of Wisdom was uploaded to YouTube in July of last year by Unklejoe, who is the creator of the web animation compilation show Great: The Show. The Dog of Wisdom clip was originally part of the show, but it was put on YouTube separately, and thanks to a post on the /r/videos subreddit, the video has now been viewed millions of times.

This is the Dog of Wisdom.

As you can see, it’s not very long and the plot is kind of silly. And yet, there’s something really endearing about it. Amelie and I watch this thing at least once a week now. Usually more.

For my German friends, here’s a version of the Dog of Wisdom with the subtitles translated into Deutsch. (With one notable error; they listed the singer of “Believe It Or Not” as John Scarbury instead of Joey Scarbury.)