Nadine and me haven’t left the house together this year except for little walks around the block or visiting doctors and hospitals. Yesterday we went one step further, got ourselves a Toyota Aygo from the carsharing pool and drove to Tübingen. We had some banking business to settle and visited Nadine’s nephew Nick.

This was quite a challenge for Nadine, but was worthwhile the effort. She felt very exhausted afterwards but had a lot of fun meeting the almost three year old toddler on his home terrain. The little guy is such a sunshine and does her very good. And he’s a clever litte bloke who is able to say things like “salad spinner” (Salatschleuder) and knows how to prepare paperwork for the tax accountant (Steuerberater):

disease raises
its kraken head
hits once
hits twice
snatches countenance away from us

under its tentacles
to our surprise a man rises
writes his fears
into a new shape
searching his way
within chaos

blows a call for duty
to everyone of us
gives the 9 to 5
a new face
and all of a sudden we can see
how he reshapes his day
accompanies his wife
we can hear him talking about her
in a loving voice

When Nadine received her diagnose back in December, we immediately decided that we need to gain more quality time, no matter the cost. To me it meant getting rid of one of my two jobs – it’s unthinkable to be away from home five days a week when you’re partner is seriously ill.

Therefore, I’m partially unemployed now and went to the job center to apply for out-of-work benefits today. To my surprise, the guy who dealt with my case was of African origin. But contrary to my naive cliché, Mr. Mussa wasn’t very talkative and didn’t really fell for my joke about our surnames sounding quite similar. Lesson learned: not every black guy is relaxed and easy going, there are undeviatable bureaucrats too. Whatever, he did his job properly and they’re going to pay me a few grand during the next six months.

From August on, I will be down to the salary of my half-day job which is not sufficient in the long run. I’m planning to do some flexible freelance stuff then or find an additional mini job. Next week, I’m going to have another date at the job center with a career agent to discuss these matters. My experience with Mr. Mussa in mind, I’m expecting it to go like this: