One year older

Posted on 2009/04/01 22:17:01 (April 2009).

[Thursday 2nd April 2009]

And this is it, my birthday came exactly 365 days after the last one :D

Now I am 34, as usual nothing changes, or at least nothing feels different, I am still the same idiot that I was before...

There is something new to this birthday, this April looks as if't going to be one of the busiest in my life...

First of all we are moving to a different house. After a very long search and a lot of vetoes from Chiara on all the possible houses that we have seen, we have settled for a rented place again, though I was very keen into buying a place.

The main motives are to be found in the fact that it's a really good time to buy now, loans are pretty cheap, we have enough collateral to grant the bank to give us even good sums. But apparently Chiara was not very happy with that solution in the end, so we are renting again.

The second big point in April is going to be my surgery to the right knee (again), this time it's not going to be a ligament but a more simple meniscus, still is still surgery and it makes me feel quite uneasy about the whole thing. I wil do my blood test on the 7th, let's hope that everything can go smooth...

Lastly a work related problem... Basically for the first time in my life I am forced to do some "mobility", for two days, which is not a lot, but still it's a bad sign about the general health of the company. In Italy we have this thing called "Cassa Integrazione", basically the company can force the workers to take some "days off" with a reduced pay. Normally these periods are much longer and affect pay a lot more than merely two days.
Still, since I have never been in the position before it's a bit of a turn-down, especially as it came right before my birthday.

All the rest is pretty boring, I am finally getting used to being in Italy again, the trip was long and surely took its toll on my health...

Oh well, that's it! Happy birthday to me then! :D

Happy Birthday Lox, hope it all goes well and you're feeling better soon. It is hard in these times to be optimistic. We started thinking about how we could move to a bigger place and it all seems too daunting and rather impossible at the moment.

Posted by Simon W at 2009/04/02 15:14:30.

Simon W: Actually I wanted to make some long term plan, after all if you never start you'll never do them... But this time The other half did not seem to share the same view as I. Having said that planning anything longer than 1 year is quite hard for us as well, if not impossible... :( Let's hope that things will change soon...

Posted by Lox at 2009/04/02 21:37:30.

Your "days off", in France we call it "mise en chômage technique": "temporary layoffs" is the official translation. It consists in putting you on short time for a while. Of course, the state, ie the taxpayer, ie me, has to pay for it. Very convenient.

Buon compleano, btw

Posted by Sheri at 2009/04/03 06:52:28.

Sheri: It's the same system that we have here, the problem is that more and more companies are adopting them... :(

Posted by Lox at 2009/04/03 07:14:29.

The same thing is happening in Greece - not to me, being self-employed, but to many workers in the industrial zone near where I live. Belated happy birthday wishes for yesterday, Lox! :-)

Posted by Bryan at 2009/04/03 11:27:27.

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