Word is that NO ONE is getting extended in hubby's little slice of Army.
His office mates are crying because he's truly the continuity for their area. But let's face it, it's time to move on. It's high time he got a promotion. He's been playing Good Soldier and laboring in obscurity while other whiners and diners are playing the Game and getting bonuses, getting promoted, and so forth. What a waste of tax dollars and air.
We've been more busy Having a Life than Playing the Game, because it's so much more important to us to have a deep, rich personal life than anything else. However, the time comes and, sometimes, we have to play. Neither of us are good at "playing" we're both deeply "for keeps" and when the time comes, we're both razor focussed and uncompromising.

So now we are playing the Fantasy Destination game.
He applies for jobs and lets me know what got picked up and where. So far, destinations include Japan, Colorado, Washington State, Ohio and even my home state of Texas.

Wow, could I live in Texas again? I'm pretty sure that first summer would be misery, but there's always trainings I can go to, once I got my bidness under way again. I, too, am laboring in obscurity here. I can't make nearly what my colleagues make either in the big cities in Germany or anywhere that's anywhere in the US.

Japan is an exciting option. Chuck has a long, deep history with martial arts and Japanese culture, without wanting or needing to be a Japanese Gaijin (which doesn't happen). I would love a new lifestyle, and I have a curious hunger to learn Ikebana, Japanese flower arranging. I'd love to go live in the mountains, study as a student with Chuck, explore this culture I've skirted the edges of and quietly admired for so long. If you don't know me, I've studied aikido since 1989, and other budo since 2000. I enjoy Chinese arts as well, but have somehow always found my home in the Japanese arts. I can't define why, and, like a person who would rather have Rocky Road than Neopolitan, I shouldn't have to. It's just a matter of taste and, certainly, of circumstance.

In any case it would be a kind of joy to sell the car, get rid of a large amount of junk, and prepare for a much smaller, cleaner, deeply devoted to learning lifestyle.
The fact is that I could do it now, but like most lazy moderns, I'm too addicted to my addictions and too distracted to dig out and simplify. Living with another person and their addictions and problems does not make this any easier, as we are inevitably intertwined in our baggage. His socks in my hand luggage, and my jeans in his. Such is life.