Transfer News; or, Maybes

Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.

Smashing Pumpkins, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" 

This was what I found in my front yard this morning.
He will be "relocated" sometime today.
No, you don't want to know what that really means. 

Here's the GTMO version (it's a banana rat in a cage).

It's an appropriate metaphor for how I feel right now.

I tried SO hard to get a transfer this year. I wrote letters and got moved to A+ status. I put down every single school that had an opening with my certifications (13 total) and was sure I had a shot.

But alas, there was only funding to fill 132 slots, and all of "my" slots were filled with people with a higher SCD (Service Computation Date).

In other words, we are indefinite detainees of GTMO just a little bit longer. Or a lot longer. Who knows.

The money is great. I get free housing & utilities, a return flight to the States in the summer for all of us, and a salary better than any of the four states where I have worked.

But. . . money can't buy everything. I've spent the last couple of days dealing with the sad truth that I have no control over budgets, and I really, REALLY would like to live somewhere else. I want to travel and see the world. I wanted this to be our next year's Christmas card:

You know you want to see this on a Chrismukkah card. 

And not something like this:

Thank you, Google Chrome, for the dinosaur game built into "The webpage is not available"
because of no connectivity.
I've gotten lots of practice thanks to our internet and I can probably kick your butt in this game. 

Nobody else here got a transfer. Misery does love company. . .

Maybe we'll get out of here before #2 graduates. (That would be 2024).

Maybe I'll finally unpack those boxes from our 2012 move.

Maybe I will plan a nice little vacation with some of the money I was hoarding for a big move.

Maybe I will be here to see a little Cuba history in the making.

Maybe I will enjoy my much spacier house with an amazing back porch.

Or maybe I'll just feel sorry for myself a little longer and then come back with some brilliantly funny (or snarky) comment.

Here's to another year of banana rats and iguanas, grocery shortages and no mail service, lots of wine (whine) sessions on that amazing back porch, and hopefully a cure for island fever.