TO MOVE, OR NOT TO MOVE?

"You mean to tell me this isn't wallpaper?  It's all been roller-painted on?  In every single room? No wonder the rows are so wobbly!"

Dearest Friends,

As soon as John went to sign the lease and pick up our keys, we got down to the business of trying to make the place livable.  One thing we had picked up while in the states was a waterbed mattress (remember, this is the mid-seventies we're talking about!), so the first order of business was to find lumber and build a frame for it.  John borrowed tools and we worked on that in the evenings, and I divided my days between scrubbing down the entire place, waxing terrazzo floors, and getting taxis to take me around to various shops, trying to find the things we would need just to get by.  I think most families stayed in the hotel at least until their air shipments arrived, but I had a feeling that would never fly with my hubby, and that I'd best get my rear in gear!

JH and his wife V loaned us a folding table set, so we'd have a place to eat, and we bought a hideous but cheap sofa and chair from some bachelor who was leaving, just to have somewhere to sit.  We figured we could always pass it on to the next set of rookies, once our own stuff arrived.  We must have bought some used appliances as well, for my diary mentions having them "moved over", and it mentions my sanding down a refrigerator and painting it bright yellow!

This is when I first began to realize that I enjoy anticipation much more than my hubby does.  I savor the period building up to a holiday or event, while he prefers to just jump right into it.  Well, at least that's how he was back then, before I converted him to my way of thinking.  Anyhoo, I was having a great time puttering around at the apartment and scouring the markets, but I also enjoyed coming back to the hotel each afternoon, to soak in the tub or sit out by the pool.  I especially enjoyed getting to try out the various restaurants that were available, since we hadn't had any to go to in Cilegon!  The night we found the apartment, we celebrated by trying a Chinese restaurant we'd been told about.  It was surprisingly good, even if they wouldn't serve anything that was made with pork.  Another night we went to check out the restaurant in the only other upscale hotel in town, the Hilton, and you'll never guess what we found there!  As soon as we walked through the doors, we heard someone calling "Mr. John!  Mrs. John!"  We turned to look, and there stood several of the waiters from the Singapore Hilton -- the very same ones who had waited on John the whole time he lived there, and spoiled me rotten on our honeymoon!  I couldn't imagine why anyone from Singapore would think it was an exciting adventure to come work in Bahrain, but then again, there are probably lots of people who long to visit America, and who wouldn't understand why we'd had the urge to go off and live in the places we went to, either.

My husband, on the other hand, was not enjoying himself nearly as much as I was.  If you recall, what with home leave and all, we'd been living out of suitcases for over a month at this point.  He was fed up with that, with eating at restaurants, with trying to juggle a new job and everything else that needed doing, and with finding ways to get back and forth between all these different places, when we didn't even have a car yet.  He just wanted to come home to his own house each evening, and he wanted some simple, home-cooked meals.  I couldn't really blame him, so, against my better judgement, I let him talk me into moving out of the hotel just five days after we signed the lease on the apartment.  The frame for the waterbed was built, but we still hadn't found any blocks to set it on, so we couldn't fill the mattress with water yet.  "But," he asked, "how hard would it be to just sleep on the floor a night or two?"  Well, when you're talking about terrazzo floors, and you've got nothing but a sheet and a thin blanket, it's not just hard.  It's impossible!