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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Bid List

Most marriages have points of friction, where disagreements spark that, if left 
unattended, can turn into raging bonfires.  Generally the points of friction involve small details of everyday life - who has to do the dishes, how one asks for help, or even perhaps what kind of furniture one spouse prefers and the other spouse doesn't.  I remember one discussion in my early marriage about how Brandon washed silverware (we've come a long way).

Recently, we got to do a different level of wrangling.  A few days ago, Brandon came home from work with a list.  The list contained 92 items and various dates, ranging from now to a year from now.  Also included were languages.  Oh, and places.  Have you ever wondered where in the world you would live if given the chance?  Just join the Foreign Service and you can entertain that daydream.

So over the last while, our discussions have sounded like this:

B: 'How about Colombo?'
A: 'Now where's Colombo again?  Do we get a house?  How is the weather?  Do they have mangoes?'

A: 'How about Chisinau?  We'd get a house!'
B: 'But there's nothing to do in Molodova!  All of Eastern Europe makes fun of Moldova!'

And so on.  However, as our list is due soon with all 92 places given their due High, Medium+, Medium, and Low, the wrangling will stop soon.  Then we just get to see where the Bid List deities will send us and we can start discussing furniture again.

5 comments:

Lindsay Edward said...

That is great! Your spousal discussions have reached a whole new level! We are anxiously awaiting the announcement of your faraway land assignment. I hear Uzbekistan is quite nice this time of year. hahaha

Lydia said...

Amman - short commute, good housing
Beijing - GREAT houses, commute is not great, but, HOUSE.
Tanzania - HOUSE
Anywhere in S. America = House
Cairo - no houses and crappy commute. why did we stay here 4 years? oh yeah, we had no choice.

PaulaJean said...

I think the availability of mangoes should rank high. We just got back from Guatemala where I bought mangos in small Mayan villages every day to go with my lunch for about $.06 each. Heavenly!!

Unknown said...

Wow! Your list is HUGE our first list had 18 places in it...

Mary Pugh said...

that is so exciting! I have no helpful information as to what country to pick but good luck!