Apparently I have been far too busy to write lately. The thing is, I can't imagine what I have been busy doing. I have been doing some hiking and swimming, and obviously i work five days a week, but for the life of me I can't figure out where else the time has gone. The b.h. had a birthday. It was completely uneventful, since we are as broke as we have been in years and have no idea when the rest of the student loans might get here. It seems that the new government loan crap requires all schools to have some new software crap, and it has crapped out and consequently we have no money. We're not starving, mind you. My job pays the bills. But we don't have a lot of wiggle room. What's really hilarious (only because if we weren't laughing we would probably burn the Culinary School down) is the total and complete ineptitude of the people in the financial aid office.
The b.h. has been contacting them for over two weeks, writing e-mails and leaving phone messages (you can hardly ever reach an actual person), asking when the loan in question is due to come in. The messages are very polite, short, and to the point:

Dear Financial Aid Specialist,
I received my financial aid statement, and I am wondering when I can expect to receive the rest of my aid. The Some Loan Guy loan is missing. Do you have any information?
Sincerely,
Heybartender's b.h.

And the answers he has repeatedly received say something like:

Hello H's b.h.-
I have looked at your file and it seems that you still owe A Great Deal of Money for this semester. We would like to have that as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Financial Aid Specialist

This basic message was repeated both by phone (always when he was magically in class and therefore unavailable) and in e-mail, from more than one person. When he finally went up the hill to have an appointment, two of these women sat there, looking over his paperwork, and saying, "Yes well, everything seems to be in order. So when will you be paying your balance?" as if she was seeing all of this for the first time.
To which he responded that he was still waiting for the Some Loan Guy loan, to which she responded that it had already been applied, to which he responded that it had not.
"No," one of the Financial Aid Specialists said, pushing his paperwork back to him, "you're waiting for your personal loan. The Some Loan Guy loan is already here."
"Okay," said the b.h., taking a deep breath and speaking very slowly as he pushed the paper back to her side of the desk, "why don't you show me where the Some Loan Guy loan is on this sheet?"
She stood up, pointing at the sheet, then ran her finger down it, then flipped to the next page and back.
Oh! It's not here! Well, it's a good thing you caught that." The other Financial Aid Specialist was smiling and nodding in agreement.
"We'll look into it and get back to you tomorrow."
That was last Thursday. We still haven't heard from them.