A duck that aspires to be lame

Had a lovely birthweek. According to Carla I had 3 parties. While that may be an exaggeration I did finally have some time to relax as both Carla and I had a 5-day weekend because of Carnevale. That deserves a 5-day weekend, doesn't it? Even though my brithday was actually the day I went back to work after the vacation (not a fun day) between the fun I had here, as well as the numerous b-day greetings that arrived from the states [I had a good birthday].

Oh, by the way, I've taken to saying "The States" quite often. I actually rather dislike the name, but at the same time it has a certain ring to it that usually flows better within the sentence than the U.S. or America would.
Perhaps the most interesting development of this week was Saturday, when I had the only one of my 3 "parties" that was actually a party- a dinner with our best friends here in Lonigo. I made a rather improvised veal roast with citrus juice and zest. Fun, but not sure I'll revisit it. Anyway, the interesting thing... I cooked up this roast at my friend Gilberto's house, which is also where we had the dinner. A couple of you Americans met him in Fullerton. For example, Rachel [met him and] didn't want to sleep with him. So I did. True story.
Anyway Gilberto often travels to The States on business. He works in the family business, which is a pretty good size

business of about 700-800 employees in 3 countries. My friend may not be the boss (yet) but his Dad is. I'm getting to the interesting thing, I swear...
This summer shortly after arriving here in Italy, he had mentioned he would like me to work for his company. Of course, he also mentioned how nothing would be happening soon, they had been laying people off during the recession, not hiring. [But while cooking up a storm this night he brought up this subject again, only this time it was about a fairly specific position that he thinks might be available within a few months, and he'd like to see me get the job.]
And ever since we had this talk my satisfaction at my current job has begun to plummet. Turns out there's quite a bit of ass-busting to be done in this job, and the pay is quite mediocre. It hasn't helped my satisfaction levels that twice a week I travel to Thiene (30 minute drive) with another teacher [for only a 90 minutes of paid work]. This teacher has already given a notice of sorts (he's not sure when he's going back yet, but sometime in the next 3-4 months). So we have all sorts of lame duck conversations about past and future "other" jobs (read:not teaching).