5,892

December 26, 2014December 27, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

5,892. This, in pounds, and along with a few hundred additional pounds currently in our Arlington apartment, is what our “life” weighs.

I called the State Department warehouse in Maryland where our stuff, and the stuff of many other FS families, resides while we galavant around the world. In my head, it looks like the last scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

When the movers came and emptied our house in Charlotte they took everything to this warehouse. We haven’t seen it since, though we get one opportunity to visit it before we decide what it is we want to have shipped to us in Kinshasa when we leave in a few months. As January 1 creeps (or rushes…) up to me I decided it was time to know how much all that stuff weighed so I could start mentally thinking about what we could (and would want to) bring with us as part of our HHE. This got me thinking about what we want to bring with us in all the categories of “shipments” we have.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are several categories of shipments that we get when we leave (or “pack out”) of Arlington and head toward Africa. By my count there are six: carry-on luggage, checked baggage, UAB, HHE, POV and Consumables. Each will have its own set of challenges in terms of packing and scheduling. For now I’m just thinking in broad strokes and hoping I can narrow down what we want before July. So here, a short description of the six types of packing we’ll be doing.

Carry-On Luggage:

The first is no different than a typical traveler: carry-on luggage. Normally my carry-on consists of some clothes (thrown in last minute), a book (wishful thinking with a three year old as a traveling companion) and my toiletries bag (in handy see- through bag). This time, all of our carry-on bags (one bag and one personal item each for C, B and me), will be packed with precision and much forethought. They will include enough games, toys, coloring books, and downloaded TV shows/movies to keep C occupied for basically 24 hours of traveling. The first flight (from the US to Europe) will be overnight, so that might be easier, but I have no idea if the level of excitement we will all be feeling will allow for sleep, so I’ll be prepared. The second flight, from Europe to Kin (it’s time to revert to the “nickname” for our new home – typing Kinshasa is getting old…) is 8 hours long in the middle of the day. Leaving at 10 a.m. and getting in at 5 p.m. So I predict at least one bag will be devoted to kid-occupation. The other bags will be carrying our “must have” “cannot lose” items – documents, money, medication etc.

Checked Baggage:

We officially get to check two 50 lbs bags each. So that’s 300 lbs of stuff that will travel on the same plane with us. Technically we can, on our own dime, bring more, but having looked at the cost it is not the “few extra” dollars I anticipated. You can take up to five additional bags, each up to 50 lbs, at a cost of $146 each. Do not put it past me to set aside $730 so that I can make sure that I have my Le Creuset, cast iron frying pan, and other “creature” comforts, but right now that is seeming like a steep cost for a few extras.

I suspect most of our checked baggage will be our clothes (but hooray for going to a hot country where clothes weigh less!) and a lot of C’s toys. This luggage, along with our carry-ons, will be all we’ll have of our own for several months in Kin – hence my desire to have my frying pan. We’ll have a “welcome kit” when we arrive which I’m sure will contain a frying pan, but I’m equally sure that having my own frying pan will help me feel that much more “settled” when we arrive. The remaining categories of stuff (see below) won’t arrive for between two and six months. So what we put in our checked baggage will be “it” until possibly Christmas time. Our dog, Miller, because he weighs over 70 lbs, will be a whole separate category of “cargo” but thankfully he will be on our plane, so I’m considering him within the “checked” category.

UAB – Unaccompanied Air Baggage:

I’ve written about our UAB before, but this time it will be a whole different world of UAB. Last time we were driving two cars about 400 miles, so whatever didn’t go in UAB just got shoved (and I mean this fairly literally) into the car with us. I also drove back to Charlotte for work and picked up all the stuff that wouldn’t fit in the cars on the first trip. This time, we’re moving 6,570 miles over an ocean and to another continent. There will be no “going back” to pick up anything we’ve left, forgotten, or couldn’t fit on the first trip. We’ve been told by the folks in the know (the CLO (Community Liaison Officer) in Kin) that it can take 2-4 months for our UAB to arrive in Kin. So what goes in the UAB needs to be things that we can do without for 2-4 months, but that we want more than the things that are going in our HHE (Household Effects) – since it can apparently take up to six months for that to arrive. We get a total of 600 lbs of UAB, so, assuming most of our clothes manage to fit in our carry-on and checked luggage, I suspect this will be a lot of kitchen stuff, but I’ve got until July to figure it out (and I’ll probably need every second of the time I’ve got).

HHE – Household Effects:

So this is where the 5,892 lbs comes into play. I wanted to know the weight of our storage so I could start thinking about what I would want to have shipped to make our new house a little homier. I knew we wouldn’t top the 18,000 lbs career limit (the max any FSO can have – be they ambassador or lowly ELO (entry level officer)), but I was frankly shocked to find out that we didn’t even come close to the 7,200 lbs HHE limit for our post (where housing is provided fully-furnished). Technically this means we could ask for everything that is in storage. We won’t, because there won’t be room for all our furniture, but it’s amazing to me that our house full of stuff weighs less than the 7,200 lbs allowance. Admittedly, we don’t have our fridge, washer/dryer, and stove in storage (our renters have those), and we sold our sectional and a couple of other pieces of furniture, but if all of this fell through – we could still furnish a four bedroom house so that it looked like grow ups lived there.

The one piece of furniture I know we’ll want to include in our HHE is our bed – I DREAM of our king sized bed…a queen just doesn’t cut it once you get used to a king. We’ll be able to bring all our kitchen stuff too. Hooray for no more wine bottles as rolling pins (now I can use wine bottles for their intended use – drinking!).

Personally Operated Vehicle:

It seems to be somewhat shocking to people that the USG will ship our car to Kin for us. Only one car, mind you, but still…our trusty 4Runner will be making the trip with us. We strongly considered selling our other car when we left Charlotte. We certainly don’t need two cars in DC. We don’t even really need one car given that we have the Metro and are walking distance to pretty much everything, but we’re really glad we kept both of them since it means that we might not have to wait 6 months for our car. Our plan right now is to ship the 4Runner early – several months before we are scheduled to leave – and *hopefully* (fingers crossed everyone) it will be there when we arrive (or soon thereafter). Having a second car allows us the luxury of shipping one car, but still having a vehicle. And, since I’m planning to spend some time driving around visiting friends and family before we leave, this makes me very happy.

Consumables:

This is 2,500 lbs of “commodities that are intended to be used up relatively quickly.” Not all posts are “consumable” posts, but Kin is. So, we’ll also be identifying the 1,250 lbs of Kraft Dinner (shout out to my Canadian peeps), coke, peanut butter, spices etc…that we want and shipping those in an entirely separate shipment. We’ll save the second 1,250 for later in our tour to account for expiration dates and determining the things we REALLY miss, instead of the things that we think we’re going to miss. I’ll have to write a whole separate post about the consumables – I’m already obsessing, but suffice it to say that 1,250 lbs of food/household goods could mean 2500 cans of coke, or 3,636 boxes of Mac & Cheese, or almost 84 bags of dog food (the big ones). The combinations are endless – I’m hoping to come up with the perfect one before July.

The grand total of our “stuff” that could come along with us – a whopping 10,750 lbs (not including the car) of clothes, furniture, toys, books, dog food, coke and mac & cheese. I’m pretty sure that will be sufficient “stuff” to make us feel *almost* at home in Africa for two years. Now if only I could figure out a way to pack a Starbucks store…

The Heart of Darkness

December 1, 2014December 1, 2014 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

Admit it. Heart of Darkness is what first comes to mind when you think about the Congo. It is the first thing many people say to me when I tell them that we are moving to Congo in July. “Yikes,” they say. “The Heart of Darkness.”

Heart of Darkness was published in 1899 and, while some things may not have changed (the Congo is still “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”), we are not moving to the Congo of Conrad’s time, any more than D.C. is similar to its former self, or, if you moved to Charlotte you’d find a city of 7,084 people that looked like this:

To be sure, Kinshasa is also not a first world metropolitan city, but it may not be what most people are expecting when we tell them where we are going either. Obviously even I was not very well informed when we first learned we were going to DRC – I called it “West Africa (home of war torn strife and ebola).”

So, first, it’s not West Africa – it’s actually Central Africa. Second, while ebola the disease got its name from Ebola the river, which is a tributary of the Congo River and is located in the DRC, it turns out that the disease actually began miles from the Ebola River, and, in the current outbreak that dominates the news, no cases of the disease have been identified in DRC. There have been plenty of prior outbreaks in the DRC, but most were in rural areas and, from what we’ve read, the population understands Ebola better than in many other African countries and treats preventative measures seriously. As of today this is what the ebola outbreak looks like in Africa:

Our new home is approximately 7 hours – by plane – from this area. Don’t worry, a trip to Liberia is not on our “Bucket List for Africa.”

What is on the bucket list? We’re not sure yet. But there are a lot of options. There is even an entire blog with a list (or several) of things to do in DRC and Kinshasa. We’ll take our time getting adjusted, but we’ll also enjoy our time in Congo – that’s part of the point of this adventure, right?

When I have travelled in the past, I have always been sad that I couldn’t really immerse myself in any culture in a week, or two, or even three. But now I have two years. Two years to learn more about the Democratic Republic of the Congo than I ever thought I’d know. It’s crazy, but exciting.

One other thing I’ve learned in the last few weeks is that we won’t be taking any “weekend” trips to other places in Africa (beyond Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, which is right across the Congo River from Kinshasa). I knew Africa was big, but the sheer enormity of this continent is a little mind boggling.

Crazy, eh? If you take out China and Japan you can add Canada to the list to the left instead (at 9.985 km squared). That means that the entirety of North America fits into Africa, along with a good portion of Europe, as well as India and several other countries.

My parents want to meet us in Cape Town – it’s an eight hour flight. Farther than flying from D.C. to London. Farther than flying from D.C. to Denver AND back. Our friends J and B are moving to Agadir, Morocco. To visit them it would be a 10 hour flight – I could go to L.A. and back from D.C. in the same amount of time. And that doesn’t take into account the fact that there is no such thing as a flight from Kinshasa to Agadir. To fly there we would have to fly from Kinshasa to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (yes, for those who are familiar with a map of Africa that is on the other side of the continent from Kinshasa and Morocco), then to Cairo, then to Casablanca and then to Agadir. That is the fastest way – it would take over 24 hours of traveling.

One of my friends wondered if we could drive instead. It’s impossible to say – since there are no passable roads that stretch between Kinshasa and Agadir. Of course, even if there were it would be literally days of driving. Given this image though it may be worth it…

The bottom line is that I’m really hoping we get to explore other places in Africa while we’re there on this tour, but I’m definitely learning that I need to manage my expectations. Still, while the world is a big place, you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

January in Canada

November 14, 2014November 15, 2014 / cdncarolina / 3 Comments

In January 1970, my parents boarded a plane in London, England and flew 3,550 miles to Toronto. They then drove another 2 1/2 hours to a town of approximately 400 people (404 when we arrived) called Arkona, Ontario. They brought with them a 26-month old (me), a six-month old (my sister) and, according to them, not much else. They left behind their parents, their siblings, their homes and everything they had ever known.

My mother had been born and raised just outside London. She was 28 and had just finished medical school and her residency. She had never been to Canada, or anywhere in North America, before she carried her two girls onto that plane and set off for an unknown life.

It is cold in Canada in January. There is snow; lots of it. When they arrived at their little (very little) house, which they had never seen before, and did not “chose,” there was probably not much to see in Arkona except snow. By mid-January winter is also not that pretty in Ontario. It has lost the sparkly newness of December. Christmas is over and there is a long (long) time before the next holiday (Easter) and the next warmth (often long after Easter). It is a difficult time. Bitter cold and short days making everything feel lifeless and dark.

Our street in London, Ontario circa winter 1975 – a lot bigger than Arkona…

My Dad, who had graduated from medical school the year before my Mum, had a job at the local clinic. When they arrived my mother did not have a job. My parents had opted to put her brand new – and hard fought – career on pause and move to Canada for the opportunity afforded by my Dad’s new job, hoping that once they arrived she too would be able to find work.

If my Mum wanted to talk to her mother – or father, or brother, or best friend, or anyone from England – she had two options: an airmail letter carefully scripted on vellum-thin blue paper and trusted to the Canadian Postal Service, or a very expensive long distance call with awkward pauses and echoing words across the Atlantic.

As we embark on this life of perpetual relocation, I am fascinated thinking about my parents in those early days. Particularly thinking about my mother. Alone in a cold, unfamiliar place with very little to do and two small children.

I don’t remember a thing about our immigration to Canada, just like, I suspect, C will not remember living in Charlotte, moving to D.C. and, in a few months, moving to Kinshasa. But, nevertheless, I feel for my mother when C breaks down in tears and asks about her friends, or her old house, or her old bed, because, whether she remembers it or not in 20 or 30 years, right now it is a trauma for her and is, no doubt, having an effect on her. I suspect, likewise, I was not that easy to live with right after we came to Canada.

On the days when I’m feeling particularly weepy and missing our friends and Charlotte, I wonder “how did she do it?”

I have Facebook, and Skype, and text messaging, and basically free long distance. When I get bored in our apartment, I leave. I get on the Metro and go into one of the most fascinating and amazing cities in this country (if not the planet), with amazing restaurants and museums and an endless list of things to do, not to mention many of my dearest friends. My child is in a daycare she loves where she is, in turn, loved and taken care of so B and I can do the things we want and need to do each day. I know moving to the DRC will be very different – I will not have the freedom to wander around the city and explore it, but, then again, I’m going to be stepping into a fully formed community of U.S. Embassy families who will help us navigate the streets, culture, stores and newness of Kinshasa. They have a blog that I can read right now to find out what sorts of events are going on (Happy hours, a Burger Burn and the Marine Corps Ball…to name a few), for heaven’s sake. My mother had none of that.

And, hand in hand with my mother, I also think about all the FS families who have gone before us. Who have stepped into the unknown of a new post without the internet, Amazon Prime, Skype and mobile phones. And it makes me realize that hardship is a wholly inaccurate and very relative term. What B and C and I are facing will be different, definitely, but hardship? “Severe suffering and privation”? No. It will not be that.

And so, when I look out my window at the streets of Arlington, and I’m homesick for the streets of Charlotte, I try and picture the streets of Arkona, with grey skies and lots of snow, and I remember how lucky I am, and, as well, how thankful I am that my mother (and Dad) braved the view (or lack thereof), the snow, the homesickness and sadness they felt, in order to give our family the amazing life we’ve had. I hope one day C feels the same way.

Making a list and checking it twice

October 7, 2014November 4, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

A-100 is over.

And so begins the time of the List.

The list of how long it takes us to use a bottle of shampoo (or a roll of toilet paper, or a bag of dog food…whatever consumable item it is for which we might have to determine the number of items necessary to tide us over for two years in Kinshasa).

The list of what we eat, like to eat, might possibly want to eat, and that will be either wholly unavailable (think ice cream treats and other items that cannot be shipped) or exorbitantly costly (we have heard that a case of diet Coke can cost upward of $80 USD) in Kinshasa, and thus must be gorged on (or a substitute acquired, tested and approved) prior to departure.

The list of all the people we love who live all over this country, and others, and who we will want to visit, nuzzle up to, break bread with, and generally fill our minds and hearts to overflowing with, before we leave.

The list of places we want to visit – both in Washington, and in general, in the next nine or so months.

The list of books we want to read that will need to be downloaded, bought, borrowed, or shipped via Amazon (hooray for Amazon) to our new home.

The list of games, toys, entertainment, DVDs, music, and other time occupiers that we will need to buy (and pack) before July.

The list of birthday, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Anniversary, and “just because” presents and cards we need to shop for, buy, and hide away (but in such a way that we remember where we put them when we actually need them) to cover us for two years.

The list of documents, power cords, transformers, adaptors, tags and shots we will need to safely ship our car, our dog, our electronics and our gadgets (and to get them back when they land on Congo soil).

The list of what we want to carry with us (300 lbs (two 50 lbs suitcases/person)), ship by air (600 lbs – the “UAB“), and/or ship by boat (7,200 lbs – our “HHE“) when we leave. And yes, I get it, some may think it is a little too premature to be making this list, but I feel like if i don’t start now something vital will be forgotten or overlooked. I tend toward procrastination, so I’m trying to avoid the last minute panic and wild throwing of random items into a suitcase only to arrive somewhere and find that I have packed every shirt I own, but no underwear.

The list of what insurance we need, whether we have updated (and appropriate) wills, powers of attorney, and advance directives, and which of our 4,917 (a guesstimate) passwords go with which online accounts.

And, as they say, the lists go on and on.

I’ll get it together, I have no doubt, but right now I’m lying in bed at night thinking about my lists, worrying about my lists, planning my lists…and, apparently, turning my blog into its very own list. So, maybe this is the list I should tackle next…

P.S. For anyone wondering, yes, Brian was officially sworn in last Friday. We were incredibly proud and I can’t wait to write about it, but I’m waiting for a special photo that I need to get from someone else…stay tuned.

Flag Day Recap

October 2, 2014October 2, 2014 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

Flag Day!

When I first started telling my friends and coworkers that we were leaving Charlotte to join the Foreign Service, the reaction I got most often was a wistful look and words that generally went like this:

“Wow. That is SO cool. Gosh, I’m actually kind of jealous.”

Luckily for my ego this was usually followed by, “Oh, and I’m really sad you’re leaving.”

I understood the note of envy in people’s voices. After all how many people have the opportunity to live a crazy adventure after the age of about 25? Not many.

I suspect, however, that when I sent out my blast email around 4:30 p.m. last Friday saying “And the winner is…Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo” a lot of those same people felt a lot less envious. I know (from the emails and texts I soon started receiving) that many, in fact, left the envy behind and replaced it with worry for us, and thankfulness for their own non-African future.

But, while Kinshasa is not London, or Paris, or Rome, it is exactly what we wanted – and we are very excited. We won’t be leaving until next July – which seems like an interminable time to me (when you make this kind of leap you want to leap right away!) – giving us lots of time to learn about our new home. It also gives B lots of time to learn a new language (French) and for me to brush up on my (I hope) solid base of French from my Canadian days.

I’m sure I’ll be writing plenty about Kinshasa as I learn about it, but this post is about Flag Day.

So, when Sept. 26, 2014 started, as I mentioned in my last proper post, I wasn’t particularly worried. Decision had been made, out of my hands…yada yada.

Fast forward about half way through Sept. 26 when, by the time I picked C up from daycare at 11:30 a.m., my heart was pounding, I was alternating between sweating and shivering and I was, in a word, petrified. The conversation in my head went something like this: “What was I thinking being calm? This is crazy! Our future rides on a decision that was made by bunch of people only one of whom we had a conversation with (that lasted 20 minutes) – ARRRGHHH!” (all this while picturing myself running around in circles waving my hands in the air).

What could I do though? Nothing. So I packed up C and drove out to FSI and met up with B’s parents (who are, thankfully, more punctual than I, so prime seats were reserved when we arrived).

Keeping C busy in a hot room with lots of people and nothing to play with did, as I had feared, prove to be the most complicated part of the day, but luckily (as I had also predicted) her grandparents and the iPad came to the rescue.

Once the ceremony started, things moved quickly. Really quickly. I was going to keep a running list of where folks that we have befriended were going, but, frankly, once B’s name was called (and all I could think was “OMS…We’re going to Kinshasa?!”) I didn’t hear a thing and I had no idea where anyone after that ended up.

B was called about 1/3 of the way in. One of our top posts – Dakar, Sengal – had already been called and I was, at turns, ignoring the posts we had put low (because the person leading the ceremony had already told the crowd that no one (!) received a low bid), and paying attention to the posts we had put either medium (most of the posts) or high (about 6 posts).

When the DRC flag went up I didn’t recognize it (I had memorized the Cameroon and Gabon flags thinking, based on our conversation (you know, the 20 minute one…) with B’s CDO (Career Development Officer) that those were our two most likely posts), but when the presenter said “Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo” my ears did perk up a little because we had, after all, put this post high. It was a Francophone Africa post which also fit in our “hardship” request (more about why on another day) and it was a consular rotation (ie: working on the visa line) which was another request because it is something all FSO’s have to do in one of their first two tours.

And then I heard it: B’s name.

I jumped up and took a picture (I’m notorious for blurry iPhone pics…sorry) and then sat back down, a bit stunned. B was standing with the guy handing out the flags waving his little blue and red flag and looking a little dazed himself.

B’s parents and sister were looking at me stunned as well. Nothing like the bright reality of your oldest child (or brother) moving to West Africa (home of war torn strife and ebola) to make you look stunned.

I think we all actually recovered pretty well, and hour-by-hour, day-by-day, we have been getting more and more excited.

I’ll also admit, however, that on Friday we needed a little of this:

and this:

to make us feel 100% American (or 98% American in my case since I reserve the right to feel 1% Canadian and 1% British as a tip to my birth and growing up…) in anticipation of maybe not seeing so much of these things in Africa.

So now we’re on to French training, “ConGen” (that’s consular training), CrashBang (exactly what it sounds like – driving fast cars and shooting guns and what B is CLEARLY looking forward to most) and the logistics of moving a B, a C, a D and a big brown dog, to Kinshasa, DR Congo in July 2015. Onward to the adventure we go!

C at FSI – happy to be going where Curious George came from!

The Final Countdown…or Party ’till the Diplomats come home

September 24, 2014September 24, 2014 / cdncarolina / 3 Comments

In 72 hours we’ll know.

Sometime after 3:30 p.m. on Friday a flag will appear on a wall at FSI. B’s name will be called, and we’ll know.

We’ll know where we are going. We’ll know what we (or at least B) will be doing when we arrive. We’ll know when we are going. And we’ll know what the training schedule will look like between now and then.

I’m feeling surprisingly zen about the whole thing. It’s out of my hands – the decision has, in fact, already been made and, somewhere out there, some State Department employee is putting together a package containing details about the post, the position, the training (language and otherwise) and many other interesting tidbits about our future.

Miller feeling zen…

There are definitely places I would prefer to go, and there are places I would prefer not to go, but looking at the bid list (yet again) in a futile attempt to remember which flag has the green star in the middle and which has the gold star (with the same three colors on the rest of the flag) it occurs to me that I’m ok with whatever the flag looks like when they call B’s name. Frankly, right now I’m more worried about keeping C occupied in a room full of hyped up people for an hour or more (can you say iPad…and grandparents…) than I am about what the fates hold for us.

In the meantime, with two weeks (or less) of A-100 left, the socializing has swung into high gear. There was a happy hour tonight, there is a Nat’s game tomorrow night, poker on Thursday, ice cream and cake after Flag Day, then drinking into the wee hours after the ice cream and cake. We’ve been to brunches, dinners, pizza parties and Oktoberfest, and it has all been a blast. Someone actually had to start a Google Doc to keep track of all the extra curricular goings-on. Many of these are not “spouse” events, so I get to stay home while B gets to go and make small talk (happy days for me as I am not such a fan of the small talk).

These are the events where B is supposed to be cultivating his “corridor reputation” – which will, in about 4 years, be important. After the first two tours, which are considered “directed” – FSO’s are given a limited list of posts to bid on and a group of Career Development Officers make the assignments to those posts – it’s a diplomatic free-for-all. You get a list of ALL the open posts in the world and you not only bid, you also schmooze, lobby, cajole and, I’m guessing in some cases, beg, for the job and post that you want. It is for this schmoozing that you need a good reputation. You want people to like you and want to work with you.

So what better way to make people like you and want to work with you than getting sloshed with them for 6 weeks in a row? I’m kidding, B hasn’t come home sloshed…much (no, really, I’m kidding…).

The social schedule is a bit overwhelming when you have a 3 year old, a dog and a birthday before 1990. And add to the FSI social schedule the fact that I have a lot of friends in D.C. who I have been meeting out for lunch (all in the name of business development, thank you very much), and the fact that we’ve been trying to get out and enjoy the city (see trip to Roosevelt Island below) and B and I have been crashing hard at about the same time we put C down every night. We’ll rally for the rest of the next two weeks though – we’ll all have a lot to talk about next week as things wrap up, since everyone will be able to talk about their actually post, rather than the theoretical one they are hoping for right now.

This A-100 thing has been a blast (and I’m not even really *in* it) and it’s sad to see it coming to an end, but I have a feeling we’ll be making the most out of the last 10 days. And hopefully, when the flags are shown and the names are called, most people walk away happy and excited and ready to party for the next 6 months…of language training.

B and Me (Cousin It?)

Straddling the line

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014 / cdncarolina / 2 Comments

Yesterday I was a lawyer.

Today, I dabbled in the law.

Tomorrow? Who knows, maybe I’ll do some law stuff, maybe not.

I spent the last couple of days in Charlotte prepping witnesses and defending depositions. It felt good. It was familiar. I knew what to do and how to act. I knew when to talk and when to shut up. My desk, empty though it was, welcomed me back. My assistant, M (which could stand for Marvelous, but doesn’t), laughed outside my door and the sound comforted me. The other lawyers I work with sought my opinion on lawyerly things. It was like pulling on a soft t-shirt and a favorite pair of jeans.

Last night I drove back to D.C. and today I sat down at my desk and I did some work, but I was actually wearing the t-shirt and jeans (instead of the suit), and when they tested the fire alarm in our building I took the dog for a long walk, and I did laundry and dishes and unpacked the boxes I brought back from Charlotte. It still feels unfamiliar. And it feels solitary. And less powerful…but I like it too, this dabbling.

Tomorrow I’m going to get a pedicure. I’m going to read a deposition WHILE I get the pedicure, but still, this is a different place and a different life than I have led in a long time. It feels very much like I’m in a kind of “no-man’s land” where I’m just slowly, slowly putting down the accouterment of my lawyer life and looking around to discover what the tools of my new life will be.

So what are the tools an EFM (“Eligible Family Member”) needs in the FS? A sense of humor? A duck-like ability to let things roll off your back? Curiosity about new things? A willingness to let go? A cunning ability to pack a life into 600 lbs?

Turns out those are all tools I’ve needed as a lawyer too (well, maybe not the 600 lbs trick), so hopefully even as I slough off my current persona in favor of our new life I’ll be able to drag those things along with me (B cannot complain as they do not weigh a thing).

I’m incredibly grateful to have the chance to morph from “Partner in a law firm” to “B’s EFM” slowly, as I’m not sure I could have handled the jump to this new galaxy had I been forced to make it at lightspeed. But, I feel like I spend a lot of time sort of *testing* the water in my brain in terms of how I feel about this change. And I’m torn, I really am.

A big part of me doesn’t want to give up the rush of nailing a cross-examination, or the giddy feeling of putting the final period at the end of a great brief. It made me cry to think I might never try a case again – the most exhausting, overwhelming, emotional, physical, mental aspect of being a litigator – but also the most fun, and rewarding and, frankly, the reason we all put up with the rest of the B.S. The fact that I might never stand in front of a jury again makes me sad. But the idea that I might never have to put up with an unscrupulous, game-playing opposing counsel, who files a motion at 6 p.m. on a Friday just to cause misery and havoc, that makes me happy.

So here I am, straddling the line between desperately holding on to my old life, and desperately wanting to reach with both hands into my new life.

And tomorrow I’m going to do some law stuff and I’m going to enjoy it – even if it involves unscrupulous opposing counsel – and then I’m going to have dinner at an Uzbek restaurant with new friends who will speak Russian to the waitstaff and order new and exotic dishes for B and me to try. And somehow, in the next few months, I’m going to try and find a way to mesh those things – and all the old things I know like the back of my hands, and the new things I have yet to learn – into a D who can step over the line into a life where every step will take B and C and me to a different place and in a different direction than any place or direction we’ve been before. A D who will embrace the joy and luck I’ve had as a lawyer, and wrap it up with the joy and luck I’ve had as a daughter, wife and mother, so I can appreciate every experience (and the joy and luck) I have as B’s EFM.

Doomed…

September 12, 2014September 13, 2014 / cdncarolina / 3 Comments

I’m doomed today. My work is doomed today. My list of things to do? Yup, doomed. So sorry Miller the Dog, you are not going to the dog park. And dry cleaning? Yeah, you are staying in the basket. It remains to be seen whether I will even be able to drag myself away from my desk/computer long enough to have lunch.

Why the doom? Because this morning another FS blogger, www.subjectverbobject.com, posted a list of HUNDREDS of other FS blogs here.

Now, I have read quite a few FS blogs over the last 5 years while I have patiently waited for B to get into an A-100 class. When you want to try and understand what life *might* be like in the Foreign Service, these blogs are a godsend. FSOs and their EFMs are great writers and prolific bloggers, so you can learn a lot from reading their posts. But this? This is FS blog Mecca. The promised land of information on what other people living this amazing, crazy life are doing, feeling, seeing, wishing, hoping, eating.

Be prepared to see more of these blogs on my “Blogroll,” as I make my way through them (I’m on No. 3 right now, so I have a LONG way to go), though, it occurs to me that I have not seen my Blogroll lately…perhaps it didn’t move when I changed my theme? I’ll try and remedy that, but while you are waiting check out the link and SVO’s awesome list.

Drinking from the firehose

August 29, 2014September 4, 2014 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

I have been oriented.

I am now the proud owner of my own overly large, mostly unread, packet of dead tree material in the form of booklets, pamphlets, handouts, PowerPoints and other information dense literature. Oh, and a bid list.

The information overload today was wonderful and overwhelming. We learned about the FS “Transition Center,” the “Overseas Briefing Center,” the Office of Medical Services (MED), how the assignment process works from the CDO (Career Development Officer) perspective, education overseas, and the FLO (Family Liaison Office). The speakers were great and it was incredibly informative, but the best part was getting to meet and learn about the accomplished, interesting group of “spouses” who are with us in this crazy adventure.

Of course, given that the list of places where each of us will end up was provided to us last night that was clearly the primary topic of conversation. There are 105 “posts” on the list, which includes 51 cities in 44 countries. There are huge posts with over 500 US personnel (this includes folks from all agencies, not just the State Department) and one post with 8 US personnel. There are places with danger pay, and places without. It’s probably a pretty typical list for an A-100 class with lots of consular (ie: visa line) jobs and lots of jobs in visa heavy countries.

What was amazing about the discussion with the other EFMs (Eligible Family Members) was that we all had such different ideas and priorities. B and I rank some posts low because we don’t want to have to learn certain languages, or because of certain environmental factors, but other people can’t wait to learn a really hard language and want the excitement of exotic and difficult locales. I’m sure some of them thought our “preferences” were bizarre too.

Regardless, in 29 days we will all know which of these posts is ours (barring any change to the list, which we were told several times could happen at any time, and/or several times before we submit our final list).

Now our job – in between our actual jobs and caring for our 3 1/2 year old – is to research these posts and rank each of them “high,” “medium” or “low.” We get to put 25% low, which translates to about 26 posts. We don’t get to group the posts by country, so we can’t rank all posts in one country “low” if that number exceeds 26 (which it does for several countries), we have to rank each post – meaning each job in each city.

B and I spent last night identifying our “low” posts. We were, thank heavens, pretty much on the same page, so we have now identified the 26 places that are our least attractive options and the ones we hope we don’t get. However, as we were also reminded repeatedly today, the “needs of the service” come first, so on Flag Day, notwithstanding our highs, our lows and our mediums, the flag that gets handed to B could be anywhere on the list.

Now it’s on to identifying our preferences (ie: do we want to learn a language, do we care about how close we are to the U.S., does B want to fulfill his “consular” cone requirement now, or later…), and deciding on our “highs” and “mediums.” Let’s hope that goes as smoothly as the lows…

By the way, from a blog admin perspective I have, by popular demand (ie: B told me to do it), made the “A” an “a” so people can stop asking B who “A” is…and I’ve added some pictures of our world travels before this adventure into the header. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

I wish…

August 27, 2014August 31, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

In between dog parks and carousels, C and I have been traveling Arlington and its environs visiting Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Whole Foods etc…to stock up on things for the apartment. In the course of doing this I have mentally started a list of “I wish we had…” related to our pack out. So here, in no particular order, in case you ever have to packout yourselves, are my current wish list:* (* subject to change on a moment to moment basis)

I wish I’d brought a queen sized mattress pad, sheets, our own pillows and our duvet. It’s been many years since I lived in corporate housing as a law student and in those days the digs seemed awesome and palatial. Twenty odd years later the digs seem a bit dirty and less awesome (but I’m not complaining given that they are free digs!). It would be nice (and feel slightly less yucky) to be sleeping on our own sheets. Luckily I did bring C’s sheets, duvet, pillow and lots of things to remind her of home, so it is less yucky in her room.
C’s bed. More like home.
I wish I’d brought tupperware. Not a ton of it, but the corporate housing provided tupperware consists of two small pieces. That is not going to cut it at our house.
I wish I’d brought more art/photographs – nothing makes an apartment a home more than your own photos and artwork. I brought a few things, but I wish I’d brought more.
I wish I’d brought a couple of bowls. I ended up buying two nice big deep cereal-type bowls from BB&B today (for $1.98 each on clearance, so I’m not feeling too upset, but everything you buy that you can picture in a box somewhere in Hagerstown, MD is annoying…). The bowls provided are these incredibly shallow, rimmed bowls. The kind I picture Lady Edith using to eat her 4 spoonfuls of soup at Downton Abbey during a 15 course meal. Let’s just say, in 2014 when the meal is ALL supposed to fit in one bowl, these bowls are not cutting it.
I wish I’d saved some more of the “staples” that I threw away. I have to tell you I don’t need half the clothes or office supplies I brought, but the leftover bottle of olive oil would have been a welcome sight yesterday.
I wish I’d brought a bookcase. Just a little one – the one from C’s room would have done nicely. There is nowhere to put books in the apartment. We didn’t bring a ton of books, but we brought some AND I’m supposed to be working from here, so my rule books (the books I basically live by as a litigator), my dictionary, my binders for my cases etc…, are all under the desk. Not ideal. We’ll no doubt be making a trip to IKEA for that, but again, see note above about having to annoyingly buy things you already own.
I wish I’d brought more skirt hangers – if you ever move into corporate housing bring hangers! Particularly any “speciality” hangers. My skirts are all doubled up right now, but I suspect ultimately I’ll be buying some more of these hangers while picturing the ones we left behind in my head.
I wish I’d brought a couple of our own throw pillows. See bullet number one about kind of yucky linens and switch to pillows on the couch.
Corporate housing pillows. Meh.

By the way, B’s first couple of days went really well – he came home with a ridiculously detailed schedule yesterday so that makes my control/detail oriented mind happy. Somehow he managed to accept the job of chairing his class “Folly” skit (that is put on during the “offsite” somewhere in PA). It’s kind of bizarre to watch him get comfortable in this new life, but it’s kind of cool too.

And in case you care, here are a few other pictures of our new home.