criplomats

We had a lovely Thanksgiving lunch at the Sofitel – Lea arranged a delicious lunch in a private dining room for a few of us. The food was outrageously good and there was so much of it!

Lea, Rachel and I took advantage of an early closing at the embassy the day before Thanksgiving to go shopping at some of our favorite stores in Palermo, followed by a stop for coffee and dessert. Lea and I had lunch last Sunday at Saenz and again today at Marti, our favorite vegetarian restaurant.

John and I started watching “Man on the Inside” with Ted Danson, and I’m indulging in “Martha.” I have been absorbed in reading about the race to the South Pole in “The Last Place on Earth,” and finished it this morning. John is off to Mexico City for a conference this week, so Flavie and I are on our own! I had a video chat with Pamela, Ann, and Jackie this afternoon.

I don’t know what these flowers are, but lots are blooming all over town – a beautiful accompaniment to the jacarandas!

This month was John’s turn to host his counterparts from other missions for a luncheon, and he really did it in style! Everyone enjoyed the traditional Thanksgiving lunch at the breathtaking Bosch Palace – many of his fellow management officers from Spain, France, Belgium, England, Ireland, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Italy, the European Union, Germany, Norway, Austria, and Sweden said they had never had traditional Thanksgiving food before and really got a kick out of it! And John got special kudos for hand-carrying cranberry sauce back with him from our last trip to Arkansas!

We were also happy to see our old friends Becky and Suzette this week – John and Suzette were at Hendrix together. They came for dinner at our apartment on Thursday and we met them at La Paroloccia last night – they’ve been on a Chile-Argentina vacation and we were delighted they made time to see us!

I walked through Recoleta Cemetery last Monday after lunch out with John at La Dorita — I went in 1996 when John and I were here, but hadn’t been back since then, despite it being a 10-minute walk from our apartment. It’s so pretty, although these days it’s chock full of tourists (like me!) – even so, it’s so big that I was able to find spaces with no one around. While many of the mausoleums are well-maintained, many of them are in a state of disrepair. The cemetery itself could use better maintenance. They’re charging tourists around $15 to enter – and there were probably 100 there when I went – yet the walkways are in disrepair, there was trash on the ground, etc. Regardless, it’s a beautiful, haunting place.

The weather was perfect this week – I sat outside with girlfriends one day to eat lunch, and the next day we walked across the street to take a stroll around a small lake in the park and walk through the beautiful rose garden.

John and I finished watching “Ripley” and it was so good. The best thing about it was the photography – it was shot in black and white and every frame was just gorgeous. Great acting, too. We also enjoyed this week’s episode of “Shrinking” and we watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” – so cute! I’m reading “The Last Place on Earth,” about the race to the South Pole between Amundsen and Scott and it’s fascinating!

The jacarandas continue to show off this week – they’re fragrant, too!

One of the best things about working in an embassy overseas is double-dipping holidays — we get both the local holidays and U.S. holidays. This month, it happened to give us two three-day weekends in a row! We have stuck close to home and just enjoyed having a lot of down time for a change. Bonus is that it rained today and cooled off the already summer-like temperatures. I popped out for a good visit with Lea over a delicious lunch today at Cafe Saenz. John and I attended a Veteran’s Day ceremony Friday afternoon at the embassy.

Last Sunday night we went out to dinner with Dr. Gina, who was a temporary doctor at the embassy in Monrovia when we were there during COVID. She was in South America and made it a point to come to Buenos Aires for a day and have dinner with us! When we picked her up at her hotel, John and I donned surgical masks — a nod to the fact that she had never seen us without a mask nor we, her since we worked together at the height of COVID in 2020! It made her laugh and we all enjoyed actually seeing each other’s faces for the first time! She is absolutely incredible. After traveling with the Secretary of State and the U.S. UN Ambassador for several years as their doctor, she ultimately left State and is now working with the medical clinics in Kabul, Doha, and Islamabad where the special Afghan refugees are being processed. She’s really inspirational and we were delighted to visit with her and hear about her life.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the gorgeous jacarandas that are in bloom right now – this was a quick photo from the car on my way to work one day.

We celebrated John’s birthday on Tuesday night with a great meal at Roux — it’s such a nice restaurant and very comfortable at the same time. Bonus is that it’s just a 15-minute walk from our apartment and the weather was lovely. The jacarandas are blooming and the temperatures have been perfect.

Thursday night was book club. For a change, we didn’t meet at a restaurant; instead, Rachel B hosted us and it was very relaxing and nice. The book was Tiffany Haddish’s “The Last Black Unicorn,” but I’ll be the first to admit our book club doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about the actual book! But it is a good excuse to see some smart and funny women every month!

Yesterday afternoon John and I went to a party at Matt and Katherine’s around the corner – lots of fun and a nice way to spend a beautiful afternoon chatting with friends and meeting some new people.

John and I were wow’d by the last episodes of both “The Diplomat” and “Disclaimer” this week – really great TV. We started Season Three of “Lincoln Lawyer” last night. I finished “Mrs. Chippy’s Last Expedition” by Caroline Alexander, about the cat on board Shackleton’s Endurance – a little silly but sweet and a fun read. I loved reading how the men loved the cat and I’m convinced the cat (really a “he”) was a huge mental boost for them in their horrible circumstances. I used to see the same thing in Pakistan — big tough military guys sitting on a bench petting one of our feral cats. (Speaking of that, I got some great photos from friends in Islamabad this week – the feral cat group I helped start ten years ago is still going strong and taking care of the colony! I was thrilled!)

And just like that, vacation came to an end — as they say, all good things do.

We had a great time and made the most of our last week at home. Last Sunday, we took Stubby’s BBQ to David and Alison’s for lunch before they headed out to Jasper with friends for the rest of the week. Sunday evening, our sweet neighbors Keith and Shannon took us to dinner at Lost Forty, then we toured their really cool new, modern home off the lake.

John and I went to yoga on Monday, then I went alone on Tuesday while he and his buddy Rusty visited – we had dinner with Rusty and his wife Cathie that evening at Quetzal’s. Sadly, I developed a cold on Wednesday and substituted yoga with a trip to the Arlington Hotel for an old-fashioned hot mineral bath, dry sauna, and hot towels – it felt wonderful for my head. We stopped by Walgreens on the way home for COVID boosters and the North American flu shot. I stayed in on Thursday and enjoyed the morning rain while John did last-minute errands around town.

John and I thoroughly enjoyed “Rivals” and we’re still watching “Disclaimer” and “Shrinking.” Last night we started the new season of “The Diplomat.” I finished (and enjoyed) “Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant” by Stephanie Kiser about being a nanny to the ultra-wealthy in NYC, and I reread “Endurance” about Shackleton’s ill-fated trip to Antarctica. I just started “Mrs. Chippy’s Last Expedition,” a fun (and silly) read about the cat that was on the Endurance, by Caroline Alexander.

Friday was travel day – it was thankfully uneventful and on-time – we were back in the apartment with Flavia by 8:00 AM Saturday morning! I had lunch today with Lea to get caught up on things – it’s back to work tomorrow!

I was saddened to hear this morning that my half-brother Danny Pipkin passed away last night – I’m happy I had the chance to visit with him when I was home last April. While we were not raised together and were not close, he was always so kind to me, and my mom loved him very much. My thoughts are with his wife and children.