criplomats

I have been thoroughly enjoying the luxury of watching the opening rounds of this year’s US Open tennis tournament on TV! There have been some really good matches and I’ve enjoyed finally having the time to sit and watch as long as I like!

Yesterday John and I hired a driver to take us to get his haircut. I waited in the car while John ducked into the barbershop constructed out of a conex with four chairs/barbers. He actually got a really good haircut! Then we treated ourselves to lunch out at a nice Indian restaurant – it was great to eat something that someone else had cooked. I also had the driver take me grocery shopping on Friday – even though I can see the store from here, it’s not safe to walk there, nor do I want to lug home bags of groceries in the heat.

Other than watching tennis, I’ve been passing my days with a morning walk around the neighborhood and yoga from YouTube. This week I also did the inventory of the house over the course of a few days (lots of furniture inside and outside) – we do inventory upon arrival at every post as required, so we know what furniture we’re responsible for. John and I have also been taking advantage of the pool when the sun goes down. I continue to marvel at the birds! This week I saw the saffron finch, which is beautiful, and this morning we saw parrotlets – so cute. We’ve been seeing some kind of long-tailed flycatcher flying overhead but haven’t gotten a good look at one yet. And we still are in awe of the beautiful scarlet ibis as they fly above – I can’t wait to see one up close!

This week we watched “Code of Silence” and started “Thursday Murder Club” last night. I am hooked on “The Lion Women of Tehran” by Marjan Kamali (thanks for the recommendation, Joan!). I finished “Medicare for Dummies” this week, and I’m also listening to Cecilia Blomdahl’s “Life on Svalbard.”

Our UAB (small air shipment) arrived this week – we found these two ducks inside one of the boxes, and they have made themselves at home! We giggle every time we see them.

Tuesday I hired a driver to run some errands around town – an eye doctor appointment, get a SIM card for Guyana, and buy some groceries. Grocery shopping here is much better than it was in Monrovia, although like Monrovia, pretty much everything is imported. Yesterday the Ambassador took me on a grocery tour – she showed me some local vegetables at the store closest to our houses, then we went to a butcher’s where I found frozen tuna steaks, and a small grocery store that sells frozen salmon of good quality. I hope to get to one of the open vegetable markets with a local to guide me at some point.

Wednesday I went to the embassy with John so I could have the security briefing, then we met the Ambassador for lunch at a local restaurant where I had a delicious curry. Friday night we went to trivia/karaoke night at a co-worker’s house – it was fun to meet some new folks and see people having fun together.

We continue to marvel at the birds and are happy our binoculars were in our UAB shipment! This roadside hawk posed for me in a nearby tree during a morning walk:

John’s arrival was posted on the embassy’s Facebook page – looking good, Mr. Crippen!

I finished reading Casey Johnston’s “A Physical Education” about lifting weights. John and I finished watching a fun British thriller, “Hostage.”

We had a long but uneventful travel day last Monday, leaving the hotel at 8:30 AM and arriving at our new home around 1:00 AM via Miami. The new place is lovely – very large with pretty grounds with lots of flowers, some fruit trees, and a pool. I found my favorite spot to sit outside that catches the ocean breeze from a couple of blocks away. Our favorite thing so far are the birds! Parrots, limpkins, kiskadees, tanagers, grassquits, hawks – the list goes on and on! The most amazing are the Scarlett Ibis that we’ve seen flying overhead; closer to home, I love the little piculets – they are in the woodpecker family and look like tiny downy woodpeckers, complete with a red crest. We can’t wait for our binoculars to arrive! Whether sitting in the garden or walking around our small neighborhood (really a big circle with a tree-lined field in the middle), there are just birds everywhere!

Despite not going to bed until 2:30 in the morning the night we arrived, John was at work bright and early the next morning. He was Chargé most of the week – in addition to settling in, he was involved in the visit of some Congressional staffers and had several official meeting, events, and lunches. Friday afternoon, I met him at the embassy for a welcome party for new arrivals. It was fun to meet folks, plus I saw several consular local staff who I remembered from my RCO days of traveling here!

Sunday before we left Washington, John had morning coffee with Matt A., our favorite defense attaché from Monrovia. And we were very happy to see Lea and Jose one last time when they treated us for dinner at a lovely French restaurant in DuPont.

Flavia made the trip fine. Despite all of my worry about making sure her paperwork was in order, the agent at American Airlines didn’t even look at it (and, in fact, said she didn’t need any paperwork at all!!!). She has settled in to the house just fine and is doing well!

This was a fun whirlwind of a week, starting on Monday with around a dozen of our A-100 friends at a happy hour. Of course we didn’t think to take a photo until many people had left, but we did manage to get one. It was great to see folks and reconnect!

Later in the day, I met my good friend Pam for coffee in the afternoon – and also on Monday I walked with Flavia to DuPont to get her health certificate. She’s resting up before the trip!

Tuesday I shopped in Georgetown then met Lea for happy hour at Boqueria DuPont – always good to talk to her and especially to hear about her new job in Consular Affairs. Wednesday I met Megan, my fellow RCO and also RCO boss for a while, for lunch at North Italia – again, wonderful to catch up. Although we text almost daily, I hadn’t seen her in person since 2019!

That evening we met two of our favorite A-100 friends for dinner in Ballston. It was perfect weather for sitting outside (we have been so very lucky with the weather!).

Thursday was lunch with my friend Jenae who we served with in Juarez and Buenos Aires, then a wonderful dinner at the Maple Room in Vienna with our friends Thomas and Anju.

Friday was a long coffee chat with the fabulous Amy W.

…then I went to the Museum of American Art and the Portrait Gallery (co-located). It’s one of my favorite museums, in part because they have five or six works by Howard Finster. They also had a beautiful, interesting sculpture exhibit and an exhibit by three female Japanese artists, two of whom were put into internment camps during WW2. Friday night, we met our Arkansas friends Kelly and Brian for dinner while they were in town!

Saturday we met Aaron and Sarah (from our A-100 class) and their two cute kiddos for lunch in Ballston, then John and I spent the rest of the day recuperating from a fun but busy week! We’re ready to get this show on the road!

The view on the lake just doesn’t get old! In this photo, you can (barely) see a line of Canada geese waking up and crossing the lake. I love the peacefulness in the mornings and watching (and hearing) the lake wake up.

The week, part one:

I’m pretty sure this is the same fawn I saw on West Mountain a week or so ago on my way to yoga because she was about in the same spot. She’s so pretty and decided to pose for me when I stopped to snap her photo on Monday. Aside from yoga on Monday and Tuesday mornings, the first part of the week was mostly getting ready to leave Hot Springs: getting Flavia a domestic travel health certificate, getting nails done, driving to Little Rock for hair (all the important stuff!), and getting the house closed up. In between chores, I continued my Gilded Age binge and am now up-to-date on episodes. Monday afternoon, I stopped by to visit with David and we had this visitor on the back porch – I think it’s some kind of young heron. He was pretty inquisitive!

David and Alison dropped me off at an airport hotel on Wednesday where Flavia and I stayed the night before our very early flight to DC — and there we begin part two of the week!

Part two —

Flavia was a good traveler on our direct flight into Reagan National – I love the view coming into DC! We got settled into John’s hotel suite, then I went off to meet Lea for coffee – it was great to see her!

It was even better to see John after almost a month! He took me out for a nice dinner at 60 Vines nearby.

Friday I went to Main State to get a typhoid vaccine – it was so fun to be back in the building again and even better to know I was there but didn’t have to work! I ran into someone from my first tour in Juarez (Candace) and someone from my second tour in Tel Aviv (Emily). I had coffee with Laura Mc (Buenos Aires) and a separate chat with Jill M (Guadalajara and Buenos Aires). After tracking down a missing packing at SA-1 in the retirement office (um, in my retirement counselor’s desk drawer even though I had emailed her repeatedly trying to find it…but all’s well that ends well, I guess…) I went back to Main State to join John and my old RCO colleague Neal:

John and I ended this busy Friday with a lovely dinner at Ris.

Saturday was a gorgeous day outside. I walked up to Chef Geoff’s to meet Lea for brunch, then walked to the Hirshhorn Museum. On the way, I ran into one of my A100 favorites, Kellee F (with whom we served in Islamabad), so she walked with me and we sat in the sculpture garden yakking for an hour or so – what a fun bonus! The exhibits at the museum were really good! Twin brother graffiti artists from Brazil (who go by the name of Osgemeos) had these fantastic and fantastical pieces, among hundreds of their pieces:

A Laurie Anderson installation was a graffiti-filled room with a huge acrylic crow:

One of my favorite pieces was by an artist from Ghana, Amoako Boafo, called “Cobalt Blue Dress,” done in a finger-painting style in oil – it was huge and absolutely eye-popping!

Today, my boss from Guadalajara came to visit – we sat in the hotel lobby drinking coffee and catching up. He’s one of my favorites and I hadn’t seen him since I broke my leg in 2019 (the last time he saw me I was on a walker!). He’s just as smart and funny as ever, and it was good to laugh with him again!

Afterward John and I took the metro to Pentagon City Mall, where he also treated me to a nice brunch at the Ritz Carlton next door. And, to keep our record intact, we ran into a colleague from Buenos Aires (Jess) on the metro home.

It’s so fun to be back in the city with so much to do!