criplomats

I spent the first part of the week getting our consumables shipment finalized, including picking up wine to include. The movers came on Wednesday – the photo shows one of the movers standing inside our single crate. We had 22 boxes total, most of them not as big as the ones sitting on the ground.

I had dinner with David and Alison two night this week (pizza and bbq, yum!). One evening I went to Kathy W’s apartment for happy hour. After touring her lovely complex and apartment, we sat outside by the (gorgeous) pool and had a glass of wine while catching up. Pam came down Friday and we started a Scrabble marathon that didn’t end until late afternoon Saturday! We particularly enjoyed playing all day Saturday while it poured rain outside.

I made it to yoga several times this week, with different subs filling in for Karen while she’s on vacation. I got my flu and COVID shots, too.

I watched several movies: “Bel Canto,” “The Lost Bus” with Hendrix alumni Ashlie Atkinson, ”The Good Nurse,” and “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” which I watched because it’s the same director as “Babygirl.”

The sunrises have been beautiful – I love the steam coming off the water in the photo above. But Friday’s sunrise was spectacular:

I also went on a few morning walks and enjoyed the wildlife!

I flew home Monday night to Hot Springs; David and Alison picked me up at the airport Tuesday late morning. It’s been a working trip so far – I wanted to unpack the household goods that were delivered to the condo in August after we left for Guyana and I’m putting together a consumables shipment. This is a special allowance that we get if we are posted in certain countries where it’s hard to get pantry items, cleaning supplies, etc. or where they are not of good quality (we had this allowance in Liberia, too). I’m amassing a pile of goods that movers will pick up and ship next week.

The weather has been great since I arrived. Yesterday a big storm moved through and left wonderfully chilly temps behind – I had to bundle up to sit outside this morning to drink my coffee and watch the sun rise!

Wednesday evening I went out with Alison and PeeWee for some shopping and dinner at The Goat. I binge-watched “The Pitt” and really enjoyed it. I also re-watched “The Undoing” and “Gone Girl,” and I watched “Adolescence” and “Babygirl” for the first time.

John sent me this photo of Flavia hanging out in my closet on my shoes and it kind of broke my heart. I miss them both!

The U.S. government shutdown continued this week. John, along with his colleagues around the world, continues to work, albeit without pay for now. The goats that came through the neighborhood on Wednesday did not seem to care. Nor did Flavia.

The week was pretty normal. As I did my daily walk around the neighborhood, I started listening to “Careless People,” by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Subtitled “A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism,” it’s a behind-the-scenes story of Facebook in its infancy by an employee (and former diplomat from New Zealand).

I had a fun catch-up call with Stacie in Paris on Wednesday. I worked on planning a trip to NYC in the spring, as well as a trip to the Amazon. John and I watched “The Woman in Cabin 10” this week, plus the old Inspector Linley series on PBS. Tonight we had a fun and tasty dinner at the Brazilian steakhouse near our house with Chris and his wife Mariella. I finished reading Hampton Sides’ captivating “In the Kingdom of Ice,” about the USS Jeanette and her ill-fated attempt to get to the North Pole from the Bering Strait in 1879 – 1882. It was fascinating and haunting.

We joined a few folks from the embassy yesterday for a guided city tour – it was a lot of fun to get out and see different things around the city and afterwards we had lunch together at a good spot. We stopped along the sea wall to look out over the ocean with the blue, blue sky.

Our first stop was to the city park where we fed the manatees. They are in ponds in the park because they were injured and rehabilitated; apparently there are 13 of them there and they love to eat the grass we fed them! We also stopped at a couple of museums – I was fascinated with a collection of skeletons at the National Museum, including this one:

I enjoyed seeing all of the old British Colonial architecture around town. Many of them have these wedge-shaped shutters with ledges for holding ice back in the day. The porch at the anthropology museum on the second floor was lovely and breezy due to the shutters and openings below the windows, as well.

Here are a few other photos:

Monday night, John and I went to the Amer-Indian Heritage Dinner in honor of the indigenous people of Guyana. We had traditional food and had some entertainment- it was fun!

The rest of the week was normal – walked early in the day around the neighborhood and spotted a few new birds, did some yoga with YouTube, and worked on administrative stuff. We had a kitchen and pool inspection by the embassy (since the house is designated for representational events). I had a good chat with Lea and Rachel S last Sunday, and Cathy Mc called me later in the week to catch up. I finished Kamala’s book “107 Days.”

I should say the week was normal for me — but it is not normal for John or my Foreign Service friends since the federal government shut down! John is working without pay, as is the majority of his American staff. Friends around the world are in various states of working or furloughed (or fired in July). John had to cancel two fun representational events since he can’t do things like that during a shutdown. Here’s hoping things get back to some semblance of normal soon, and federal workers can get paid for the good and important work they do.