{"id":6189,"date":"2020-12-06T12:51:29","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T17:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=6189"},"modified":"2020-12-13T08:05:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T13:05:35","slug":"december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=6189","title":{"rendered":"December?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6190\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6190\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6190\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4F2E848A-CA37-4F13-98DF-D4DF4C76EE2F-225x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4F2E848A-CA37-4F13-98DF-D4DF4C76EE2F-225x300.jpeg 225w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4F2E848A-CA37-4F13-98DF-D4DF4C76EE2F-768x1024.jpeg 768w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4F2E848A-CA37-4F13-98DF-D4DF4C76EE2F.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6190\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Another pretty sunset<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m not sure how it got to be December already! It doesn\u2019t feel like the holidays are coming up &#8211; we\u2019re entering dry season here, the bats have returned to the embassy compound, the humidity is high, and it\u2019s warm and sunny. COVID cases in the U.S. are out of control, and even here we\u2019re seeing an uptick in cases as the Liberians make no attempt to use face masks or socially distance.<\/p>\n<p>Last Monday was a local holiday here. I used it and yesterday afternoon as a way to try to catch up on work in the office. We had a small outdoor ceremony Friday morning for the celebration of the Marines\u2019 245th birthday. Sadly they couldn\u2019t hold their annual ball, but the lovely cake-cutting ceremony in their full dress uniforms (and masks) under the American flag was moving &#8211; I was glad for a laugh when they introduced the youngest Marine in attendance (a tradition) and he was born in 2001! Wow.<\/p>\n<p>Michael and Karisa came down last night to play Viticulture and eat Indian food which was a lot of fun. I chatted last Saturday with Pam, Ann, and Jackie, and Pam and I had another long chat today, too. I also spoke to Carol in Maine which brought back a lot of good memories of being there.<\/p>\n<p>We were excited to receive a care package in the mail from David and Alison with lots of goodies, including a miniature painting by Alison of the Liberian flag to add to our collection! Thank you!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6191\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6191\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6191\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A2C21A9C-0FAF-4888-87F0-FF9A4579CD1E-225x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A2C21A9C-0FAF-4888-87F0-FF9A4579CD1E-225x300.jpeg 225w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A2C21A9C-0FAF-4888-87F0-FF9A4579CD1E-768x1024.jpeg 768w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A2C21A9C-0FAF-4888-87F0-FF9A4579CD1E.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6191\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Liberian flag center<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m not sure how it got to be December already! It doesn\u2019t feel like the holidays are coming up &#8211; we\u2019re entering dry season here, the bats have returned to the embassy compound, the humidity is high, and it\u2019s warm and sunny. COVID cases in the U.S. are out of control, and even here we\u2019re [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6193,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions\/6193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}