criplomats

Wow! The next time I blog, I’ll be doing it from Islamabad, assuming all goes according to plan! I’ve had an excellent six weeks in DC!

Friday night, Cathy and I met Jim and Dean at Circle Bistro for an excellent drinks and dinner. Jim was an A-100 classmate and is one of my very favorite people. Dean was the coordinator for our class, and besides being a fun and interesting fellow, he has 20+ years of State Department experience, so we love to pick his brain.

I also had a really fun evening with my good friend Pamela on Wednesday night. My class met at some of the consular offices downtown, so I walked up from Main State to meet Pam at her office – I got caught in an absolute downpour (“biblical,” as Pam put it). We had a great spot for drinks and dinner at the bar at Founding Farmers. They are known for their specialty cocktails, so I almost felt like we should have paid extra for the show our bartender put on all night – all kinds of wild and interesting drinks.

I think Cathy and I went out to dinner most of the other nights – I’m so glad that we were here in DC at the same time. And, it’s a small world! John and I used to go to Harry’s for dinner in the past, but alas! Harry’s closed! But, when Cathy and I went to Morton’s this week, my favorite Harry’s waiter, Ram, was the maitre d’! I was really happy to see him.

I put Cathy in her taxi Saturday morning on her way to Bengladesh! And, in another twist, our favorite shuttlebus driver from the Oakwood Falls Church (our old apartment complex) now has his taxi license, so we arranged for him to take her to the airport. Safe travels, Cathy!

I had a nice chat with my good friend Joan in San Antonio this week. She’s midway through her chemo treatment for breast cancer and is doing great – I’m so proud of her!

So…now it’s down to a waiting game for me, just waiting until my flight. Still nervous as a – well – nervous as a cat – and I won’t relax until Flavie and I are on our flight with no wrinkles. I did get her papers back from the USDA office this past week, so hopefully, all officials that we encounter en route will agree that her documentation is in order! Keep your fingers crossed for us!

My class took a road trip this week. We flew from Washington to Boston, then drove up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to visit two facilities up there. On Thursday, we went to the National Passport Center – a huge operation. They basically process all of the passport applications that are sent in through the post offices around the country. It’s pretty amazing! I got to see an old friend, Charlie, who was our boss when John and I worked on the passport task force back in 2007.

Friday, we toured the National Visa Center – an even bigger operation. They process and store all of the immigrant visa petitions. All of them. It’s amazing – huge file rooms (I was really interested to see the file rooms devoted to Ciudad Juarez, my first post!).

Then we headed back to Boston, where we met with several Customs and Border Patrol officers at Logan Airport – great to trade information and ask them questions about how our visa work interfaces with their work at the border.

The class I’m taking is interesting, and is helping to prepare me for my new job in Pakistan. We spent some time at Main State last week, learning more about the folks we’ll be interacting with from the field. I’ve met a lot of people face-to-face who I have been emailing with for years, which is a lot of fun!

Last Sunday, I watched the Men’s Wimbledon Finals in the morning, then Metro’d over to Clarendon to do some shopping. Found Chris Bojalian’s new book, and got a book for the plane.

Cathy and I sure have been having fun, too. Last Tuesday, we had a happy hour at Liberty Tavern in Clarendon with some folks from our A-100 class. We’ve also gone out to dinner several times (John is encouraging me to enjoy good wine and steaks while I can!).

I picked up a rental car when I flew back to DC Friday night – Saturday morning I had to take Flavia to the vet to get her international health certificate. She has a great vet (Seven Corners) who is very familiar with transporting animals around the world. Getting Flavie ready to go is my biggest source of stress – plane reservations and needed documents make me crazy. It’s often difficult to get information, and you remain worried until the time you land at your destination. Seven Corners makes it somewhat easier, at least in terms of getting your papers together. Then you have to FedEx them to the USDA Vet Services office in Richmond to get everything stamped and made official. One thing that makes it so stressful is that you have to do everything with 10 days of leaving. So after the vet appointment, I put all of the originals in a FedEx envelope so they will arrive first thing Monday morning for the official stamps…then you just hold your breath until they return the packet to you.

In the early afternoon, I drove up to Gaithersburg, Maryland, to get a final Ouidad-certified haircut. Mike in Hot Springs does a great job on my hair, but I just needed one last trim before I leave – still trying to work out the bad cut I got in Israel last fall! (I’ve decided this week that the two hardest things about my job are transporting the cat and tending to curly hair in a foreign country!)

Speaking of going to the vet, click here for a short video of Henri, the French cat, and his thoughts on life and going to the vet.

So now I am truly in the countdown! A week from today, I’ll be off to Pakistan, inshallah!

Jim and Cathy

I had a bit of downtime this week – it was my week for consultations, which means I had a lot of appointments with folks in the State Department. I’ll be working with them on the phone and via email when I get to Pakistan, so it’s nice to be able to put a face with a name, and get their insights on the post. I got my appointments done on Monday and Tuesday, and spent Thursday at FSI doing administrative work.

I also had time for some fun!

Last Sunday evening, I went to dinner at Pam and Sam’s house. It was great to see their two kids – and really nice to have a home-cooked meal in a real home!

I celebrated the Fourth of July with Cathy and her friends Carson and Brent. They invited me to come to dinner at Margo and Matt’s apartment – always fun to meet new folks! The plan originally called for going to another friend’s apartment to watch the fireworks from the roof, but I was tired and it was still crazy hot even at 8:30 PM, so I passed and just came home to watch on TV instead. If my apartment were a few floors higher, I would have been able to watch from my balcony (I can see the Washington Monument from here) – but there are too many buildings blocking the view at this level.

Friday night Cathy and I had a nice dinner at Kora.

Last night, she and I met our good friend Jim at Smith and Wollensky’s for a steak. It was so great to see Jim – he’s one of my favorite folks!

With Jim

Summer is definitely here – the Northeast is having a heat wave, and lots of people don’t have power due to a big storm Friday night (I managed to sleep straight through it). That said, John is getting a taste of summer in Islamabad which has been in triple digits for a month or so now. Ouch! The folks back home in Arkansas are also in triple digits – seems like it’s just hot everywhere.

I had a good week of consular training this week, and really enjoyed the class and my classmates.

I met my friend Pam in Clarendon on Tuesday night for dinner – it was a beautiful night, so we sat outside (the heat didn’t kick in until later in the week).

Wednesday night, Cathy and I had dinner at Montana Ted’s, then Friday night, she and I went to Jaleo’s for dinner – a really good tapas bar.

Yesterday I braved the heat and went to the National Gallery of Art – saw three good exhibits: Miró paintings, a neat photography exhibit, and works by George Bellows (the Bellows exhibit had a large painting on loan from Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas!).

I watched some Wimbledon tennis this weekend, and got really interested in the men and women’s gymnastics competitions, gearing up for the Summer Olympics – fun!

This was a fun week at work, and I do have to pinch myself sometimes to be sure I’m doing what I’m doing and getting paid for it!

This week I was in class for counter-terrorism training – I am getting this type of training because we’ll be in Pakistan. We got lots of great information. We spent a day and a half on medical training, among other things, then we headed to West Virginia. For two and a half days, we learned about and practiced with firearms, explosives and evasive driving (the course is lovingly called “crash and bang” and that pretty much sums it up!). It was all fun, as well as informative. Of course, the driving was the most fun part – you’re on a controlled course and under the supervision of a professional driver. We learned and practiced some great techniques – and I got to drive a combat Humvee! By the end of the week, I was pretty exhausted – it’s both mentally and physically stressful.

Rodney, Moi, Ayse, Cathy and Roger

When I got back to DC on Friday night, I was happy to see my good friend Cathy, who had arrived and stayed in my apartment after I left on Wednesday. (She spent the night with me on Friday, then moved into her own apartment in my building on Saturday.) We yakked for a while, then met up with some Juarez folks for dinner in Court House – great to see my NIV Chief Roger and his wife Ayse, as well as my ACS Chief Rodney. We had a great dinner then bid Roger and Ayse farewell, as they are leaving for Azerbaijan soon.

Last Saturday I went to the American History Museum and wandered around for a few hours – it’s always fun to see the Ruby Red Slippers from the “Wizard of Oz,” plus I saw Scarecrow’s mask and shoes – obviously lots of cool stuff there.

Yesterday, Cathy and I ventured out for lunch and some shopping, then topped off the evening with dinner at RT’s, my favorite restaurant around here – yum!

Flavie is doing well – she even came out while Cathy was here, once I got back home.