criplomats

We were supposed to leave Wednesday afternoon to spend the weekend in Chiapas – long story short, the travel gods just weren’t with us, and in the end we opted not to go. When we got to the airport, a huge factory fire was raging across the street and the airport was evacuated. Our friends worked frantically to re-book all of our arrangments and when we went to bed, we thought we were leaving the following morning. Alas, they woke us up around 9:30 PM to say that our return flight had been cancelled. At that point, John and I decided to bow out and go to Plan B.

Plan B was fun! On Friday, we drove up to White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. It was beautifully eerie. On the way home, we found a great little Mexican restaurant in Las Cruces, and, of course, stopped by Coas bookstore.

Saturday morning, we headed to Alpine, Texas, just up the road from Marfa. It’s a sleepy little town and we just goofed off, shopping and eating. We spent the night, and drove back to Juarez this morning. The drive home was beautiful, up through Fort Davis, by the McDonald Observatory, through winding mountain roads.

Last Sunday, John wasn’t feeling well, so I trekked over to El Paso for shopping and to pick up a TDYer at the airport. I finally realized on the way home that I had met this gentleman before – he gave a Foreign Service exam prep session that I attended back when John and I were first trying to get in. He and I stopped by a co-worker’s chili supper on the way to his hotel – yummy.

Monday night, Teresa and I co-hosted a Final Four basketball party. I made a big pot of ancho chile-pork stew and we yakked and pretended to watch the game.

Tuesday was our first day of a new process at work – I’ve been doing the training classes to get ready for it. It went smoothly, and it was a light day. After work, we had a professional development event with a DEA agent – interesting.

On a sad note, Mom had to put her cat Baby to sleep this week. He was 17 years old – she had found him under a bush when he was a kitten. Two days later, our neighbors Michael and Teresa had to put their dog Patty to sleep. So hard to lose a pet.

Mom called this week and asked if we had come down from the clouds yet about getting our next assignment – the answer is “no!” We are still in shock and so excited! John has already gotten several books about Israel and is immersed in reading about Israeli history.

This was another busy week. Last Sunday morning, our Mexican friends Juan and Gloria invited us to breakfast at their house. We had a great time visiting with them, along with Martha and Enrique. Gloria fixed a traditional Mexican breakfast with homemade tortillas, chilaquiles, beans, fresh orange juice and an egg dish – it was all delicious (especially those tortillas). We really enjoyed the morning.

Monday night was book club – our book this month was a departure from non-fiction, The Ugly American. Great choice with a lively discussion.

Much of the week was spent staying late at work to get ready for a class I gave on Friday. We’re moving to a new process where visa applicants will go to a contractor to have fingerprints and photos taken before they arrive at the Consulate. We’re one of the first to move to this model, so it’s pretty exciting. It will also mean that one day a week, I won’t have to just take fingerprints all day and I can get back to interviewing. This has been a duty that we rotate, and not especially fun. Friday’s class went well.

Friday night, we went to Los Bichis to celebrate John’s excellent annual employee evaluation. These evaluations are a constant source of stress for us all. Right now, the principal officer has both of ours on his desk for final review. Fingers crossed!

Saturday morning, we got up early to work as control officers for three U.S. representatives who came to Juarez for a security briefing at the Consulate. We had a motorcade of six vehicles to bring them to and from the office. We had not been in a motorcade before, and it was fun to whiz through the streets of Juarez with police escorts clearing the way. The motorcycle cops here drive pretty crazy, tapping on windows of cars warning them to get out of the way. Wish I had a motorcade everywhere I went!

We watched “Quantum of Solace,” the latest James Bond movie last night, and also got in several episodes of “The Wire” during the week. We love “The Wire”!

I wish I could have been back at Hendrix for alumni weekend – I loved seeing photos of the Galloway Hall reunion!

A little different than Ciudad Juarez!

Shalom! John and I were thrilled to find out that our next post will be Tel Aviv, Israel (pictured above). We’ll probably be in DC for most of 2010 to learn Hebrew, then we should be off to TA in the latter part of the year. It was our number one choice on our bid list and we are so grateful to our assignments team in DC. I’ll do a two-year consular gig, and John will do one year of consular work followed by one year as staff assistant to the Ambassador. It should be a great post. Thanks for all of the nice notes and calls!

Last Sunday, I took three of the TDYers shopping in El Paso. I dropped them off at the outlet mall, then went to a goodbye lunch for a co-worker. We went to a good Vietnamese restaurant that reminded me of the great food in DC when we lived near the Eden Center.

Thursday after work, I drove to El Paso to buy beer and soft drinks for our spring volleyball tournament at work. Unfortunately, the temperature dropped to about 40 degrees on Friday, so we froze our fannies off but we still had a lot of fun. Good tacos warmed us up.

Yesterday I worked most of the day while John went to El Paso to buy groceries and books about Israel. It’s just impossible to get everything done at work during the week. Last night, our friends Mark and Michelle had folks over for a good Italian dinner followed by a rousing game of “Celebrity.” I’ll tell you how to play it sometime – it’s fun!

We sent in our bid list this week and our employee evaluations are out of our hands for the moment – these were two big things hanging over our heads, so this weekend we really felt a sense of relief and accomplishment. Hopefully, we’ll know in a couple of weeks where we will be going! The light at the end of the tunnel may be a train, but John and I feel like we’ll be happy wherever we end up.

Last Sunday we had a great breakfast at Tomochi’s with our friends Beth and Tom. It was so much fun to go to a restaurant here in Juarez where there were a lot of people – even a wait to get in. Most restaurants are sparsely populated these days.

We had a nice outing to Las Cruces yesterday morning with the retired TDYers Joe and David. They are both so interesting. David was in the Peace Corps before he joined the Foreign Service, and Joe was – of all things – a Jesuit priest. They have been all over the world and have great stories, plus they are such gentlemen it’s a pleasure to be with them. They loved the farmers’ market – it was a gorgeous day outside – then we had a good lunch at the Double Eagle in Old Mesilla (Joe had been there years ago).

Friday after work, I joined some of the local staff at the tennis court behind the Consulate (yes, we have a tennis court). It was a lot of fun. One of the Consulate drivers, Polo, is about my age and he’s a good tennis player. They brought in the 16 year old brother of another staff employee for a match with Polo – there was a pretty decent crowd of us and lots of verbal encouragement for them both. When I left, Polo was schooling the teen, which was pretty funny.

Last night we watched “La Vie en Rose” – it was excellent, as Cousin Dail said it was.

John with Young Marine Quinones

The highlight of the week was attending a naturalization ceremony in El Paso and seeing 998 legal permanent residents take the oath of allegiance to become U.S. citizens. There were people from 53 countries represented, from Iran to Tonga – pretty amazing. Of course I teared up – no way I could sing the National Anthem and watch people wave tiny American flags without it! We spent the morning alongside volunteer groups like the Young Marines (pictured above) helping with crowd control – it was a really nice experience.

The rest of the week was pretty low-key. We had drinks with Michael and Teresa after work Tuesday at their house to talk about our bid lists.  John and I went to Los Bichis for dinner Friday night. We also watched the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski” this week – it was good comic relief.

Last night we went to a big St. Patrick’s Day party at Matt and Daisy’s house – always fun. It was also a going-away party for our friends Kathy and John – we’ll hate to see them go. Matt and Daisy always go all-out for a party and last night was no exception.

We’re in the middle of a three-day weekend…aaah! The Dude abides!