criplomats

With my friend Scott in Monterrey

I got the opportunity to go to Monterrey to work this Thursday and Friday – it was a lot of fun. Monterrey is very pretty and cosmopolitan in comparison to Ciudad Juarez, especially in the part of town where I was. Starbucks on every corner, big malls, tall buildings, late model sedans (not F-150s), etc. My hotel was quite fancy, too.

Thursday night I went to a sunset happy hour with some of the officers – we were in an outdoor rooftop bar, surrounded by the gorgeous mountains of Monterrey, great breeze, then a full moon. It was great!

That said, I was happy to come home to Juarez. The house was empty when I got in late Friday night because John flew to Little Rock to go to Uncle Perk’s 90th birthday party. Many of you know Uncle Perk as the “hummingbird guy.” John got to see lots of his family, plus Mary, Doug, and Deb. Wish I could have been there!

Tuesday night I went to a Rotary Club meeting – I’m on a committee to help put together a college-level symphony concert here in Juarez with a symphony from El Paso.  There are 12 clubs here in Juarez and it was neat to hear about their charity projects – they are pretty active.

Last Sunday afternoon we went to Michael and Suzanne’s house for lunch. John took me back to Corralito’s on Wednesday night. 

Work was pretty low-key. John is already beating me in the immigrant section, doing way more cases than me each day. How does he do it???

The rooftop bar in Monterrey

May 2008 with Steve and Pat

I think I spoke too soon last Sunday when I wrote that nothing too exciting had happened with the duty phone.

Shortly after I said that, I started getting calls. Long story short, at 10 PM Sunday night, I was at the Juarez morgue to identify an American who had been hit by a bus. He was a fugitive wanted for kidnapping and attempted murder – he had shot his ex-wife (she survived) and ran with their 9-year-old boy. He dropped the boy off at a church here in town, then stepped in front of traffic. After the trip to the morgue, I called his next-of-kin to notify him of the death. Wild night.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to help repatriate a US teenager who had been living with her boyfriend several hours from here. We spent the day driving south through the desert to get her and bring her back, so I got to know her fairly well. The day ended by walking her over the international bridge to return her to her mom. I hope she does OK – she’s a sweet kid.

They told us in school that we would have cases like the two I’ve written about here – I just didn’t realize I would get them so soon after arriving in Mexico! The good news is that I really enjoyed it.

As a side note, on the way back to Juarez with the teenager, we stopped at Villa Ahumada for lunch at a roadside burrito stand – they are known for their cheese, and it was delicious. It was a pleasant little town, lined with burrito and cheese stands. Um, I didn’t know that just two months ago, the narcos had conducted a massacre in the town.

We had a lot of rain here this week. The streets of Juarez flood easily, so we found ourselves slugging through pretty deep water on the way home from work Tuesday.

Over on the right side of this page, I added a “Free Kibble” link. You can click on it daily and it helps feed shelter dogs and cats. I usually don’t do stuff like this, but I saw the 11-year-old who set up the program on TV and it seems like a neat thing.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet. John took me to Corralito’s Friday night for a good steak dinner and to celebrate relinquishing the duty phone. Last night, we went to a fun cookout at our neighbors Michael and Teresa’s. Here’s a photo of Darren and grill master Michael:

Most Embassies and Consulates around the world have some sort of a party for the 4th – I remember going to at least one party at the Ambassador’s residence back in Costa Rica. Our Consul General hosted a party Thursday night for friends of the Consulate here in Juarez. Lots of local dignitaries and some good carne asada to eat. It’s mostly a working event for officers, but it was fun nonetheless.

We continued on the party train with a cookout at our friend Silvio’s on the 4th, and a get-together last night to play games with some friends at Mark and Michele’s house. We’re headed out in a bit for another cookout – John’s boning up on a magic trick to do for the kids. (Meanwhile, I’m engrossed in the Nadal – Federer Wimbledon championship game.)

I was happy last Sunday afternoon to see Ellen Saad (my friend Bruce’s mom who lives here in El Paso). We had a quick visit over a Coke before her bridge game. I look forward to seeing her again.

On Monday night, we hosted John’s first bookclub meeting to discuss Joseph Nye’s “Soft Power.” It was fun and John was definitely in his element.

On the work front, John joined me over in the Immigrant Visa section. He passed off duty officer responsibilities to me – luckily nothing too exciting has happened so far. Fingers crossed.

John also tackled the yard this morning with more grass seed and top soil. We’re determined to have something other than dirt!

It was great to have last Monday off after returning from Vegas. We headed to El Paso early in the morning to have the oil changed in the Toyota, had breakfast and did our shopping.

We watched a couple of good movies this week. I really, really liked “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and we laughed through “Knocked Up.” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” isn’t exactly an uplifting movie, but it was very well done – and, of course, I love Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Last night we had our Foreign Service neighbors over for dinner: Teresa and Michael and newly-arrived Caroline and Harold (coming here from Frankfurt). We had a great time…so much so that I have a wee bit of an overhang this morning. It was a lot of fun.

John is duty officer this week, which means he is on call for American Citizen emergencies. So far, nothing too dramatic has happened. As it would happen, he got several calls during the dinner party last night. One Mexican citizen called him a couple of times because her Mexican citizen family was in some sort of trouble here in Juarez. I’m not quite sure why she thought she should call the American Consulate, but John was able to refer her to some Mexican authorities for help.

While we were gone, Michael turned the dirt in our little back “yard” and seeded some grass. We’ve been watering faithfully each night…John calls it our Chia backyard. It’s pretty sad.

John with James Randi

Well, really, there was nothing incriminating about our time in Vegas – in fact, we didn’t even have the time or energy to gamble or see a show – but we had a great time. We were at the sixth annual Amazing Meeting (TAM) (scroll down the link to see some of the speakers), hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation. It’s two and a half days of lectures, mostly by scientists, doctors, etc. and it’s fun! Penn & Teller are always there, too, and one of the guys from MythBusters – and, I got to meet Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson, Matthew Chapman, one of the founders of Science Debate 2008. A couple of my favorite speakers were Dr. Steve Novella, director of neurology at Yale and host of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, and Sharon Begley of Newsweek.

To see a couple of other photos from TAM, click here.

John flew out from his class in DC and we met Thursday night at the Flamingo. (Celebrity sighting: Robert Duvall was on John’s flight out.) He had a good time in DC, and got to see our friends Martha, formerly of Juarez, and Mary from our A-100 class.

Our one indulgence in Vegas was dinner Saturday night at Table 10, one of Emeril’s restaurants. John had a great steak, and I had gumbo with a couple of sides of veggies.

Bad Vegas timing: Bette Midler opens at Caesar’s next week. Doh.

One of my favorite things was walking the Strip each morning around 6AM. There are still people sitting in the casinos gambling and drinking, walking outside drinking and stumbling, hookers still out, etc. It’s pretty wild. And then there are the walkers and runners like me getting our exercise in before the temperature hits 100, stepping over beer bottles.

The week prior to leaving for Vegas was pretty low-key, especially since John was out of town. I’m continuing in the immigrant visa section. Luckily, we have tomorrow off to recuperate from the trip before we head back into work.

Flavia was happy to see us when we returned. Our friend Michael took care of her while we were gone.