{"id":8033,"date":"2026-02-01T16:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=8033"},"modified":"2026-02-01T16:10:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:10:00","slug":"manatees-squeee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=8033","title":{"rendered":"Manatees &#8211; squeee!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"148\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5561.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8034\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5561.jpeg 148w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5561-139x300.jpeg 139w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 148px) 100vw, 148px\" \/><figcaption>Peek-a-boo!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend Mellisa and I went to the national park to walk this morning, and were happy to feed the manatees! At one point we had about six of them waiting for grass. I\u2019ve heard that they are rescued and were put there to rehabilitate, but I haven\u2019t researched the full story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"149\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5565.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8035\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5565.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5565-300x140.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>Hey there! Three manatees looking for breakfast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Last night we went to a fun, well-attended BBQ at a co-worker\u2019s house. I had some wonderful smoked ribs and delicious potato salad (it was really good!), and got to visit with a lot of folks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent a lot of time watching Australian Open tennis, fast-forwarding through the recording and selectively watching the games I was most interested in. I was sorry to see the Americans get knocked out of the finals, but the tennis throughout the tournament was a blast to watch. It finished up this weekend, so I\u2019ll have to bide my time until the Olympics start!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John is the <em>Charg\u00e9<\/em> while the ambassador is out of the country, so he\u2019s been out and about a lot (which he enjoys). Here\u2019s a great photo of him walking into a meeting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"186\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/39050bd1-e2a7-4964-a462-25939f32894b.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8037\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/39050bd1-e2a7-4964-a462-25939f32894b.jpeg 186w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/39050bd1-e2a7-4964-a462-25939f32894b-174x300.jpeg 174w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px\" \/><figcaption><em>Charg\u00e9<\/em> Crippen in action!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>John and I continued watching the Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution, plus \u201cThe Night Manager,\u201d \u201cHijacked,\u201d and \u201cTehran.\u201d We also started the new season of \u201cShrinking,\u201d which still made us laugh like crazy. We also watched \u201cSecret Mall Apartment\u201d about a group of artists who had, well, a secret apartment in their local mall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My friend Mellisa and I went to the national park to walk this morning, and were happy to feed the manatees! At one point we had about six of them waiting for grass. I\u2019ve heard that they are rescued and were put there to rehabilitate, but I haven\u2019t researched the full story. Last night we [&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":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8033"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8038,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8033\/revisions\/8038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}