{"id":8048,"date":"2026-02-22T12:11:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T17:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=8048"},"modified":"2026-02-22T12:11:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T17:11:31","slug":"administrivia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=8048","title":{"rendered":"Administrivia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I worked on a lot of \u201cadministrivia\u201d this week: reviewing our tax return, getting absentee ballots ready to mail, looking at Medicare billing, picking an air purifier to ship, etc. &#8211; plus a run to the grocery store and the butcher. I also enjoyed watching more Olympics, primarily ice skating. And today we cheered on the U.S. men\u2019s hockey team, despite not knowing any of the rules! (The women\u2019s team won gold, too!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John had an interesting outing this week to one of the ports to watch a grain ship from America unload I-don\u2019t-know-how-many tons of wheat, then he toured the plant where they make it into flour. Turns out, all the bread here is made from American wheat &#8211; who knew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"213\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5610.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8049\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5610.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5610-300x200.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>On the ship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"214\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5606.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8050\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5606.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5606-300x201.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>Talking to the worker manning the crane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"213\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5609.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8051\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5609.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5609-300x200.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>Wheat!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sunday evening we hosted a reception for staffers from the Hill and members of the UN Foundation who were here to see some of the UN projects on the ground. The guests were all impressive &#8211; young, smart, polite and it was really a pleasure to meet them. (The funniest thing was that a herd of cows decided to come into the neighborhood to graze right before they arrived!) Monday was a U.S. holiday, so Mellisa and I walked in the national park (and fed the manatees, of course!) then we had lunch at Oasis Cafe. I had a fun chat with my old boss Pete M. on Wednesday!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m reading \u201cThe Life and Death of August Sweeney\u201d and still plugging away on the financial planning book (I had to take a break from it!). We continue with our crime dramas, and added a very old show on BritBox called \u201cSpooks\u201d (aka MI-5). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier in the week we had donkeys in the neighborhood!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"275\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5587.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8052\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5587.jpeg 275w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_5587-258x300.jpeg 258w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We thought about John\u2019s dad Pete on Monday on his birthday. We miss him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"242\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2798.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8055\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2798.jpeg 242w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2798-227x300.jpeg 227w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 242px) 100vw, 242px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I worked on a lot of \u201cadministrivia\u201d this week: reviewing our tax return, getting absentee ballots ready to mail, looking at Medicare billing, picking an air purifier to ship, etc. &#8211; plus a run to the grocery store and the butcher. I also enjoyed watching more Olympics, primarily ice skating. And today we cheered on [&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\/8048"}],"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=8048"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8057,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8048\/revisions\/8057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}