The Force is with us

So ready for “Star Wars” to come out. We get movies in English, but they apparently don’t stay long and it’s sort of a guess what will be available. “Midway” was here for a bit, but it ever came in English. “Ford v. Ferrari” did, for a week or so, and that last “Terminator” was here in English for at least three weeks. I came close to caving and watching that one.

“Ford v. Ferrari” was totally worth the hassle of tracking it down and seeing it. We have a couple of theaters that will show movies in English (with Russian subtitles) and I have a hard time figuring out which is the theater near me and which is the one across the little city in the building with the Marriott.

But “Star Wars” is coming, in English, on Thursday. I’m just not sure where and when I will see it. I’ve told people that’s what I’d like to do on Christmas; for some reason people seem to think I’m joking but it’s absolutely an option. Since Belarusians celebrate Orthodox Christmas the following week, there shouldn’t be a crowd.

This weekend I babysat Shelby again and also had a second pup, Warrior. Warrior’s family went on leave and Shelby’s mom will be keeping him for most of the time, but she got called out of town for a night so I got them both. It was a good weekend to re-watch the original “Star Wars” trilogy. I’ve just finished those and have “The Force Awakens,” but I don’t own “The Last Jedi,” so, whenever I see the movie, I hope I remember where we all left off. Dang, it better be good.

After giving the pups back, I went out to yet another Georgian restaurant last night. In maybe six weeks here that’s three different Georgian restaurants and three times I’ve had My Thai. Sensing some patterns forming early on, all involving dumplings. Like others, this place was within walking distance, and on the way back, I was walking part of the way with a Fellow Foodie and she wanted to duck into another place for dessert. I’d seen a placed called, as God is my witness, “Honky Tonk,” and on the way in, I heard Montgomery Gentry blaring “My Town” and figured it was Belarus’s version of a country bar. We went in, and it looked that way, although at that point, the music was more jazz. And under “Honky Tonk,” the sign read, “Piano Bar.” Because those two things go together in Belarus.

We went in and I had tea and piece of cheesecake and Fellow Foodie had some kind of drink and a brownie. The live music started at 9 a.m., and the trio set up – a guitarist, a drummer (electronic kit) and a cello, which was also electric. This didn’t exactly scream Waylon so we figured we’d have to stay and see some of it jut to figure out what it was. I mean, the theme of the bar really was country-ish, with little cowboy hats and baby beer barrels. I never saw a piano in the piano honky tonk and when the music started, it was absolutely … jazz. Not bad, but definitely not country. However, how American is that? A country and western piano bar with live jazz?

 

While we were in there, it started snowing again – really, really fat flakes. I never took weather so I’ve no idea how fat flakes form, but these were March-ish flakes, not November. But today, Sunday, it was fairly warm – 36 degrees – and the existing snow melted. Since we probably won’t see the sun until May, though, it’s not drying up; it’s just pooling everywhere. That doesn’t bode well for staying away from slip and fall accidents.

My LL Bean order isn’t in yet, so the nonskid things I got for my shoes are still en route and I just hope I don’t wipe out before they arrive. I am becoming babushka-like in my walk to work. I walk slow and grip every handrail possible.

But I finally feel better. In addition to all the Thai food, we also have a Thai massage place on my way home from work. I popped in there and made an appointment for a massage and feel much better now. It was my first massage there, but probably not my last. I filled out the first-visit questionnaire and was highly amused by the questions:

• ·        Where does it hurt?
• ·        Do you have any allergies?
• ·        How do you take your tea?

 Love it.

So far, the tour is just great. This week, I did my second outreach. Previously, I’d gone to a school and discussed Thanksgiving, and this week I did a “My Hometown” presentation. I love PowerPoint and had a great time talking up Tallahassee, even wearing my FSU baseball jersey. 

WHOMP. There she goes.

Thanksgiving in Minsk was quite memorable for me. Not so much for the turkey, though there was that, but more so for my very first utter wipeout on black ice.

It’s going to be a long, long winter. Thanksgiving day itself was great, for the most part. I walked to a particular market to buy eggs and a few other things, enjoying what started out as fairly decent, if chilly, weather. In all, I walked about 8 kilometers, then made mashed potatoes for a meal with some colleagues.

One had offered a ride, so I went down to wait for them to arrive, carrying the mashed potatoes in a pot in a sack. After maybe 10 minutes of wandering around in a little circle (mostly to stay warm, as it started getting sleety), my ride drove up. I took maybe four steps to the car and, I guess, reached for the handle and then WHOMP. I fell backwards before anything like, “Holy crap, I’m falling” could run through my head. My first thought was extreme pain and “I didn’t lose consciousness” and I realized I wasn’t dead or dying. I also figured out that my head hadn’t burst open with brain pieces everywhere because I was thinking. Honestly, I don’t know how that was possible. I landed with a hard smack.

You know the feeling after someone pulls your hair really hard? I had that for 15 minutes solid. Then we arrived at the Thanksgiving dinner destination and I had Advil as my hor d’voures and the sensation dulled once the turkey hit home.

The next day, I learned how fast word spreads in a small post when everyone already knew what happened. I conceded to go to the hospital to get checked out, and that was an event unto itself. It was reminiscent of my visit to the Midelt hospital during Peace Corps, where I saw many people who were trying to help me, but I had no concept of what was going on. In Peace Corps, though, I had the phone to the PC doctor, who was translating. In this case, I had a doctor from the embassy with me to help translate, and I am thankful for that. Although I still don’t completely know what happened, I got a CT scan and four X-rays that were all negative. At the end of the 2-hour visit, I paid just under $200 and got immediate results. America’s health care system stinks.

Over a week on, my hips still hurt and I still have a bump on my head, so I’m not completely convinced there are no long-term effects. They gave me no painkillers so I’ve just taken Advil-ish PM to sleep. At first, I was really stiff and store but I’m down to it just being the hips and the top of my head. Next week I’m debating a Thai massage. There’s a place fairly near the office.

Other things Thai include a restaurant called My Thai, which is about a half a kilometer from me. My apartment is really smack in the middle of everything. Tonight, I went to a Georgian restaurant. It’s not the first Georgian food I’ve had here, so I had figured I was going to the other one. When I asked where this one was, my eating companion said it was right next door to the Australian pub. Both those restaurants are on the way to My Thai.

I’m working on my Cyrillic, and I realized that the storefront across the road is an Uzbek restaurant, which is next door to a coffee shop that I just figured out spells “Iskander,” which means it’s a Turkish coffee place. There’s a Chinese place above the Thai massage and somewhere I ran into an Irish pub, too. And that’s stuff that’s all fairly nearby. And it doesn’t count the McDonald’s, KFCs, Burger Kings or the TGI Friday, though I guess those don’t really constitute international cuisine.

While walking Shelby, whom I’m babysitting again this week, I’ve stopped at signs to sound out some of the words and realized that Karl Marx road is right behind me. I also passed some “consular service” place, so it must have been part of an embassy but I didn’t recognize the flag. It’s right around the corner from me, though. I’m totally in the middle of everything.

In spring and summer, this place will be gorgeous and lovely to walk around. I hope I make it.

Babysitting and Breaking Bad but Winter Is Coming

Almost a month into my stay in Minsk and I’m settling in. The pictures aren’t on the wall yet, but the floors are full of rugs and the fridge is stocked with magnets, if not food.

I’ve explored on foot in my area, but there’s a lot more to see. However, winter hit here, or at least what I’d call winter hit here. Last weekend, it was in the high 40s but on Friday it went down to 20. And that was an all-day 20, not a low.

The baby in babysitting.

The walk into work isn’t bad; it’s about a mile and I have varying routes I can take. There are several big roads, so the alternate routes vary in which road I cross, go over or under, how many staircases I go up and down and on which side of the road I cross the river. 

Although Belarus is a pretty flat country – cross-country skiing is apparently the thing to do once the white stuff is on the ground – I feel like I walk up and down a lot of stairs on the way to and from work. Now, that’s not so bad but once ice gets on the ground it’s going to freak me out.

All of my shipments came already and in the process of unpacking everything, I found the “Breaking Bad’ DVDs and binged. It’s my third viewing, and I think it was worse the second time but better the third. You just have to accept that Walt is the most abusive boss ever and you’re fine. I also liked Marie a lot more this time around – her character is about the only one with pure intentions. I also went down the bunny holes on color as it relates to BB and wow, the writers were absolutely diligent in how they presented the show, to the point of people’s names adding up to numbers that translated to whatever colors. That show is truly a study in many different topics.

On the Isle of Tears

Right when my big shipment came, I also got custody of a sweet dog. Shelby’s owner had to work over the weekend so I got to babysit a sweet pup. Shelby, who was, in her youth, a Ukrainian street dog, is now a collie-ish sweetheart who knows how to shake hands and dance and howls in her sleep. (She woke herself up with that one.) We had a lot of fun and I really miss having a dog, but keeping her – and walking her in the 40something-degree weather – reinforced the fact I am not ready for my own. Hopefully, though, I will get to babysit Shelby again. She will leave in spring.

In settling in, someone gave me a TV, for which I am thankful. It’s an older one but seems to do everything I need it to, but I haven’t figured out all the right combinations. I get cable TV but I have no earthly idea of how to get that to the TV. There’s only one reliable channel in English, but I had been watching “Bones,” now and then so I’d like to figure out how to get that back. But in the meantime. I’m still good with AFN and my DVDs.

At some point, they’re going to come and take the “welcome kit” back, which includes the old TV as well as the vacuum, so I spent this cold weekend vacuuming and trying to get the rugs laid out. If I counted correctly, I have nine, but not all are large, and none of them are room-sized. Some are lying on top of the pre-existing rugs that came in the apartment.

I love the apartment; there are some quirks, of course. Every kitchen should have a drawer for junk and mine doesn’t. I also think I have about three heating zones through the house. The extra bedroom I’ve marked as my study/gym is super cold, but the bathroom is nice and toasty. I’m not sure I have control over the temperatures; I think the city regulates the heat.

Yes I do.

I’ve been to a couple restaurants nearby, but not TGI Friday’s. I will at some point just to be geeky but I’ll be here two years so no rush. I discovered My Thai, which has amazing dumplings, and there is doner place that will likely be my go-to. A decent-size schwarma is about $1.50.

Also started on Russian lessons, and man, it’s a tough language. I really want to learn a language, though, and a head start on this one would not only help me communicate (duh) but maybe give me a leg up down the road.

God knows I don’t think I am going to be venturing out much this winter, so I am glad to have something productive to do. I feel like I did in North Dakota; I am rooting for December 21 to get here more so than Christmas. The sun is coming up around 9 a.m. now and setting before 5 p.m., and we’re still about a month off from the shortest day of the year. I leave for work in the morning and it’s still dark, then I walk home in the dark. Today I went into work to run on the treadmill and it was sunny, nice and 21. It makes such a difference when it’s sunny out! But I won’t see that for a couple months.

It’s supposed to snow this week, which probably means it’ll be here to stay until March. I am not looking forward to it. I have lots of winter clothes, but I’m never going to be ready for it.

To get into the winter mood, I got “Game of Thrones” in audio book. I didn’t see the HBO series and the book was over 30 hours long. I listened to the entire thing but only have the vaguest notion of what was going on. Fantasy aloud is hard, but I am going to plug along. It gives me something to listen to on the half-hour walk to and from work.

So yeah, winter is coming. I hope I make it.

As the days go fly

It’s been a week since my arrival to Minsk. The very first day, I opened a window and three flies managed to get in. I thought the average life span of aa housefly was 2-3 days; whenever one bothers me, I think, “In four days, max, you’ll never annoy anyone again.”

But Minsk must have superflies. On about day, one flew too close to the sun in going too far down in the plastic trash bag. I snapped it shut and smothered the pest. A second one died a similar fate, but not on purpose. I meant to smack it down, which I did, but it didn’t die instantly. It buzzed a bit and then I stepped on it and thought I killed it, so I picked it up with a piece of paper to toss it in the trash. As I did so, it rebounded like Adonis Creed, but I zipped him in the plastic bag and never heard those wings buzz again.

But holy smokes, it’s now Day Nine and I’ve still got one flying around. I’m torn between being impressed and utterly annoyed with The Last Super Fly. I don’t own a flyswatter, or I don’t think I own a flyswatter. I might, but as I’ve only received one of my three shipments, I don’t have one with me.

They’re hard things to track down, flyswatters are. I’ve gone through this before, when I tried to buy one in another country, though I don’t remember which one. Honestly, when was the last time you bought a flyswatter? Where did you get it from? And in which part of the store? Stick me in a Publix, Target or Walmart, and I’m fairly certain all would carry at least one kind, but where would it be? Pest control? Plastics? Outdoor-ish stuff? It’s a little scavenger hunt.

Then add the wrinkle of another language. It’s not something that translates easily. For one thing, is it one word or two? And would this be a literal translation? Today, I tried to order some office supplies and, having virtually no Russian to speak of, relied on Google Translate, but I came up empty in some searches.  “Desk organizer,” “bulletin board” and “whiteboard eraser” didn’t pan out, so I’d really have no hope for “flyswatter.”

So now I’m waiting on nature to take its course and have Super Fly die of old age. If not, I’m going to have to go to a store and do it the old-fashioned way, with old fashioned body language and a buzzing noise.

Besides the fly, which is really only a minor inconvenience because my apartment is so big I don’t see him often, things are just fine. Work is a bit overwhelming because I don’t know where to start; there are a lot of big projects and it’s a matter of prioritizing.

I’m now walking to work, which is enjoyable if cold and/or wet and getting colder and/or wetter. Luckily, one of my shipments arrived, and it was the one that had both my warm stuff – hats, gloves and some scarves – and my raincoat.

Over the weekend, I walked a ton and explored the area. It was much chillier over the weekend than it’s been this week, but I took off in all directions and poked around. The city seems to be nice and compact, very walkable. There is a metro system, though, and I’ll have to get one of those cards.

I hadn’t realized last weekend was going to be a three-day one, and I realized yesterday that this weekend is, too. I’m a little bummed because usually I like to do road trips but it’s just too early in the game for me to get out.  I hope to do a little more than just walk – there are lots of museums and such – but all in all it’s been a nice, slow way to start a new assignment.

No Starbucks to be found, but Cinnabon is nearby

I’m settling into my new apartment in my new city. So far, Minsk, the apartment and my assignment are all fabulous.

Yes, it’s going to be a lot colder than I have been in awhile, but I got a short reprieve upon arrival and made do with a light hoodie. That’s going to change quickly but I’m enjoying it right now. Friday’s a holiday and I’m hoping to wander around in what might be the last decent weekend weather-wise.

My apartment is pretty awesome. It’ll be lost on me, since I’m pretty boring and don’t entertain, but it’s still the envy of the housing pool. I’m smack dab in the city center. It’s about a mile to the office; I’m hoping to hoof it as much as possible and it’s a nice walk. Granted, it’s going to be a cold and dark walk in the winter, but that’s the intention. I have a couple of metro stops nearby and that’s an option, but as I understand it, it takes about as long to metro as it does to walk so, unless I’m in danger of frostbite, why not walk? (We’ll see how that plays out …)

Location aside, the apartment itself is still pretty incredible. I have a bedroom with a walk-in closet bigger than Wendy’s living room and the apartment itself is larger than the Tallahassee home. The bathroom is phenomenal, probably bigger than Zippy’s bedroom, although it’s not shaped like a square. It’s kind of a triangle with a Nebraska-like foot sticking out. The whole thing is absolutely huge and made me wonder how to heat it in the winter, but then I realized it had heated floors. That’s awesome!

My guest room has two twin beds and my office has enough room to have a big workout space once my shipments get here. The kitchen, too, is pretty large as far as I’m concerned. It’s kind of a shame because in reality, I’ll camp out in one chair and my room. Oh! Speaking of, there’s a little balcony off my room, too.

Really, it’s an amazing apartment. I don’t deserve it, and I mean that. My department is really hierarchal, and I’m on the bottom. The apartment is for someone who’s far closer to the top than me, but because it was the only thing available when I arrived, I got it. Score.

Looking forward to my new assignment, too. I’ve got a cool opportunity as the first one in my position in about 10 years. There’s a lot to wrap my mind around and prioritize. So far everyone is really nice; there aren’t many American staff in the office so the arrival of new one means I can take over some of other people’s workloads. That’s not limited to American staff members’ work, but in shouldering anything, it frees up people’s time to focus on other stuff, something that’s welcome.

Minsk is very nice. Everyone says it’s great living and that you can find everything here. (I found peanut butter, so that’s a good start.) There are a lot of American places. Of course, there’s McDonald’s; we’re also having Domino’s today. Oddly, though, there’s no Starbucks. In Guangzhou, I had two within sight of my apartment. There’s a Cinnabon, though, which is pretty incredible. I remember one being in Yerevan, but other than that, the only ones I’ve seen are in U.S. malls. So that’s cool. According to my map, there’s one 600 meters from my house. There’s a movie theater that has an English language movie for a heartbeat every once in awhile (show showing: Shawshank Redemption!) 890 meters away. I’ll be checking into that for sure, though not for something I’ve seen 17,821 times. Ford v. Ferrari is coming soon.    

Besides McD’s, there’s also a TGI Friday’s right near my house. It’s across from this really cool department store called GUM. (I saw it on the map and thought it must be a gym, but no, it’s GUM.) It’s a Soviet-era department store in an old building and is apparently organized in a haphazard way. I went into the bottom floor and poked around the household stuff. At some point, I have to do a shopping spree for fun stuff like a broom, vacuum and TV but that can wait.

Yeah, the initial cash outlay is going to hurt in a few weeks. So far, I’ve been posted to places that didn’t need me to bring stuff like dishes, TVs or flatware. As a result, all that stuff – which I do own – is sitting, out of reach, in a warehouse somewhere. So now I’m checking out Target, Walmart and the local stores and trying to price stuff I’ll need.

Friday is a holiday here, so I can do some staycationing. No idea what I’ll do. There’s so much!

Been awhile

 I’m back, meaning both America and Florida. I’m midway through my home leave; time flies.

Arrived on Mackenzie’s birthday, but since she was out of town I’d planned on going to the FSU game. Zippy got me at the airport and had her little pups with her, so we went home first. I noticed Rally got out of the car at home and immediately went to pee, and I saw he hiked his little leg for a much longer time than would be normal. However, the poor little thing has a torn ACL, so I didn’t think much of it.

I'm not a vet, but I knew immediately what Rally had.

Nor did I think much of Z telling me that Rally kept waking her up several times a night to pee. He’s a pesky little thing, so that seemed normal. However, while at the house before the game, I saw that he asked to go out a couple of times, and each time he seemed to hike his leg up longer than it takes to pee.

We headed out to the game and decided to hit The Wharf for fish before, then popped back by the house to give Rally and The Bat some leftover cheese grits. For the first time ever, Rally turned down People Food.  Something seemed wrong. I asked Z if she’d noticed Rally actually peeing, because, so much as I’d seen him hike the little ACL-torn leg, I didn’t remember seeing a pee stream. She hadn’t noticed. Perhaps realizing we were talking about him, Rally got up and went to sit behind a chair, where he just stared listlessly. Bless his heart. No was Z was going to leave her favorite son like that.

After doing such internet searches as “dog can’t pee” and “how to help dog pee” (the latter yielded this video: https://www.handicappedpets.com/blog/how-to-express-dog-bladder/, which I tried but never really figured out where Rally’s bladder was), texted Wendy, who said to take Rally’s temperature. Never mind the correct kind of thermometer, we didn’t have a thermometer at all, so I called Allied, the Pup ER that’s maybe two miles away. After explaining the symptoms, they said yes, we should come in because something sounded really wrong.

No Evening at Doak for me. Instead, we loaded up both Rally and Batgirl, lest she be left alone, and took the little boy in, where he was subsequently X-rayed. The result: massive amounts of bladder stones, essentially a rock collection going from his bladder to his little pee pipe. He’d been trying to pass the stones – which ranged in size from sand to pebbles – probably for weeks. He’s too dumb to tell you something is wrong, so no telling what kind of pain he’d been in.

The verdict: surgery. Well, initially, I think “procedure” would be a better word. He had a catheter put in to flush as much as possible back into his bladder so he could then have surgery by his regular vet on Monday, which, presumably, would cost less than emergency surgery.

Having traveled to and lived in countries far poorer than the U.S., it really wrenches me to see how we treat our pets here. Rally’s procedure, surgery and tooth-cleaning (which we tossed in because he would be under anyway) cost roughly the amount an Indian earns in a year. I just don’t know how to feel about that; there’s guilt on several fronts. First world problems, but it’s Zippy’s baby, and he’s worth it to her.

Batgirl went home and Rally stayed at Allied for two nights. We went to visit him the second day, after his successful pebble flush. He had a catheter in and was passing some of the little ones, too. But visiting him was pretty bad. He had on his little Cone of Shame and was so utterly confused at being there. When we went to visit him, he was the only overnight guest and he was so baffled as to why he was put into some kind of jail cell wearing an Elizabethan collar, a needle in one paw and a pipe shoved up his own pee pipe. Seeing Mama come to visit him but not take him home put both of them into fits.

Rally's by-products.

Batgirl, though, after being initially baffled where her brother went, seemed fine with it. We wound up picking Rally up from Dr. Winter on Tuesday, and after three nights alone, she had started adjusting. She was happy, though, once he returned, even though he did come in wearing that darned collar. He was pretty thrilled, too, despite the collar. He had a bunch of staples that Wendy came over and removed after about a week, so he’s pretty good to go now.

The how-they-formed verdict was both from some kind of infection and his diet, so he’s supposed to be on some special diet from here on out. We’ll see how seriously that gets taken. I’ve noticed both of the little spoiled monsters get all kinds of treats daily. Sticks, greenies, some kind of Newman’s Own dog treat, little snap things, People Food, etc. They are not dogs in need.

They’re pretty spoiled with me here, too. They’ve been coming along for rides more often, because sometimes I’ll take Z to pickleball and bring them with me to pick her up. We walked around Lake Ella, too, which those little fat monsters really need to do more often. And in general, four hands are twice as good to rub tummies.

In other home leave happenings, I’ve been doing yard work, but not planting grass seed. It’s been ridiculously dry and hot, which does not make for ideal fall grass-growing weather. Instead, I’ve been tackling the existing yard, taking down branches and raking, although, two weeks after raking, you can’t tell I did anything.

Leanne had a garage sale, so I helped with that and took a lot of Zippy’s stuff that did not sell in her garage sale last year. Between that and random ads here and there, I unloaded some china, my old Breyer’s horses (though I decided to hold back Misty and Stormy) and more stuff Mimi painted. Reduced the “needs to go” to about two boxes instead of a car full, which wasn’t bad at all.

To Z’s surprise, I sold Batgirl’s chair. Not as in I sold it without it being OK to sell, but she didn’t think anyone would pay money for it, but within two days, a guy came for it and didn’t even try to talk me down. In fact, when I helped him load it, he offered to tip me!

Z was shocked, but not near as shocked as Batgirl was. She sauntered in to the living room and went to jump on it and it was gone. I never thought a dog could do a double-take but she did. She’s made herself at home, though, on the back of the sofa, so she’s not wanting for naps. But man, taking both Rally and her favorite chair out of the house must have been a little bit disconcerting for her.

Living out of a suitcase

My checked bag weighed 50 pounds coming out of Baghdad and going to Cape Town. During the visit, it shed about 15 pounds in food, clothing and a backpack reshuffle and arrived to D.C. at 35 pounds. Going into Minsk, it cannot weigh more than 50 pounds. This brings a problem, especially since I already have a lot of stuff in Florida waiting on me.

When I left Baghdad, I had to plan for a possible D.C. stay but it wasn’t a done deal, Plus, I couldn’t go over 50 pounds, so a lot of stuff had to stay. Eventually, I’ll be reunited with it, but not until November or so. As a result, I had to decide what to take with me, what to ship and what to leave for donation. I did the best I could with that, but now I have a bunch of gaps.

Initially upon arriving to DC, I needed food and laundry detergent, but not in that order. Due to a spill in my suitcase, all my work clothes smelled minty fresh, which could have been worse but still was undesirable.  Plus, I’d spent about two weeks on the road and all my play clothes were dirty, too.  Laundry was even more important than food, seriously. (Especially since, with my credit card, I have airport lounge access and holy cow, the Atlanta Lounge is fabulous. They even have sweet tea, bless their hearts.)

Fortunately or not, my hotel room wasn’t ready when I arrived and I therefore was able to/had to do a lot of running around. I arrived in the morning, I think, but as it played out, I didn’t actually check in until after 6 p.m., by which time I was zonked. But I still managed to do laundry, which, in my particular Marriott Residence, is accessible with a credit card, not cash. Both the Optima and the Chase Sapphire card have gotten extreme workouts since I arrived, but the $2.50 for the laundry is something I’d have rather done with cash, thought that’s not an option. It feels silly charging something for less than $10.

I hit work the next day, but didn’t settle into an actual assignment until a bit later. Fortunately, by that time, TPTB decided I’d stay here for awhile (despite that being my assumption, it looked like that might have changed and I might have been sent somewhere but that didn’t work out) and I’ve been able to settle into my hotel room.

And when I pulled out all my stuff, I finally was able to figure out what I should have brought and what I need to buy. The trick is, though, that in the end, my bag can’t go over 50 pounds. I can cram stuff into my backpack, too, but I basically figure on having about 25 pounds to play with.

Careful consideration goes into any purchase. I’m low on toothpaste and astringent, but I’m only here for three more weeks. Can I make it? Tallahassee has stores, too, and if I can push off the purchase until I get there, that’s all the more weight I can play with.

Some stuff I had to buy; I’ve spent $400 on clothes, to include underwear and tennis shoes. I’ve gone to some museums while here and picked up souvenirs for others, so that’s adding weight, too. Hopefully this all works out, but it’s a strange component of shopping.

In general, I despise waste, whether it’s money, product, food or whatever. Laying out all my vitamins, I realized I didn’t bring my vitamin D with me. This is a daily thing and I won’t be reunited with my existing set until at least November, so I had to think about getting more. Really, I only need about 90 of the things, but they come in bottles of 250. Well, I probably have 250 already; I just don’t have them here. And what’s more, the 250-count bottle is “on sale” BOGO. I don’t need 500 tablets. I need 90. I hate “sales” like this. A box of 300 will be priced at $20 and you get one free, so 600 for $40. But I need 90. If there’s a 100-count bottle, I’d consider it EXCEPT it seems in all these places that have “sales,” the 100-count bottle cost $15. I don’t understand why we can’t have prices that are comparable to the sizes. I don’t want to waste the money on the 100-count bottle; clearly, it’s a crappy value. But 600 pills weigh much more than 100, and I don’t want to waste the weight. (Not to mention that taking one a day really pushes the expiration date when you have a zillion.) So, on that one, I’m skipping it altogether and am just being sure to hang out in the sunshine.

I’m looking at everything like that, too. Some stuff I know I have a ton of but I need now, like cotton balls. You cannot buy 50 cotton balls. You can but 100, but those 100 are “triple size” to the point where they cost exactly the same as the normal-sized bag of 300. Fortunately, cotton balls are both light and squishy so they pack well (and even pad random things like wooden kitty cats for Riley) and don’t go bad. But once my cotton balls are reunited, I will likely have enough to last me until Riley gets to high school.

Hopefully, the purchasing has slowed a bit. I’m done with clothes, at least, and am not doing any more souvenirs. Not sure about the toothpaste; that one is cutting it close.

But for awhile there – over a week – I was totally hemorrhaging money. Last Tuesday, though, I finally took a night off of buying stuff and managed to get through a solid day without buying a meal or anything else. I’d even thought about seeing a movie that night (it’s the cheap night) and opted out just to make it 24 hours without forking over any money.

I have been cooking for the most part, but it seems like every day I meet up with someone from my work past and share a meal. When I don’t, though, I even go home for lunch. I’ve eaten in the cafeteria twice and even though we have an awesome cafeteria, I don’t feel like any cafeteria meal should cost over ten bucks.

Headed tonight to Nando’s for dinner, which will be my second time since arrival. I went there for dinner the first night I got here, and it seemed surreal; my travel journey had begun the day before in the city where the first Nando’s opened. After a freakishly long travel day – 15 hours from Johannesburg to Atlanta, three-hour layover, two-hour flight to DC, commute to hotel, no room ready after hours and hours – I was just ready to collapse. But that garlic peri peri sauce keeps you going.

(Big) Five for five

Rhino – check.

Elephant – check.

Cape buffalo – check.

Lion – check.

Leopard – check.

Dang, I’m done.

Wiki sayeth: “In Africa, the Big Five game animals are the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo. The term was coined by big-game hunters, and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot, but is now also widely used by safari tour operators.”

No. 1 of Big Five

A successful day in Kruger National Park here in South Africa. The park, about the size of Israel, one of the guides told us, is filled with critters. We saw impalas right off, plus some other deer-ish thing that had a stripe, then happened upon three hyenas, which was one of my highlights. I don’t think I’d ever seen a hyena, even in a zoo. (Like I’d have come across one anywhere else.) A little bit later, we came across a mamma hyena with three hyena … pups? Cubs? Kittens? Not a clue, but they were so cute, it was sad to know they are going to grow up to be nasty predators that stalk on anything.

When we found a sick lioness (and by “found,” on this one I mean other people confirmed the sighting but I never did), the tour guide pointed out that the hyenas would get her if she didn’t get well.

But she was the second lion our group sighted. We came across a bunch of tourist cars in an area, and knew there was something cool there, but after waiting a bit, everyone decided they’d all missed it, so the cars started to disperse. Ours went in one direction, and all of a sudden, someone in the back called out that she sighted the male lion, walking through the bush. We followed him for a bit, until we lost him as he stalked impalas, but I really got a good view of the lion. At one point, he was walking in our direction. Granted, I was sitting  in a vehicle that could take off at any moment, but I had this moment of, “I’m calmly taking pictures as a lion is walking in my direction no more than 40 meters away.” But wow, what a moment.

As we were coming across all kinds of other animals – giraffes, elephants – the driver got a message over the radio and took off towards a watering hole.

Mandela's cell
at Robben Island

The tourist safari vehicles, like the dunebusters in the UAE, are all modified Toyota trucks. They seat 10 plus the driver – three bench seats that seat three (comfortably; the middle seat is just as good) and the shotgun position, which, since South Africa’s steering wheels are on the wrong side, are on America’s driver side.

My tour group of 25 (12 of whom are all together) has one person who’s 6-foot-8, so he got shotgun. The other eight in our Toyota group – the larger group was split into three – rotated seats during breaks, as we stopped and ate both breakfast and lunch in the park. And all the drivers, not just our three drivers, talk to each other to let everyone else know where the Big Five are.

Granted, I’m not sure what language Sinky, our driver, spoke, but I could tell he got a good sighting report when we took off all of a sudden to a watering hole. Across the way – far enough to identify it, but not close enough to get a good picture from an iPhone 6 – was a leopard! Holy cow, how lucky could we get?

Actually, probably a bit luckier. Two of the four “Houston 12,” who were seated in our Toyota, had gigantic cameras with lenses, no lie, that were over a foot long. One was sitting in my row, so every time he went to take a picture, I couldn’t see a damn thing. The driver kept asking if everyone could see whatever animal it was, and I would be like, uh, no.

African Penguins

Rant: NO ONE WANTS TO SEE YOUR PICTURES. Seriously, people. You do not need 9000 photos of Elephant No. 17 or Impala No. 672 (seriously, they were everywhere). You will never go back through them. You can flatter yourself by thinking that people care, but they don’t. No, they don’t. No one will look at your 80,000 photos from your two safari days. Take some photos to spark your memory, but don’t let taking photos take you away from being in the moment. Just sit back and observe – watch nature unfold. It’s a helluva reality show, I promise. And you will not go all Aunt Patty and Selma, forcing Bart and Lisa to watch vacation slideshow after vacation slideshow. People appreciate a couple. They do not appreciate 67 photos of the same kudo (a cool antelope) and then 81 of that bloat of hippos you saw sunning themselves. (Yes, I looked up what a group of hippos is called. Also acceptable: pod, school, herd. But “bloat” sounds best.)

Clearly, today’s been my highlight so far. This has something to do with Kruger National Park being awesome, but also because my planned cage diving in Cape Town got weathered out. The day turned out to be nice, but it was super windy the night before and they had to make the call, so no death by Jaws for me on this vacation. I’ll have to leave that on the bucket list.

Cape Town’s a very nice area, too. We spent four night there, and it seems like it was so long ago. We had a penguin outing and went to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was jailed for 18 years.

Just up from the Cape of Good Hope – the most southern part of Africa – we went to visit the lighthouse, which is where one of the explorers and now I can’t remember – said was the most beautiful sight on the planet. And, being an explorer, he would know, even if I can’t remember his name.  It was pretty amazing.

Botanical gardens.
Straight out of
Dr. Seuss

By sheer coincidence, I managed to run into a colleague, too. We were both wearing sunglasses so I wasn’t completely sure it was her, but when my salsa buddy from the Australian embassy sighted me between bites of her pizza, she shouted my name. Cue “It’s a Small World After All.” An American running into an Australian she knows from Baghdad while visiting the southernmost point of Africa. And neither of us was totally shocked.

I’m still mid-R&R, but this tour is winding down. We head to Jo-berg tomorrow, and it’s a long, long travel day. There are a couple stops along the way, such as at the third-largest canyon in the world. I really am not paying a whole lot of attention to the upcoming attractions; I booked the tour at the last minute because I had to go somewhere and didn’t read past “cage diving,” so everything’s a pleasant surprise.

Once this tour is done, I am scheduled to travel to Victoria Falls with another small group, and then it’s back to work. Except I still don’t know where that’s going to be. As it stands now, it’s DC, even though my current flight is back to Baghdad. I’ll need to change it, but there’s still a chance that our post’s status could change and I get directed back there. I’m really not sure when to make the call, but I’m not going to worry about it now.

More change

Made it to R&R. The last two weeks have been such a back-and-forth of “to go or not to go” that I’m just emotionally exhausted trying to deal with it.

As I told Leila, I don’t think it’s stress, but it’s just that everything is up in the air and every time we think there’s a decision, something changes.

What seems like a couple of weeks ago but probably was maybe seven day, everyone at post thought the people who’d been sent home (or who haven’t made it out yet at all) would be back this week. That didn’t happen, which shocked everyone and crushed a few souls, I’m sure. Acting on the information they’d received, people had gotten flight tickets issued and had them in hand, only to learn that they wouldn’t be returning or would have to postpone their arrivals.

It threw a wrench into my R&R because with the assumption everything would go back to normal, I knew with a relative degree of certainty that I’d be able to head back to Baghdad but nothing went back to normal. As result, if we’re still in the same status, I won’t go back to Baghdad until it goes back to normal.

And I have no idea which scenario will play out, so, instead of just taking a little carry-on for a two-week tour, I had to prepare my apartment to pack out (again) and bring enough to where if I head to DC, that I would have clothes to wear to report to work.

It monkeyed up the packing for sure. I had set aside 15 of each vitamin I take daily, but given the possibility/probability of not returning, I couldn’t just leave the rest of them there. I had to pack them up and mail them to either Florida or Minsk, toss them, have them shipped to Minsk a different way, or take them with me. And multiply that by every bathroom item there is. Yeah, I’m taking a two-week vacation, but it could very well turn into a two-week vacation followed by 10-30 days in DC. How do you know how much to pack? I didn’t want to ship everything forward, because I can still very well return to post as originally planned. I didn’t want to leave all the stuff on the magic donation table, either, because I’d hate to get back to post and suddenly not have any OneADays.

In the end, I threw in three work outfits and about 2/3 of the toiletries; the rest are in still in my apartment with a “to donate” sign in case I don’t get back. It’s a plan.

Instead of my handy little carry-on bag, I have a gigantic, 50-pound suitcase. I’m going to be so popular on the tour. I look like a diva, except when you open what in there, it’s nothing glamorous. It’s just whole bars of soap and regulation-size toothpaste, plus all kinds of vitamins and medicines. Not much of most, but I didn’t want to condense them into smaller containers because, well, it’s probably not a good idea to carry around bunches of unidentified, random pills. Yeah, in the end, it can be proven they’re Vitamin D and Advil PMs, but that would be a really scary scene.

So for the second time this calendar year, I packed up my apartment. Since I had a little more time this time around, I bought souvenirs and stuff.  We have a little PX here, and they deal in USD, cash or credit. But not a lot of change. Instead, change comes in the form of these little pog-type disks that tend to pile up. I gathered together all of what I had and came up with about $2.50, so when I went to buy the souvenir T-shirt, I used them all. Well, except for one cardboard nickel that must have been hiding under something on my table. Found it the next morning. Of course.

My splurge on myself was a “Duck and Cover” little stuffed duck. We have weekly “D&C” drills, and, with the exception that the real drills have an alarm-tone prelude, sound exactly like this, if you turned the sound up 8000 percent. I think this little guy is just so cute. His name is Baghdaddy.

He’s crammed into a suitcase now, sitting in my pile of stuff in my apartment. I hope I can liberate him myself, but I’m not really hopeful about returning to Baghdad. I was for about 72 hours, but those 72 hours were alternated with about 48 of them knowing I wouldn’t return. The odds are even about now, I think.

Anyway, I’m on R&R now, although I haven’t done anything yet, not even meet up with the tour group. I think most everyone else must have met at the airport earlier or something; there’s an itinerary posted in the lobby that says I get a wake-up call tomorrow morning to get going.

Somehow, I wound up in business class on the way up and holy cow, that was so nice. I even managed to sleep a little bit, maybe three of the nine hours of the Doha-Cape Town flight.  I’d make a terrible diva, though, because I had a hard time adjusting to the “special” treatment. Even in Baghdad, they tried to offer me the lounge, but I’d ridden over with a couple of colleagues and I didn’t want to bail on them.

Once at the gate, the agent told me I should stand off to the side s I could board with the business class, and I told him I really didn’t care about boarding early and would just sit with the others, but he must not have believed I was serious. I was sitting down, reading a book, and he came up and said, “Business?” I got pranced through everyone, shoved to the front of the line and given deferential treatment. It felt weird, especially because there was only one other person in business class to Doha.

There were more on the longer-leg flight, but only one more in my little section. I felt like I had a private bathroom, even, because there were so few people using the two closest to me. I never had to wait, and I brushed my teeth twice. Although I brought my own toothbrush (with regulation-sized toothpaste), they had them available for us, and little shaving kits, too.

The seats were amazing, and reclined to flat so you could sleep, and, if you pushed the right combination of buttons, did a little massage thing. My own TV, about 13 inches, with real headphones, not just earbuds. On the Baghdad-Doha flight, I had an iPad with movies. Dinner was on demand and I ate early (my choice – seafood soup) so I could try to sleep, which I did a bit. They set the table, complete with a tablecloth (really cloth) and a battery-operated candle. I felt it was over the top but nice. I had a “mocktail” fake margarita complete salt but ginger ale instead of whatever alcohol is in a margarita. 

The little gift bag had a blindfold thing to shut out the light (although the windows were automatic and with them closed off it was dark enough), those flimsy socks, face spray (?), lip balm, ear plugs and hand lotion. The bag itself is a real brand name (there was a card discussing the company), as are the pajamas they gave us. Not kidding. They look prison-issue but not because they’re coarse; they’re just black and gray. Came in a little gift bag. I didn’t change into them, but the bathroom probably was large enough to do so.

The flights went fine and I cannot believe I have to return to coach for the trip back. Not a lot of fun. But in the meantime, I’m going to try to forget work and have fun on R&R.

You just never know

Well, it looks like I’m going on R&R, whether I like it or not. Fortunately, I like it, although I still have to see if the tour I’ve been looking at is available. It’s still listed on the website but apparently if you sign up with less than 45 days before departure, the hotels might have sold the rooms, so I’m waiting on the final word there.

Assuming that’s positive, I have to then chase the flight, although I’m now debating adding on another three days so I can see Victoria Falls. I feel like this might be my only shot to visit that Wonder of the World, but in this life, who knows, right? It’s a pretty steep add-on – it includes a RT flight from J-berg and two nights in a fancy schmancy hotel – but I’ll check.

This whole thing came about fairly suddenly, too. Basically I got pulled aside and told to go, and to go pretty much now. But the caveat is that I might not come back. I know there are no guarantees in this gig, but I had hoped for a little more … confidence, I guess, from TPTB. If anything, I got the impression I’m not coming back.

It’s looking pretty positive that we’ll cross one step on the staffing issues, but there’s another step that’s kind of exclusive to just a few of us, and I’m, of course, in that mix. No one has any idea what the end result is going to be. Well, I take that back. No one at my pay grade knows. Probably someone knows, but not me.

The advice to me was to go ahead and pack out before I go on leave, which would be the week after next. But if I were to come back – if – I’d be here, inchallah, for 4-5 weeks after that. Definitely livable from a suitcase, but not a lot of fun. Especially considering my amazing mattress pad (some kind of bamboo thing that’s made in the U.S.) is bigger than any given comforter and would not fit in a suitcase.

As I was looking at my stuff, I thought I’d send another box ahead to Mink, but … what would be in it? The flat-rate boxes, at $20 for the biggie, is fantastic, but I can’t scrape up enough stuff that I can live without until about Halloween. I can’t put medication or vitamins in my ship-from-here stuff, but I’m not about to part with my “Migraine-B-Gone.”

It’s winter in South Africa, so I’m trying to pack for that and keep in mind that I could still get diverted to DC. What do I pack for that? Or would, if that happened, I just go buy a new wardrobe of LL Bean Perfect Fit Pants. I don’t have room in my bag for South Africa winter, DC winter and work clothes.

Looking ahead, I’ll be arriving in Minsk in late October, which isn’t winter but pretty dang cold. That means, if I get back to Baghdad, I’ll have to bring my winter coat with me to Florida so I can bring it with me to Minsk.

The options on packing really are enough to make my head spin, because there’s no winning combination. I’m not going to follow the advice to pack out right now; instead going to do what I did when I left last time and just pile up everything in the living room. If I don’t come back, it’ll be easier for someone else to just ship it all to me – wherever.

In other randomness, I really don’t like the turn “The Handmaid’s Tale” is taking this season. I’m getting really bored with close-ups of Elisabeth Moss’ contemplative looks.  I feel like there should be a way I can Hulu on fast-forward.

I do (or at least did) like the series more than the book itself, which I finally read. Meh, but good for someone for seeing about 15 good episodes of TV in it.

Loving the e-book and library card thing. I stepped it up with the Crazy Horse and Custer book and am now reading The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee. I have an autobiography on Sally Field and a biography of Julia Child (Dearie) in the queue, too. If I make it to my R&R I will have to sit and plug a bunch in because the tour would a whole lot of time in a bus.

Did I mention the tour? I’m waiting to see if I can get on it, but it starts in Cape Town and goes to Jo-berg with a diversion in Mbabane, eSwatini, which is not a typo but is the new name for Swaziland. Cape Town has a city tour, a day of cage diving (or wine, but guess which I picked) and a visit to Cape (or maybe Camp) Robben, where Nelson Mandela was jailed.   

I suppose I should look closer at the itinerary, but I’m fine with whatever it is. I opted for this one because of the cage diving and it turned out to be cheaper than ones to Germany/Belgium/Luxembourg/Amsterdam and England/Scotland, if you can believe that. Of course, contemplating a 3-day add on to the tune of close to $2k sort of negates that, but it’s so close.

All planning is out the window

I love my job. For the first time in what feels like forever, I have a real job that no one can fire me from. Yay, tenure! Government work! Steady paycheck! Yeah, there are shutdowns here and there, but so far, I’ve always been an “excepted employee” or whatever it is that means I still get a paycheck.

The employer is one many people dream of working for. That part amuses me, because I kind of fell into it. Coming back from Peace Corps during a recession, I literally applied to hundreds of jobs.  My dream job would have been writer/editor for the Department of Interior somewhere – just throw me on a national park and let me work. I couldn’t find one of those, and, despite being on all kinds of lists for other federal work, couldn’t find a PR or writing gig so I started applying to secretarial positions.

When I got the little email that announced I’d advanced to the interview for this gig, I literally had to go back to the USAJobs ad to figure out what it was. So, although I really, totally love my job, it’s not one I sought out.

Lots of people seek out this employer. There are different job tracks, all of which are higher ranked than mine, and people plan and try for years to get hired.

Being the kind of person I am, I am on a couple of message boards geared for people seeking information and advice on how to get here. And people, more and more it seems, seem to think they deserve to know what and when every last thing is going to happen. If someone replies, “it depends,” people will vent, but the thing is, everything depends, and you can’t control much. You qualify, you take the interview, and then you just wait.

The advice is to live your life as if you never applied, and although I did that, other people don’t seem to grasp the importance of it. I can go back through my posts on those message boards and see that I’ve been incredibly consistent in my answers, telling people not to make plans and whatever will happen will happen; there’s nothing people can do about it. Although it sounds fatalist, it’s not intended to be; it’s more of an acceptance that a person cannot control outcomes.

And boy, am I glad I really believe that.

This tour has thrown so many wrenches at me I could open my own hardware store. I arrived counting on 20 months with the hope to make it three years. Then my own second year got cut, as did the position I’d hoped to slide in. Next, the whole situation went sideways and I left but didn’t technically leave (since I went on R&R) and then came back to Baghdad for about two days before going to Erbil.

It’s a numbers game and I’m not clued in on how it works, but I was thinking by mid-August, it would be OK for me to take my third R&R. Since I’m not sure when I might find out if I can go, I’ve been looking at package tours, because they do all the planning for you.

I found one and narrowed the start dates, feeling so confident that I asked my sister if she could join me. Fortunately, she could not. On Thursday, (my Friday for work week purposes), I and two others were asked about our plans for Baghdad, R&R, our onward posts, etc., because one of us had to go. Whether temporarily or permanently, we didn’t know, and still don’t.

Since I feel like I’ve been short straw-ed this whole tour, I figured it would be me, but someone else offered to take an R&R and just hope she’s able to return. She’ll be leaving in a couple of days.

As an aside: people in Foreign Service do very different travel planning. This didn’t occur to me when I asked my sister if she wanted to go. I forgot people have to really think, budget and plan before crossing oceans for fun. My colleague opted for a Mediterranean cruise and when she called the travel agent, he was confused, asking if she intended to depart on August 4, 2020. No, she tells him, next week.

The one I’m looking at is similar; it’s to South Africa and includes a little safari. People plan these for years, but if I can go, it would be August 13, 20 or 27.

But right now, I have no idea if I’ll be able to. I’m not even sure to ask. For numbers reasons, I’m covering four different positions right now, and my on-paper boss doesn’t oversee a one of those. I’m not entirely sure whose call it is if I can go, let alone when, but I’m trying to decipher that. My only condition on going is that I want to be able to return, because that’s also unclear.

This way of life has made me less of a planner, but trying to stress that to applicants often falls on resentful ears. Or, eyes, I guess, since these are message boards. But even early on – I’ve still only been in this job five years, 15 more until I can retire from it – I’ve learned that you can plan as much as you want, but you have to know and be OK with – 100 percent – those plans crashing and burning.

Last year, I thought I’d be in Baghdad through 2021.  Now I’m slated be in Minsk by the end of October. I may or may not get another R&R, and if I do, I may or may not get back to Baghdad. I could wind up working in DC or elsewhere for a couple weeks. Not a clue. I’m just rolling with it as best as I can.

I sweat.

An 80s girl, I was an avid Rick Springfield fan. (Holy crap! He’ll turn 7-0 in August.) As an avid fan, I saw “Hard to Hold.” The movie was pretty terrible, a fact Springfield himself acknowledged in his autobiography, which Laurie gave me for Christmas a couple years ago. Good read. Hard to believe some diehards really liked the movie, but, and I should probably be ashamed of this, I eventually bought the DVD. Blame the $4 bins at Target.

Anyway, the soundtrack isn’t bad. Springfield’s songs highlight it, of course, but there are other artists. Nona Hendrix, for example. Now, I don’t know Nona Hendrix from Adam’s housecat, but she has a song on there (“Heart of a Woman,”) and somehow – since this was pre-Google – I tried to figure out who she was and discovered she had a song called, “I Sweat,” which was featured in the John Travolta movie “Perfect,” which I never saw. As far as I know, I’ve never actually heard the song before; I just saw the title somewhere.

This weekend, boy howdy, have I thought about that song title this weekend, because I feel like “sweat” is all I’ve done.

Yep. It’s a dry heat, but holy hell, it’s hot. I really feel like sweating has been the highlight of my weekend. It’s all I’ve done. I mean, yeah, I’ve watched a couple of movies and read a couple of books (Recommended: “One Good Dog.” Not recommended: “The President is Missing.) but the underlying activity has been sweating.

We have an event going on next week and I had to go into the office to do some prep work, and even after turning on the AC and the ceiling fan, I broke out in sweats from the half-block walk from my TDY quarters to the office.

I suppose the upside is that it’s slightly cooler here than Baghdad, but when you’re discussing temperatures of over 100, can you really tell a difference between 119 and 109? I don’t set foot outside without sunglasses, my ridiculous-looking floppy hat (designed in Korea, made in China, purchased in Kazakhstan) and sunscreen, but I try not to set foot outside between 1 -5 p.m. or so anyway. Let it get down to 105 or so, you know?

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had it worse, I know, but it’s like living in an oven. Sometimes the wind blows, though. Want to know what it’s like then? Turn a hair dryer on your face.

This is not meant to be a complaint. I totally love this gig. It just amazes me that so many people live and adjust to extreme weather like this. Three of my closest colleagues work in the office downstairs from me, and my guess is I amuse them when I sit down under their AC unit and announce it’s hot. It is hot, but they’re used to it.

The whole no-humidity thing is wonderful; the shade is cooler, but it’s not a matter of it being tolerable. It’s not that you don’t broil; it’s just that it’s the Crock-pot version.

Baghdad is hotter, but because we built the compound there, we built a water treatment plant and you can drink water out of the faucets. Seriously, except for in the showers, there’s a little red sign over every faucet that says, “Tap water is safe to drink.” There have to be hundreds. No such luck here. Instead, we pound little half-liters to stay hydrated. Even with also drinking tea (I use tap for that since I boil it) and juice, I think I’ve had 4-5 today, and it’s only 6 p.m. (and 105).

One day, I’m going to finally get to Minsk and I’m going to be bitterly cold for months and it will stun me that people can adjust to that extreme as well, but right now I’m just going to sit back, sweat, and be amazed that people can deal with this on a regular basis.

Rubbing salt in the wounds

Erbil’s still fantastic. It’s pretty much a ghost town, but it’s my little ghost town, at least for now. And it’s as boring as ever, at least on weekends.

During the week, I usually work until 6 p.m., then head to the gym, which takes until 7:30 or 8 p.m., so, after a shower and dinner, that’s pretty much all she wrote. But weekends are far more boring. Even sleeping late – 7 a.m. for me – puts me done in the gym, showered and fed, and even post-nap, by 10 a.m., and after that, there’s just not much else to do. I work for a couple of hours so I don’t get behind (everyone here works 7 days, but me far less than most) but that’s about it.

The do seem to subscribe to a better AFN; there seem to be more movie channels. One of them consistently plays Star Wars. I’ve seen the tail end of “Han Solo” once and “The Last Jedi” three times since I’ve arrived. And I’ve snagged DVDs from the library, catching the whole first series of “Big Little Lies” and some of “Breaking Bad,” which isn’t near as good the second or third time around.

I haven’t made it off campus; since there aren’t as many people here, they don’t offer the grocery store runs as often. Since I’m due to leave at the start of July, it doesn’t make sense to sign up to go anyway; I’m about halfway done. This late in the game, I figure I should just make do with what I have.

It might be a Peace Corps trait: seeing what you have and then figuring out what you can do with it. We had a little party last night and I remembered I’d looted a brownie mix from the other house, and threw it together. I’d bought eggs, so I used three of them. The “sauce” package called for milk, and what do you know, I’d brought the rest of the powdered milk, so I used that, too. As far as what I brought, I’m down to a little powered milk, rice and lentils from the grocery store and tea bags, Stevia, two root beets and six individual cereal bowls. The store-bought stuff is at one serving of alfredo sauce, a stick of butter (not really sure why I bought this) and eggs that won’t quite carry me through. When they run out I’ll double up on the cereal, or something. No plans on taking anything back. I’ve lugged the 50-pound bag enough recently.

In the little break office here, there’s a nice massage chair, which I love. My calves are always tight and when you sit in the chair barefoot it gives you nice little foot massage. Since my current tennis shoes don’t fit quite right and have rubbed massive blisters on my heels, I appreciate this. And in inspecting the Kennedy half dollar-sized blood blister on my right foot, I realized I have some pretty darn ugly heels.

And in the cupboard here, I have a ton of salt. It’s once of those spices that everyone buys and of course they only sell in giant bags. I’ve no idea how much normal people use salt, but one of those Morton’s things lasts me for years. And in each TDY house I’ve been, there might not be much, but there’s a ton of salt. I guess everyone buys a bag without checking first to see if there’s any they could use. Why would you, I suppose, except in the 6-bedroom TDY house there were probably four canisters of it, and in the house I’m in now there were two.

That’s past tense. There’s only one now. As I was looking at my horridly ugly feet, two words popped into my head: “salt scrub.” Without bothering to research what exactly a salt scrub might entail outside of, you know, salt, I went to the cabinet to see what I had. Olive oil! Perfect! I decided to jimmy up a salt scrub and pamper my feet. Seriously, there is nothing to do in Erbil!

I dumped out half a salt container and some oil. Proportions schaportions. I just winged it. I realized in almost every foot massage I’ve ever had (you can count on one hand), I’ve had my feet soaked before, I looked around for something to use and came up with a huge broiler pan. I suppose this might gross the next TDYer out, but I’ll never tell. After looking at what spices I had, I went with rosemary, and dumped a bunch in. Then I remembered I found some tea tree oil soap and threw that in, which scattered the rosemary but whatever.

Here, you don’t have to worry about getting the water warm enough. It is so hot outside and we don’t have nice things like good plumbing, so the water is hot in the summer. After my morning run, I can’t get the water cold enough for a shower – and I don’t like cold showers. It’s hot. Always hot, so I figured that’s perfect for a DIY foot soak.

Gotta say, it was pretty blissful. It would have been more blissful delivered  by some strong-muscled guy, but it was pretty nice. I just curled up with a book – Up In the Air, which was wildly different than the movie – and then scrubbed my feet raw. Not bad.  They’re still cracked, callous-y and ugly, but they feel a lot better.