Email From The Embassy

Luxor (and that's a wrap!)

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sat, 25 May 2013 07:09:00 +0000

Tricked you! After my last post, admit it, you alhamdolillah'ed because you thought I was finally finished posting photos of Egypt.

How wrong you were.

But this is it! I promise! No more vacation photos after this until I save up enough money for another vacation. That could be awhile: I have four kids to put through college, after all.

So where were we? Oh, that's right: Egypt! Have I mentioned recently that we went to Egypt? Our last stop was Luxor, and our morning started with the sounds of Aidan vomiting. Well, actually, that isn't quite accurate. I awoke around 4am, when the boat took off sailing for Luxor and had to pass through some locks on the way.

(I was determined to wake up when we went through the lock so I could go up on deck and take pictures for my dad. My dad, if you didn't know, is a little bit obsessed with locks. Every time we go to Seattle, we take the kids to the locks and watch the boats making their way through while the salmon climb the fish ladder. I think my dad loves watching the grandkids watch the boats. I think he's also hatching a scheme to sneak onto one of the boats when no one is looking so he can float off to anywhere they'll take him. He hasn't discussed this plan aloud, mind you, but you can see it in his eyes.)

Anyway, I woke up and I heard shouting and felt bumping and I knew: it was time to go upstairs with the camera. But my bed was so cozy and it was too dark to take decent pictures and anyway, my dad's been thru the friggin' Panama Canal, so did I really need to send him a blurry photo of some measly little lock in the middle of nowhere?

I stayed in bed. And it wasn't until an hour later that I awoke to the sound of Aidan, sick.

It was clear that he wasn't going to be able to go on our planned excursions for the day. So after much reasonable, rational, even-tempered discussion, Bart and I came to the joint good-parenting conclusion that the best thing would be to have Bart stay on the boat with him in the morning, and I'd stay with him in the afternoon.

And that is how I ended up going to the Valley of the Kings (No photos allowed! Aren't you relieved?), where King Tut's tomb was discovered in the 1920s, the Colossi of Memnon and the alabaster factory with just three kids in tow. Bart took Shay on the afternoon excursions and I stayed behind on the boat with the rest of the kids. By late afternoon, Aidan was feeling better, so we hung out by ourselves at the pool until sunset.

That night was our last night on the boat. At some point in the middle of the night, my doorbell rang. When I staggered to the door to open it, Shay rushed past me (he was sleeping in a separate room), ran to the bathroom and proceeded to vomit everywhere. (Jill P, I know you are shaking your head sympathetically right now. I can feel it. Someday, you and I will co-author a book, Vomiting Our Way Across the Globe.)

And that was the end of our vacation. Shay was sick the whole way back to Amman, poor guy, but he managed to hold it together when it was time to board our flights, so we made it home without question.

Okay, so it wasn't the best ending to a vacation ever. But I'm so glad we decided to go. I've been kind of fascinated with Egypt ever since King Tut came to Los Angeles when I was a little girl, and now I can say I've been.

What's next? I don't know. If I had all the time in the world, and money were no object, there are all sorts of places I'd go, starting with Zanzibar, probably. Because: Zanzibar. It just sounds all romantical somehow. But I'll settle for a night at the Dead Sea if I must.

Hatshepsut Temple

The view from the top, looking back.

Working on an alabaster pot.

I would call these "ancient tools," except they apparently still use them to carve alabaster.

In front of the Colossi of Memnon.

Showing off their alabaster statuettes: Kyra got a cat, and Ainsley got - what else? - a crocodile.

Bart took the rest of these pictures. So you're on your own here, guessing what you're looking at.
A temple, maybe?

A Day in the Life of a Working Mom

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:50:00 +0000

Early evening and I was still at work.

Well, I was working, but I wasn't, technically speaking, at work.

There were six of us hanging around in an underground garage, waiting. Not really talking much. Just standing there, staring at the entrance.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, but before I could check on it, I heard a noise coming from the entrance. Sirens. Engines roaring. And around the corner came the motorcade: car after car pulled into the garage, right in front of where I stood.

From one of the vehicles, just a few feet away from me, a DS special agent leapt out and pulled open a car door, stepping back to allow the Secretary of State to exit the vehicle. He walked right past me and into the building, followed by an entourage of agents and foreign service officers and all sorts of hangers-on.

No, he didn't notice me. And I didn't follow him in. My job was to escort the travelling press into the building and into the press filing center after the Secretary had gone in and gotten settled.

I did just that: I walked them in and got them set up in the filing center, where they had just a few minutes to work on their stories before we had to dash back to the motorcade, which was leaving for the Palace shortly.

Back in the underground garage, I could feel my phone buzzing again, but it was my personal phone, not my work phone, so I decided to ignore it for awhile longer. I stood and watched the hive of activity, trying not to pass out from the exhaust fumes all around. With the reporters back in the press vehicles, I had nothing to do but stand around and wait for Secretary Kerry to rejoin the motorcade.

He eventually returned and hopped back in his car. The entire motorcade peeled off for the palace in a blur of flashing lights and squealing tires and blowing exhaust.

It was 7pm, but I wasn't going to be finished working for hours: I had to staff the filing center until well after dark.

I finally had time to check my phone though, and I found a message from the nanny:

"What's for dinner?"

I should tell you that my nanny is great, and the kids love her, but she cannot cook. This wasn't a problem when I hired her, because I had no intention of working full time and cooking is one part of parenting that I take great pride in. I love to do it, and I do it well. When I make dinner, my kids eat healthy food and mostly enjoy it. So I didn't want a nanny who could cook. My plan was to take care of that myself.

But now? Here it was 7pm, an hour past dinnertime, and there was no food in the house that she knew how to cook (read: no mac n cheese or rice). I scrambled to think of something I could order that would get there quickly, and I finally settled on a chicken kebab place. I texted her what to order (from memory - do you think I'm ordering take out too often these days?) and trudged back to my now-empty filing center to wait for my reporters to return.

The kids mutinied.

My husband texted to tell me they did NOT want the chicken. They did not want the leftover pizza from the night before, either. They did not want anything at all in the fridge. And by the way, he texted again: we're out of peanut butter.

Sigh. This working mom gig is really not easy, is it? I spent the night in my filing center, feeling like a total failure, chewing on tootsie rolls and wondering how to find a better balance between being a decent mom and being a good-enough employee.

I never did think of a way to do it right. Does anybody really know how? But this morning, the first morning of the weekend, I holed up in the kitchen and got to cooking frantically, trying to catch up, to build some food equity so that next week goes better. I made a batch of black bean soup, a double batch of chicken stock, and a triple batch of Turkish lentil soup before it was time to leave for the baseball field.

I'm still not quite sure how to balance it all. And what little balance I have now will fly right out the window in four weeks, when Bart leaves for Baghdad. But for now, tonight, I'm feeling better, knowing as I do that those containers of soup are stacked neatly in the freezer, awaiting the next time my work becomes all-consuming and my kids rebel against the idea of soggy cheese pizza or boxed mac n cheese. My own Tupperware talisman, keeping disaster at bay...

Crocodile Temple! And some other stuff.

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:42:00 +0000

Where were we? That's right, more crocodiles.

We sailed to Edfu after touring Philae Temple in Aswan, and the next morning, we got off the boat to tour Kom Ombo Temple. The guide told more stories about falcon-headed-god-people, but Ainsley mostly just wanted to look into the deep pit that was used to hold crocodiles or water or something, I can't remember what, I was too busy making sure she didn't fall into the pit.

There was a museum at the temple that housed a collection of crocodile mummies. Ainsley was highly dissatisfied with the museum: she had apparently assumed that the crocodile mummies would all be staggering about on their hind legs, holding their stumpy little arms out zombie-style and trailing mummy wrappers in their wake, a la Scooby Doo. But these crocodile mummies were just, for lack of a more exciting word, dead.

(Aside: When Shay was about the age that Ainsley is now, I took him to the "Dinosaur Museum" in D.C. He was sooo excited to go! But when we got there, he took one look around and sadly said "awww, there're no dinosaurs here. It's just a bunch of bones.")

After touring the site and dodging packs of super-aggressive vendors, we grabbed some lunch and then headed out for a horse-and-buggy ride to Edfu Temple. Somehow my horse-and-buggy got split from the rest of the group and I had a scary few minutes there when I was pretty sure the boys and I were about to get robbed-or-worse. Short version of the story: we survived. Slightly longer version: never tell your buggy driver you're from America. Fortunately I told him we were from Jordan, and the mean-looking guys who surrounded our buggy just minutes later seemed less interested in us once the driver told them dejectedly that we weren't American.

All in all, a good day. We docked that night in Esna and stayed up late, sitting on the roof of the boat, slapping away mosquitoes and mortifying the children with our off-color jokes and spot-on imitations of the tour guide. 'Twas a nice evening.

That paint is, like, a squazillion years old. Yet it still looks better than the walls in my living room.

Gritting my teeth: "Take the picture before I drop her..."

Very deep pit. With not much to stop a kid from falling in. Unless you count the vigilant mom clinging to the kid's shirt.

The happy family. Errr, families.

Just plain ole dead. Not spooky at all.

Also not spooky. Kind of cute, actually.

Ainsley's horse-n-buggy driver didn't try to have her killed. For the win.

Temple of Edfu

"What was so wrong with our idea of hanging out at the pool all day, exactly?"

Sunset. Lovely.

Turns out I have smart friends. They don't all look smart, mind you. But some of them are.

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:27:00 +0000

I'm back on iPhoto, apparently, thanks to all of y'all. So here's another set of photos for the grandparents. These are of Philae Temple in Aswan. Frankly, after wrestling with iPhoto all afternoon, I'm not much in the mood to tell any stories about Philae. Be thankful I linked you to wikipedia, at least, and go read up if you want to know what it is.

Best part? The guide was telling us stories about all of the ancient Egyptian gods, and I swear he thought the gods were really real. So he'd tell us, for example, about how Isis flew all over looking for pieces of her husband's body, and she found a piece right here on this very spot. Not an imaginary piece. A real piece. As if her falcon-headed self was real. Or he'd tell stories about how the gods were fighting, or shouting, or turning their heads into crocodile heads with cow ears and suns on top. It was funny how very real he managed to make them seem, despite their unfortunate overuse of animal body parts. Funny, that is, until someone-who-shall-remain-unnamed in our group (*cough stj cough*) also started referring to them as real people. So of course we all made endless fun of her for that.

Read on, grandparents. For the rest of you: I'll be back with a real post eventually. But first I'm going to post a few sets of photos. So maybe come back next week if you're already tired of looking at photos of someone else's adorable grandkids?

Apparently there was some sort of a uniform requirement?

Head of a falcon. Horns of a cow. And is that a basket full of turkey drumsticks balancing on her head, there on the right? Yup. Totally real.

Sweating buckets. Yet still so adorable!

Not sure what she's doing. Walking like an Egyptian, maybe?

My little reader.

On the boat at last after a long day of temples and High Dams and overpriced perfume shops.

View from the boat.

Because nothing says cute like posing in front of a hot tub with your dress stuck down the front of your pants.

Yes. We packed swim suits. Why do you ask?

Adventures of Yesteryear

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:53:00 +0000

Kazakhstan, 2002-2004.

Lisa was the wheels and I was the mouth. That is to say: she had a car to spare, and I spoke the language. So between the two of us, we could go pretty much anywhere in the country and have big adventures.

Lisa was definitely the adventurous one. She was forever calling me and telling me to get my shoes on because we were going to find some weird outdoor market, or some hidden backcountry hiking trail. She and I went to the banya together and got totally naked, letting some large Russian woman beat us with steaming birch branches and then dump ice water over our heads. I thought I was going to die of heart failure. She just laughed. She and I decided to go hiking one winter morning - "just up to find the frozen waterfall; don't worry, I have extra snowshoes" - and we almost got the car stuck in a frozen creekbed. I thought we were going to die. She just laughed. She invited us over for a Fourth of July bash, at which her guards set off industrial strength fireworks just meters away from where we were all standing. I thought we were going to be blown to bits and die. She just laughed.

We went shopping at the green market together, bartering over the vegetables and sampling the pickles. She bought some wild mushrooms from an old babushka one day. We both thought the mushrooms were probably fine. As it turns out, her husband almost died after he ate one. Bygones.

We didn't buy any more mushrooms after that. But we went to the Korean restaurant and the Hare Krishna restaurant together. We went to the grocery store. We went to the car wash, and we went up Medeo, and we got lost on some hiking trails.

It was only my third post, but it was her 300th, or so it seemed. She taught me so much about how to live properly in the foreign service. (I have a teacher at every post: In Moscow, Paula taught me to serve the community; in Yerevan, Laura taught me to be myself, with joy and without embarrassment; in Beijing, Jen taught me to laugh until it hurt. Here, too, I have many teachers, reminding me to laugh and love and dream and be kind. I'm still working on that last one - story for another day.) In Kazakhstan, Lisa taught me to have big adventures Every Single Day. No matter how bad the weather, or how scary the Embassy alert messages, have fun. No matter how icy the roads, or how annoying the traffic, go somewhere. No matter how big the vicious barking dog in the middle of the road: keep walking. She was brave and adventurous and I loved tagging along anywhere she wanted to go, just trying to keep up.

But then, you know, Aidan got sick and we curtailed out of Kazakhstan. She and her husband moved back to the States not long after we did, but we didn't see each other all that often. We were both busy with kids, after all, and life in the States just isn't conducive to dropping everything in search of a big adventure: there are bathtubs to scrub and groceries to buy and dinners to cook and the adventures somehow fall by the wayside.

We keep in touch occasionally, Lisa and I, and I still like looking back at those photos from our Kazakhstan days.

What a surprise when her (now ex-) husband called us up this week to let us know he was in Amman for the evening. We met him for dinner last night, and we picked up exactly where we left off, reminiscing, telling stories and comparing notes about where the last nine years have taken us. It was a really nice evening, despite - or perhaps thanks to? - the freak thunderstorm that rolled through Amman as we were enjoying dinner outside.

And now today, I find myself thinking back on those crazy adventures we had all those years ago, and trying to think of a way to have some new big adventures here. Every Single Day.

Me, in front of the frozen waterfall. (Just please don't laugh at the haircut. It was a language issue. I said, in Russian, that I wanted my hair "shorter." She heard "short." It was an ugly few months there, waiting for my hair to grow back...)

I Hate iPhoto. And iPhoto Hates Me.

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:24:00 +0000

When I first got a Mac with iPhoto loaded on it, I fell instantly in love. Face recognition! Album sorting and naming! Editing right in the program!

But I swear, that program thwarts me at every turn. It mocks me openly. I despise it. It loses photos. It randomly duplicates albums. It changes the dates on my albums, placing photos from a year ago in the year 2036. Stuff like that.

It reached a new low two days ago, however, when it suddenly decided not to let me drag-and-drop photos into folders on my desktop, from whence I could upload them into blogger.

I have so many photos of our trip sitting there in iPhoto, and four grandparents impatiently waiting to see them. Yet iPhoto refuses to allow me to send those photos to blogger. I hate iPhoto, and it apparently hates me right back.

Anyone out there in the blog world have any ideas how to fix this new problem of mine? If so, please shoot me an email, or comment right here. The grandparents thank you in advance.

Nubian Village on the Nile

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sat, 11 May 2013 16:56:00 +0000

Cairo was crazy: huge and dirty and trafficky. Within about 10 minutes of leaving the airport, Bart was already relieved that he'd decided NOT to bid on it for our next post. After all, we have Beijing under our belts already - I loved our tour in Beijing, but it definitely taught me that I am not a big city girl.

Our first day there, we hit the Khan al Khalili Souk to do some shopping and then let the kids swim in the hotel pool into the evening. On our second day, we went to the pyramids and the Egyptian Museum, then had dinner outside with STJ and CL while the kids ordered room service together. Driving along the river next to our hotel, we pointed at the burnt-out shell of a building across the way, surrounded by the fancy hotels that line the road near Tahrir Square.

"What's that building?" we asked our guide.

"Oh," she waved vaguely, "those are all hotels."

Riiiight, we responded, but how about that burnt-out building next to them?

Clearly, she did not want to answer, but after continued questioning, she finally allowed that it was the party headquarters building, destroyed during the revolution.

Cairo highlights, you ask? Well, Ainsley was not impressed with the mummies in the Museum. She thought they would be wrapped in toilet paper, staggering around with their arms aloft, but "they're all just dead," she said, visibly disappointed. Clearly the girl watches too much Scooby Doo. And none of us were impressed with the traffic. At one point we were driving around under the highway, across bumpy, trash-strewn paths, dodging squatters and old tires, in an effort to evade traffic. But it was all too much for Bart and CL, who kept making "get off the X" jokes that really weren't all that funny.

So that was Cairo.

After a day-and-a-half, we all boarded a plane for Aswan, where we planned to hop on a little cruise ship and make our way to Luxor along the Nile. But before we boarded the ship, we took a big motor boat to an island in the middle of the Nile. On the island was a small Nubian village - our guide took us there because Ainsley was desperate to see a crocodile, and they supposedly had a few crocs in the village. Also, he said, we could sample some Nubian food and tea while we were there.

Yes, there were crocodiles in the village. It was sad, really. They had one big crocodile in a small cement cage with a wire grate for a lid, and when we peered in, one of the villagers started poking him with a stick - to prove he was real, I guess. Poor guy started snapping and trying to jump at her. In a smaller glass tank nearby, there were two baby crocodiles. They pulled one out of the tank and handed it first to Shay, then to his friend Scott, to hold for photos. Its tiny snout was tied shut so it couldn't bite them. Again: sort of sad. But Ainsley was enthralled.

Next we went up on the roof of the house and sat while one of the women brought us mint and hibiscus tea, along with bowls of bread, "black honey" (molasses), some kind of crumbly sesame paste and something our guide simply called "very old cheese." The cheese floated murkily in the bowl, looking less than tempting, but hey, I figured, when in Rome. I tried it - several of us did - and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly good, either. We asked the guide about the cheese, but he just said "oh, I've never tried that stuff. It's just for the tourists." Nice. I stuck with the bread and molasses after that.

As the sun was setting, we hopped back in the motorboat and headed to another island, where our hotel for the night was located. And that was our first night in Aswan.

Pictures below are in no particular order, but hey: it's almost time for bed over here. No time to re-arrange.

View of the Nile from our hotel room in Aswan.

This kid latched onto our boat and hitched a ride.

The kids on the roof of our motor boat.

Our driver.

Very old cheese in the middle bowl.

Cairo in Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Wed, 08 May 2013 18:20:00 +0000

Lots to say; no time to say it. So here, instead of words, are some pictures for you. More later. With words, even.

Guess Where I Am?

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:42:00 +0000

You guys.

Seriously.

Guess where I am?

I am sitting on a bed in a hotel room right now.

In Cairo.

No, really. Somehow I convinced my husband that he wanted - no, needed - to go on vacation again with STJ's family. And so we are here, and they are here, and it has been a whole day so far and we are all still friends. Well, except perhaps for Ainsley and CL. She loves that man, truly she does, but she has a strange way of showing it. I guess she knows he's a sucker for her.

Anyway, the ten of us (!) spent most of the day in airports, on airplanes and stuck in traffic. But we did manage to squeeze some shopping in. And some swimming. And some room service. A good day, all in all.

Big plans tomorrow.

Back soon with photos.

Jerusalem, Again

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:22:00 +0000

I've been out of the blog loop recently, sorry. Partly because, as I've said, I'm thinking before I type. But mostly because - hello - there are six people in this family, and all of them seem to want to use my computer.

What's new, you ask? Nothing much. Work/life balance and all. I love that phrase, work/life balance, because it implies that there actually is a way to balance work and life when the reality is, there are never enough hours in the day, and no matter how you stack those hours up, one on top of the next, there will be days when your carefully balanced tower falls down and crushes you beneath its weight.

So. No work/life balance here. But we did manage to take one day off of work earlier in the month to go to Jerusalem for the weekend.

Jerusalem is super close. If there weren't a border, in fact, we could probably drive there in an hour and a half. But there is a border, an unpredictable border, and there's never a way to know how long it'll take to cross. This time it took rather awhile to cross. They escorted us in, stamped our passports, and then told my husband to go move the car while we waited at passport control. When he went to move the car, the police stopped him and asked to see his ID. Which was, of course, in my purse, back at passport control. So they detained him in some random part of the building. He tried to call me, but my Jordanian phone stops working at the Israeli border. He started sending me texts, telling me to bring him his ID, but of course I didn't know where he was. Heck, I didn't even know where I was at that point, because they'd brought me and the kids to yet another part of the building to buy car insurance. ("Will you be the driver?" "No, my husband is driving." "Well, he needs to be here to sign the paperwork. Where is he?" Ummm, good question. Why don't you guys tell me where he is?)

Long story short, we eventually found each other, no thanks to the folks at the border, who wouldn't let me go anywhere to try to help Bart. (I actually sent Shay sneaking around in the building, all Mission Impossible-style, trying to find his dad, reasoning that since he was shorter than me he might make it further than I would as a search-and-rescue party. Every time I tried to move from the spot the border people stopped me, but they didn't seem to notice when he wandered away.)

We had planned to cross the border and head south along the Dead Sea highway to visit Masada, where Herod the Great used to hang out back in the day. It took such an interminably long time to cross that we weren't sure if we'd make it there before it closed, but we decided to try anyway. Well, we did make it there, barely - just in time to catch one of the last cable cars up the mountainside. The views from the top almost made it worth the annoying experience at the border.

That's the Dead Sea back there, with Jordan on the other side.

Kind of makes sense why they chose this place as a fortress. That's a serious cliff right there.

Just once, could I get a picture where all four of them are smiling for the camera?

From there we headed back up the highway to Jerusalem, where we met up with the cousins for dinner. It is so nice to have relatives nearby - first and last time it'll ever happen that way for us in the Foreign Service.

The next morning we met up again for a walk on the Rampart Wall that encircles the Old City of Jerusalem.

That hole in the wall is the perfect size for a kid to slide through - it would never pass U.S. safety standards.

Kyra with cousin Tommy.

Ainsley and Julia.

Us, squinting.

Cousins on the Rampart Wall above the Old City.

Off the Wall now and back in the Old City. Ainsley was getting tired, and she wanted nothing to do with our pictures. But she stuck with it for the whole day - they all did, actually. It was a welcome surprise for their mom.

Here we are at some important site. That's all I remember.

Heading toward the Garden of Gethsemane. (Which was closed when we got there. All that hiking for nothing.)

Uncle B and the new baby cousin, Patrick, at dinner that night.

Our last day, and the reason we'd come to Jerusalem: our brand new baby nephew was getting baptized. My bro- and sis-in-law had asked us to be the godparents, so off we all went to their church in the Old City to celebrate Patrick's big day.

So cute....

Patrick with his mama.

Julia holding her new baby bro.

Shay wore that little outfit when he was baptized, as did Kyra. And Bart wore it, too, all those years ago.

Bart, thinking he wants another one. Ha! Dream on, mister!

The god-family.

The real family.

And that was it! We had a quick brunch together before heading back to our side of the River Jordan. And on the way back, we made it through the border in record time - no detentions or anything.

We don't see each other all that often, given the crazy work schedules and the differing weekend schedules. But it is nice having family so close. Maybe we can convince them to move to our next post with us?

And speaking of our next post - have I told y'all yet that we have a post-Baghdad assignment?

Intertwined

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:58:00 +0000

When you're living overseas, you tend to bond hard - sometimes too hard - with the people who get tossed into the fishbowl with you.

For some people, this is a drawback of Foreign Service life: they don't want other people up in their business. For me, though, this has always been one of the biggest bonuses.

Take today, for example. It was a typical too-much-to-do kind of day. I had to work, of course, as did Bart. But also: there were parent teacher conferences, so the kids had no school and I had to juggle work with child care. Today was also baseball practice for the boys, right around the same time as our conferences were scheduled. Oh, and the car needed an oil change.

I rushed from meeting to meeting to meeting, trying to get everything done so I could run out to the conferences. Picked up the car and dashed out of the Embassy, trying to make it to the first conference on time.

My cell phone rang.

It was Bart, asking if I'd remembered to get his glove out of the car so he could go help out at baseball. Of course I'd forgotten, and there was no time to go back.

I took a quick detour and headed past STJ's house, which was on my way to the school. I rang the bell, and when her daughter opened the door, I tossed the glove in with a scattered explanation before running back to the car.

I made it to the school with one minute to spare and quickly texted STJ to warn her about the extra glove. She texted back and offered to get the glove and my kids to baseball - an offer I happily accepted, seeing as how I hadn't even begun to think about how that was going to happen. Then I hung up and called another friend, to ask him to track down my eldest child and send him home to get dressed for practice. And I started my marathon session of teacher conferences.

(Aside: no one warns you, when you first set out to have little babies, that some day you're going to have to spend half a day at the school attending conferences if you have too many. Four kids. Four conferences. Exhausting!)

I finished those conferences, eventually. (And yes, grandparents: your grandchildren are all brilliant and motivated and excellent readers and social butterflies and budding scientists and everything rainbows and unicorns!)

Checked my messages to find that Bart was on his way to the baseball field with coach CL, who happens to be STJ's spouse. Are you following this? Are you starting to understand the title of this post?

I headed back to the Embassy to finish my day before going home to make a quick dinner. STJ texted to ask if CL could drop their kids at our house for awhile after practice, because he had a meeting to attend and she was stuck at the office. No problem, I answered, and then set about adding some extra dinner to the table.

The six kids inhaled their dinner and then her kids entertained my kids while I cleaned up and started this post. It's 8pm as I type, and STJ just picked up her kids. Oh, but they left behind their catcher's gear so Aidan can practice with his brother in the morning.

Tomorrow afternoon I expect another round of Musical Kids, as some are dropped off here by one mom and others are picked up by a second mom.

Somehow, at the end of the day, all of us moms will gather up whichever kids we find in our kitchens and living rooms, and we'll toss them all in our cars before heading back to the Embassy for dinner. We'll share a table and share some laughs while the kids run around outside, playing and bickering and just generally enjoying one another's company. Someone will win tomorrow's sleepover lottery, and someone else will lose. None of us will go home with the kids we brought.

But that right there? That's one big reason I chose to stay here while Bart goes to his onward assignment. If we'd elected to return to Northern Virginia, I'd be friendless and alone, trying to find my way and juggling too many responsibilities as a single mom. Here I have STJ and CL and all those other folks who step in on an almost daily basis to help me out in one way or another.

So yeah. It's weird, sometimes, being so closely intertwined. I think it's safe to say we all know too much about one another in some ways. But there's a positive to all of this, too: with them, I don't have to pretend to have it all under control. I can ask for help when I need it, and offer it when they do. Somehow, it all seems to even out, and all of us get through our days intact. Most of the time we do, anyway.

I'm going to miss this big ole family of ours when I'm gone from this place.

Happy Birthday Bampa

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:46:00 +0000

This picture is old - thirteen years old, to be precise. But I still love it.

Bampa, baby Shay and me...

Happy birthday dad. Thanks for showing me how to be a parent, and how to do most everything else as well. You definitely set the bar high. I love you, always.

Another One

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 19:10:00 +0000

We lost another colleague yesterday.

If you're in the Foreign Service yourself, doubtless you know this already. If you're not in the Foreign Service, well, the news might have passed right over your head as you went about your day.

A few hours ago, a Foreign Service Officer serving in Afghanistan was killed by an improvised explosive device. She died alongside several members of our military and a local doctor. Several others were injured, at least one critically.

The woman who died was young, only in her mid-twenties. She was midway through her second tour. I didn't know her, but it's a small organization, so we're just one degree of separation, she and I. We have mutual friends. Had mutual friends.

She was delivering books to a provincial school when she was killed.

Funny world we live in, isn't it, when you can get blown up for giving books to school children?

This fact hits home for me, because this is one of my main jobs here in Jordan. I spend a good part of my day looking for books by American authors that ought to be translated into Arabic - books that might do some good in the Arabic-speaking world, not just in Jordan, but regionally. I work to secure the rights to these books, and to get them translated, and then to put them into the hands of people who most want them.

And while it's true that some of my friends tease me good-naturedly about my books (looking at you, CL...), it's actually an important thing we're doing. Some of these kids don't have very many possessions of their own. But we give them our books, with a tiny flag sticker on the back cover, to show that the books are really from you, my fellow Americans. Some of the books are for adults - we translate books on autism for struggling parents, and memoirs for people curious about America, and law books and books on journalism and self-help books and Pulitzer prize-winning novels.

This is not glamorous work. This is not the kind of work that will make you famous. It really isn't the kind of work that ought to get you killed, as happened to Anne yesterday.

But in a world that is increasingly divisive, in a world where lots of people simply don't like us, for reasons both good and bad, this is important work. It's small work sometimes. There are days when we deliver just fifteen books, for a college book club discussion, or maybe twenty, to parents whose kids are hospitalized with cancer. That's not a lot of people to reach on any given day.

But we reach them. We find them where they are, and we give them these small gifts from America, about America. We teach them to read, to think critically, to smile broadly. We show them, through our books, that America is a vast and wonderful place, full of all sorts of people and amazing ideas. So: a small, small program. And yet so big. What could be bigger than a book, really?

This is what Anne died doing. It is important. Her work was important. And I'm betting that if she'd reached that school yesterday, she would've had an amazing story to tell. Those schoolchildren would have each gotten their own books, still smelling of glue from the print shop. At least one of those kids would have hugged her by way of thanks. And she would have gone home smiling.

She died instead, and I guess those books were destroyed in the attack as well, pages fluttering down the highway, useless.

I hope her parents know that there are people like me all across the globe who know exactly what she was doing there, and who are proud of the work she accomplished in her short life. I hope they know that there are teenagers in Afghanistan tonight, reading books that she gave them, thinking new thoughts that she helped put in their heads. I hope they know that there are young girls holding their own textbooks thanks to Anne, and that there are parents reading to their children tonight because of her gift of books.

I don't know how that knowledge can help them as they grieve. But I know they raised a daughter who made a difference out there in this wide world of ours. She made a difference.

Thank you, Anne.

Well, And in Other News

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 18:49:00 +0000

My husband is back.

That's right. We made it through two whole months of training. Technically I guess he's the one who made it through the training, which he said was all kinds of interesting and difficult and apparently standing out in the elements for whole days at a time in an east coast winter is less-than-fun.

But he is back, and I managed to keep all four kids alive and reasonably fed most days and so what if they outgrew all of their clothes and I didn't replace them? That would have happened whether he was away or not.

Now we have two and a half months to get used to each other's daily routines again. He seems to have remembered that he is required to bring me a Starbucks mocha (full fat, iced, no whipped cream, please) on his way home from the gym on weekends. And then he needs to leave me alone while I drink it and do absolutely nothing involving his children, his laundry or his dog. So far, all is well. We'll see how long it lasts. Probably until he asks me if I remembered to organize the summer clothes, or alphabetize the spice rack, or file the taxes, or something else equally unnecessary, while he was away.

In two and a half months, though, the real fun begins. Every day we get more information about his onward assignment, and I ponder how exactly this is supposed to work. But we got through the first separation without too many issues. Sure, there was the time not long after he left when I got a notice from the mail room informing me that I had a package, and when I went to pick it up it turns out it was a 100-pound box of dog food. The mail room guy kindly said "you should wait until your husband comes back and let him take care of it," and I very nearly burst into tears. It had never occurred to me until that exact moment that I was destined to drag 100-pound boxes of dog food home, by myself, every single month until mid-2014. It was a startling revelation, and I did not handle it well.

My biceps will be powerful indeed at the end of this tour, because 100 pounds of dog food is heavier than it sounds when you're carting it through heavy security doors and down hallways and across the compound before somehow hoisting into the trunk of your car that dear god did someone back into me again and not leave a note? and then out of the trunk and up the stairs and all the way back into the laundry room, where you somehow shove that sucker in and slam the door with your foot before glaring balefully at the dog who, by the way, why in the world did your husband have to choose such a big dog anyway? What was wrong with a dainty little poodle or something else that doesn't consume 100 pounds of food every month in addition to a steady diet of Legos, board books and Barbie feet?

So anyway. He is back, and we are happy.

His dog, though. Seriously, what was he thinking?

Disappointed.

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:03:00 +0000

Most bloggers don't talk about their stats, because we've all got this "is yours bigger than mine?" complex. But I'm going to open up the books today because I'm making some blogging decisions over here, and I'm thinking about just what blogging means to me.

For a Foreign Service blogger, I get a decent amount of page views. I mean, I'm no Diplopundit. I'm no LAJ. Jill and ADA get more hits than me. But I've been around for awhile, so lots of FS types know and read my blog. I get, on average, around 600-900 views a day. I don't spend a lot of time tracking where those views come from, but I can tell you that the majority of them are either government types, considering-the-FS types, or my mom's friends.

A lot of my hits currently come from right here in Jordan. Several hundred people in Jordan are reading this blog. I would bet that many of those readers are from right here within the Embassy community.

And it's odd, you know, to be walking around the Embassy, where I consider myself to be a keeps-to-herself type of person, knowing that there are people whose names I don't even know who are eavesdropping on my boring little life because I've given them this window. It's strange to me that people I barely know sometimes stop me in the hallway to comment on the things I've written. In fact, it made me so uncomfortable not long ago that I decided to stop writing for awhile.

That was four posts back. I decided to stop. Retreat from the world for a bit, if you will. But my mom called to complain. And my father-in-law said he missed my updates. And any number of friends from around the globe emailed me the obligatory "come back!" messages. And then, the truth: I do miss writing when I'm not doing it. It's fun, sometimes, to put words to my day, to drop future me little reminders of the things I'm doing now. It's important, actually, for my mental health, to think about things and make sense of them in words.

I've published over 700 posts here. A few of them have upset people, for one reason or another. When someone takes the time to contact me and explain why a specific post bothers her, I look at it again, carefully, and if I can see her point, I take it down or I edit it.

Other posts have really touched people, for one reason or another. When I write about some aspect of FS life that is hard, or lonely, or just plain awful, I always get emails from people who thank me for putting into words something they've been feeling. I cherish those emails, truly I do. Because, as anyone who writes will tell you, we want to feel like what we write matters. And so when I get those emails, I know what I wrote that day mattered to someone. It helped someone over a rough patch, or it helped someone make a difficult decision, or it just helped someone feel not so alone out there in the wide world.

That's why I keep blogging. If this were really just a personal diary of my adventures, I'd password protect the hell out of this thing and keep it to myself. But I love the community of friends I've made because of these words here. Do you know I've never even met half of my Facebook friends in real life? I met them through blogging. I know their stories and they know mine and I love the fact that these faceless friends of mine are out there, in Malawi and Armenia and Egypt and Estonia, rooting for me and praying for me and keeping me afloat on the hard days. Even though I couldn't pick them out of a crowd in the grocery store, and I'd walk right by them in the airport, they are still all important to me. I love that. I. Love. That. And so I blog. I love the fact that old friends from prior posts are keeping up with me through my blog, occasionally writing to let me know they're reading. And so I blog. I love that I've become friends with people I admired while serving with them - people like Afghan Plan, who intimidated the hell out of me in person with his brains and wit, but then became a real friend because of our mutual addiction to blogging. And so I blog.

But what to do with the person at post who apparently didn't like something I wrote and decided to print up a copy of my story and turn it in anonymously? Seriously. Why would you do that? If you don't like what I'm writing, come talk to me. Send me an email. Or - and here's a crazy idea - just don't read it anymore. You always have that choice. But turning me in, complaining about it, when I can swear up and down that I've written nothing about you? I'm sorry, but that was wrong.

I hope that whoever it was turned me in out of some misguided sense of concern somehow, and not just to be nasty. I'm choosing to believe that anyway. I know my recent post affected some people, here and at other posts, because I got calls and emails from around the world, from people who wanted to tell me their stories or give me advice. I also know, by the way, that the girl about whom I wrote (not an embassy girl, by the way, though I don't see how that's any of your business) is getting help.

I am seriously considering starting over with a new password-protected blog, or adding a second blog for a small audience. I don't like protected blogs, myself, and I almost never read such blogs. But what else can I do? I can count on my fingers the number of people here in Amman whom I want to keep as readers of this blog. But these are the people who've been in my living room, who've sat next to me on my couch and looked me in the eye, who've held my hand and talked me through my troubles. These people know my stories, the ones I never blog about. These people are my stories. Them, I want to keep in my life, however I can. But the person who reads, and frowns, and then prints and turns me in? I don't want you here. I hope you felt you were doing the right thing. I sincerely hope that. But please: in the future, maybe try talking to me first? I keep to myself, this is true. But if you want, or need, to talk about anything you read here, do me a favor and let me know.

Meanwhile, if I decide to start a second password-protected blog, I'll be in contact with some of you to let you know where you can find me.

POTUS Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:24:00 +0000

Okay, I'm finally back with POTUS Part Two.

This has been a hard week, because we've all been trying to catch up on the work we neglected last week. In my case, this means two huge projects needed care and feeding (as did four kids), and I've been feeling just a teensy bit overwhelmed.

It's been a terrific week on so many unbloggable levels. Really the best one in a long time. But yeah, I'm tired. Still: I promised the dad-in-law more POTUS pix, so here I am.

So okay. Day two dawned cloudy and windy, but not dusty. There was still no call on whether the helicopters would be grounded or not. Petra? Or no Petra? I headed to the airport early in the morning, because no one knew what was going to happen, so it was all-hands-on-deck, just in case.

There's the plane, all alone on the tarmac except for a few zillion people.

Meanwhile, there was an Embassy Meet n Greet scheduled elsewhere in the city, for employees and family members. The kids really wanted to go, but I had to work. Fortunately for me, my dear friends STJ and CL offered to bring my boys to the event while I went off to the airport, loaded down with coffee. Aidan took some (slightly blurry) photos of the meet n greet. He asked me to include them:

Back to the airport. I have no idea why the spacing is suddenly getting all screwy, and I'm too lazy to pretend I know enough html to fix it. So deal.

Anyway, here you can see that the helicopter pilots got the all-clear for the trip to Petra, and they are moving into position.

Look! Here comes the motorcade! That's our awesome tent behind the limo.

My job was to stand next to this helicopter guy in case any of the passengers needed help figuring out that this was helicopter #3. Of course, the engines were running when the passengers arrived, and it was loud, so no one could hear me. Also, helicopter guy was holding a big sign labeled "#3." So I guess you could say my job was a bit redundant. Even the helicopter guy had no idea why I was standing right next to him, and it was too loud to tell him that I was his back-up sign person in case one of the passengers couldn't read. He thought I was a passenger. So after everyone boarded, he motioned for me to climb in as well. I was sorely tempted. I briefly weighed in my mind the chances of getting caught and fired, or tossed out of the helicopter halfway to Petra. Reluctantly, I shook my head no and headed back to my fancy tent.

Once everyone was loaded on to the helicopters, they all took off for Petra.

Our work wasn't done, though. We still had to wait for them to finish touring Petra and come back to the airport later that day. I had to drive someone back to town, so I stopped at the grocery store, threw some stuff in my cart and dropped it back at the house before heading back to my tent. What can I say: I'm a multi-tasker.

As the time for the President's return drew closer, we all got busy again. I had to welcome the press back to the airport and get them back up on their stage. The Presidential limo pulled up right next to us and parked where we stood. So of course we all turned tourist again and snapped some photos.

This guy - I'll call him "The King of Queen Alia Airport" - was too busy working to take any photos. And his wife, a friend of mine, is out of town. I knew she would kill him if he didn't have any pictures to prove that he was there. So I kept following him around and surreptitiously snapping his photo. (Sssshh - don't tell him you saw him here.)

Well of course I needed a photo of my own. I was kind of embarrassed to be acting all Air Force One starstrucky, but then I noticed that the guy next to me was doing the same thing. And he's a big name television reporter in the States. And he was actually going to be flying home with the President on Air Force One. He told me he was sending the picture to his wife so she would know he was on his way home. Perhaps. But I think he was kind of starstruck too. (Even the White House press lady who was working with me - or rather, telling me what to do - said she still loves to see Air Force One out there on the tarmac. So apparently I wasn't alone.)

Everything was ready to go. Everyone was calm. No worries at all. And then someone took a call - it seems the King of Jordan himself was on his way to the airport to see the President off. Well, nothing like a last minute visit from the King to send everyone scrambling.

The President's helicopter came in for a landing.

As did the rest of the fleet...

Then the King walked out to meet the helicopter. You can see the Secretary of State in the middle of that photo - the King is on his other side.

If you know what you're looking for, you can see the King, in blue jeans, walking with the President. I know my dad is going to blow this picture up for a closer look, so I'm including it here. But really, the fancy-camera photographers next to me got all the awesome shots. I can't post their pictures on my blog, obviously, but don't worry dad! I'll email you some later.

The wave...

And the plane departs...

And that's it! I went home and made dinner. Or took a nap and ordered take-out. Can't remember which.

End of story. But here's something extra for you: a picture of me from a POTUS meet n greet in Beijing, back in 2009. I'd lost the picture somehow, but my friend JennD, who was the official photographer at that particular event, emailed it to me yesterday. (Thanks Jenn! Hey, could you go ahead and add that arrow pointing to his back and noting who he is? Might be helpful...)

POTUS in Jordan

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 18:23:00 +0000

I'll probably split this into several posts, because I have a ton of pictures and a slow internet connection. But in the interest of giving my father-in-law something to read over breakfast, I figure I should get something up on the blog quick.

So. Maybe you heard that POTUS came to town? When POTUS decides to make a move, it's a pretty big deal for the entire Embassy. There are meetings to plan and schedules to make and reporters to coddle and tons and tons and tons of White House staff and secret service people and cars and helicopters and computers and stuff you never would have thought of moving back and forth across the country.

My office was pretty heavily involved in the visit because there were over 100 reporters showing up from the U.S. alone to cover the event. And the President was planning to move from the airport to the palace to the hotel to the airport to Petra and back and every single time he moves all of those reporters go with him in a gigantic circus caravan of craziness that is orchestrated by press people who hang on to their wits by a mere thread and wow is it ever exhausting keeping up with all of them. So every single person in my office got tasked to cover a specific site.

And that is how I ended up being named as the "Queen Alia Airport Press Control Officer," which is a very fancy way of saying that I spent the entire weekend at the airport trying to look as press-y as possible.

Our Jordanian counterparts offered to set up a tent at the Royal Pavilion, which is where all of the airport action took place. They figured we'd need a place to get out of the sun, I guess. So I pictured, you know, a tent. Maybe nylon, or canvas, with some folding chairs and a cooler for sodas? Maybe a zip-out window like those fancy camping tents have?

Apparently, though, Jordanians take their tents seriously. Because this is what we got:

One of the secret service guys commented that it was nicer than the place where he held his wedding reception. They had waiters setting up a buffet, so I promptly stashed my granola bars and tootsie rolls deep in my purse and decided that I had the best press site in town. It was BYOStarbucks, but I had that covered on my own, as the picture above clearly shows. (Aside: one of the lead secret service guys offered me 20JD for my coffee. I think he was probably kidding. But seeing as he was armed, I decided to bring him his own coffee the next day. He offered to "smooch" me. That's right: I may be old, but I still got it! Coffee, that is.)

The day started out beautifully. We had to get there at a gawd-awful early hour to meet the press plane and get all 100+ reporters safely aboard buses and off to their hotel. Not a problem, except the crown prince's plane landed at the same time as the press plane (I guess there's a reason it's called the Royal Pavilion?), so our reporters were trapped on the tarmac while we waited for the prince's security detail to whisk him away.

Eventually, however, our plane doors opened and my first task of the day began. I stood at the base of the stairs and repeated, over and over, "Welcome to Jordan! Please take any of the last three buses, folks. Any of the last three buses..." while gesturing broadly toward aforementioned buses. I'm telling you what: that right there is why I decided to get a Master's degree. It was grueling. But never once did I slip up and forget my lines. I'm smart like that.

Once we got them all out of the airport, we went back to the tent to wait. And wait. And wait. I sat there and read my book and drank my Starbucks and chatted up about a million guys with guns strapped all over their bodies. As we sat, the wind started to pick up, prompting many a joke about just how well the tent was bolted into the tarmac. It felt like it was going to up and blow away. After awhile I decided to head into the main building to get out of the wind, and when I looked out of the tent flaps, this is what I saw:

It was like a good day in China.

So all of that dust pushed the arrival time back, which meant we were going to wait some more. The helicopter pilots started fretting about the weather, which was apparently bad enough to ground them, should they be needed, and contingency plans were drawn up in case the next day's trip to Petra had to be cancelled. None of that concerned my press work, however, so I continued to sit. And wait. And wait some more.

Eventually it was time to meet the press - a busload of local reporters arrived, and my job was to get them through security, badge them up and wrangle them into the tent without losing any of them. This my colleague and I managed without a hitch, until one of the cameramen needed to use the restroom. It turned out we ourselves were never properly badged, and so the new secret service guy standing in front of the tent wouldn't let us out.

"Help," I emailed my White House press counterpart, "I seem to be under tent arrest."

She showed up eventually with badges that made us official and we were released from our tent-prison, just in time to get our photographers up on their podium. We had to explain to them that they couldn't move off of the podium once up there, or they would likely be tackled by secret service agents. And then we had to stand next to them and keep reminding them that, seriously, don't move, because that one guy alone has like 16 guns strapped to his leg, never mind the rest of his body.

See them down there, surrounded by scary armed people? That's the red carpet to nowhere, off to the right, waiting for Air Force One to pull up.

Meanwhile, as we were getting our press guys set up, the motorcade was moving into position. I haven't seen that many fancy cars all in a neat row since Shay was a 3-year-old with OCD and a Matchbox car obsession. One of the DS guys explained to me the significance of each car in the row and all I can say is, these people are prepared for any contingency at all. Seriously. If the President decides to pull off to the side of the road for a cappuccino, he'll probably find a coffee cart 10 cars back.

There's his car right there. Keep in mind that I don't have much of a zoom on my camera.

Finally, the moment we'd all been waiting (and waiting!) for: wheels down! And everyone turns tourist at that point - except for the secret service, of course. We were all just snapping picture after picture as that big ole plane with "United States of America" emblazoned on the side rolled right up to our group.

The Royal Honor Guard moved into place, flashing guns-with-knives-attached as they marched in formation. Wonder how the secret service liked that?

They marched right behind the stair truck thingee, which drove up to the plane in order to allow one guy to deplane. All this fuss, when you get down to it, was for just that one man alone.

And there he is! What? You can't see him? Right about then I was thinking I should have bought a camera with a longer zoom. But he's there, off to the left, I promise. Secretary Kerry is there, too.

There you go. You can see him there, right? Right?

Moments later, he was gone, along with the entire motorcade, speeding down the road to the palace. The luggage people moved in, the press moved out, and I took an opportunity to snap a photo of me: the closest I'll likely ever be to Air Force One.

Okay, then. Father-in-law? Is that enough for one breakfast? How about if I finish this story tomorrow? Ish. Tomorrow-ish. Because I've taken about three showers since POTUS left Jordan, and I still haven't managed to wash all of the dust storm grit out of my hair. I think it's time for shower #4 and a long nap.

It's Hard Out There For a Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:46:00 +0000

Breaking my self-imposed silence to talk about something awful that is near and dear to my heart.

I remember it well from my own school days, both in high school and college. It seems, however, that this obsession we females have with our bodies, and the self-harm that sometimes comes along with it, starts earlier and earlier.

There were girls I knew who were hospitalized, for anorexia or bulimia or other less obvious mind-over-body issues. There were girls who were cutting themselves. There were girls who were sleeping around in an attempt to find self-worth in the eyes of others. So I know this is a problem with a long, long history, a trail of tears reaching back, no doubt, before our mothers' mothers were around to experience it.

Back in my day it wasn't everyone, mind you. Just a whisper of unhappiness swirling underneath the surface of the day-to-day studying and exams and parties and does-he-even-like-me? At the time, it seemed normal, to see that unhappiness suddenly bubble up to the surface of some girl who shared a classroom or a dorm room with me. Something to pity, perhaps, but not really something where I needed to intervene, usually, unless it involved a close friend.

I've been thinking about this ever since I discovered that there is a young girl outside my circle of acquaintances who is cutting herself. I don't know her. I don't know her parents. I'm not even 100% sure I know her name. But I know the fact of it: I know that she wears long sleeves to hide it, but has revealed it to enough people that it's clear she wants help.

And so I wonder: what is my role in this? Do I even have one? I remember back to my own days of self-doubt, and I'm grateful that I made it through those days relatively unscathed. I'm grateful to the people who supported me, who made sure I understood my worth, as I made my way through the minefield that is becoming-a-woman. Most of the now-women whom I knew back then made their way through, and most are in a good place now. The ones I still keep in touch with bear their scars from those days - literal, in some cases, figurative in others. All women bear the scars of their girlhood, after all, and we all carry secrets around of the things we did and thought and pretended to be.

I think it likely, given what I know and what I've seen, that this girl will find her circle and fight her way out whether or not I find a way to intervene. Likely. But by no means certain.

I don't know her. Not personally. But I know all about her, and I wish I could tell her it will all work out. She's perfect as she is, and she needs to laugh and love and not regret. She needs to skip across the quicksand, quick quick, to get to the other side as fast as she can. She needs to forgive herself for whatever is troubling her, for whatever is inside of her telling her she is not enough as she is.

Really, though, and this is selfish me talking, it scares me to know this about this girl because I know my own girls will be facing this struggle sooner than soon. They'll be facing the judgment of their peers, and the judgment of their mirrors, and they will come up wanting, every time, because this is what girls do, to ourselves and to each other. We find fault. We find gaps. We judge harshly. We find our own selves lacking in so many ways.

And then my boys: one in middle school, one not far behind. Do boys go through this too? I don't know; I suppose they must. I know that they will have girlfriends, and they will have friends who are girls, and they will not know what pain these girls carry in their hearts. I hope my boys will grow to be kind, so that they don't one day add to the burdens that their female friends and colleagues carry in secret. I hope they will grow to face trouble where it finds them, and to help the broken people they will encounter all around them if only they are looking.

How to raise your boys to respect the women around them - not to judge on the surface but on the heart and brain and soul? How to raise your girls to understand that there is nothing lacking in them? Especially after the awful events in Stuebenville, when all I can think is let my kids never think this is okay. Not what happened that night, not what happened afterwards. And certainly let me raise my babies so they know the press coverage of that particular tragedy is horribly wrong. I've seen that girl, sick and shirtless and alone in a scary place. It happens, all too often, even when it doesn't make the news. I pray I'm raising my kids - I pray I'm raising myself - to be the person who stops and extends a hand to help. Because it is all too easy to walk on by, unmoved and uninvolved. But sometimes, even when it is hard to do, you need to be the person who stands up and says this isn't right.

I've been fortunate to have angels in my life - family, friends and even complete strangers - who kept me where I needed to be. I remember a specific time, back in college, when I was in a very dark place for reasons that don't matter now. It was dark, and I was lonely. At least I felt very alone. And I remember - all these years later, I still remember - that a classmate of mine, a young man I barely knew, approached me after class one day and said the exact words that I needed to hear to get out of that hole I was trapped in. I'd barely spoken to him before that day. And I was too embarrassed to talk to him much after that day. But something about me must have drawn his attention, enough that he took the time to tell me that it was okay, and that I was okay. In that moment, I knew he was right, and so I pulled myself out of the quicksand and off I went. Thanks to a stranger who was paying attention. To this day, I don't know why he chose to talk to me. But I'm grateful that he did.

Can I be that angel to this girl I'm hearing about? Probably not - she's too far removed from me after all, and there is no way I can reach her. But maybe you can. Maybe you'll see her today, and maybe you'll tell her: Smile. Dance. Laugh. Know, in your most secret heart, that you are perfect just exactly as as you are.

You might never know if you've saved her. But you have to try.

Frustrated

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:52:00 +0000

I give up.

For now, anyway.

Too much push, too much pull, and not enough privacy. I have the sense, at the moment at least, that I'm not really writing about the things that matter to me, either because I'm just too tired at the end of the day, or because the things that matter to me aren't really bloggable in this foreign service world of mine.

So I'm going to take a bit of a blogging break. Not sure for how long: a few days? Weeks? Months?

I always get the urge to start writing again eventually, so I'm relatively certain I'll be back soon enough. Meanwhile, I'm still over on Facebook if you need me.

No Tigers here! Just one busy mom.

Eid Mubarak

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:22:00 +0000

So I have some friends, a couple I'll call Trixie and Tony. They are a lovely couple, truly, and one of those stereotypical foreign service couples in which the wife is chatty and friendly and funny while the husband is serious and frowny and kind of terrifying until you get to know him and discover that he's just as awesome as she is.

They live not far from me, in a multi-storeyed apartment building much like mine, except apparently their boab - a sort of maintenance man for the building, if you recall - is superhot.

Unfortunately for them, their hot boab is also a thief.

One of the main jobs of the boab is to monitor the fuel and water levels for each of the residents and to alert them when the levels are low so they can buy more.

Trixie and Tony were constantly running out of fuel and water, which annoyed them, no doubt, because the boab was supposed to be telling them before they turned on the water and discovered it was icy-cold and down to just a trickle. Eventually, though, they realized the problem was bigger than mere incompetence. It turns out hot boab was siphoning off their water and fuel and reselling it - reselling thousands of gallons of heating oil every month and assuming they'd be too dumb (those silly Americans!) to notice.

But notice they did, and they alerted the Embassy, which sent some folks to talk to the landlord. Clearly, the Embassy told the landlord, hot boab has to go.

The landlord was not convinced. I'll only fire the boab if all of the tenants agree, he said. But the tenants did not agree, and that is how it was determined that all of the tenants were joining forces to steal fuel from Trixie and Tony.

It's the not-so-little things like this that can drive a person crazy. I mean, seriously: they were all banding together to steal from the foreigners, the presumably rich Americans, and not one of them felt bad enough to say this is wrong. These people are not poor. If they live in this part of town, they have plenty of money and no need to steal to survive. And the boab! Taking his paycheck from them each month but stealing from them as well.

So now Trixie and Tony are moving to a new apartment, hopefully with an honest boab, and hopefully with honest neighbors as well. But in talking to them about the continuing saga of hot boab, I realized I'd never told you Chapter One in the boab story. And because I'm no longer worried about whether it is wrong to "out" hot boab and his neighbors, I'm going to tell this sordid little tale now.

Ramadan, 2012. Devout Muslims fast from sun-up til sundown for an entire month. They gather each evening as the sun sets to break their fasts, wishing one another Eid Mubarak - Blessed Holiday. One Ramadan evening, well after dark, my pal Tony decided to go up on the roof with a flashlight to check on the water level in the rooftop tank.

Now Tony, you'll recall, is kind of a scary guy at first glance. Not someone I'd necessarily want to try to steal from, or lie to. He's spent a lot of time in some of the not-so-nice parts of the world. He gives off a kind of don't-eff-with-me vibe. So up he goes to check on the tank, flashlight in hand. On his way back down, he hears a noise off in the corner somewhere, in the dark.

Tony shines his flashlight in the direction of the noise, expecting trouble. But there is no burgler, no murderer, not even a pickpocket. No: his beam of light catches the hot boab, who is - how can I put this delicately? - boinking the neighbor's daughter, and rather vigorously at that.

Tony is, of course, startled to find this happy couple locked in an embrace. He shines his flashlight on them - I was surprised at first, he told us later, because the girl covered her face, but didn't even try to cover her body. Of course, this makes sense here in the middle east, where it is entirely plausible that her dad would kill her - literally kill her - if he caught her screwing anybody at all, and the boab in particular.

Tony took in the scene: naked boab, naked girl, dark scary corner of building. And, being a man of few words, he said what anyone might say upon encountering such a scene late one Ramadan night.

Eid Mubarak, he told the amorous couple. Blessed Holiday. And he continued on his way, back to his cold, water-less apartment.

Half His Life

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:07:00 +0000

If I've done the math correctly (and admittedly, math isn't my strongest subject), then it is safe to say that as of this birthday, my husband has officially spent half his life with me.

I looked and looked for my favorite picture of him, taken at the beginning of my first year of grad school, right when I met him but before we'd started dating. Somehow, and sadly, it has disappeared. So instead I'll share this one, taken a little over a year after we met. Apparently he was thirteen at the time. Seriously, was he really ever that young? Was I? We were already engaged when this photo was taken but damn - we were so young. I don't remember either of us ever being quite so babyish.

Anyway, he's on the other side of the globe right now, as you know, so I'll have to eat all of his cake for him. I'll probably open his presents, too.

Happy birthday, Z.

Not exactly an extrovert...

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:41:00 +0000

Apparently my last blog post was depressing? I don't know, but I need to do that again. I got so many emails from people telling me to cheer up because I am super awesome and amazing and incredibly cool. Somebody even told me that I am "inspiring." Seriously. Me: inspiring. As I read that one, I was sitting on the bathroom floor in my oldest ripped-up tank top, with green dead sea mud slathered on my face and my hair in some kind of crazy pig tail situation. I would've laughed out loud at the irony but the mud was already dried to the point that I couldn't move my face muscles.

It's all gone straight to my head, of course, and if I was depressed before (I wasn't! Swear I wasn't! I was just thinking aloud and writing in code.), I certainly couldn't be sad now. I don't have time to be sad, people. I'm too busy being inspiring! And, in case you didn't know this - being an inspiration is downright exhausting. I feel certain I can't be inspiring while wearing my oldest jammies at noon, so I actually have to make an effort to get dressed and put on socks and stuff like that. Really a lot of work for a weekend.

I've said this before, but here it is: I write so that I'll remember. In other words, I write for me. I want to have a record of the things I'm thinking and doing, so I put it all here. Sometimes, yes, it's a bit coded, because apparently people read this thing. Who knew? And no offense, but there are some things I just don't want to share with you. I still find it odd when people tell me they are reading. Example: a friend just told me he was TDY'ed to somewhere-in-Europe, and when he mentioned that he's posted in Amman, people in his training class started talking about my blog. What the what?

So okay. You all know all sorts of stuff about me, but I don't even always know you're reading. That puts me at a disadvantage, don't you think? I consider myself to be a hard-core introvert, which means that I keep to myself and don't go out of my way to talk to most people. Yet here I am, telling you all sorts of stuff, "Dear Diary" style.

Now. About the introvert thing. The other day, over lunch, a few of us were talking about introverts and extroverts, and I got the impression that my friends disagreed with my self-assessment of myself as an introvert. I got that impression because they laughed uproariously at my insistence that I just don't like talking to people. Something about how I never shut up? Dunno. They were all laughing. And laughing. I was worried they might start choking on their chicken bones, that's how doubled over they all were.

So right there on the spot, I coined a new term. Somebody call the trademark office, quick, because I need to TM this baby. Are you ready? I'm not an introvert. And I'm not an extrovert.

I'm an ASStrovert.

Seriously. It's the perfect word for me. I get kind of uncomfortable out in the wide world, trying to talk to people, but instead of shutting down and putting an awkward smile on my silent face, I usually move in the opposite direction and start clowning around, acting like an ass. Everyone laughs, then I go home, put on my jammies and go to bed. Being an asstrovert is exhausting business.

I know I'm not alone here. I mean, really, doesn't everyone put on a fake public face sometimes? It's just that, for us asstroverts, the public face is the exact opposite of the private one. When I'm out and about, I keep my serious side under wraps. Then I come home and blog my serious side, and everyone thinks I'm depressed or something.

All of this is to say: I'm not depressed. I'm in a good place here. I'm already finding my single mom stride. I have a few close friends to keep me afloat, even one or two to whom I can spill my non-bloggable secrets. The sky is blue, the kids are (relatively) healthy, the job is interesting, the world is infinitely fascinating, and I am happyhappyhappy, to be here, still in my jammies, pretending to be inspirational despite the fact that I forgot to buy milk again and I'm planning to phone in dinner.

It's all good, truly. I'm a lucky sort of asstrovert, and I try never to forget it. That said, I did appreciate all of the emails and Facebook messages and texts I got after my last sort-of soul baring blog post. It's a good feeling, to know I have so many people looking out for me all across this globe, even though I truly don't deserve it.

Tell me, my friend: what are you? An introvert? An extrovert? Or an asstrovert like me? Hit me up in the comments. I really want to know.

The World Was Different Then

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:01:00 +0000

Six months ago, I was in California.

The world was different six months ago. My world.

We were talking, back then, about our bid list. We'd turned in the bid on Baghdad, but we still needed to turn in a complete list of bids.

We were talking, believe it or not, about curtailing - about leaving post early because of a few possibly insurmountable problems we were facing here in Amman.

We were talking about marriage, and the future, and the foreign service, and all of the big topics that we don't have time to discuss on an ordinary work day. And we were doing it all in the same little town where we'd been living when this whole crazy foreign service thing first came into our lives.

I don't know. It feels like a lot has changed in these past six months. I have a clearer picture now of where the next year-and-a-half is going to take me, of what sorts of storms I'll be weathering in the next few months. But beyond that? It's all a bit murky, in ways I hadn't anticipated. I guess, six months ago, I thought I'd be on a clear path by now. But all around me, things shift, things change, the path itself obscured by the dust of all these looming decisions.

At the beginning of every year, I make a plan, for myself and for my family. I look back at the last year, trying to figure out if I got where I intended to go, financially, emotionally, professionally. And then I plan out the next year in my head, and the next five years, and sometimes even the next ten. Where do I want to be in those time frames?

Usually this is a pretty basic exercise, and often my answers are similar from one year to the next. I find this comforting on some level: sure, I might not ever get where I'm going, but at least I know where it is I'm headed.

But now, this year, I'm struggling for reasons I can't exactly explain. Mid-life crisis? Perhaps, but I think that's overly simplistic. No, I think it's because the choices I'm facing right now are different from the usual. And of course, knowing that Baghdad looms large, and not being able, just yet, to peer beyond that, leaves me a bit unsettled. What's next, after Baghdad?

Yes. I'm aware that it may seem strange to be looking past Baghdad already, when it hasn't even started. But I'm used to planning my life in these chunks: one year, three years, five...

So I'm struggling, I guess, with the long-range plans, in a way I didn't think I'd be, just six months ago.

Am I even making sense here? Dunno. But I'm thinking on it, in my spare time - my piles and piles of spare time! And I'm trying hard to pick a future, for myself and for my family. I'll get there. I always do. But for now - I suppose I need to wait for the path ahead to clear, for the now to become the then, and for everything I'm living now to make sense.

I'll get there.

"So, you made it through the first week, Donna. How's the second week going so far?"

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 12:26:00 +0000

Funny you should ask.

The second week started off well enough - if by "well enough" you mean that one of your children woke you up at 2 am because he was vomiting uncontrollably.

I mean, there's nowhere but up from there, right?

Riiiight.

Today 75% of my kids are home due to illness of one kind or another. Between them they have: a sore throat, a cough, a stomach ache, a head ache, a runny nose and a serious case of the whines.

It could be fatal.

For me, I mean.

I don't know what sort of medicine will cure what ails them. But I'm pretty sure all I need is some take-out sushi and a good night's sleep. At least one of those things is guaranteed to be mine tonight.

This is What Procrastination Looks Like

noreply@blogger.com (Donna) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:30:00 +0000

I made the mistake of asking an old editor friend of mine if she needed any content for her magazine, and yes, she said, it so happens that we do. Send something along ASAP, would you?

And that, my friends, is the surest way to bring on a crippling case of writer's block. Well, that, and finding yourself without a husband on a Friday night and discovering that there's still some wine in the bottom of that bottle, so you might as well polish it off, and then remembering that your best Beijing friends are currently having a reunion just down the road in Bahrain, but you are not there. And then you're just depressed, and it isn't going to be possible to come up with 700 upbeat words about the Foreign Service, but hey, you remember, I have a blog! I can write whatever I want there, upbeat or no!

And that's how you find yourself typing a blog post out of thin air on a Friday night when you could be getting paid to write, or at least you could be watching another episode of Downton Abbey and opening another bottle of wine.

So, you ask: what's new?

Well, for starters, there was my first (please also last) Jordanian fender bender this week. Yes, it was a terrific week for me. Really, really terrific. I was waiting to make a right-on-red, which is comical in itself, because Jordanians typically don't wait to turn right on red - they just pull right out there and assume you'll not be in the way. But I, as a red-blooded American, am determined to drive American-style, and so I wait to turn right into oncoming traffic, as God intended when he invented the horseless carriage.

Only in this case, I didn't wait long enough. The lady in front of me - who had already cut me off once and was really ticking me off - turned right. I looked left, saw that there was room for me to turn right as well, and so I turned. Only lady-in-front apparently changed her mind and stopped mid-turn to re-think her decision, causing me to plow into the back of her car.

Like I said: this week has been just fabulous. Terrific. Peachy, even.

We waited for a few minutes on the side of the road, and I learned that her name was Rana and she was a Syrian refugee. Nice enough lady, if somewhat under-schooled on turning techniques.

It wasn't a bad accident, as accidents go, and she was in a hurry to get her daughter to school, and I was in a hurry to get to work, and so we exchanged phone numbers and fled the scene. I don't think you're allowed to do that here. But whatever: she's Syrian, I'm American. Between the two of us, we don't even know how to turn right in this country, fergawdsake, so we both drove away. And now the whole matter is in the capable hands of Shukri the mechanic, who is going to fix up her car and charge me for it, since technically I'm probably at fault for not knowing that she was going to stop mid-turn. (Said Shukri indignantly, the next day, "She wanted me to get her a brand new bumper! But I told her no way. This bumper has been hit before. I will fix it, but I won't give her a new bumper." I love Shukri.)

So that was my car crash.

What else is new?

Well, my husband is somewhere on the eastern seaboard, presumably spending all of his free time in Trader Joes, boxing up dark chocolate caramels (and maybe some dark chocolate almonds and dark chocolate anything at all really, hint-hint) to ship to me, the love of his life. And I, the love of his life, am here, in the middle east, crashing into Syrians and craving dark chocolate and ordering lots and lots of takeout for the kids.

And work. Of course: I'm working. Because why not work full-time on top of the rest of it?

We had a high-level visitor at post last week, and I was invited - or rather, summoned - to have lunch with her. But then I was uninvited. So I happily put on jeans instead of work clothes and went off to work that day, only to be reinvited at the last minute.

Drats, I said to a co-worker as we headed out to the luncheon, and I wore jeans today because I didn't have anyone to impress.

She gave me a casual once-over before replying Also? Your fly is unzipped.

Of course my fly was unzipped. Because that's exactly how my week was going.

In other news, on Thursday I taught a little "How to Write Better" class to some colleagues here at the Embassy. It was actually my third such lecture - and thankfully, the last one I have scheduled for now. Trying to teach people to write gave me an awful case of imposter syndrome, because what do I know? I can't even come up with 700 upbeat words on life in Jordan. (Though ironically I'd bet if I counted, I'd find that this post is at about 900 words already.)

Thus we come full circle. I have managed to procrastinate my way to the end of this blog post, with still not the vaguest idea of how to begin my 700 words.

And so I think I will go teach myself to make mozzarella cheese instead. My friend Noor found vegetable rennet for me somewhere in downtown Jordan, and today I bought citric acid and fresh milk, and nothing says cool like sitting at home by yourself on a Friday night learning to make cheese.

If anyone out there has a good idea for a topic, leave it for me in the comments, would you?