One Thing I Know (and a few thoughts)

Hand me a stone tablet; I have some information ready to be etched down.

On second thought, I've never used a chisel. The Internet will have to do.

We scheduled our pack-out day, and now I can lay claim to real knowledge as opposed to fool's knowledge. I know what day the movers are coming for our things.

Which, of course, could cause a problem. Because while we know when the contractors will bring the boxes, we don't know if Natalie will pass her Spanish exam on the first go around. We have a pretty good idea, but what we don't know.

It kind of makes me wonder who is writing the policies and guidelines of being a foreign service officer. I hope it is not the same people who are writing the policies and guidelines of foreign diplomacy.

By now, the world knows my disdain for the acronyms used during the moving process (I'm looking at you, UAB and HHE). Well, here is yet another aspect of moving that doesn't make any sense. Why do we need to schedule a pack-out day before we know when we are leaving (OK, we have a date, but it also is dependent on passing Spanish)? How does this make any sense?

I suppose "putting the cart before the horse" isn't considered a warning to proceed in logical order; rather, it is considered an instruction manual.

Anyway, I'm glad to have knocked out one practice run (at a friend's expense), so hopefully our turn will go smoothly...I think I just heard the collective foreign service community chuckle.

We do have the advantage of filling a car with the really, really important things, and we are in the process of adding a roof-top cargo container and rack on our compact sedan to compensate for the loss of our backseat for transporting Tiffy.

House Keeping Note:
When I first started this blog, I spent some time looking for other blogs to follow, and then added a few as they found me. In other words, I got lazy and content. While not necessarily one of my aims when I got started, I learned quickly that the foreign service has an extensive blogosphere, and it is a great way to learn from others and make contacts.

So I've added a lot of blogs to my follow list, and I figure that will continue to grow over the next few days. I'm mostly only adding and following other Entertaining, Functioning Manuscriptists (EFM-written blogs that get updated with some regularity...maybe an acronym was a bad idea there).

A special thanks to Life After Jerusalem for keeping such an extensive and well-organized list of bloggers. She provides a great tool for following other bloggers.