EFM: Exit without Final Meal

Reading other blogs, many writers talk about eating from their favorite restaurant one last time before leaving for post or for home, or enjoying their favorite dish one more time without knowing when the next opportunity might present itself.

Hell, one of my favorite reads is named for this phenomenon, For Lack of Tacos.

I don't have such a restaurant or cuisine in Crystal City or the D.C. area that has climbed to that status.

There are a couple of places I like, such as the Kabob Palace on S. Eads St. I highly recommend getting take out from there at least once for anyone living in Crystal City. That is the restaurant Natalie and I would frequent most often, though that just means we went there about a half dozen times or so per year.

Unrelated note, but I've only known if this place post-Sept. 11, and I'm quite amused by their prominent use of American flags on their to-go containers, but as a Pakistani restaurant, I can understand why they do. I'm not questioning their American patriotism; after all, they've done quite well here, but I'd be curious to find out if they've always had those containers.

Anyway, you know it is good food and probably pretty darn close to authentic due to the fact that there are always many cabs parked outside.

We also like Pizzaiolo, which is almost catty-corner from the Kabob Palace, but if I never eat there again, it would hardly be categorized as a tragedy. And we used to like Jaleo a lot, but then they went and changed one of my favorite tapas - apples manchego.

Part of this lack of restaurant loyalty stems from the fact that I'm no longer a picky eater as I was growing up, and I want to try something new if we are eating out. Another reason is that we just didn't eat out that much while living here. It's too expensive and too unhealthy, and I enjoy cooking.

And the desire to try something new has continued to play out as we say our "see ya laters" to our D.C. friends. We are hitting up new restaurants instead of turning all nostalgic about a few of our favorites.

For three years, this posed only a small problem when we had visitors who would come and ask us to take them to our favorite restaurants while they were in town, but now that we are leaving and getting ready to embark on a lifestyle that favors those who don't let their roots grow too deep, I'm more excited about the new restaurants and cuisines we'll get to try than I am worried or disappointed about missing out on what I already know.

Cleaning Up before Hauling Out

Our current, temporary, hotel residence offers two major pluses for us. It is pet-friendly (sort of) and very close to our old apartment residence.

That is critical for two more reasons. We don't have to splurge on a parking spot at the hotel ($23/day), and we have a lot of cleaning to do to avoid cash penalties.

Other than on Independence Day, we've spent a couple of hours every day painting, scrubbing, brushing, mopping, spackling, vacuuming and did I mention scrubbing? It culminated into a five hour day yesterday in which we used so much chemicals, we should have been wearing HAZMAT suits.

Even though it was nearly 100 degrees, we had to open up the windows to get some fresh air. My nostrils were burning slightly. We were coughing from the inhalants from time to time. Both of us got a little light headed. Maybe Tiffy did, too, but she didn't let on.

Little work remains, including disposing of everything we aren't taking with us and cleaning out the fridge.

We very easily could have left the place in relative disarray and just pay the apartment overlords to clean it for us, but several factors made that not even an option ever discussed.

For one, we gave them so much rent money already, the thought of giving them more invoked a gag reflex. Secondly, we both come from penny-pinching families, so it is hard to be wasteful. Finally, there isn't a whole lot for us to do anyway. We've seen the sites, several times, and this is just a better use of our time.

One final, unrelated note. After we start our road trip west on Friday, I'll have unreliable Internet access for the next few weeks until we get settled in Mexico, so posts will probably be more sporadic than usual, which is part of the reason why I'm knocking a bunch out right now.

EFM: Escaping Fiscal Madness

Apparently there has been some sort of housing bubble burst the past couple of years.

We haven't been property owners, land hunters, homeowners, etc., so other than noticing a few more "For Sale" signs during Tiffy's excretion expeditions, and a lot of news coverage, the housing market has not affected us.

That kind of changed yesterday. We received a notice from Charles E. Smith's henchmen stating there is a situation with our lease for which we need to meet with someone in management to discuss.

So we go down to the lobby and meet with a manger fresh out of college who also was visibly nervous. We go into an office, and he starts into an explanation that there is going to be a significant rent bump for us when our lease ends and it is because more people are moving into apartments to get out of the housing market, etc.

He was flushed; he was struggling with his words and computer program has he was looking for the data pertinent to our lease. So I nudge Natalie to tell her to put an end to this and tell him we're leaving anyway. Natalie, the sadist, was content to watch him squirm a little longer. I think he was relieved to find out we didn't really care about the rent increase.

We have been fortunate in that our lease is scheduled to end right about the same time we are suppose to move. Obviously, I didn't plan this out because it never would have worked this well. And if Natalie were to come up short of scoring a 3/3 on her Spanish exam and we need to stay a month longer, the Smith henchman agreed to keep our current rent rate in tact for us.

So what would the damage have been if we were not in the foreign service? Well, we probably would have commenced a search for a new apartment. They were going to up our rate by $300 per month ($400 for a new resident). Taking utilities into account, we would have been paying in the neighborhood of $2,000 per month for a one-bedroom, 1,800ish sq. ft. apartment in Crystal City.

To put this into perspective, that is about $48k per year for shelter. That is a salary, or more, for many people! Before I moved to D.C., I was renting a trailer in southeast Ohio, with two bedrooms, one bath and a large kitchen, for $365 per month.

Suddenly a free house in Hermosillo, or anywhere in the world for that matter, is very appealing (thank you, taxpayers!).

EFM: Enjoying Frigid Mornings

This morning in Crystal City as I took Tiffy on her excretion expedition, it was about 45F...in May!

And this on the heels of a weekend that was in the 60s with 100mph winds, give or take 80mph.

Natalie is pissed off. She wants summer to get here. But I'm loving it.

Sure, it is a little cold out this morning, but I'm enjoying it while I can. As our friends over at Simmons Says pointed out last week, it already has cleared 100 in Monterrey. And according to this picture from wikitravel, which was taken at 10 p.m. in May, I can expect that, or worse, in Hermosillo. Ugh.

I can deal with living in an isolated city such as Hermosillo. I can deal with living in a land in which a minority of the population speak English. I can deal with the whole job issue. But I don't do heat very well.

So of course Hermosillo is in the Sonoran Desert.

Constrastingly, Natalie loves heat; she can't get enough of it. For example, and this is a true story, a few years ago we were visiting her cousins, who are loyal EF'M readers by the way, in the Dallas area in August. (Actually, more of the Bryan Station area, but I figure most know where Dallas is).

It was a cozy 80 degrees there...inside the house. And after spending five minutes outside, that 80-degree-air-conditioned home felt chilly.

So we went to a water park one afternoon, and the heat index was something to the tune of 115F. And Natalie had goosebumps! How is that even physically possible? Goosebumps in 115F? Granted, we were about two stories up to go down a water slide and our bodies were wet, but still.

Yeah, Natalie is excited for the Hermosillo heat. Me, not so much, so Mother Nature, feel free to hold off on summer in D.C. for a few more weeks, or longer.

Day One at Home

I got my first taste of what life will be like in Mexico as I spent my first day in my new office, the living room.

Sure, there were a few difference between working at home in Crystal City and working at home in Hermosillo. For example, while it did reach a sunny 61 F here, it was a sunny 74 F in our future home. And their low only dipped to 50 compared to the nearly freezing 37 here. Oh, and everyone I interacted with spoke English, but otherwise, yesterday was a microcosm of my future life.

The day got off to a rude start as I had wanted to sleep in until 7 a.m., but Natalie was less than quiet getting ready in the morning. For almost five years, I've been getting up before her to go to work, quiet as can be, and on this my first morning of getting to be the later riser, no dice. To her credit, she improved a thousand times over this morning.

After seeing her out the door, I started my new morning routine - making my own pot of coffee. While I'll be saving a lot of gas money and time not having to drive to and from work, I will be incurring new coffee costs as there was always as much free Starbucks coffee at work that I could drink. At home, I use Guatemalan coffee beans I bought through a vendor I met at the Crystal City's farmer's market last summer. Now, I like coffee, but I don't love coffee, but if I don't get two cups in the morning, I start going through withdraw by lunch time, which is marked by a throbbing headache.

Then I took Tiffy on her morning walk, and came home to get our breakfasts. I don't think my being home altered Tiffy's schedule too much, as I imagine this is how she spent her days while home alone. She didn't pester me at all.

Fed and caffeinated, I spent much of the morning getting organized. This included lots of e-mails. Some of it was work related, some personal and some foreign service oriented. The main task was to get an extension from Free Spanish on Internet (FSI) for another three months of Rosetta Stone access. I've been in touch with our Career Destruction Office (CDO; after much discussion, this has been accepted as an alternative to the Official Unofficial Acronym Chart's designation as Curmudgeon who Decides Overseas post), FSI and some other group, and I hope this gets resolved today.

After a couple hours of this sort of work, I went a jog until I nearly puked. I made it five miles, but before you say "good job," let's not forget I need to get to 9.3 miles by the end of the month for the Cincinnati minimarathon. That pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the day, but I ate lunch, checked on my e-mail accounts to make sure I wasn't following behind on my communications, and ended up watching TV for an hour or so.

Of course, this is when Natalie came home from work, finding me sprawled on the couch in pajamas. This is how I get judged.

All in all, I felt like it was a good start. I need to create a routine to make sure I get everything done, and yesterday went a long way to doing that. This is an exciting time right now, and I don't want to squander the opportunity to start good habits to maximize my situation.

EFM: the Excellent, the Foul and the Monstrous

Instead of using bullet points again, I found another way to deal with lists, and everyone loves lists. It's a great way writers to keep the attention of the easily distracted American. So this is the EF'M take on the good, the bad and the ugly.

THE EXCELLENT
For the first time since we've been married, Natalie and I are debt free! There will be dancing in the streets of Crystal City! College loans were paid off last year, and our final car payment will be paid off as soon as it goes through.

Which brings up an another interesting tidbit gathered from Free Studies Inside (FSI) course from last week about moving. For those of you still paying off car loans and who will be leaving the country soon for post with your car, you ought to check with your bank to make sure you are allowed to take the car with you. Apparently, many banks have rules against this because it is expensive to send the repo man to another country.

THE FOUL
(Mom, if you're reading, skip to the next topic.) There has been a lot of bad news about crime and drugs in the northern part of Mexico culminating in a State Department Travel Alert.

Here is one little pearl from that posting: "Large firefights have taken place in towns and cities across Mexico, but occur mostly in northern Mexico, including Ciudad Juarez [as I say, you can't pronounce Juarez without "War"], Tijuana, Chihuahua City, Nogales, Matamoros, Reynosa and Monterrey."

I should be troubled by the inclusion of Nogales, because that is where we are going to be crossing the border, but for whatever reason, I'm not terribly concerned by the travel alert. I suppose part of it might be the little bit of denial that lingers in the back of my mind that this is all actually going to happen soon. Still doesn't seem real.

I suppose I'm also not too worried because Hermosillo did not appear on the list. I know there will be some dangers living in Mexico, but then again, there are some dangers living in Washington, D.C., as well. Just have to be smart. (Safe to read again, Mom.)

THE MONSTROUS
The timing of this massive earthquake couldn't have been worse for the Chilean people.

I'm guessing many Americans don't have the budget to dip into their pockets a second time to help relieve another natural disaster abroad, but here is hoping they can. Not to take anything away from the work our diplomatic corps does, but I have to imagine we do our best diplomacy in the form of American charity to other countries following such disasters.

In terms of American contributions to the Chilean people, I'm going to predict that coupled with the fact that Americans already gave so much to Haiti, other factors including that fewer Americans appeared to have been harmed/killed (I don't have any stats on this) in the earthquake and that Chile was better prepared for such an event will result in less media coverage and less donations.

Still, if you can, please offer what you can to another suffering people. The State Department has been directing people to the Global Disaster Relief facebook site, but Doctors Without Borders also is always another good not-for-profit to send funds after these kinds of disasters.

DC Snowstorm 4.0, Much Ado about Nothing

The worst is over, but we're still "suffering" the ramifications of about 18 inches of snow. For example, the federal government is closed, the Metro is running underground trains only (which means we can go to Pentagon City or Pentagon, and that is it), and my office is open if you can get there. I can get there, but it is not worth losing my parking spot over, which took me two hours, three pairs of a gloves, a long scraper and a bucket.

I kept a timeline for your entertainment, especially for those of you poor saps who have to work today.

FRIDAY
7:02 a.m. – Leave our apartment to go to work.
9:58 a.m. – First time I noticed snowfall.
10:03 a.m. – The office closes. By about 4:30 p.m. the day before, there was already rumor spreading that as soon as the first flake hit the ground, which was suppose to be at 10 a.m. today, the office would close. So knowing they would close the office right away, they made us come in for two hours anyway.
10:42 a.m. – I finally get a parking space at the near-Potomac-Mills Harris Teeter. Not because there were not enough spaces, but because everyone was concerned about getting the closest spot to the door as possible. Mind you, this was an indoor parking garage.
I also want to add that I was shopping for groceries not to sustain us for the snow-pocalypse; rather this was a trip I was going to make regardless as part of my regular routine. In all, about 75% of my groceries were things I was going to buy, and 25% were emergency groceries. And by emergency, I mean we have one bag of chips here. Given we’ll be inside for most of two days, we might eat that bag and want to open another. Hence, an emergency.
11:22 a.m. – Begin leaving Harris Teeter. I have to acknowledge the wonderful job the HT employees did in keeping the check-out lines moving. When I saw the lines, I was preparing myself mentally for a 30-minute wait or so, but they had me done in about 10 to 15 minutes.
11:33 a.m. – Got home and found that Tiffy had left me a surprise. I knew as soon as I opened the door because she does her I’m-so-happy-your-home routine combined with her please-don’t-be-angry routine. That, and I could smell it. After cleaning that, I then have to console Tiffy because she knows she did wrong. I do a short show of anger, clean the mess, and then cuddle with her to let her know I’m no longer angry with her. Fortunately, this is a very rare event.
12:25 p.m. – Natalie calls to let me know she is on her way home. We had already known she’d only have a half-day today. I should also point out at this point that while it has been snowing for about 2.5 hours, it hasn’t begun sticking to the roads, yet.
2:05 p.m. – Went running on our rooftop treadmill. Hey, if I’m going to be a stay-at-home husband, I’d better start looking the part. Right before going for the run, NBC’s Pat Collins brazenly declared that in Gaithersburg, according to his calibrated yard stick, there has been no accumulation. A calibrated yard stick? What is a non-calibrated yard stick? A branch?
5:20 p.m. – I took Tiffy out for our 30 minute walk. My non-calibrated eye estimated about a quarter inch on the roads when we started, and about a half when we came back.
7:11 p.m. – Went across the street to the Crystal City Oakwood to hang out with some A-100ers, drink wine and play games…yes, Never Have I Ever was a staple.
11:56 p.m. – Walked Tiffy after the party. We stopped in a park where I let her off her leash, and we chased each other around. I know the snow was getting ridiculous because I was able to outrun her as she had to jump through the snow where I was still able to lift my legs. Upon coming home, she had clumps of snowballs tangled in her legs, so we put her in the tub to melt the snow off her then chased her around the apartment to dry her before going to bed.

SATURDAY
All Morning - Pat Collins makes TV watchable. This by far was the greatest revelation of the entire weekend. Normally, Collins does over-dramatic crime reports in which he speaks in sentence fragments straight out of a bad 1970s newscast a la Ron Burgandy. But doing the man-on-the-street during the snowstorm, he was intentionally hilarious. Bag the crime reports and relegate Collins to man-on-the-street.
1:23 p.m. - I opened emergency bag of chips No. 1.
4:45 p.m. - I'm walking Tiffy again, and the snow is petering out. There are a couple of down trees and large limbs; the roads are rough; the sidewalks are gone; but the 24"+ of snow is not going to happen. Not even close.

SUNDAY
9:45 a.m. - I begin the task of digging out our car. We don't have a shovel, so I take a bucket with me. And being the considerate neighbor I am, I scoop a bucket of snow, walk 10 yards or so to a snow mountain, and add my snow to it instead of dumping my snow on the car parked next to me.
11:40 a.m. - I finish my task. The car can get out of the parking lot. EF'M 1, Mother Nature 0.
While I have the ability to move the car, this was an in-case-of-an-emergency task because no way I'm giving up my shoveled..ur..bucketed parking spot to go to work.
1ish p.m. - We're doing some chores around the house to host a Super Bowl party. The original destination lost cable.
3:32 p.m. - We haven't eaten real foods since the first snowflake. I look over at Tiffy, and I start imagining short ribs or rack of Tiffy or some such delicacy. Nah, too messy; too much work. I think I just open another bag of emergency chips. (This is all a lie. This timeline was too boring, so I felt the need to spice it up a bit).
5:10 p.m. - I receive an e-mail that the office is opening at 10 a.m., but only for those who can make it. I won't be docked time off for not showing up. Yeah, I think I'll stay home on Monday and blog.

EFM: Emotional Farewell to Mi amigo

This morning, Feb. 4, one of Washington’s favorite Chinese diplomats is flying to Chengdu.

Natalie and I are quite familiar with this diplomat, so on Saturday, we went to the National Zoo to say our goodbyes to Tai Shan, the 4.5-year-old giant panda. (And let me just say, I’m slightly perturbed a panda has its own Wikipedia entry, and I don’t.)

I first moved to D.C. in July 2005 about one mile from the zoo. Because it is free to visit (thank you, taxpayers!), and I love zoos, I used to go there at least once per month. The most popular exhibit at the time (and probably remained so all the way up to today), was the newborn Tai Shan.

We’ve kind have had paralleled existences in D.C. Within days of my moving here, he was born. In accordance with Chinese panda diplomacy, Tai Shan was supposed to leave when he turned two years of age in 2007. At about that same time, Natalie and I moved from D.C. to Crystal City.

And now in 2010, Tai Shan is leaving the US of A a few months before I do the same.

I’ve watched the bear cub mature and was glad to have the opportunity to see him one last time over the weekend. And now he is off to the panda equivalent of a stud farm on a panda preserve in China. Too bad that is where our paralleled universes come to an end.

(By the way, for some yucks, check out Stephen Colbert’s wikialtiy page on pandas. And how is it that I’ve never heard of this site until I was doing some research on pandas? I don’t watch the Colbert Report on a daily basis, but I’ve seen it enough that I think I should have been aware of this site.)

So I leave you with two of our photos of Tai Shan. The first one is from his earliest days; unfortunately, we didn’t date that photo so I can’t say for sure when it was from. Based on the clues in the photo, I'd say early October 2005. In the second one, he is munching on some bamboo during his farewell party – cut short by the “snowstorm” on Saturday.

Celebrating A-100 Graduation

I wanted to post something today, but I was feeling lazy, so I’m dipping into past events as an excuse to post this surprise party video.

Since we’ve been married, Natalie has made it very clear that she wanted a surprise party, thus making it impossible to plan a surprise party for her birthday. Every year as her birthday approached, I’d be asked if she was getting her surprise party this year.

Fast forward to 2009 with her passing her oral exam, getting called into A-100 and getting our Hermosillo post, I decided I should do something a little special for her, so I chose this my chance to catch her off guard with a surprise party.

I decided to use the Sunday evening after the swearing-in ceremony because 1) it was short notice, so it had to be a Sunday so people could attend and 2) the ceremony provided an event to actually celebrate (though it really turned more into a post-Flag Day party, just a week after the fact).

After hacking into her facebook account and scrolling through her cell phone on this rare occasion it wasn’t in her hand, I was able to invite several hometown, high school, college and area friends, former work colleagues, family and some fellow 148th members to the tune of about 80 invitees altogether (about 40 arrived).

I told the lie of our apartment in association with a fictional local restaurant group was hosting a Taste of Crystal City-type event in our apartment’s party room, which she bought hook-line-and-sinker.

And I spent about a week preparing food and decorations, storing them at friends’ places and making up excuses about preparing lots of food to give to our friends as we got closer to the party.

There were several close calls, luck and lots and lots of assistance from others to pull this off right under nose, but as you can tell from the video, she definitely was not expecting this.

So without further ado, enjoy!



P.S. For some reason, the video seems to be interfering with the comments section. If you really want to leave a comment, you need to click on this post's title first. Then at the bottom of the page, the comment section springs back to life.