Pack-out Diaries, Chapter 2

Dear Pack-out Diary,

There is a common expression about the calm before the storm. Not in this house. It has been the storm before the storm before the calm before the storm. Or something like that...if it made any sense.

We spent the end of last week shopping at Target, PetSmart and TJ Max for some last minute items before the mover/packers come on Wednesday.

We also started sorting in preparation of the movers. Natalie created an ingenious scheme for labeling what items are going in Unpredictably Arriving Baggage (UAB), Hauling Hindered Extra (HHE) and storage by using different colored post-its. Though apparently it wasn't quite fail safe.



Speaking of Tiffy, we also took her to the vet one last time to get her rabies updated and to get some paperwork complete to bring her across the border. To make sure we have all of our t's dotted and i's crossed (umm...whatever), we are going to mail away for an FDA document to get signed. We should be in good shape without it, but the consequences would be too dire to come up short on paperwork. The vet told us about someone who had to have their dog shipped back to the vet, which they had to pay for, then pay to have the dog kenneled at the vet while the paperwork got done, and then pay to fly the dog to the new locale.

Tiffy also has an appointment to get one more haircut before we leave. We want it cut short, but not too short that she will be susceptible to sunburn. I hope the groomer knows what she's doing.

To maximize our car space, we invested in a hard-top roof-top cargo box. It locks into place by screws on the bottom of the inside of the box, so first we brought the box into our apartment to see how much we could fit into it. Then we took all of that stuff out to lock the box on top of the car rack. And then we loaded everything back in. The whole process was very tiring, especially for Natalie.

Getting near the end of getting our affairs in order, I cut my brother's plant down to size to take it over to some sort of retirement home in the neighborhood. They were appreciative of the donation, and I was equally glad - if not more so - to find a home for the plant as opposed to having to throw it out.

Only two more days until the real chaos begins, and then we get the week of respite before the long drive. It can't happen soon enough.

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.

Fool's Knowledge

With regards to the foreign service, as soon as I think I know something, I realize I'm way off base.

After making it onto the registrar (good job, honey!), initially we thought we'd be called off almost immediately because we heard rumors that due to the increased number of foreign service positions the Obama Administration was creating, there was virtually no waiting list.

Obviously this was not the case. So just as Natalie was deciding whether or not she wanted to try to improve her positioning by taking the oral exam again, we did get the call.

Then I started to share with friends and family all sorts of bad information about where we could wind up (I thought only embassies were in play. There are like 30 potential locations in Mexico, and only one has an embassy.) and how long until we got there.

Even as recently as this week, now that we've been on the inside for about nine months, I'm still learning that once I'm ready to claim I know something, we are wrong. The most recent example was that we were told by somebody who probably ought to know better that everyone being posted in Mexico who wants to take a car with them has to drive there.

That made a little bit of sense, because it seems it is cheaper for the government to pay for gas and hotel rooms than to pay to ship the car. But it stopped making sense about the time you realized that Merida, Mexico, is all the way at the bottom of the country and would be a very long drive. Yet if you get posted right across the border in Guatamala or Belize, then the government will pay to ship your car.

Of course, by now, I've come to accept that very little of what the government does makes sense, so I just accepted that this was another one of those examples that the government's procedures were flawed.

Turns out that there are only about a handful of border cities that the government won't ship a car to, and that Hermosillo isn't one of them. We're still going to drive there, but we were both surprised by this revalation.

It has made me re-assess what I know. What I know is this. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Hermosillo is in Mexico. Mexico borders the United States. We are suppose to live there.

There's also things I ought to know. But having been proven wrong about things I know on almost a daily basis since this process has begun, I don't like to share this information anymore. The biggie here is about when we are leaving. I think I know when we are supposed to move, but because it is dependent on Natalie passing her Spanish exam, and because this date changes more often than D.C. weather, I'm content to say I don't know.

And finally, there are the things I believe to be true, but these beliefs are based more on speculation than anything else.

The lesson is to take information at face value. Even if the information is coming from a reliable source, it could still be inaccurate. About the only thing you can bank on is that isn't a fact until it has already happened.

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.