twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?"

  • First week in DC

    Although it’s been scorching hot with high humidity, we really haven’t suffered much. Our hotel accomodations are on constant AC and we find ourselves needing long sleeved shirts and a blanket at night. My walk to work is about 15 minutes. Just long enough to feel it but not quite long enough to build up a sweat. And it has cooled down some since our arrival. Yesterday, we got caught in a downpour thunderstorm.

    My office overlooks the Kennedy Center. The people at MED have all been really nice. I have had meetings with different areas of the department such as overseas medivacs, medical records, computer training specific to patient care, as well as a meeting with the medical director, his assistant, and the department of psychology. We also had our immunizations started. Ouch! I took my valium to prevent my vasovagal swan dive off the table and don’t remember most of the conversation we/I had with the nurse. All I remember is her name was Porche and she could have been a car for all I know. But at least I didn’t pass out.

    In addition to work, we have eaten out at some really good restaurants, shopped at bookstores, and went to a huge mall where we bought shoes and some clothes in preparation for Africa. We aslso walked to the mall to see the monuments and Dina took the kids to the Natural History Museum one day after visiting me at work where we had lunch together.

    I was trying to coordinate their arrival and called the hotel. I asked for room “nine-thirteen.”
    The voice on the line sounded destinctly foreign. “There is no such room number here sir!”
    “But that’s the room my family is in!” I replied.
    “I’ve been working here for over 10 years and I can assure you, there is no such room as nine-thirteen sir. How do you spell your last name?”
    I spelled him my name and he said, “It’s room nine-one-three for future reference sir! I will connect you.” :—)

    We are considering buying a car (not a Porche, my arm hurts everytime I see one). There are primarily Toyota and Nissans in Niger. We visited a large reputable new/used car dealership on line and sort of fell for a Nissan Xterra. This week we’ll look into a car loan as well as diplomatic visas and passports.

  • AC DC

    In_our_room
    Whitehouse_papa
    Shots

  • In which we get shipped up and shipped out

    We had three weeks, or so we thought. I was going to finish building the deck with my friend Sheri. We were going to take a trip to California; stopping at Mt. Shasta, Davis, Grass Valley, Donner Lake, Lake Tahoe, Paradise to store our car, and then back home via Mt. Shasta. So logical! So well planned! Could we really be doing this?!

    Our trip to California was great but with a few glitches. The car had a minor problem which we fixed in Davis. We met up with Luanne, Evan, Logan, and Christina in Grass Valley. The 4th of July, we celebrated at Donnor Lake with Dina’s family. Afterwards, we spent two nights at Lake Tahoe with Dina’s parents and Serge came. It was beautiful. Our drive to Mt. Shasta was uneventful and we stayed the night with Milla before heading back to Portland again.

    One last week to go! My colleagues at OHSU threw us a deck party but Sheri and I were still screwing down the last planks after the party began. It was hot and both Dina and I felt sick. Stefan had gotten sick at Tahoe two nights before and started the chain reaction. The final days were preoccupied with selling the car since we decided not to store it after all. Plus packing a month of luggage, obtaining international driver’s lisences, haircuts, and watch repair. Ironically, our neighbors Kathy and Lee Moore will be renting our home. We spent some wonderful evenings with them, marveling at our fate and we all had to laugh since they were the ones who initially were most outraged by our decision to take this position with the Foreign Service. Once they decided to rent our house, they were affraid we might change our mind!

    The movers came on Stefan’s birthday, July 13th. A crew of three immediately began boxing up things asking, ” surface, air, or storage?” Within a day and a half, they had boxed most of our belongings including our garage door opener and all the other things we now can’t find. The air freight was slightly over our allotment so Dina made the executive decision to have them remove two of my boxes of clothes and send them to long term storage instead. If you see me in 2006-styled clothing in 20 years when I retire, you’ll understand. A second moving crew arrived with a 75-foot-semi and two guys loaded all of the remaining storage items (furniture, boxes, and golf clubs), working until 6 PM.

    We were staying with Dave, Elizabeth, Laura, and Claire Miles (some of our dearest friends). Our last evening in Portland was spent with them. We grilled fajitas and drank some good wine. It was calm and we maintained an up beat mood, ignoring the sadness that we were really leaving for a good long while.

    The alarm rang at 5AM. I took a shower and Elizabeth made me a very good cup of coffee. We loaded the car and said our goodbyes. I will remember a lot about our 4 years here in Portland. Especially the good life long friends we made and the comfort of knowing we still have a home where we call home.

  • And we saw fireflies at the Lincoln Memorial

    What a special hell the pack out was. I am still tired of deciding whether something goes to storage, or to post by air or by surface. Or should we bring it with us to Washington? I really don’t need anything except contact lenses and money; I stuffed a two-years supply of contacts in my bag and I hope I don’t live to regret my other decisions–leaving the todler bed behind was painful, and why did I throw away the butter dish? Oh well.

    We are now bien installer in the Washington Suites on Pennsylvania Ave, room 913. The room is great, very sunny and has high speed internet, a zillion tv stations, and all kinds of food kids like downstairs in the breakfast room. Yesterday was Peter’s first day at work, his first day ever of going to work and not seeing patients. Camille and Stefan and I wandered into Georgetown, stocked up at Barnes and Nobel (Camille is reading Harry Potter IV, but stops to read some American Girl mini-mysteries, she often has her nose in a book and Peter and I are thrilled. Reading can be such a solace.) Stefan got a “Things that Go” book. I got The Moffats to read outloud, it’s nice, funny and reassuring, just what you need when you’ve thrown away your butter dish. And watched the car you brought your babies home from the hospital in drive away from the airport departure curb without you.

  • Pack out week Monday

    We are back from our road trip through northern California. I left a pair of really cute pants from Anthropologie somewhere; when you spend the night at a different place every night, it’s hard to keep track of things. First night in Mt Shasta, then to Nevada City to see Lulu and Evan and the ever-loveable Logan and Christina. Then to my sister’s cabin for the 4th of July, fireworks on the lake. Two glorious nights at Lake Tahoe with my parents. Also saw Serge and Adrianna and Anya for the rafting trip that didn’t happen. Stefan got so sick the last night in Tahoe, “don’t cover me up, I think that’s what’s making me sick,” he said after throwing up for the 10th time. Poor thingie. We stayed in Mt Shasta on our way home.

    It was really difficult to say goodbye, but I reminded my mom that I will call her tomorrow. Then my mom went home and promptly got Stefan’s flu. Peter’s work party was here yesterday, it was sooooo hot. Peter and both felt sick, I spent most of the party feeling very rude, but dozing on the bed.

    Peter is off to buy wood to finish the deck, I have a dentist appointment and want to run by Sephora (again!) it’s that Cosmedicine tinted moisturizer!

    Last night Camille had her third sleep over. She went to Paris’s house for the evening and then is going to Willowbrook for the day. When I was little I felt so taken care of when my mom would wrap up the money I might need, like a quarter and two dimes, and tie it in a hankercheif and pin it to my clothes. I thought of this as I wrote a check to Willowbrook and put a five dollar bill in a zip lock bag.

  • Big Fun

    We came home from work and the last-day-of-school party, opened the door and one hundred flies went past me in a swarm. Huge flies, so big that you could see their feet. I got sick of smashing them, because they left such big, goopy spots and started vacuuming them. They were big and dumb and slow and when I vacuumed them up they went flook, flook, flook up the vacuum hose. It took me a few days to realize they were coming out the chimney. I was a little disapointed that the chimney sweep didn’t have a cockney accent, but they came with an even bigger vacuum and sucked up a dead animal from the chimney and the flies are gone.

    But yesterday was even better!

    On the way to pick up Camille, Ana and Stefan at Willowbrook, the car started smoking. Three hours we waited for a tow truck in a gas station in 103 degree heat. At least there were lots of snacks. Our car never breaks down! "Yes it does, remember when the clutch cable snapped?" said Stefan, age four.

    What a pleasure to go into work at Hanna today, lovely air-conditioning, no flies, and my to-do list is much shorter than the one at home. I spilled tea on my new capri blue t-shirt, but Shelley, the women’s clothing designer let me go through the samples and get a new Banana Republic tee to wear since I had to wash my shirt in the sink.

    As Dakota says, the best of days!

  • Consumables in the HHE (I speak Foreign Service)

    Getting to ship 7200 pounds for free and knowing you can’t get anything you are use to really brings out the horder/survivalist in you. Peter and I walk into Target and turn into some kind of Y2K battery-buying disaster anticipators. You should see the basement.

    From Trader Joe’s just today: granola, walnuts, cinnamon peanuts, stevia, apple sauce, oatmeal, 12 cans of their organic tomato sauce, dried blueberries, three tankards of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, jam, maybe a dozen boxes of cereal, (Cereal is $12 a box in Niger.) “How long will this last ya?” asked the checker, uh, I hope two years, was my answer.

    Twelve cans of Deep Woods Off. “Going camping?” asks the checker at Bimart. Yeah, and I’m taking 14 gluesticks with me.

    From Ultrecht: pastels and paper. Fabric paint. Everything for beeswax collage. We’re going to Niger and I’m taking five pounds of beeswax.

    Then I decided I hate Deet and ordered twelve Avon Bug Guard Plus with Picaridin, just as effective as Deet without the potential for seizures. I bought another vegetable peeler, because I love my vegetable peeler and what if it breaks? We ordered another mouse and key board, because you know we’ll spill a cup of something in the one we have, and it’s an expensive ride to the Mac Store. And probably a three-week wait to get one if we order it.

    Fancy kid’s bath products and graham crackers from Whole Foods. A 25 lb pound bag of flour from King Aurthur, and a container to keep it in.

    And I went crazy at Sephora the other day. Even though I can get Sephora on line. I won’t be able to go to Sephora. But I’ve got five pounds of beeswax to keep me busy, so I should be okay.

    My mother brought us 24 HUGE cans of albacore and a five-gallon drum of baking powder, but she lived through the depression, so she has an excuse.

    From Costco: sponges, two cases of pool shock (can we even send it?), pool toys, apple sauce, two years worth of throw-away contact lenses, a case of brown sugar, paper towels, two cases of mandarin oranges, ketchup, mayo, mustard, relish, organic peanut butter, two cases of kid-sized boxes of chocolate milk; just give me two of whatever you’ve got! We’re moving to Africa! We filled a cart at Costco. Filled it. In Niger a $15 dollar container of laundry detergent is $40. Since the cart was full, we each, including Camille, had to carry a huge container of Tide, staggering. As we rolled out the checker said “See you next week!”

    From Fry’s: Fry’s mind you! I’ve now been to a Fry’s and stocked up, baby. We bought every manner of adaptor/transformer/plug we’ve been advised to buy, and two, five, maybe ten surge protectors, a survivalist can’t have too many of those. Or apple sauce and pool toys, apparently.

    And we still don’t have most of what’s on the “What to bring to Niger” list that was sent to us. I’m not going to worry about Stovetop stuffing or cake mixes. I’m a survivalist and can make my own. But we are suppose to bring five shower curtains. Actually, I’ve made a shower curtain before too, now that I think about it.

    We have a case of maple syrup, we will be able to take it as a hostess gift instead of wine. That or pool shock. Or maybe we can trade for more apple sauce.

  • Political Remarks Removed

    Gina-Magoo, otherwise known as Almost Dr. Gina-Katrina PhD says, god Dina, you’re going to the poorest country in the world and you’re going to have 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, domestics and a pool? And to this I say, well, Gina, it is a hardship post after all.

    Mvc002x

    My biggest fear is that I will be depressed and miss my mommy. I was terribly depressed after we moved from San Francisco, if I just thought about Filmore Street I felt actually sick. Even though Portland was glorious and the house is lovely and the kids were happy at school and Peter had a fabulous job and there are the best second-hand stores here ever. Now I can’t imagine how I can survive without Powells world of books at my fingertips, and the best public library. The Portland public library circulates the most books of any library in the country.

    As much as I complain about work, it really turned Portland around for me up to have some: especially PBO and Hanna Andersson. Also, my french class was a life raft. There were many times it was the highlight of my week. Actually, it still is. Who has a coffee-club french class so fun they go for more than three years? Our teacher Steve is both charming and hilarious. Plus my friend Elisabeth is there, of Eastmoreland childhood fame, she gets more laughs out of a raised eyebrow than most people ever get. Friday mornings, around 9 am, Papaccino’s, until we put them out of business.

    I hope after years of saying I wanted to be an expat, I don’t find myself feeling like I am wasting two years of my life in Niamey, Niger, West Africa. That’s the emotion I have when I get that depressed feeling. We left San Francisco, I found myself living in Portland, and why? I think I really hurt Peter’s feelings last year when we were in Paris and I said, “I feel like I’m wasting my life, by not living right here, in the 4th arrondissement.” What a weird concept. And just writing that makes me see how silly it sounds.

    But I still will miss my mommy and the used book section at Goodwill–it’s huge!– and my funny friends.

  • Come for the heat, stay for the milk.

    I wrote Jim Dickey, the Nurse Practitioner currently running the clinic in Niamey, who has been so helpful to us. I asked him about milk. Here was his reply.

    I did visit the Niger-Lait factory (The owners daughter, Fatimata, is a friend of my daughter, Zaria.)  They seem to be handling the milk safely and hygienically, and they do pasteurize it.  I was quite impressed with their modern facility and equipment.  My biggest concern is that there are no modern dairy farms here.  They buy their milk from small, really subsistence type farmers, who do not have access to hygienic milking facilities or to refrigeration.  Niger-Lait does test the milk when it comes in, though, so that’s reassuring.  Another factor, if it bothers you, is that Niger-Lait couldn’t really guarantee that the milk is all cows milk.  It wouldn’t be surprising if some of it was goats milk, and possibly even camels milk, since both of those are common milk animals in this country (you’ll have herds of goats living on the street outside of your house).  Some people have expressed concern about what the milk animals are eating, because it’s very common to see them eating garbage in town – goats in particular are an integral part of the solid waste management system here.  Household trash is spread out in the street where animals graze on it.  What’s left is eventually raked up into a pile and burned, and once a year or so the ashes are hauled off to a landfill somewhere.  I think Niger-Lait sources their milk from rural areas outside of town, though, where grazing animals on trash is not likely to be a common practice.  They make most of the yogurt from powdered milk, and I think it’s really good. If you don’t like the fresh milk, imported UHT milk is readily available in whole, part skimmed and fat free.

    Uh, thanks Jim.

  • Reed College Place

    We have 5 weeks left in Portland. My parents are half-way through a two-week visit. A birthday party weekend for Stefan, Peter stocked up at Office Depot, barely got a dinner together for my parents, but we managed to make it nice, Peter bbq-ed. Yesterday Eric and Elisa threw a great party for probably 70 people, kids sword-fighting and the third-grade class parents and teachers raiding the liquor cabinet.

    Wow, it was fun. And tomorrow is school, a week and half left; and I’ve decided tomorrow is Take Your Mother to Work day at Hanna. After dinner, when really they should have already been in bed, I walked the kids down the street, roses, and people out eating dinner in their yards, the green, green grass of home. Stefan discovered that his bike leaves skid marks if he stops fast.

    I took a beeswax encaustic class from Linda Womack at Collage today. It was so fun.

    Simplicity