Personal

You are currently browsing the archive for the Personal category.

baskin robbins, eat your heart out

August 8, 2010 in Life in DC, Personal, food by Alex | 9 comments

Ever since my friend Anne got us an ice cream machine (!!!!), we’ve gone kind of, well, overboard — not only making but also of course consuming many, many batches, including:

  • Jasmine tea with chocolate slivers
  • Brown sugar cinnamon
  • Spicy chocolate
  • Fresh mint with Oreos

Mmm.

(Any suggestions for future ice creamery are very welcome.)

The ice cream maker is but one of many kitchen upgrades we hope to make before our March 2011 departure for Benin. You’d think moving to the developing world would require downsizing technologically, but I’ve been assured that our house will be equipped to handle anything, assuming of course we invest in the appropriate converters. Bread machine? No problem. Pasta maker? Sure. Deep fryer? Why not.

We’ve already got most of the basics (except for a food processor — that’s probably next up), but what other kitchen gadgets would you suggest? The more bizarre (i.e. the more popular they would make us at potlucks), the better.

Tags: , , , ,

ouch, my knee

July 20, 2010 in Personal by Andy | 2 comments

I finished my second triathlon over the weekend.

Congrats! You came in #1792!

It’s strange to think that by next year I’ll be far away in Benin and couldn’t participate in the NYC Tri even if I wanted to. Not that I want to. My old man knees are crying out for retirement.

Alex and I are eyeing the Marathon de Paris, however. It would be a great way to see the city, although I think my knee just gave me a dirty look.

Tags: , , , , ,

the great car pursuit

July 5, 2010 in FS Life, Life in DC, Personal, Transportation by Andy | 5 comments

Much to my chagrin I found myself spending most of Saturday hunting for a 4×4 that we will eventually take to Benin. Here are some things that happened:

1. We arrived via our Zipcar at the first dealership — the one with our #1 choice car — to find a sign on the door that said, “Happy Fourth! I’ll be back Tuesday.”

2. On the road again, I had the following conversation with my wife:

Her: Why is the flag at Bob Evans at half mast?
Me: I’m not sure.
Her: Oh, is it because Jimmy Dean died? Jimmy Dean was the Bob Evans guy, right?
Me: Um, no. Bob Evans was the Bob Evans guy.

It was then that I realized this was going to be a long day.

3. We found a seemingly great car with good mileage and a low price. It was still under the original warranty too. But we had a bad feeling about it; we couldn’t figure out why.

When we asked the dealer if we could take it around the corner to get it checked by a mechanic, he stammered and made excuses. It was his busiest day. (We were the only customers the entire 30 minutes we were there.) The mechanic was probably booked. (He wasn’t; we called.)

When he finally reluctantly agreed, we asked to see the carfax report first. He disappeared into the back for quite some time before emerging with the report. Reading carefully, we noticed that it listed the car as black when it was actually silver. He couldn’t explain why.

We had driven nearly an hour to get there, but we walked out.

4. A few cars and a few hours later, we went back to look at the first car we saw that day and negotiated (diplomatically, of course) a deal. $2,400 down from the ask price — not to shabby, if I do say so myself.  However, when we were signing the paperwork I realized that instead of bringing our checkbook, I brought a book of deposit slips. Oops. Fortunately we were able to combine debit cards from our new and old bank accounts to take care of the bill. At least we’ll get rewards points for our trouble.

5. We got home in time to use our newfound mobility to take Abbey to a dog park with a creek (thanks David!) next to it. Abbey was less enthusiastic about it than we were. I’m sure she’ll have a blog post about it later.

6. Alex spent today using the car to run a variety of errands that she claims would have been nearly impossible on the bus. I’m not so sure Loehmann’s and Marshalls are exactly necessities, and I grimace thinking about all the miles she’ll be racking up “running errands” these next nine months. However, I plan to drive it to the running trail daily. Those miles don’t count.

Tags: , , , , ,

packing up and packing out

April 7, 2010 in A-100, FS Life, Personal by Andy | 6 comments

It’s been two weeks, but with the arrival of our unaccompanied baggage to our apartment in DC, it is finally time for the recap of our big pack out.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I think it bears repeating, we had a tiny apartment.  We measured it at less than 300 sq ft.  The coat closet in our new apartment is twice as large as the only closet we had in Brooklyn.  Because of the size of our apartment, we figured our pack out would be a snap.  We gave ourselves an entire day to get organized before the movers arrived but thought we’d be done in two hours, tops.

And that’s when we ran into problems.  Ironically, it was the size of our apartment that made organizing and packing harder than we thought.  You see, when you have a small apartment, it becomes very difficult to organize your belongings into the appropriate groups.  There was just no room for piles.  Sure, we wanted all of our UAB in one room with our HHE in the other, but it just didn’t work out that way.

Not pictured: where the four movers are supposed to stand.

When the movers did arrive – four of them – it was difficult to navigate through the maze of boxes and furniture.  All the advice we read about removing your UAB first went out the window when we realized there was no way for anyone to actually get to our UAB pile.  So things were carried out of our apartment in groups.  A little HHE here, some permanent storage there, then a dash of UAB.

The next challenge was squeezing everything we could into our UAB.  I’m proud to say we used every last pound.  Since we were renting a car to drive down to DC we thought we would have plenty of space, but it was used up surprisingly fast.  Some last minute decisions had to be made about what would be in our UAB, what would be HHE and what we could take in our car.  Crock pot?  UAB.  Bread maker?  HHE.  Dog?  Depended on how well she behaved the rest of the afternoon.

Awkward.

If we were to give advice to future A-100 packers, we’d tell them to organize as much as possible so the movers can do their work without stopping to confirm what went where.  Putting your UAB in a separate room as your HHE would be ideal.  Also, since our UAB took two weeks to travel 250 miles, don’t assume things will be delivered promptly.

When all was said and done, the movers were at the apartment for a little over four hours.  We’re happy to say they were nice and, despite the amount of time it took, seemed to work quickly.  We were able to pack everything we really needed into our car and the secondary necessities went into UAB with no problems.  Sure there were a few items that were packed up accidentally, but you can’t win them all.

Then we said goodbye to the first apartment we ever had together and began looking forward to telling our future kids that if they thought their bedrooms were small, they should have seen the 300 sq ft apartment their parents shared with a dog in Brooklyn, New York.

Tags: , , ,

the sort of fso i’ll be

March 28, 2010 in FS Life, Personal by Alex | 3 comments

As I prepare to begin my Foreign Service career tomorrow, I can’t help but to think back to the first Foreign Service Officer I met. It was my junior year of college, when I was studying abroad in West Africa. Early in our stay the Deputy Chief of Mission (the #2 person in the Embassy, below the Ambassador) invited us students to a reception at his home. We spent the evening chatting with diplomats, missionaries, teachers and Peace Corps volunteers, who all shared stories about this place where we were so excited to spend the next four months of our lives. Some FSNs (“Foreign Service Nationals,” locals who work at the Embassy) were there too; their stories were most interesting of all.

A few weeks later, as a “thanks for the good time,”  we invited the DCM to a small dinner party we put together at our apartment. We knew he had much more important things to do than hang out with college students, so of course we didn’t expect him to actually come, but he did.

Not only did he come, but throughout the evening he was refreshingly down-to-earth. He spoke just as comfortably about the region’s history and political climate as about the low-brow TV shows we were obsessed with at the time. Then, when a group of neighborhood children wandered over to see what was going on, the DCM greeted them warmly and chatted with them in their language.

There’s a stereotype of the American diplomat: he isolates himself within the expatriate community, never really experiencing the local culture; he’s snooty, too good for anyone but VIPs and Heads of State.

That was far from the impression I got of this DCM, the first Foreign Service Officer I met. The many FSOs I’ve met since don’t reflect that stereotype either. I can’t say with complete certainty say that there are no “Ugly Americans” out there — after all, there are 12,000 members of the U.S. Foreign Service working around the world — but I do know it’s not the sort of FSO I’ll be.

Here goes nothing…

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

moh to efm

March 26, 2010 in FS Life, Personal by Andy | 6 comments

Up until last week, I was what the government refers to as a Member of Household, or MOH for short.  Basically what this means is that in the eyes of the State Department I was luggage – they didn’t mind if I tagged along, but they sure weren’t going to pay for it, sort of like our dog.

But last week in a small ceremony, Alex and I got hitched.  What does this mean for us?  Well, besides the fact that I have to remember to call her my “wife” instead of “girlfriend” or the less popular “lady type,” it means I am now an Eligible Family Member (EFM).  According to the government, I’m official.  This gives me all sorts of extra privileges like room for my clothes in our air baggage, possible language training before going to post and a plane ticket to get there.

With this ring I grant thee health insurance.

Of course that’s not why we wanted to get married.  We got married because we love each other and have felt that way for quite a long time.  We can’t wait to start our adventure in the foreign service, but mostly can’t wait to start it together.

Tags: , , , , ,

the howl report

March 16, 2010 in Abbey Q. Howley, Personal by Abbey | 3 comments

Now that I’m going to be a diplo-pet, I’m on a quest to meet dogs of all breeds and backgrounds. True, I howl and growl at every dog I see back in my native New York (I don’t discriminate; I dislike them all equally), but on the road for the past few weeks — crossing state borders, no less — I’ve been trying to be more open-minded.

First, I met my cousins: two dogs who live in a land called Ohio. They are a kind of dog called boxer, which as far as I can tell just means huge and slobbery. And they like to sniff stuff, including me. I tried so hard to get away, but they just kept charging me. I was so miserable with those boxers that I didn’t even notice the cat, who I’m sure was horrible too, judging by every other cat I’ve met. The only good thing about Ohio was a local foodstuff called “Snausage.”

Plus, I had to help drive.

Then I crossed into Illinois and spent a few nights with two dogs called golden retrievers. The old one was okay but the young one liked to jump on me. I barked and barked at her to get off but it did no good. I had to climb on tables to save myself! Humph. No respect for her elders. I could live without that golden retriever. You know what else I could live without? The cat that pounced on me in the middle of the night. I let out a howl that could probably be heard by those Ohio boxers.

Across another border, in Missouri, there was a tan chihuahua. His owners fed him a foreign food that was very good. It was wet. (In my native New York, food only seems to come in the dry variety.) This little chihuahua was slow enough that I could steal his delicious wet food, so he’s alright by me.  Then two tiny, fluffy black dogs joined us. And get this: they come from a neighborhood called “Dog Town”! But in Dog Town they seem to speak in a yippy little bark that I don’t know, and not even the chihuahua could translate it for me. I just assumed they were saying, “Eat my wet food too,” and so I did.

Tags: , , ,

calm now, storm later

March 9, 2010 in FS Life, Personal by Andy | 6 comments

My first entry in this blog was about how Alex’s joining the foreign service was starting to feel real.  After a year of tests and essays and clearances and uncertainty, we were finally making preparations for the big change.  We called the movers and found someone to sublet our apartment and made living arrangements for our time in DC.  Then we had to make plans for our month-long road trip to the Midwest to see our families.  Stuff was happening!

Now that we’ve been on our road trip for two and a half weeks, we’ve had a chance to rest.  Of course there have been a few things to take care of, even from the road, such as finalizing our sublet and finally finding someone to fix a zipper on our couch cover that has been broken for about four months (both tasks have somehow proven way more difficult than we could have imagined).  But mostly we’ve been relaxing.  It feels like the calm before the storm.

When we get back to NYC, we’ll have one full day before the movers arrive, and then four more days spent in a hotel before finally heading to DC.  During that time we’re going to be much busier than we expected because of an ever-growing list of tasks that we’ll need to take care of.  It includes things like taking our cable box back to Time Warner, picking up a month’s worth of mail from the post office, renewing my drivers license and eating at about ten restaurants we promised ourselves we’d hit once more before leaving town.

But right now all we can do is look at our list, then push it aside in favor of a few more days of relaxation.  The calm before the storm.

Tags: , , , ,

what i’ll miss most about nyc

February 19, 2010 in Personal by Alex | 1 comment

Our NYC days are numbered, and the number is seven.

Today is #1. I’ll be spending it tying up things at work; Andy with be picking up the rental car and getting ready for tomorrow’s drive. We’re headed to the Midwest to spend a month visiting family. When we get back at the end of March, we have a day to arrange our stuff (#2), a day to supervise the movers (#3 — see Andy’s post) and then four days (#4 through #7) at a hotel before heading down to DC. I’m especially excited for those four hotel days, although the list of things we want to do and people we want to see then is growing exponentially…

What I’ll Miss Most About NYC

  • Easy access to any kind of food I could possibly want
  • Very few of the chain stores and restaurants that make most other American cities feel like any other American city
  • People-watching on the subway
  • Walking, rather than driving, to run errands
  • Cobblestone streets lined with brownstones
  • Dog parks
  • Clothing swaps
  • Exploring new neighborhoods — and knowing I’ll never run out of new places to see (because by the time I get through everywhere and start over, that first place will be completely different)

What won’t I miss? Well, having so little space that kids have to resort to things like this. (Although I will miss the city’s innovative spirit, perfectly demonstrated by this kid!)

Tags: