The Ohio Diplomat

House Help in the Foreign Service

2010-11-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

If you are are considering the Foreign Service, no doubt you relish in the idea that your middle-class bureaucrat salary might afford you a great deal of house help in many posts. I certainly do. From an early age my two practical benchmarks of success were: 1) paying someone else to clean my house, and 2) having an office big enough for a couch where I could sneak in a 20-minute nap for lunch. #2 is still far off, as I could probably touch one elbow to each side of my interview window in Santo Domingo -- without stretching.

Anyway, this post is about house help, and now that I have a few months under my belt of being posted abroad maybe I will add a few blog posts in the near future.

Right, house help. I read other blogs that described the need to train house help to follow an American style of cleaning, organizing, shopping, child care. etc. I thought, that make sense, but it can't be too bad. Well, I'm not saying it's bad, but it certainly is frustrating, and above all else a cultural adjustment. In the Dominican Republic most everyone in the middle class and up seems to have at least one house "empleada" who comes several times a week to help with the house work. Some salaries I've heard are down right pathetic, amounting to less than 150USD per month for a full-time live-in maid.

Being all for human rights and a good living wage, but also having recently graduated from law school with some hefty debt, we ran the family budget number and determined that we could get away with hiring a full-time live in maid. Sweet! We also figured we could pay her a good wage by Dominican standards, at least 50% higher than what a Dominican family would pay her. Pay her well, as she'll be happy; and we'll be happy, I thought.

First attempt: crash and burn. Within a month she was asking for more money, insinuating that she was doing a lot more work than in her old job and we ought to pay her more. (In retrospect this appears to be a common Dominican cultural trait - I think the consensus is it can't hurt to push the boundaries a little.) Having worked for other American families, her work was outstanding. But - and I hate to put it this way - it was like she had been spoiled. Her previous employer had been a man with a small child, no pets, and a wife who was out of the country a lot. After that first appeal for more money, things got awkward. Every week or so, there was a petition for more money for some reason or another. She would stand in the kitchen and stare at us when she didn't have a particular task. She lost her keys and I had a little voice in my head wondering if their was an ulterior motive.

I think what happened is that Dave and I are entirely unaccustomed to having help live in our house. It's hard to have someone in your house all day, nearly every day when you have a work relationship. We offered her one of our extra bedrooms instead of the service quarters because it was nicer and air conditioned. As a result, our only private space was our bedroom, and even not that during the day. Both of us are solidly middle-class, maybe towards the upper end, but have never experienced having live-in help. Ultimately, it became too much. We ended up letting her go, and have subsequently hired someone who comes three days a week.
Certainly, I miss the comfort of knowing I only had to walk my dog twice a week. I miss that I didn't have to raise a finger after dinner to clean the dishes. I love my husband dearly, but her seriously shirks disk duty after dinner. *Sigh* Our new empleada is extremely efficient too, but a little slow to pick up our preferred methods of cleaning and organizing. I am happy to say we are still paying a good wage by Dominican standards.

The next challenge for us will be considering a nanny. Dave and I have gotten out for an evening a total of twice since we've gotten here, and it may be that as I settle into my life as a Foreign Service Officer, I will need the ability to attend functions on short notice. There are invitations for representational events that come around for that evening, or the following evening, which right now I fell dis-inclined to take. Since I'm the newbie no one cares much, but there will probably be a point where I need to start going to these functions; and I would like to get out and meet people outside of the visa interview setting.

My heart panics a little when I think about having a near stranger come to live with us and care for my son. But it is hard to find a good babysitter, since nannies are the standard here -- or the housekeeper sometimes keeps an eye on the kids. If Dave decides to start working, we will probably recruit someone, but the process and the potential pitfalls still scare me. Our first experience with a live-in was awkward, at best. At least next time, we will have our list of lessons learned. At least one Senior Foreign Service Officer has assured me, "You get used to it."

Ready for the Dominican Republic

2010-07-31T13:41:00.002-04:00

Tuesday we leave for the Dominican Republic. I am happy to say that Spanish class is a thing of the past, and the Consular training flew by in six short weeks. Highlights included a visit to the DC Medical Examiners, numerous mock visa interviews, and some crisis management that gave me the chance use those high school drama club skills!

Somehow I managed to get our visas, submit the paperwork to ship our car, arrange for pack-out number two, figure out what Dave needed to ship the pets, and check-out of FSI and Main State without screwing something up. There were a few moments where we were close to fouling up the whole process. But we made it, and I hope nothing has been forgotten. Here are my tips:

1. If you car is registered in Virginia, or in any state that has electronic titles, it may take several weeks to several months to get a paper copy. Luckily were were able to use something called a title transcript that cost us 25 dollars and was accepted by the shippers.

2. Know the restrictions and rules on shipping pets to your country of destination. Like the back of your hand. I'm not kidding. We spent hours and hours making sure we were right about the regulations so we could straighten out our pet shipper. She was confused about what was required for the Dominican Republic and the airlines. It would have cost us an additional 300.00 dollars if we did it her way. The main hang-up was the USDA certificate of health and whether or not we needed a countersignature. We didn't, I think. Mostly it is needed for the European Union. Although we checked with the US Embassy in the DR, the DR's own Embassy here in DC, the agriculture service in the DR and the airlines, the shipper still insisted. I hope we are right.

3. Another note on the dogs: if your dog is taller than 10 inches and it is summer when you fly, remember that almost all airlines will not fly warm-blooded creatures if the temperature is over 85 degrees. We decided to ship the dogs as cargo to avoid potentially being grounded while we wait for the temperature to fall. It is a little scary because it means we are leaving before them, not traveling with them, and have to hope that they arrive safely in one piece. And it is more expensive. But I'd rather not be late for my first day at the Embassy because it was too hot for the plane to take off.

4. About the pack-out. There are a lot of things you can take with you to a new post, even if it is not a consumables post. If you only plan to ship 5,000lbs of stuff, take the opportunity to buy non-perishable things like dried spices, shampoo, kids toys, etc. Usually the allowance is 7200lbs to post.

You'll likely hear from me more now that we are actually getting ready to depart to post. However, the rumor is that we often start business at the Embassy as early as 7:00. Yesh. We'll see how motivated I am to blog at the end of the day.

Cheers!

So much to do, maybe enough time?

2010-05-24T14:25:00.001-04:00

Well, we're about 2 months out from becoming ex-pats. It's crazy. On one hand I'm so excited to leave this city and country behind and start our new life, but on the other I'm kinda nervous. I mean, will I like life in Santo Domingo? Is my Spanish good enough? Will I find a job I like? Will our house be nice? Will I make friends? All un-nerving questions, IMHO, because I won't really have a support network over there (with the exception of the wife and kid, of course). Though it's doubtful, I could end up hating the Diplomatic lifestyle all together.

We have about 342,579 things to get accomplished before we leave, and about that many things to do when we get there. A lot of them are meaningless busywork, some are extremely important, and all of them have to get done in order for our transition to be a smooth one.

Some examples:

1) Arrange for vaccinations for us and the dogs.
2) Arrange for boarding and transportation of the dogs, as they will not be traveling with us.
3) Purchase international auto insurance.
4) Arrange for shipment of our vehicle.
5) Arrange a date for pack-out (This is the process by which the Gov't places our stuff into boxes, then into crates, then onto boats, then ships it to us. This can take 2-3 months.).
6) Buy our plane tickets to the D.R. via Puerto Rico.
7) Say goodbye to our families and friends (with an open invite to come visit us).
8) Arrive in the D.R., get our bearings, settle in our new house.
9) Arrange for cable, internet, phone, and mobile phone service. Preferably all with one company.
10) Hire house help.

The list goes on. Unfortunately, since I am not in full-time training/class/obligations, I am going to be responsible for most of this. It's funny how our roles have reversed since my wife got this job. She used to handle all of the finances and busy-work (since she's more detail-oriented), but I've kind of sidled into that role as of late. I don't think my wife has a clue to our bank account's balance now (except that it's a little lower than we'd like).

We also have lives: my son and I are going to Cape Cod for 12 days in late June, my wife and I are going to a wedding on July 4th weekend, my wife has to go out to Seattle to scatter her Mom's ashes in Puget Sound, etc. All of these factors make the task of moving overseas particularly daunting. Why does the adventure of a lifetime have to be SO MUCH WORK?

I have given myself the task of parsing down our belongings here in temporary housing. I can really only think of like 10-12 items that we've acquired since November as "indispensable." The rest will be sorted into "keep" or "toss" and dealt with accordingly. Then we need to look at winter clothes... do we bring them with us to a place where the lowest EVER recorded temperature was like 70° F. Don't think I'm going to be needing that wool jacket or my stockpile of wool sweaters. North Face shell is coming with me b/c it's the most waterproof jacket I've ever owned. Might need that during rainy season.

What I'm really looking forward to is the return of my audio gear. Those of you reading this who know me know I loves me some stereo gear. I've been without my stereo set-up for 7 months now, and I still have like 5 months until I see it again. These little Klipsch speakers I'm using now are quite good for computer speakers, but I really want to listen to my vinyl on my vintage gear again. I can't wait.

Overall, I'm beginning to feel a little impatient and a lot nervous about our move. Mostly, it's about the little things, but the big picture is looming in the wings. I think we're all tired of being in this "holding pattern." Getting a set departure date will help, but I still see myself freaking out a little until we land safely in Santo Domingo. Come on August... I can't wait to see you!

Passports

2010-04-29T15:36:00.004-04:00

We applied for our passports last week. It was, well, an adventure. We went to Main State with another family in the hopes that the kids would entertain one another. That definitely worked, but neither of them (both being about 2) have mastered their "inside voices" yet.

Process is this:

1) Fill out application (2 if, like me and Aidan, you don't already have a valid passport).
2) Print application, BUT DO NOT SIGN!
3) Print your TM-1.
4) Try to find all of the documents you think you'll need (i.e. birth cert(s)., SS card(s), marriage certificate, etc.). Put everything in a folder the night before, pray that you remember it the next day.
5) Go to Main State for pictures. Wait in unbearably hot room for your name to be called. Take photos, receive pictures.
(Detour) Get wife's commission certificate from HR. Get hopelessly lost in the process.
6) Go to passport office, get in line.
7) Realize you don't have sufficient copies of all of your documentation. Frantically make copies on copier helpfully located in passport office.
8) Corral young child from making the bureaucrats' lives any more painful.
9) Complete oaths, signatures, payments, child wrangling, surrender your documents (i.e. birth cert[s].) until passports are ready for pick-up.
10) Wait patiently for about 2 weeks.

That's pretty much it. It's stressful with a family, but I'm sure a breeze for single or childless folks - much as it is in all facets of life.

1 more week, and my son and I will have black passports. It's getting a lot more real.

Hasta luego.

The Foreign Service Lifestyle

2010-04-19T14:02:00.002-04:00

First, a huge "Disculpenos, por favor" for the lack of a post in what, like 4 months now? Busy could sum up our current life right now.

Spring has sprung in D.C., and with it so have departures. Seems like every week someone we know leaves for faraway lands. Last Thursday we said farewell to our across-the-hall neighbors who were very helpful in our initial assimilation into Oakwood and the FSI life. They're off to Costa Rica, and you can follow their adventures here.

Early next month, one of my few friends from FSI is leaving for Madrid. Some of Joanne's friends are departing soon as well, and well, we're all going our separate ways. I'd like very much to stay in touch with all of them, but I'm going to assume that will be difficult. Thank god for Facebook and Skype.

We're getting a lot closer to our departure date. I just received an email from Joan saying that she's going to propose 8/5. If that's accepted, we'll get our travel orders forthwith. Well, as forthwith as the Federal Government is capable of. She's going to do a couple of consultation days in Puerto Rico (during which Aidan and I may join her), and then it's off to our new home for the next 2 years. Stress levels for me are way high right now, and I believe they will continue to be until we've been living in the DR for a couple of months. There are so many logistical things to take care of that it's kind of daunting for me. Joanne traveling with me will make it a LOT easier, but uprooting everything, going to a country where little English is spoken, and starting over is a big deal.

Luckily, Joan is progressing through Spanish at a rapid clip, having a little trouble with the subjunctive and its uses, and I have dropped out of full-time FSI Spanish, choosing instead to self-study at home, get a mentor (or two, as is my fate), and volunteer at the Hispanic Committee of Virginia to keep improving my Spanish. At the HCVA, I hope to give one-on-one counseling to Latino immigrants who are starting their own businesses in areas such as advertising, marketing, employment issues, etc. That will be a good lexicon for me to become familiar with.

That's about all for now... more to come as we figure out this upcoming change.

Cheers!

The Color Commentator

2009-12-17T12:02:00.003-05:00

This is the moniker my wife has given me w/r/t this blog. And apparently she thinks I suck at my job, as she was harassing me the other night for not posting enough. Know what? She's right. I need to be more a of Jerry Remy to her Don Orsillo than a Tim McCarver to her Joe Buck.

See, in baseball broadcasts, you have the play-by-play guy and you have the color guy. The play-by-play guy is matter-of-fact, calling the game as he sees it. This is Joanne. She's going to describe what getting thru A-100 and language training is like. How hard it is to join the Foreign Service. What a pain-in-the-ass the Security Clearance is. The color guy, on the other hand, is supposed to come up with factoids and anecdotal stuff to enhance the normally-boring straight description of the game. He brings up stats, injects humor, and otherwise provides little trinkets of information that wouldn't usually be available to the casual fan. I'm the color guy, and I've been asleep in the booth for the past few innings (a lot like Harry Caray used to do).

So here's a maelstrom of trivial and anecdotal information compiled thru detailed scientific research which I hope you will find interesting and useful. (No animals were harmed in the making of this list)

1) The basic kitchen setup at Oakwood sucks. SUCKS. You get really basic stuff (plates, glasses, silverware, some utensils). You also get a knife block containing six of the world's dullest knives. If you like to cook, bring your own gear and put the crap that passes for kitchen equipment here in the closet until you leave. You may thank me later.

2) Our apartment doubles as a sauna. Or a greenhouse. We face south and are on the top floor. When the sun shines, the temperature in here easily goes up to 85+ degrees. Opening the window does nothing. Opening the balcony door does too much. Joanne likes to joke that I'm secretly in training for life in the D.R. (it's a tropical freaking island). I don't find the humor in sweating all day every day while home. Still trying to find a solution for this.

3) The two supermarkets closest to Oakwood FC are atrocious. Dirty, poorly stocked, and just unpleasant to shop in. This, however, doesn't prevent me from shopping there. While both are under a half mile away, it takes 15 minutes to get to them. So going much further to a nice supermarket is a little unreasonable, especially when I typically have a small child in tow.

4) The existence of the Eden Center in our back yard is awesome at every moment of the day except between 5:45 and 6:00 a.m. when the garbage trucks come through and make a hell of a racket. It never fails to wake our son up. Not cool.

5) Snow. Seriously, Virginians. You don't have to panic and go to Target and buy 3 scrapers, a snow shovel, 2 emergency blankets, 10 chem lights, 3 gallons of arctic-grade windshield fluid, Coleman stove, and a huge honkin' car emergency kit for your car when 1-2 inches are forecast. A Southern friend told me, however, that it's not the apocalypse until all the bread and TP are sold out with the threat of some flurries. There's snow in the forecast for the weekend, better stock up.

6) Parking spaces. They're tiny. Cross into the District or MD, and they regain their normal width. In VA, however, they're about 6" narrower than in any other part of the country. This is truth.

That's all for today, I guess. I'll try to keep up with this blog a little more and wow you with more Tales from NoVA.

We are off to the Dominican Republic!!

2009-12-06T21:08:00.000-05:00

Flag Day, 2009. Flag day is a tradition in the Foreign Service Officer orientation class. It's truly an amazing moment. Some people jump and cheer, others suffer temporary shock -- regardless of how they ranked their assigned assignment. One of my orientation coordinators share this fantastic story (paraphrased):

"I ranked H-- at the top of my list. First, actually. No one else wanted it as much as me. I told my friends that's where I was going. I told my entire family. On flag day they held up the H-- flag, paused, and called my name. Suddenly, my heart sank. I felt like my life was over."

In all fairness, the day does define an FSO's destiny for the next 1-3 years. In the extreme, it can be the first step in a life-long connection with your post. After they held up the red and blue flag of the Dominican Republic and called, my name, I felt numb. By the time I sat down I was already calculating how my family would like it, what it would mean for my language training, and what this meant for my career. It's silly, but the State Department admits it likes to hire "planners," so I think this is a normal reaction for many of us!!

My conclusion: Gee, if the State Department wants to send me to a tropical paradise for two years, where the weather is warm, the fruit is plentiful, and my son can be fluent in Spanish before he is 5-years-old, then I'll take it! I mean, look at the pictures on the official country homepage!

Dave has decided he wants to track down the Boston Red Sox in the Dominican Republic. David Ortiz, aka "Papi," is from the DR and has a children's foundation that helps fund pediatric critical care: http://www.davidortizchildrensfund.org/. He's also considering working for the embassy, or maybe just hanging out in a hammock with some Dominican rum. The way I see it, he has a little equity coming to him from supporting me through law school.

Tomorrow I start Spanish language training. The introduction to language training they gave us in A-100 "freaked me out" a little bit. I imagine I'll be fine, but the speech they like to give goes a little like this: "So, if you majored in a language in college you probably got to a 1+ score according to our system. You might have made it to a 2 if you were really good. We're going to take you from a 0 to a 3 in six months." Wow. And wow. Well, I'm just grateful that learning a language is part of my job. They're actually paying me to do this!!!! Yipee!!! (Jealous, anyone?)

Trick-or-Treat: The Bid List Has Arrived!

2009-11-01T20:31:00.001-05:00

Friday marked the end of our first week of "A-100 training," a reference to the room number where the first groups of Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) received orientation to the tradecraft of diplomacy. The majority of A-100 happens at the Foreign Service Institute in Virginia. My fellow classmates and I represent the 149th A-100 class! I feel privileged to be among such an impressive crowd, and it's still sinking in that I've finally made it here.

The most anticipated part of the first week was receiving our "bid list." We get a single list with about ten more posts than there are people in our class. Somewhere on that list is the name of our home for two years. But, which one will it be? We get to list preferences of low, medium and high. However, we have signed up to follow the needs of the Foreign Service, so although most people get a "high" or "medium" there is no guarantee. Much of the last few days has been spent researching posts, for which the Overseas Briefing Center provides ample information.

My sister wanted to know exactly what it is I do. "People ask me and I can't exactly say," she says. I asked if I ought to post a link to my job here. She said that would be helpful.

I encourage any of my law school colleagues to check out the job, as this recession has made it difficult for lawyers-in-waiting to find jobs. However, the State Department has been authorized to hire almost triple the usual number of new FSOs. The process can be long and arduous at times, but so is law school. There are somewhere around a dozen or so lawyers in our class.

Many of the people at FSI stay in the same temporary housing. As a result, there is an excellent sense of community. Dave has met and befriended a handful of spouses already, mostly by just wandering around the complex with Aidan during the days I am at class. His particular favorite thus far is a gorgeous Israeli woman who has a son about the same age as Aidan.

The "Oakwood" organized trick-or-treating for all the kids in the 4-building complex. I'm guessing there were around 100 apartments that participated. It was the best setting for Aidan's first real Halloween experience. At the beginning he had no idea what was going on, but the idea that people would let you grab big handfuls of candy out of a bowl made his little brain erupt with joy. He was also fascinated by all the costumes.

With little time to come up with a costume because of our recent move, Dave saved the day by hand-making (!) a Domo-kun costume. I think the oldest person who got the reference was about 25-years-old. You can think of him as the fuzzy brown guy who sells coffee for 7-Eleven; or perhaps the mascot for Japan's NHK television station; or perhaps you know the reference which should not be linked to in polite company.

And I thought the roads in Boston were bad....

2009-10-25T15:41:00.003-04:00

Just an opportunity to vent here...

This is the closest approximation to what I imagine the Seventh Circle of Hell to look like:

View Larger Map

So, Seven Corners (a stone's throw from Oakwood) is quite possibly the biggest beating of all time w/r/t roadways and their various nuances. I would have loved to use another descriptive term, but my wife wanted me to keep it clean. This particular intersection happens to be where pretty much everything you'll ever need while staying at Oakwood is located. Food store, clothing stores, Target, Home Depot, CVS, amazing Asian food, liquor store, etc. are all located in this miasma of urban planning.

I drove regularly in Boston for 8 years. It sucked. This was in the Big Dig's heyday, where traffic patterns changed on a weekly basis. Even on the worst day, no traffic issue in Boston could possibly come close to Seven Corners. 28/3/93/Red Auerbach Way in Boston is a pleasant walk in the park, comparatively.

1) It takes 10 minutes to reverse direction. Lights are incredibly long and not even remotely synced to alleviate "blocking the box."

2) Nothing is clearly marked or identified off of Arlington Blvd. You get off on these little access roads and hope to hell you took the right one. All the while, through traffic is doing 60 m.p.h. in all lanes and getting impatient with you, you silly out-of-towner.

3) Planning on taking a quick jaunt out on a weekend to do some errands? Are your destinations on opposite sides of Arlington Blvd.? Good luck to you, my friend. Block out 3+ hours.

My advice is this: drive around this intersection late at night, reversing directions frequently... only then can you get a feel for which lanes are used for what purposes. And DO NOT TRUST Google Maps. They lie. I know the Google Street View car (or maybe trike) has been through here, but there's no way they actually tried to navigate this area in any logical or sensible fashion.

Welcome to Seven Corners!

Cheers!
Dave

Childproofing your Oakwood Apartment

2009-10-25T15:32:00.003-04:00

If you're like us and have a small, active, and adventurous child, you'll want to take note of the issue with the balconies here. We're up on the 7th floor, and it's a long way down. When we first saw the balcony, both of us agreed that the space in between the railings was just a hair too wide. One trip to Home Depot later (and a hell of a headache while there - trying to determine the best method), we made it almost impossible for the wee lad to propel himself off the balcony to certain death.

Keep it in mind when you come to Oakwood with your infant/toddler. Better safe (and ugly as sin) than sorry.

Cheers!
Dave

Packing Out - Where are my sunglasses?

2009-10-22T12:45:00.008-04:00

We survived two pack outs! Even after a week of throwing things out and organizing, it was a whirlwind and several things were inadvertently packed into our Household Effects (HHE), a.k.a. the boxes stored in a warehouse until we depart DC for our first post. Rumor has it that we could be without our precious stuff for up to ten months depending on the kind of language training I might need. Admittedly, my Type A personality made it difficult to allow others to pack for us. Dave loved it! (No heavy lifting!)

The movers (from Miller Brothers - an agent of Nationwide) were frighteningly efficient. They packed everything and loaded it in a day. You can imagine the pace with which they worked. Here is a list of some of the things we forgot to take out of their devastating path:

Dave's sunglasses
Dave glasses (see a theme yet?)
Dave's winter coats
Aidan's lion and frog :(
Many pairs of shoes we could have used
Almost lost Dave's suits - he had to bargain to get them back out of the box

Our advice: don't even think that you will have the ability to "tell" them about what goes or doesn't -- separate in advance. We did that about 80% and still lost some things in the end. I feel the worst about the lion. . .ten months can be a long time to a one-year-old. But a newly discovered leopard at Nana's house fixed that situation for now.

Above is a picture of what the Unaccompanied Air Baggage (UAB) boxes look like. Since we are a family of three, we had 550 lbs to work with, or the equivalent of three of these boxes. Whatever we can fit in the UAB comes with us to DC. So hard to decide!

Here is Dave glaring at Jack. The dogs used the chaos to their advantage to sneak lots of "bed time" while we were packing. Moving them overseas will be quite the challenge, so stay tuned.

After everything was gone, we still spent two days cleaning, painting and doing little fixes to our condo. We're putting it on the market to see what happens. Since we may never see it again, we took a (tired) family photo as we were locking the door for the last time:

Right now we are homeless in Buffalo. We packed out some things from my parents house, and are staying at the family home before our drive to DC. We're hoping to say hello to my brother's first child, who should be making an appearance any day now!

On a final note, here's Aidan enjoying his goodbye cupcake at the going away party thrown by Dave's family:

A-100 starts Monday!! Wish us luck!

Shedding the Packrat

2009-09-28T14:34:00.006-04:00

Today I scheduled our pack-out: October 14th. This knowledge caused us great happiness and anxiety at the same time. While it is fantastic to have real dates before us after such a long, uncertain wait for the job offer from State, the reality that we have to pare down our belongings looms large. Really, its a kind of mild panic. I ask myself: "what if I need the copy of my thesis printed on acid-free archive paper?" GONE! Those letters from friends in high school? GONE! Anything of value we are giving away on Freecycle New Haven.

State does allow up to 18,000 pounds of "stuff" to be stored in what I can only imagine is a Indiana-Jones-style warehouse somewhere in Maryland. You can usually take about 7,200 pounds of that with you to each post. However, you only get access to your "stuff" each time you change post. So really, am I taking the ceramic pig I picked up in Chicago to India or Brazil or wherever we end up? No! Do I really want to put it in storage for 20 years? No! So its GONE!

The picture is our coffee table covered in random things that we can't quite bring ourselves to throw out yet. Jack, the chocolate lab, appears undaunted. All he cares is that we remember his food.

I think our pack out is a little early because my brother is about to welcome his first child to the world. We're heading to Buffalo in our Audi Allroad station wagon for a few days to give him some needed support and love, before our final destination near the Foreign Service Institute in Virginia. State only covers housing two days before the start of class, so most people pack out a little later, I assume.

The Husband

2009-09-27T15:39:00.005-04:00

This is Dave (the husband). As a spouse of an FSO, I'll have a lot to say about the process, trials and tribulations, etc. And, yes, I am completely supportive of our newly-complicated lifestyle. It's going to be an adventure however we look at it, and I'm excited.

My background: B.A. in English Literature from Tufts, Master's Degree in Higher Education Administration technically from NYU, but most coursework was done at Harvard. After all of this, I'm a recruiter in Advertising, with inclinations leaning towards interactive media. I also have a good grasp on Project Management in the interactive space, but currently am using none of my professional skills (unless coordinating our move is considered PM). I'm a native Connecticutian (or Nutmegger, if you will), with a stint of 10 years in Boston where I picked up some bad speech habits - i.e. the Boston accent. This has been marred by 6 weeks in Buffalo in the last 2 months, where I picked up the long "a" common to the Midwest (it's easier, and well, I'm lazy).

I'll be posting here and there about our time in D.C., packing out, settling our affairs in the States for a long absence, etc. You know, the fun stuff. Both Joanne and I hope you find this blog useful (or even find it in the first place), informative, funny, and overall worth reading.

More updates to come soon.

Getting the Call ( actually it was an email)

2009-09-27T14:42:00.009-04:00

September 4, 2009 started our adventure as a Foreign Service family. I was granted security clearance after eight excruciating months of investigation and a few days later was placed on the register for eligible hires. My offer came immediately, as the State Department is currently in a hiring phase. From start to finish, the whole process took a little more than fourteen months. My chosen specialization is in the Consular Track. I start October 26th.

Our little family includes my husband (Dave), son, Aidan (20 months), and our two dogs, Jack (chocolate lab) and Neuf (beagle). I suppose managing a small child and two dogs will certainly be challenging. Luckily, my husband Dave is up for the adventure, and has supported my ambition to join the State Department every step of the way.

Right now what lies ahead for us remains a bit of a cloud. About a week ago we received a packet of complex paperwork and a guide to our move that the State Department produces (It's Your Move). Although things seem straightforward, I think every FSO-to-be finds themselves flooded with small questions/issues that are only solved with time and trial-and-error.

And therein lies the purpose of this blog. I mean it to be as informational as possible for people interested in the Foreign Service, as well as a way to update family and friends on our progress. We have to wait until October 1, the start of the fiscal year, before we can get our "pack-out" arranged. In the mean time we are opening new accounts, selecting health plans, throwing things out, and giving things away. We'll see what comes next.