Seasonable Highs Deserve Seasonable Sighs

It's beginning to feel a lot like summer... in Saudi Arabia.

Ick.

I am well aware that it will get much, much hotter. I have not forgotten what August in Jeddah feels like. By any stretch of the imagination. But, I was really enjoying winter in Jeddah. And now it seems it's slipped away, to be replaced by many, many months of scorching heat and soaring humidity. With only the occasional sea breeze to make it tolerable.

Every time I exit a building, I am met with a wall of heat. Suffocating, oppressive heat. I am in love with air conditioning. (And so, so not in love with the air conditioner in my bedroom breaking in the middle of the night. Two nights in a row.)

If I have to hear either of the following phrases one more time, I may just crack.
"This is nothing! Just wait till summer!"
"Oh, stop complaining. It's only 105F with 85% humidity."

It makes me long for Miami in June. Which I will experience. In June. (I do, however, reserve the right to complain about the rain, hurricane, or oppressive heat that I may well find in Miami in June.)

My bidding strategy is starting to include such phrases as "no desert" and "high altitude preferred". Suggestions for temperate tropical destinations with plenty of Consular jobs, affordable help, and high differential welcomed. (Though they're likely already on my short list!)

In other news, this week's entertainment quotient went up exponentially thanks to a joke (I hope?!) making its way through the Department these days. If the words/phrases "unicorn," "fauna-centric," and "kittens waving American flags" mean nothing to you, ask someone in your office/post. I can guarantee someone will have caught on. Great morale-booster right there.

And with that, it's time for bed. Because even though this week was better than last, I still desperately need this weekend.

(unicorn)

(easter egg)

Much Better, Thanks!

I am, once again, comforted and humbled by the outpouring of support offered by the FS blogger community. My last post was a total Debbie Downer, and I questioned why I even posted it. But words of support and understanding from around the globe really helped improve my mood, and I'm thankful.

It's nine pm on a 'school night' and I'm still awake, which hasn't happened in a while. Partly it's thanks to some great naps this weekend, but it also bodes well for this week. I got some exciting news that I'll share when the time's right, which elevated my mood. And I did some thinking about the reasons I had a tough couple of weeks and have some new calming mantras to rely on. And even though I got almost nothing knocked off my to-do list (except for sewing on a couple buttons), I feel it was a useful weekend.

And with that, I'm headed to bed. It's 9:05 on a school night after all!

Sometimes I Just Can't Think of a Good Title. Especially When I'm Complaining.

Remember this post from a couple of weeks ago where I explored different facets of happiness?? I am desperately trying to channel that energy right now, when I'm staring down a rut.

I don't think it's homesickness or culture shock affecting me this week, but more a combination of stress and frustration and disappointment. It's been a tough couple weeks at work. I've come home and gone to bed at 7:30 almost every night this week, which is, even for me, early. I've had to convince myself to get out of bed every morning and promise myself that I could always go home if I absolutely had to. I haven't needed to, of course, but I had to give myself the option.

This weekend, I have had a number of really great social opportunities with friends I could have joined in on, but I just couldn't motivate myself. Even for diving. For the beach. For dinners out. I'm fully cognizant that I'm making things worse by being a homebody, but it just seems like I need to be grouchy and moody on my own right now.

In retrospect, ten months before my first R&R at a hardship/danger post was probably not great planning. True, there were a lot of external factors that contributed to the timing, but I think for my next R&R I'm going to try to plan it squarely in the middle of the year. Little weekend trips helped a lot, but it is too long a stretch between breaks.

I have been looking at flights for a short weekend away, but, unfortunately, many of the closer destinations come complete with travel warnings these days, which just won't work. And places without travel warnings are overbooked because everyone is trying to get to the same few places.

So, about six weeks until R&R. I can make it.

And I promise, I'll stop moping now. Sometimes you just need to vent, though.


Update: I actually did go and have a relaxing poolside dinner and game night with some friends. I wasn't great company, but it helped improve my mood a bit.

Waiting and Wondering

How can I possibly not blog today? I warn you in advance - I have nothing interesting or new to offer. I just need to write.

We only have a couple of days before the current continuing resolution expires and we're forced into a government shut down. Congress has not yet been able to reach consensus on a budget or a new CR, and the jury's out on whether they will. I honestly have no idea. I just know I hope they do.

Rumors are swirling everywhere. At work, among friends, in the news, online, on Facebook, on blogs, and now I think some are even developing in my mind as I wrestle with all the implications. There were more than a few water cooler conversations today. And my Facebook and Blogger newsfeeds were filled with speculation and questions and worries and shock at the potential shutdown.

I am a federal worker. I do not yet know whether my position is essential. Since it's our weekend, we will be among the first federal workers to face the reality of a shutdown on Saturday morning. I'd get to work only an hour after the expiration of the current CR. I'll be going in regardless to find out what's what. What remains to be seen is whether I stay. And whether and/or when I get paid if I stay. And same if I go.

The uncertainty is the worst part. I am not going to comment on how the potential shutdown has been and is being handled throughout the government, mostly because I have no reference point. I was in elementary school in 1996 and have no memory of the last shutdown. I don't know how it was handled. It's an insanely difficult task for anyone, and I don't envy the decision makers and contingency planners.

I am a little disappointed in those Congresspeople who think that their own families would suffer more if they didn't receive a paycheck during a shutdown than the average federal worker's. Putting aside the question of the accuracy of this line of thinking, it is dripping with irony. I'm lucky because a few days of unpaid furlough won't ruin me. It'll hurt, and things will be tight for a while, but it's not the end of the world. But if days turn into weeks... It's a scary thought.

I have no solution (except to implore Congress to pass a workable budget). I have no wisdom to share. I have no answers to the tough questions. I just have a lot of uncertainty and a lot of frustration. And a weekend of waiting and wondering. So I'm going to the grocery store in the morning. If I can't work, I might as well cook.

If You're Happy and You Know It...

I'm slowly making my way through a stack of magazines that date back to summer 2009, and I ran across one with a theme of 'happiness'. Off topic but hilarious, one of the issue's suggestions for how to be productive in five minutes was to cut your stack of magazines in half. Oh the irony! I actually used some of the other suggestions for five-minute productivity spurts this past weekend, and it did make me happy :-). But the point is that I started thinking about happiness and what it means to me. And while I tend to be a person who looks at a whole day/week/month to convey my general state of mind, the truth is that there's so much happiness in the moment to moment events.

A lot of my happiest moments revolve around animals. I love coming home to be greeted by my pets. My brother's dog even howls "herro" in his happiest welcome home moments. Not unlike the dog making the rounds on Facebook/YouTube who says "I love you." Hattie always used to greet me and dance and get all excited; she'd even skip when we'd go for the first walk of the evening. My cats run to the door and jump up and want to cuddle as soon as I walk in. At home in NH, I remember coming home on a few spring days to find one of our horses had broken out of the pasture and was grazing on the young grass on the front lawn. On my travels, my communes with elephants, penguins, cheetahs, ostriches, turtles, lions, and various other fauna rate highly on the happiness scale. But not baboons. They remain on the naughty list and have little chance of redeeming themselves.

I love that technology allows me to stay so connected to family and friends, and it's nice to be able to come home from work a couple days a week and talk to my mom, six thousand miles and seven time zones away. When my nieces and nephews are around, it's even more fun. Last night, my four year old nephew wanted to share his new cologne (long story) with me. He pressed himself up against the computer's camera and asked in a muffled voice if I could smell him now. I laughed so hard then and every time I recounted the story today.

Travel makes me happy. I think that's a given. So does dreaming about and planning my next trip. So it's a surefire way to break a bad mood - look for travel deals and plan a getaway!

On both those themes, I love reunions. The moment you see a loved one after a long time apart. The anticipation. The sheer joy and perfection of the moment. Everything else falls away. There's a light feeling. Maybe that's one of my favorite parts about traveling; it certainly isn't saying goodbyes! (This feeling is captured well in my favorite movie, Love Actually. The opening and closing airport scenes are absolutely perfect.)

Twice a week I come home to an immaculate apartment. That makes me immeasurably happy. Once a week, at least, I come home to freshly laundered sheets and a crisply made bed. That is pure bliss.

One of my quirky happy-moment-makers is that I set the alarm to go off in the early morning even when I can sleep in the next day. That way, when the alarm goes off, I can have the distinct pleasure of turning it off and realizing I can sleep as late as I want. I really enjoy doing that.

I love paying bills. Well, I love having the money and job security to be able to pay all my bills. But there's something satisfying and redeeming about hitting send on online payments.

None of these are the big-ticket items that we often think of or generalize about when we think of happiness - wealth, big house, dream vacation, fame, yacht, red carpet, etc. I like that. It means that even if not everything is perfect, and, really, it never is, I can find joy in small things, in moments, in encounters.

So that's my optimistic and philosophical moment for the day.

What makes you happy?

The Most Important Word in Any Language

Stephanie at "Where in the World Am I?" is hosting this week's Round Up on a topic near and dear to every traveler's heart - bathrooms. There are few times in my life I wished I was a boy, but almost all of them have occurred when my bladder was full and my options were limited. So this topic is a great walk down memory lane.

Travel notwithstanding, I am a bit picky about bathrooms. Luckily I have a pretty good bladder and can make it through long road trips and airplane rides without needing to compromise my standards too much. That said, I will almost always take advantage of a clean rest stop bathroom. But I don't get as desperate as some others do, for which I'm thankful.

Even post-anesthesia on all of my knee surgeries (five), when I couldn't walk without assistance and had no business being vertical, I always refused a bed pan. No matter how difficult or painful it was, I was going to use the bathroom.

My first experience with a squat toilet occurred in Mostar, Bosnia when I was in college. I decided I didn't need to go that badly.

Growing up, I always thought I wanted to do Peace Corps. Then I lived in Thailand for six months, and that disabused me of that fantasy pretty quickly. In my dorm room I thankfully had a western toilet and a shower head. What I didn't have was hot water. Given the choice all over again, I'd go that same route in a heartbeat. Here's the thing. I have no problem with the concept of squat toilets and would happily use them if I could. My problem is that I physically can't easily use them. The aforementioned five knee surgeries have pretty much made them impossible. So my strategy is to avoid them except where they're the only option and I'm desperate. Which happened quite often in Thailand when we would stay in small villages for 2-3 days at a time with host families.

These same Thai bathrooms usually had two cisterns of water and two buckets. One, smaller cistern, and bucket was for flushing the toilet. There was more often than not a goldfish in that cistern. The larger cistern was bathing water. We would wear our sarongs and pour water over ourselves and soap up and then rinse. Sometimes the cisterns would be outside and communal, which was more fun than it sounds. Plus, when they were outside, they tended to have warmer, sun-warmed water.

During my semester in Thailand, bathrooms were a frequent topic of conversation, so perhaps that's why I have such vivid memories of them from my time there. First of all, we talked a lot about building sustainable and eco-friendly homes, including bathrooms. Second, we were a small group with each other 24/7, so we shared everything all the time and were very close, whether we wanted to be or not at times. Third, we were living in a tropical country with its share of bacteria and parasites, and none of us were immune. Food poisoning and intestinal critters were a part of life. Oh, the memories! Let's just say that we quickly learned the locations of all the private hospitals wherever we traveled, since being violently ill in a public hospital is not a pleasant experience.

When I lived in South Africa, I found mostly western toilets and learned early on always to carry toilet paper. Actually, that was true in Thailand as well. Even when there were outhouses, they tended to have seats. My favorite outhouse was in a small village in Lesotho, where gravity and the hill kept the door closed, and the door had a window that perfectly framed the moon at night. The bigger problem in Southern Africa was critters. I had at least one close encounter with a scorpion in a Namibian bathroom, and I saw more than a few snakes. I heard one time a story about a black mamba curling around the underside of a toilet seat waiting for an unsuspecting victim. That made me pretty cautious about looking before sitting, even if it was a likely urban legend.

My favorite thing about bathrooms in South Africa was the availability of condoms. Since much of my time there was spent studying HIV/AIDS from a sociological perspective, I thought this was a great initiative. Colleges, malls, movie theaters, restaurants - all had condom dispensers, usually free. Even in the bathrooms of remote camps in places like Kruger Park, there they were! Now granted, in most of these places, the supplies would be depleted almost immediately after being refilled, but the idea was the same. My public health self still thinks this is a best practice.

In KSA, bathrooms are pretty clean but always wet - from people doing ablutions in the sinks or from the water hoses in the stalls. Many public bathrooms have a few stalls each of squat and western toilets. And rarely toilet paper.

When it comes down to it, during most of my travels through dozens of other countries, I've been pretty lucky with bathrooms. Or at least I've repressed all the horror stories and gotten really good at holding it.

So thank you Stephanie and the Round Up for allowing me this unique but incredibly relevant trip down memory lane!

Pretending to be a grown-up

Wow, I guess it has been a while since I've posted. Not for lack of interest, just lack of time and interesting stories. Well, not for lack of stories. I have several posts in the works that I just haven't finished. So really just lack of time and patience.

I've been busy with work lately, and my to-do list has been piling up. You know that point when it gets overwhelming to even get started because there are so many tasks? That's where I've been.

Today, though, I've been immensely productive. Last weekend I cleaned up the main room a bit by moving a piece of furniture into my bedroom. That allowed me to move my dining table (piled high with junk and not yet used) into the corner and free up some room. Today I took down my Christmas tree (I know, I know; but it was because I didn't have anywhere to put it, not because I was hanging on to the holidays. I promise.) and started putting ornaments away in their totes. That freed up another corner, so I moved my craft/printer table there. Now I can set up my printer and store all my scrapbooking/miscellaneous craft junk there instead of on the floor behind the couch.

I finally got maintenance to bracket my linen cabinet to the wall, making that usable. That has freed up space in my master closet. Today the carpenter installed my photo shelves, enabling me to put away the many frames I have that can't be hung. I also got a number of new frames/artwork up on the walls as well as a number of new prints framed. So my walls are starting to look like home, and I'm starting to make my way through the massive piles of stuff that continue to plague me eight months after moving in. (But, to be fair, only 3.5 months after receiving most of said stuff.) I will eventually be able to find the spare bed and remove the linens, making my welcome kit fully ready for pick up. That will free up another utility closet.

Now if I could get the clothes that need to be hemmed/adjusted to the tailor and the dry cleaning to the shop, I would be well on my way to productive! And there are a few buttons that need to be sewed on, now that I think of it. Baby steps. I did find my sewing box at least!

I'm making a big push to get rid of all my credit card debt (thank you grad school and addiction to travel!) and make a significant impact on my student loan principal before I turn 30, which gives me about 15 months. I have made pretty good inroads in 2011 already, thanks to many things, including my tax refund and some overtime payments. Plus with SLRP, my student loans are getting some good attention. It's not helping my income to debt ratio, which determines my monthly payments, which is another reason to pay off the credit cards as quickly as possible. And, yes, Mom, I know I need to take over that other loan from you this summer. I've factored that in. But it feels very good to be able to solidify my finances; after all, that's what hardship posts are all about, right?!

It's time to write a post for this week's round up, so I'll sign off for now. And enjoy my slightly de-cluttered living room and more cluttered (but more homey) walls.

Lacrosse Longings

(Note: I wrote this a couple of days ago but waited to post until the event had come and gone, for security reasons.)

I spent a couple hours outside this afternoon watching a local high school choir and band rehearse for National Day. Yes, America's National Day is July 4th. And yes we're celebrating it in March. Why? Heat. Humidity. Summer Vacation. All these elements make it untenable to hold an outdoor event in July, so we re-appropriated a day in March. Makes sense, right? Anyway. I can take no credit for any National Day planning - that goes to some very capable and hard-working colleagues who should be proud of their effort. But today they invited me to help with anthem rehearsal. And being outside with a group of high school students, on a not-too-hot and not-too-humid day in March, it made me nostalgic. At first I couldn't quite figure it out, but it hit me late in the day.

It's lacrosse season!

When I was still living in NH and teaching and then working in international education, I had the good fortune to coach JV girls' lacrosse for several seasons. I fell into the job - my intention had been to start out volunteering with younger players - but it was an amazing experience. The Varsity coach was, and still is, an amazing role model and mentor, and I owe a debt of gratitude to her for imparting so much wisdom to me. I only wish I could have absorbed more of it! The athletes were wonderful young women; it's hard to believe, but some have graduated high school and even college by now. How time flies.

I absolutely love lacrosse, despite the toll it has taken on me. I played for three years in high school, though each season ended early with a devastating knee injury and then major surgery. To be fair, the first year I think I hurt my knee right after lacrosse ended, and the injury actually happened during a game of flag football. Spending as much time on the sidelines as I did, I memorized the rules and developed at least a mediocre feel for the game's intricacies. In college, I was privileged to manage the women's team for the three years I was on campus. Our lacrosse program was one of the best in the nation; the team went to the NCAA championship game twice while I was there. Spending so much time watching some of the best lacrosse players in the world and learning from world-class coaches just made me love the game that much more. (And the fourth knee injury occurred my freshman year during lacrosse season but, again, in a game of flag football.) I still try to catch games whenever I'm near a college program. In NH, the school where I coached was right down the road from Dartmouth, another top college program, so I had ample opportunity.

So for three years, March meant to me the beginning of lacrosse season. And one of the great things about lacrosse was that I got to spend 2-3 hours outside every day. At the end of winter and beginning of spring, this was a fragrant and sense-rich time in NH, so the memories are very linked to sights and smells for me. Wet parking lots, melting snow, damp grass, mud, and, eventually, blooming flowers, leaf buds on trees, freshly-mown grass, the sound of lawnmowers, and numerous other springy sensations. I love it! (And, you had to expect it, my fifth knee surgery occurred a week before lacrosse season started one of those years. This time the injury was far less interesting. I tore my meniscus reaching to get socks out of a drawer. Perhaps that will clue you in on how I was able to hurt my knees so easily so many times before. I am slightly accident-prone...)

So standing outside today with a bunch of high schoolers was just the right combination of things to make me nostalgic and happy. (Even though it was 92, dusty, and far more humid than a NH spring...)

Last spring was the first time I wasn't involved in lacrosse in a while, and I went through withdrawal. I never made it home for a game, but I did make one late-season practice. It wasn't enough, but it was great. This year, I may make it home just at the very end of the season, during playoff time, if I'm lucky. We'll see.

This spring is hard, too, because I don't have any local lacrosse to go watch. No high school or college teams, not even a (*gasp*) men's game. (Men's lacrosse is VERY different from women's. Almost a different sport altogether.) I do have my lacrosse  sticks here with me, but it's just not the same. So for the time being, I guess I'm content for those fleeting moments when it feels like a NH spring.

Unfortunately, the last few days have only resembled a NH spring in that the weather was wacky. Haze, zero visibility, low humidity, unseasonably hot temperatures, dust storms, rain, thunderstorms, and, oddly, clouds of dragonflies were all present. I've never seen Jeddah weather like that before. Schools preemptively canceled for two days. Universities too. Hospitals operated with skeleton staffs. And many workers scurried home as the first drops fell. I don't blame anyone. But, it has yet to rain for more than an hour or so with any significant precipitation. Wait and see.

One other sign of spring, though - St. Patrick's Day. May you find your very own pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or your very own leprechaun. Whatever floats your boat. Me, I will be celebrating my Irish heritage in KSA. Hey, the flag is green, right?

Another Day, Another Perspective

My last post was a fairly cathartic one, and the process of writing it and then reading the very sweet and supportive comments by some amazing readers was much needed. I mentioned a few posts ago that I'm experiencing a period of culture shock, which is predictably making me a bit more sensitive to the, shall we say, unique challenges and realities of life in Saudi Arabia. But I want to be clear that I am truly grateful for the opportunity to live in Saudi Arabia and really do love my job, my career, my lifestyle. I'm proud to serve my country and to be witness to such an amazing time in history in the region and the world. I just reserve the right to complain every now and then :-). The other FS and expat readers out there understand, I'm sure.

Having recovered from the relative trauma that is shopping here (and the trauma of putting together a bookcase/linen closet with doors from IKEA), I've had a very pleasant few days. Today was a really great day, professionally and personally. And to top it off, we stopped at Juice World on the way home. Fresh juice - more than 100 varieties - what's not to love! Saudis absolutely love their fresh juices, and I love them too. I'm particularly a big fan of fresh strawberry and pomegranate juice. So I bought a liter of each tonight. And am very excited to drink them!

And a blog post today absolutely has to mention the devastating earthquake in Japan. I didn't blog about the recent Christchurch earthquake, even though it consumed a great deal of my thoughts then and even now. I read with horror and relief the amazing blog posts by an FS couple who lived through the quake. See here and here for their stories. Having spent a phenomenal month in New Zealand (including a blissful week in Christchurch) a few years ago, I am so sad at the devastation and loss of life in that quake. And now Japan's ordeal is just beginning, with more than 1000 confirmed dead. And I see how horrible these recent earthquakes have been in, arguably, two of the better-prepared countries for such natural disasters. And I think back to the Haiti Earthquake. I worked the Haiti Task Force at the time, which was professionally and personally extremely rewarding, challenging, and eye-opening. It was the perfect storm of a natural disaster, and Haiti will be recovering for many decades to come. And it's hard to really think too hard about things like this because the unpredictability and immediacy and what-ifs are too difficult to comprehend without making yourself crazy. Maybe I'm not making sense, but I'm just throwing out stream-of-consciousness here. Throw in the fact that I've never consciously experienced a real earthquake, and it's all the makings of fear and wonder. (I've slept through a couple of very moderate quakes and almost certainly didn't notice the very low-level quakes that constantly happen in New Zealand...)

It's the issue of natural disasters plus the recognition that it truly is the places you wouldn't expect that get evacuated for unpredictable reasons. Who knew on Flag Day that my colleagues in Moscow and Cairo and Tripoli would be the first to be evacuated among our A-100 class?! We all could have (and did) predicted the top contenders, and those posts weren't among them. So even though things here are calm (the supposed Day of Rage was, in the words of a local paper, 'a damp squib') (and except where they aren't), I'm planning my "go bag" and consolidating my important papers and making lists of what goes and stays and planning for the cats and trying not to be in a position where I'm entirely caught unprepared. Because even though they always tell us to do these things, I think for many it takes a reality check to actually do them. And I've got my reality check, in spades.

So with all these heavy thoughts in my mind and a very busy couple of weeks ahead of me, it's time to curl up on the couch with my cats, my new quilt (won in a raffle at a quilting bee!!), and my fresh juice. And just veg.

(Ah, how nice that would have been. Instead, I spent two hours on the phone with tech support trying to figure out why they once again canceled my network connection on my internet. Happens at least once a month, for reasons nobody can figure out. The best part is that since my mobile phone is with a different carrier, the calls cut off after 10 minutes, so I have to call back and talk to a new person. Who cannot access what the last person did. I have gotten really good at synthesizing the problem and all my account numbers into about 30 seconds. So my very zen moment is gone. At least I have juice.)