Back to the Motherland: October 2013

Sunday, October 27, 2013

It's HAPPENING!

Dubai is back on the travel calendar - this is HAPPENING! Cutting through the red tape has ceased and I am scheduled to depart in a week. I have guarded optimism, mind you, simply because I have learned (over and over and over again) that nothing is guaranteed. But I have a plane ticket, and that's the closest I've gotten so far so it's looking good. YAY!

It's been an otherwise busy few weeks. I got to celebrate the marriage of my friends Jason and Ben at their home in New Jersey, and the car ride with Alex, Mostafa and Brandon was nearly as entertaining as the wedding festivities. And thanks to the magic of Facebook, Mom figured out that we were near the town of Ewing, NJ where generations of our family are buried, all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Our hotel happened to be less than a mile from the cemetery and the boys were gracious enough to let me explore it for a little while before we headed back to DC. I had to call my great uncle John to have him guide me to the three spots where our people are, otherwise it would probably have taken a few hours for me to find them. I didn't expect to be as overwhelmed with emotion as I was, especially as I stood over the graves of my great-grandparents. I've heard so many stories over the years and I'm so very grateful I finally got to spend a few moments with them. I will never forget it.

Oh hey guess what - the government re-opened! After almost 3 weeks I got to go back to work and spend 5 hours going through emails! I will admit, the time off was pretty nice (especially since we got paid for it) but I was going mildly insane towards the end of it. Let's just hope it doesn't happen all over again in January.

I went to a few concerts, one of which was 2 Cellos (that's the name of the group - super creative, I know) and it was amazing. There was a meet-and-greet after the show and I was reduced to a babbling teenaged girl in the presence of what I consider freaking rock stars. Words escape me to describe the experience, but I will say that I cried at one point during the show - actual tears running down my face. They were that amazing (or I'm that obsessed with them, either way).

Obviously the biggest news is Dubai. DUBAI DUBAI DUBAI! This. Is. Happening. And I'm pretty sure I get to go to Casablanca to give trainings for a week in the middle of it, no big deal. I'll miss Thanksgiving with my family in Florida but I'll be home for Christmas (I dare you to get that song out of your head now). I might even try to pop over to Cairo for a weekend to see all my other family. Anything is possible! Deep breaths, one thing at a time, everything is as it should be.

According to this I'm a DAR.

My great-grandparents, Dearie & Bampi, and my great uncle David who died when he was a little boy.

Alex, Jason, Jason's dad and Mostafa.

Brandon and I wear the same size shoe so sometimes we like to switch.

Clockwise: Brandon and me...unclear what's happening;
the groom and his new father-in-law;
ex-roommies!; the blushing bride and yours truly.

I'm a groupie and I make no apologies for it.

Woo hoo!

We (LilWayne, Lara and I) defaced some pumpkins by giving them faces. Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 10, 2013

and then there was a shutdown...

Some key things that happened in the last few weeks (in chronological order): I turned 33, the federal government shut down, ArtStream had its most successful gala yet, and I deleted Dubai from my travel calendar.

Yay I got to celebrate another birthday in DC with my friends! LilWayne, Charla, Cal, and Lee all took me out to dinner to a Thai place I've had on my DC bucket list for years. It was a truly amazing meal, complete with the house cat wandering around the dining room. It's cool, cats are clean. There was definitely partying afterwards and I have to say thank you to all my buddies who came out to celebrate with me - I had a pretty good showing considering the the torrential rain.

And then there was a shutdown...
October 1, 2013 - the folks on the Hill couldn't get their act together so the federal government went into partial shutdown mode. The USPTO is allowed to continue operating at full capacity on reserve funds for the next few weeks, but guess who's not technically a PTO employee anymore! I was the only one at the office packing everything up, trying to make my out-of-office auto response sound as neutral as possible. It took me a few tries.

DC has been pretty generous with the furloughed souls, though - I even got a pair of free tickets for Miss Saigon. I've talked about it with a lot of folks and we all have the same dilemma: we have endless amounts of free time but we don't want to spend any money because we don't know when we're getting paid again. Don't get me wrong - I'm keeping myself plenty busy (for example, it's been raining a lot so there's been a lot of Breaking Bad binge watching), but I have a feeling my friends are going to stop buying me pity drinks if this drags on much longer.

The upshot of the shutdown was that I had almost an entire week to help the ArtStream staff get ready for our 4th annual gala. My role this year was significantly reduced from galas past since we didn't know whether I would be in the country for it at all, so I'm glad I could make myself useful. It was an insanely successful event, and it's always a good night when I don't embarrass myself with a goodbye speech full of ugly crying (see ArtStream Gala 2012).

Since my last update on the Dubai situation, things were looking really good for a departure date of October 17th (a week from today). And then there was a shutdown...
For so long I refused to take it off my calendar because I have to hold out hope for something. But at some point we have to be realistic and accept that everyone responsible for handling the logistics of my trip (and almost everyone I would be working with in the consulate in Dubai) is also furloughed. So a few minutes ago I deleted Dubai from my travel calendar. For now. Say it with me: This is only a delay. This is only a delay. This is only a delay.

I got this job just over a year ago. The comedy of errors that has ensued since then makes for really good conversation if nothing else. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I laugh so I don't cry. It's all I can do to stay sane in this seemingly never-ending limbo. Even though I'm furloughed I'm thankful I have a job, and even though I'm essentially homeless I'm thankful to Chris for letting me stay in his gorgeous home. Thank you. Deep breaths, one thing at a time, everything is as it should be.