1) My coffee has tasted salty the past 3 days. Salty enough that I’ve tossed it after a few sips. If I were in America (and making my own coffee) I might worry that odd tasting coffee means I’m pregnant, but here I figure Nanny must be making it differently. It’s either the new brand of coffee that we bought or the water. Last night I filled the coffee maker with filtered water from the cooler and ta dah! No salty coffee this morning. Nanny must have started using tap water. Now to try and explain and pantomime my request so she goes back to using the good water. The tap water doesn’t normally taste salty (it’s all desalinated water), but it must be reacting with the coffee in a strange way. Ick.
2) I woke Camille up this morning and told her to get dressed and then she could come to my bed to snuggle (as she does every day). I went downstairs to let the dog outside and come back in to find her stomping around and kicking a shoe left on the floor in the entry way. “What are you doing?”
“You said we could snuggle!” she shot back at me, accusingly. Oh, Lord. What am I going to do with this girl? I guess Princess Camille came into my room to find that I wasn’t underneath the sheets and had a morning meltdown. I pointed out that she didn’t want the dog to poop all over her stuff and I’d be happy to snuggle with her if she stopped being nasty. The morning was redeemed, and I gently helped my little stick of dynamite off to school (after snuggles, of course).
3) My house looks like the house at the end of ET — taped up floor to ceiling, carpets rolled and wrapped and hoses and men in jumpsuits all over the place.
Practically the same . . .
They spent all day yesterday cleaning the air conditioning ducts upstairs and will come back today to tackle the downstairs. I’m not kidding about the comparison to ET — a friend drove by yesterday and texted me, “What is going on at your house?!” They didn’t tent the outside, but the plastic sheeting, compressors, and other equipment are spilling out onto the sidewalk. I’m a little surprised it wasn’t done before we moved in, but things don’t always make sense here. I’m happy we’ll be breathing cleaner air afterward and that I don’t have to supervise any of it because I’m at work all day (someone from the housing office is here instead).
4) Josh is in CA, snowshoeing with the Emiratis. They are doing cold-weather training and he is checking in on them. In case you were wondering (like I was) if they are doing cold weather training because we plan on invading Russia, the answer is NO. It turns out that the purpose of cold-weather training is to build mental toughness, which made sense to me as soon as Josh said it.
Now he is in 29 Palms waiting for some meetings which will begin as soon as the group can drag themselves away from shopping in Beverly Hills to come join the conference. I’m imagining Pretty Woman, Middle East style.
5) One of the perks of my job is my fabulous assistant. She comes in a few afternoons a week and assists with scanning returns and wrapping the cords on the chargers.
She loves doing all of it and begs to help me close up for the day by putting away the equipment and locking all the cabinets. By the end of the year I’ll be able to sit back and read while she works.
I also got to spend the afternoon with Calvin yesterday while he had several free periods. He sat behind the desk with me and worked on a powerpoint presentation that I needed to create. I joked that I was outsourcing the work, but the person pointed out that in this case it was actually ‘insourcing.” I’m happy to have so much talent on my team. His powerpoint slides were great — way better than I would have created, and he showed me the best places to find free images and icons so I can use them next time. Now if he can teach me how to make a decent infographic that doesn’t look like 5 year old pasted it together, I’ll be set. What am I going to do next year when he isn’t here . . . ?
6) Our family does a big March Madness bracket pool (Hicks Picks/Hix Pix) and Camille was to fill out her bracket so I could submit it for her. She wanted to know which team Steph Curry was on so she could pick them as the winner. When I explained that he plays in a different league (NBA Golden State Warriors) she lost interest and decided to go with a random, computer generated bracket. She’ll probably win.
7) I went to a school fundraising dinner/auction event where people were bidding (and paying) $6,000 dollars for a reserved parking spot at school (among other things). Since the bidding was happening in AED I had to pull out my currency exchange app as the numbers kept going up and up . . .
Yeah, I’m not a high roller like that. I can’t imagine having that kind of disposable income. I didn’t get my hair or nails done, I wore a dress that was a hand-me-down that has hung in my closet for over 6 years, and I borrowed Camille’s play purse to use as a clutch. Hey, it worked and it was free. I had a fun night, even if I didn’t get to play with the big dogs.
I’m confident as I get older that she will make sure I’m still looking good. She’s very serious about makeup and made sure I put on eyeliner and mascara. And she needed some herself, of course. She thinks I should have long hair, because long hair is prettier (don’t even start Dad), but short and easy is the way I roll. She’s also made me promise to take her to Paris before she graduates from High School. I’m living with a 20 year old woman in a 6 year old body . . .
