robinchartier

It’s been a better few days for us — partly because the Eid holiday means that we know we can’t accomplish anything so it relieves a bit of the annoyance of being in limbo. The stress of the previous issue has passed and only our housing remains unsettled. With everything on hold, the past few days have been sleep, lie around, eat, lie around, sleep . . . it’s too hot to go outside, but I have to wear pants and sweaters inside because the AC has to be cranked in order to keep the humidity down.

We are happy the kids are arriving this evening. While I haven’t missed the work of parenting, I have missed their excitement, energy, and wit. They never fail to make me laugh and that’s what I need more of these days. 

The rest of the holiday week will be spent at the pool (it just reopened after being closed for repairs since we arrived), eating, sleeping, and lying around while the kids recover from jet lag and prepare to start school on Monday.

Hmmm, where do I start? It hasn’t been an easy week for us in spite of how it looks externally. We’re staying in a beautiful hotel, kid free, but WOW our stress levels are high. There’s still so many details that are unknown — like how much money we will actually have coming in each month, figuring out why the health insurance approval stalled out, which is holding up Josh’s Emirates ID, which is keeping us from moving into a place, and hey wait, is someone working on getting the money sent to us to pay for our rent when all of that finally does come through?

My job is going great and it’s been a seamless transition back to school, but on Josh’s side he keeps hitting one hurdle after another. All administrative, all stressful. He’s trying to focus on learning and doing his job, but ending up having to babysit (and pester) the people who should be doing their job of getting him set up within the company. Someone warned us that the bureaucracy didn’t end when we left the military and we’re unfortunately finding that to be true. Thankfully there are a few bright stars that have been lifesavers, but all in all, we’re worn down.

There have been specific stresses that have popped up this week, but I’m being vague intentionally. Let me just say, when your husband starts threatening, “if Toby replies with anything other than ‘OK, I’ll take care of that,’ — I’m out!” we have reached nervous breakdown territory. I’m no longer fearing that I will have to pack my suitcase and start sourcing plane tickets back to the US, but it was a tense 12 hours.

In this case, God provided a solution and we didn’t have to rely on Toby to take care of it. Thank God! Maybe when it’s not so raw I’ll feel free to spill details, but it’s still too fresh to relive it in words (unless you want to message me to get the inside story).

Moving on to people who are having a great week — the kids. They are living it up in DC with the grandparents. 

A White House tourWatching the Marine parade at 8th and I

hiking all over DC to see the sights — Natural History museum, National Archives, the Capitol, and more.

and there’s always time to play cards!

I guess they are collecting all the Americana gear and are ready for their National Day parade when they get back to school!

That about covers it. Oh wait, we did find a place to live and the landlord is holding it for us until we can sign a lease. Of course that enthusiasm was dampened when I thought we might have to leave, but I’m 99% sure that crisis has passed so here it is: 

3 bedroom, good location, close enough to school to walk . . . it will feel more secure when we actually have the money to pay the lease. Inshallah, inshallah.

Yeah, I’m not feeling the brightest these days. I’ve been outsmarted by the room lights in the hotel (it took over 24 hours to figure out how to turn on the light in the bathroom), lost my phone for about 20 minutes when I hadn’t even left my desk at school, and I can’t remember the rest of my fumbles, but I guess that’s what happens when I’m working on only a few hours of sleep. Not by choice, but because it’s a inevitable part of flying across the world.

The flight from DC was painful. Clearly I survived, but the 13 hours felt just as long as 17 from the west coast. Of course there were 2 little munchkins seated behind us whose mom let them climb all over the seatbacks and kick endlessly, so that didn’t help. My bigger issue was having been in limbo for so long, I was just anxious to hurry up and get there. Anyway, we finally made it, breezed through passport control, and were out of the airport and on our way to the hotel in record time. It was much easier being freed from the hassles of the diplomatic passports.

Thankfully the Intercontinental hotel treats us like royalty. We arrived in time for the evening cocktail hour and had our fill of small plates of Thai seafood salad, beef carpaccio, tomato and mozzarella, and more. I thought I’d be able to sleep all night because of my restless plane flight, but no luck. We woke up at 2 am and killed time until we could go eat breakfast at 6:30am.

Since Josh was headed to a work meeting on day 1, I decided to head into work myself to get a head start on everything that has to be done before the school year begins. It was great to be back, to have a purpose, and to feel productive. In spite of my fuzzy brain, I got a good bit accomplished and I was so proud of myself for making it all day without a nap. Jet lag victory is mine! I went to sleep at 11 and . . . woke up at 2:45 am, feeling as if I had slept for 8 hours instead of 4. Good grief. Stupid body clock.

I’m really hoping that I don’t end up in a zombie state since I actually do have to work today. It’s the first official day back for all the teachers and while it will be fun to catch up with old friends, I have a new work partner that I have to train to do our job while still trying to get everything completed on our task list. I’ll do my best. At least it’s not brain surgery.

Only a few more hours before we head to the airport. We’re out of luggage space and weight so no more shopping and we’re mentally tired so don’t feel like sightseeing either. Instead we are curled up on a comfy couch in the hotel lounge and waiting until it’s time to call an Uber to go to the airport.

I’m watching Karate Kid The Next Generation under duress since that’s what’s playing, but it’s 50% commercials so I may not get to see if Jaden Smith gets the girl or wins the karate championship at the end. #spoileralert he does.

Yesterday Josh had morning meetings and a few appointments, but in the late afternoon we went over to the White House grounds and met up with a friend from Abu Dhabi who showed us all over his workplace, the Eisenhower Building, where the Vice President and staff have their offices. It’s a beautiful building inside with room after room of painted ceilings and gold leaf detail like the Louvre in Paris. We saw some of the ceremonial rooms where the original Vice Presidential desk sits — inside the drawer past VPs have all carved or signed their names in the wood.

Right out the window sits the West Wing of the White House — and I took zero photos because I was playing it cool and didn’t want to be a tourist. But it was really fun to get a behind the scenes look at a less explored piece of history — including the bowling alley in the basement. So long America — it’s been a great summer. Now the real work begins. My list is long and I’m ready to attack it (after I recover from jet lag).

I’m sitting in the breakfast area of a hotel in DC, drinking coffee, and listening in on the conversation going on next to me because I’m SOLO and have nothing else to do and no one else to worry about. I’m learning that this guy flies a ton for work, hates United because he refuses to connect through San Francisco airport because he always gets delayed because of fog, he’s been a platinum mileage member with Alaska for the past 7 years and refuses to fly anyone else because he has “worked for those miles,” and he got his credit card shut off when he used it in a vending machine in the Oakland airport. I guess it’s a “hotspot for crime activity” and the vending machine threw up the red flag in the computer and shut his card off. Now they are all sharing their worst card stories. And my restaurant hearing is not great, so you know they must be loud.

Now I even know the dude’s last 4 of his social security number and that someone fraudulently ordered a $600 edible arrangement after stealing his card info, but I’m bored with their Tales of Banking Woe so I’m moving on.

The only thing that has been less than perfect about my DC morning is that I woke up at 6 am. Say what now?! That’s 3 am west coast time, where I was yesterday. Why is my dumb self wide awake 2 hours earlier than I would have in my normal time zone. Boo.

My flights were easy yesterday and I met the most adorable businessman in Dallas while waiting for my connecting flight. He got me into the fancy airport lounge where all the people with millions of air miles hang out and we ate free food and drank coffee in comfortable chairs away from the masses of people wearing pjs and carrying on 13 shopping bags.

I have the day to myself, but I don’t think I want to hit any tourist attractions  I think I’d rather get my last bit of America in and walk around the mall, window shop, and hopefully score a few more clothing items since I won’t do any shopping once I’m back in AD. Only 2 more days in the US!