Welp, we have a new (to us) car

In all our years living overseas, we have always had exactly one car. In the U.S. there are always many, many justifications that ensure we always had two vehicles, but overseas it seemed superfluous. And sometimes clear impossible.

Then came COVID, and some unknown issue with our car, and closed-down auto mechanics. Actually they may have been open, but we weren't interacting with anyone we didn't live with or were otherwise required to interact with (for example, when Terry had to go to the office). The hiking trails opened up before most businesses did, but we did not go because we were not sure the car would make it.  We realized we didn't want to have to give up the mountains that we only got three years to enjoy.

So, the problem with the car was fixable and we were back on our feet - or technically off our feet - and the search for a second car began. Did we want another SUV (mountains!) or a sedan (commute!) Would we require the customs and EPA stickers that ensured we could drive this car back to the U.S. at the end of the tour, thus narrowing the potential make/model options? Did we want a nice car we'd want to keep, or a beater car we just hope lasts the two years we still have here?

After a couple of months of dithering and Terry running hither and yon test driving cars, we chose a used RAV4.

It is now sitting in the garage until we can call our insurance company and get them to add this one to our policy (tomorrow) then go to the registry with the proof of insurance and bill of sale to obtain a license plate. This order of events seems a little bass-ackwards compared to what we're used to, but Canada has continually been deceptive on what's just like home and what's nothing at all like it. And we are very happy to have the garage, because an unregistered car certainly can't sit on the street so that would be a whole new set of logistics to work through. Terry is very motivated to get this accomplished so  he can have his shop back - otherwise known as the garage. He's almost finished with our new TV stand, or rather, accoutrements-to-the-TV stand.

Why do we buy them toys?

Each child has spent a large part of this evening entirely encased in a sleeping bag. First they wandered around testing out life as an inchworm/a caterpillar. Then of course they started bug battles that ended with my son suffering an objectively minor, but emotionally major, wound. This will not end well.

Cake!

Sometime around the pre-election season I had to quit NPR and started listening to podcasts instead. As I got further in German I started listening to news in German. But I usually play a fun podcast during my commute home to make it more bearable.

Today I listened to one all about cake and its relevance in American history. By the time I got home I knew I was making a cake tonight, German review be damned. With my test in just under 2 weeks that is a strong craving indeed.  I mentioned all this to my fabulous au pair, who then whipped up a cake in the 30 minutes between dinner and when she left to bring Zoltan to soccer (I participated too ... I took it out of the oven)

It is delicious.

Coddle Pasta

We've coined a new term tonight.  I knew I was making a meal the kids have steadfastly and continually failed to enjoy. So, I pulled out a bunch of the cooked pasta and left it out, untouched by any other ingredients. After the kids tried dinner and, yet again, failed to like it, I let them finish dinner with plain pasta saved from before. The "Coddle Pasta"; meaning the pasta that represents my coddling of the children. Heck yeah!

Memorable quotes

One of the kids, kicking a tree: Look, I'm a footpecker!

Terry to me, after he shared an article and started a conversation about the new McDonalds' Shamrock Shake straw design: The fibonacci sequence always distracts me when i see it in real life, and not just a recursion example.

Dinnertime rules we have been forced through experience to lay down: 1. No singing at the table until dinner is finished; 2. No dancing in the kitchen.

What I love about FSI

FSI is like a college campus on reunion weekend, every day.

Where else do you find so many adults with jeans and backpacks?  I'm guessing nowhere. Ditto for people talking about homework and tests in the hallway, or rushing to get to class on time or talk to the teacher.

At FSI we also often run into people from our past in the cafeteria (for some reason it mostly happens in the cafeteria). On Friday we had lunch with a friend from our first post, someone we haven't laid eyes upon in eight years, because I happened to walk past him.  He didn't know Terry and I were in the USA and we didn't know he was in training. It was his last day in town. This kind of thing happens all the time!

Allowance, foreign-service style

One thing that gets tricky for a foreign service family living in a country with a volatile currency is the subject of allowance. In the 18 months or so we've been at post, the local current had devalued 100% (meaning if it took 100 tenge to make a dollar when we arrived, it now takes 200 tenge). We probably should have denominated their allowances in dollars from the start, but tenge is the currency in which they can spend their money, and when you live overseas you want to live in the local currency as much as possible - converting every transaction in your head to dollars is exhausting and is one more thing that prevents you from actually living where you live (unless of course your country uses dollars; some do.)

So we finally caved. The kids are now allowanced in dollars, received at whatever the exchange rate is on payday.

Our summer vacation

What did we do on summer vacation?

We spent as much time at the cabin as humanly possible, although as always it wasn't enough. Cabin highlights included:

• counting the trees (planted last year) that are still alive. Not as many as we wanted, but at least the counting required us to go through a nice nice hike in the woods.  
• grilling dinner and roasting marshmallows over the fire
• fighting over who got to spend time in the hammock. Next year we put up a second one. 
• beach time! for some reason my children get along like Brady Bunch children when they are in or near water, and that's the only time.
• an "after dark" night hike up to the field to look at the stars. Mommy misjudged the time, we went to early, and the kids were bored before the constellations were visible. Next year we'll try again.
• Walking straight through the lower part of the property that we are studiously adversely possessing. We've been mowing it and are considering putting in a pond. That would certainly be notorious!

We went to Massachusetts to see my family. Highlights included:

• going into Boston to see my dad and riding both the Duck boat and the swan boats. Alex even got to drive!
• shopping with Bubby. No, seriously, the kids like clothes shopping.
• Terry grilling dinner in a thunderstorm. He pulled the grill right up to the sliding glass doors so he could get the least of his body outside and still cook food over fire.
• the epic game of Uno where my mom finally pulled out of last place when she decided to apply herself.
• spending time with both of the kids' uncles at one time, a feat normally accomplished once every 5 years or so.
• (for Terry and me) stumbling upon some kind of open air music performance at the park by the water in Newburyport on our date night.

We managed to hit one cousin's kid's graduation party. We managed a few date nights while grandparents got to spend quality time with the kids. We got to see some friends although not nearly enough.  We got to see some siblings although not nearly enough. Terry and I went ice skating one afternoon while the kids napped.  We saw movies in the movie theater (in English); spent loads of time at the grocery store; shopped for a year's worth of [fill in the blank]; left the kids in grandparent care in order to run errands; and managed to glut ourselves on various sorely missed food items.

Bless America! See you again next year!

Leave it to the IRS!

Last week we received a letter from the IRS and a $1.00 check. Yes the decimal is in the right place, we got a check for $1.00.  Today we got the letter and explanation:  you see, we overpaid somehow, by $19.00.  We were assessed a fee of $18.00 for failing to pay the correct amount, and that left $1.00 to be refunded to us.

Speechless.

Inching closer

I have Travel Orders!And a housing assignment! And flight reservations, sort of!  Last week I was able to apply for my and Zoltan's passports. I scheduled my packout. I am trying to find time to meet with the ever-popular Ash at CWT to make our flight arrangements - hoping it will be next week. I went to get the first round of shots this week. (ick!)

I met my Desk Officer and got an initial briefing on what's up in Kazakhstan. I started my job-specific training and am learning how to do my job.

We have a bunch of construction and smaller house projects to complete in the next two weeks. Terry will be assisted by a professional for some of it, and his father (also a professional, but much cheaper) for other parts of it.

We are totally moving the ball forward.

Sometimes State totally rocks

There's always so much to complain about, right? Well that isn't today's episode around here. I'm talking about the Emergency Backup Care system. It's an employee benefit that recognizes that most of us have 2 working parents and sometimes %#@#%&; happens.

The gist is this: when normal child or elder care falls through, State finds care (if you need it to, otherwise you find the care) and pays for it, with a nominal copay. You can use the service up to 5 times a year per kid.

Our situation: Alex's school closes its doors to Kindergarteners two days in May to show upcoming Kindergarteners what to expect. As it isn't a normal school closing, her afterschool care isn't open all day as it is on school vacations and such. We expected Terry to just take the day off and it turned out it was a day he couldn't take off. What to do? Call Info Quest of course!

Our regular morning babysitter is available that day to watch Alex. We'll pay her normal hourly rate for the day. We'll fill out a reimbursement form and send it back, and up to $90 will be covered; they cover up to $100 of care minus a $10 co-pay. $90 doesn't get a full day's care in DC but it defrays a large chunk and I am thrilled that this service exists.

If we didn't have a regular babysitter, we could leave the job of finding care to the fine professionals at Info Quest and they would find either a daycare/childcare facility or a private nanny. We can call the night before and get childcare arranged for the next morning - think "Snow Days", put into quotation marks because half the time there was barely any snow. These people have really thought of everything.

Answering some questions

In the wake of my announcement, there's been a decent volume of questions and it seemed useful to answer them here. So here goes, in no particular order:

• The job bringing us to Astana is mine. I'm the ELO/JO/FAST (over the last howevermany years we've been called Junior Officers, Entry Level Officers, and now First And Second Tour officers) so Terry gets to "follow" me. There are positions appropriate for him that would start next summer, so we're in good shape as far as bidding goes (I think/hope). Yes it does mean he gets to be primary on the parenting front. It will be good for him and them (I think/hope).
• We're not sure yet when we'll leave but it won't be before the end of August. And I will definitely be gone before Thanksgiving. I am excited to get in line with my CDO to ask this most pressing question.
• I'll be a Pol/Econ officer. This is exciting as I'm Consular coned so this may be the one and only time I'll get a chance to try out something else. 
• There was a comment about me being relieved that it wasn't Tashkent. My friend, I believe you are thinking of Ashgabat. Tashkent is awesome, and spent a lot of time rivaling Astana as our #1 pick. 
• Thank you to everyone for your good wishes. I have no idea how big our apartment will be, but it will be open to visitors. And yes, anyone within a few timezones may get hit up for a visit, or a "Who wants to meet up somewhere in western Europe, or wherever I can get to in a nonstop flight?"

A dedication

Yesterday's Wordless Wednesday was a photo of our freezer. You can see the ironing board on one side, and a folding chair folded up on the other. We hope that's enough to get a sense of the size of the thing.

Ida, we dedicate this post to you, and hope to make it to Berlin one day.

Wordless Wednesday

Drinking from a fire hose

My first week of A-100 has drawn to a close. We have heard the expression "it's like drinking from a fire hose" a million times or so, describing all we cover in these weeks. It's pretty accurate. The training isn't intellectually arduous, but it is like an endurance test. Spending 12 hours outside of the house every day is exhausting in any situation. When I get home I save my precious few hours each night before the kids' bedtime for family time. By the time the kids are settled and I have done my homework (yes, A-100 is now loaded with homework!) and a few chores to pull my weight around the house it is already past my bedtime, given the 5-something wakeup each morning. There is no downtime. I have spent this week being a hot mess, promising all my new colleagues that as recently as last week I was smart and organized.

First, a shout out to my amazing husband, who has uncomplainingly picked up my slack this week and will for the foreseeable future - although the not complaining part may change. I can only imagine what my nerves, attitude and ability to properly participate in training would have been like if he weren't doing so much.

Second, now that we're a week into it, I want to publicly state how much I appreciate our babysitter. I had asked her to do light housework during the hour she's here before the kids awake and coming home to a clean kitchen every evening is a real morale booster. She looks around and figures out what needs doing - she's prepped veggies for snack; cleaned the bathroom; folded laundry. The kids adore her, even a friend who met her at school dropoff had a positive reaction. Trusting the people who have the care of your babies makes the difference between being able to concentrate on your work and being an even hotter mess. I am so thankful this is working out so well.

We got the bid list this week. There are no DC positions. This is all I can say. So we are working through the options, putting places comparatively high where we said we'd never want to live and moving otherwise more desirable places farther down, as we delve into the whole package of what our life there would be like. Flag day promises to be emotional.

Eating out of the pantry

Back when we thought I would start working in January we started to load up the freezer with dinners and leftovers to make weeknight mealtimes easier. Then it didn't happen. Then we realized we didn't have any more plastic containers. Or room in the freezer for anything. We also realized that our budget had sort of relied on a second paycheck starting in February, so there was some rejiggering to do there.

All of that combined to produce the "pantry challenge". I am 100% confident we can live off our pantry for at least one week, excepting a few weekly necessities. I have allotted $20 as part of the challenge to load up on milk, eggs and fruit. Depending on what kind of dent we make, the challenge might run 2 weeks. I'll post how it goes.

Tonight we're serving up leftovers from our housewarming party last night. Pumpkin and spinach ziti, or Spanish rice? It's fun to have options.

Oh, IBM/Computershare :-(

Somewhere in my youth, or childhood ....  my parents bought me one bright shiny share of IBM stock. It came as a nifty actual piece of paper that they put into a frame and propped up on a shelf in my bedroom.  As I was a child or even a baby (who knows when they bought this share? Maybe it celebrated my birth) I was listed as a minor and my dad as the custodian on the account.

For all these years, I have continued to own this stock. It's split, I've been doing dividend reinvestment all this time so eventually I have bought a share or two, and the value has increased of course. All this means I now have 3-and-a-fraction "book" shares in addition to the one bright shiny paper share. Somewhere along the line, a company called Computershare started managing the stock.

For various reasons, now is the time for me to deal with this stock. And wow what an ordeal it is!!

The first step in doing anything at all is to transfer the shares into my name alone. I asked if it would be simpler if my dad just sold the shares, but because I am now in fact no longer a minor it doesn't matter that he is written as the custodian. So for the purposes of getting rid of these shares it doesn't matter that his name is on it, but to get his name off it will cost be a bunch of money and time. Sounds about right?!?

First I learned I would need to fill out a form and acquire a "medallion guarantee" certifying that my signature is the actual signature of me, the person who will become the account holder. A notary stamp is NOT sufficient, which is written in all caps and bold and made very very clear. Unfortunately, these things are available only through financial institutions. Of course, I use credit unions and primarily online institutions. No local brick and mortar. And because banks are agreeing to pay up if I'm not really me, of course they only provide these things to their own customers. In comes the Fedex charge to send the form to my financial institution (but hey, at least they do it! Not every place does.)

Then, and much more frustratingly, I discovered I need that paper stock certificate that was last seen in the childhood home my mother sold ten years ago. There is absolutely, 100% no way to do anything with this stock until I hold in my hand the paper share. I can pay about 10% of the value of the stock I have to acquire a new one from IBM (to then turn around and send it back to them with the magical "medallion guarantee" and another form or two). I asked the oh-so-helpful customer service lady whether, if I bought stock today, I would receive paper shares. She said no. She agreed that if I bought and then sold a share in the last however many years, this requirement of a paper share would of course not be necessary. I asked why I am being penalized just because we bought the share several decades ago. She wasn't amused.

Yes, the value of the stock is greater than what I will be shelling out in order to be able to have the option of selling it. However, it has cost me plenty of time and annoyance (and soon also cash) to deal with this. Trust me, not I nor anyone whose investment choices I have any control over will ever buy IBM stock, or any stock through Computershare as I cannot tell what requirements are coming directly from IBM and which are made up by Computershare.

* Note: I've edited the name of the not-IBM company. It's Computershare, not Compushare.

Giving props when due

Nobody likes Comcast. Normally, we don't like Comcast. But I am forced to admit that actually have the capability to do the right thing.

A week or so ago, I had an awful day exacerbated by the inability to use my telephone or get online due to non functioning internet. I blogged about it. As you can see, a Comcast rep found me and left a comment inviting me to contact him and go over what went wrong. Within the day of me sending the information he requested we got a call. (being a little picky, I will say that the choice of 7pm on Halloween wasn't inspired)

And ... the end result is we were compensated for the inconvenience and even given a rep's direct number for the next time we encounter a problem.  We have also noticed that our service has been much better since then.

I have a feeling if all problems were resolved like this, everyone would switch to Comcast voluntarily.

[Edited to add: the very next day we were without internet for the entire day. I even called  the guy who had called and left a message that was never returned. Ugh. Possibly back to hating Comcast.]

I hate my kitchen...

But I loooove my kitchen cart. I will confidently state that it adds 20% more counter and cabinet space to our kitchen. Thanks mom for the early Hanukkah present!!!!

One of "those" days

So Tuesday actually started Monday when Zoltan fell backwards off the couch onto the coffee table and gashed his head right at bedtime. We called the kids' pediatrician's office and the answering service said we'd get a call back from the on-call doc within 30 minutes or so. The bleeding seemed to have gone down significantly, but the gash looked deep. Terry held Z and the ice pack (aka the sacrificial bag of green beans) while I packed them a bag and started looking into urgent care clinics. They were all closed or closing. The doc calls, says she really can't tell over the phone but normally if you think the kids needs stitches, the kid does. She had us take a photo on the phone and text it to her, which I thought was cool, but she still couldn't tell.

She suggests we take him to the local hospital's ER (duh). So Terry and Z leave and I get Alex to bed. She was amazing, fetching whatever we needed and literally running to get out of our way when we rushed here or there. She offered him her new, favorite stuffed animal to take - but of course he only wanted BlaBla.

Already long story slightly shorter, I lay down on the couch around 11, woke to read a few texts on their status, and welcomed the boys home around midnight. Ugh.

Next morning came early. Alex slept a tiny bit past wakeup time, I had to wake Zoltan around 9am to keep his schedule from getting completely off and because he had to start getting up to go with us for Alex's doctor's appointment previously scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Doc visit was fine, we went over her cough and the possible causes and what to do in various scenarios. He gave us a prescription for Prevacid, which I am assuming is something between Zantac (what she's already taking) and Prilosec (I hear it's pretty hard core). We got Alex to school and went to fill the prescription. Pharmacy doesn't have the full supply, can give us some that night and can order more. Fine. I get Zoltan home late for lunch and nap and of course today of all days, when he really needed a good long nap.

He goes down and I try to get on the internet to look up dinner's recipe. No internet. I call Comcast and that's always a huge hassle. In the end I rebooted the router and the cable modem and then had even less internet. I also get a call from Terry that the pharmacy called him because the generic was discontinued and the name brand will cost us about $150 for the prescription.

I spend the entire 2 hours of Zoltan's nap on my cell phone because our home phone is VOIP and thus useless without internet. I call Comcast several times. I call Terry. I call our insurance company. I try to call CVS but without internet I can't look up the number so I call Terry. I call CVS. One of the times I call Comcast the CSR hung up on me within the first minute, because when she asked if something was OK (I forget what) I joked "and what will you do if I say no". Oops. At least I had offered to take the customer service survey so I got to give feedback on the customer "service".

After nap, it seemed like things were starting to look up. After school we went to the playground with some new friends. I managed to make a tasty dinner without internet. The kids were surprisingly well behaved for the excitement and sleep deprivation. Terry got the internet working again.

And then, as the kids were on their way to brush teeth and go to bed, they fight about something. Zoltan pushes Alex and she goes down. When she comes up she's holding her arm. NOOOOOOOOOO

(to be continued)