Shawn was in charge of planning this year’s Independence Day celebration at the Embassy, so the past few weeks have been a little stressful for him. In fact, last night I could tell he’d reached his limit when I found him staring off into space with this look that just said he was done. And I practically had to push him out the door to take Laika on her post-dinner walk. So I know he’ll just be glad when this evening is over. And he can sit back and pass the planning for next year off to some other junior officer. Ah, the circle of the Foreign Service life.

If you’re in America, enjoy the festivities. I’m sure I’ll stand out on our balcony to watch the fireworks when they inevitably go off around 11pm tonight. Why, you ask? Because it’s a summer night in Kyiv, silly. And fireworks and drunkenness (particularly in combination) are plentiful here.

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Shawn and I spent the morning with these people (Ambassador Taylor, Mrs. Bush, President Bush, Doctor Taylor, and Secretary of State Rice if you’re having trouble with my darkish photo). Well, not exactly “spent the morning” - more like spent two and a half hours waiting and then spent 20 minutes of the morning. But it was pretty cool.

When it was my turn to meet the President, Shawn wanted me to ask if he was supporting Obama or Clinton, but I thought back to my etiquitte class and determined that it might not be…um, diplomatic. Instead, I was a little taken aback as he said, “Hey, how’re you doing?” Um. Good. Thanks. He seemed pretty laid back, which I guess isn’t too shocking. Shawn did note that he does the little shoulder shake when he laughs just like Jon Stewart’s impression of him.

So the visit is only a day and then they’re all off to the NATO Summit. I’ll be glad when it’s all over because Shawn has been working a crazy amount of overtime for the last few weeks. I cannot even begin to describe all the work that goes into an event like this. And all the details - it’s hard to even imagine. Shawn was pretty lucky, though, in that he got to do a fairly important job for the visit and work closely with Secretary Rice’s staff. So even though it’s been a lot of work, it seems like it’s been a good experience for him.

And a couple more photos from this morning:

Normally I’m a supporter of the right to protest (peacefully, of course). However, there’s a big difference between demonstrations in the US and demonstrations in Ukraine - namely that the police here are just for show. I don’t honestly believe that they would do much if people started getting out of hand. The “traffic police” basically just stand at the side of the road and pull people over at random to demand a bribe. So my confidence in the “riot police” is not strong. Add to that the fact that people tend to start drinking beer around 8am and a mid-day demonstration seems like a major problem waiting to happen.

So today I will remain indoors with my very unhappy puppy. (She’s having a hard time understanding why we are not going on our mid-afternoon walk.)

Just so that this isn’t a total downer of a blog entry, here’s the latest graffiti to show up in our neighborhood:

Pretty cool, huh? I’m a big fan of stenciled graffiti. And the best part is that it’s on the wall of an 11th century church that’s listed as an UNESCO Heritage Site. Classic.

It’s a little strange to think about living in the Bahamas. I mean, we went on our honeymoon there. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to live in a vacation destination, so I guess I’m going to have my chance to find out. I’m very excited, although it still feels a long way off. I want to gather as much information as I can, but it seems crazy to start now. And I think there’s always a little bit of disappointment when you consider all the cool places on your list that you didn’t get (Paris, Canada, heck, even Monrovia sounds interesting now that we’re not going there).

But I’m definitely not complaining.

Before we go, however, there will be the last minute arrangement of the bid list, wherein we seal our fate. So by the time we get back from R&R, Shawn should officially have his next assignment and we can start preparing. Because even though it will be ridiculously early, I know I will not be able to stop myself.

Today I discovered something that may be the key to my survival of the next 14 months in Kyiv - a bakery that has good cinnamon rolls. Real cinnamon rolls, not some Ukrainian attempt at cinnamon rolls. And it’s only two blocks from our apartment! I miss good pastries, particularly donuts, so much - I have a horrible sweet tooth. I think I know where I’ll be nearly every morning from now on…

Finally, a couple of photos for you. Laika recently celebrated her 10 month birthday. Neither Shawn nor I felt like awkwardly picking up all 50 pounds of her, so we forced her to sit and pose instead. And Shawn surprised me with a fancy Valentine’s dinner last week at the Hyatt. Very tasty and I got to dress up for the occasion. This is very exciting for someone who normally sits around in jeans covered in dried rawhide and dog slobber. And he also gifted me with some beautiful roses.

Working for the government somehow involves a lot of rules and regulations. Crazy, I know. When the bid list was initially posted, there were approximately 400 jobs on it. Shawn is required to work in a consular position for his next tour in order to qualify for tenure, so that brought the list down to about 320. Still not too bad. However, the next two considerations - language required and timing - brought the list down to a whopping total of 24.

Okay, so there are still some good options on the list; it’s just full of places that we never really thought about going. Some of these jobs will probably fall off the list after the first group of officers bid (people who are in more “difficult” posts than Kyiv will bid first). Another unanticipated issue is that several of the jobs are on islands, which for the most part means quarantines for pets. So we have a lot of thinking to do about that.

The bottom line is that Shawn is required to bid on 20 posts, so we already have it narrowed down to what is going to be on that list. Now it’s just a matter of research and deciding what order to place them in. The next few weeks are going to be busy ones.

I have realized that there is a huge community of people who craft (knit, sew, draw, etc.) and then blog about it. How cool! I love seeing what other people are doing. It gives me so much inspiration, as well as a long list of craft books I now want to purchase. The other thing I’ve noticed is that there is what seems to be a large crafting community in Portland, Oregon. Why did I not know that when I lived there? I guess I was right out of college and more focused on things like “deciding what to do with my life” and “making a new marriage work” than really following my crafting passion. But now I feel like I missed out on something amazing. How is it possible that I have already lived in the perfect place for me and will not have the chance to live there again for another 30 to 40 years?! For now, I will live vicariously through the blogging of others who are there.

Here’s a list of some blogs that I’ve been reading on a daily basis lately:

house on hill road

angry chicken

Wee Wonderfuls

all buttoned up.

glittergoods

Wise Craft

Additionally, I’ve had some really excellent online shopping experiences recently. Since I now do most of my shopping online, I’ve been trying to find smaller businesses to frequent, rather than giving all my money to corporations. Not only do I feel good about helping out “the little guy,” these businesses know how to use personal touches to make me feel like I’m actually important as the customer. A novel idea in our world of Wal-Marts and Targets.

I got some spectacular fabric from Cia’s Palette - I would show it to you, but it’s for a quilting challenge I have with my mom, who just happens to be one of my faithful readers. And tucked in with the fabric I ordered was a good sized swatch of a different fabric that was equally awesome and in complementary colors! I also got a great vintage dress pattern from Eva Dress. This was going to be the dress I made for myself for this year’s Marine Ball, but it turns out we’re going to be out of town that weekend. Maybe next year… And finally, I picked out a Japanese book on embroidery and some floss from Superbuzzy. And tucked in that package was some Japanese candy! This experience basically taught me that I love getting surprise presents! And the shipping time for all three of these orders was way less than when I order from companies like JoAnn Fabric or KnitPicks. Granted, shipping time for us has a lot to do with the whole Diplomatic Pouch mail system, but I got the feeling that these people packaged my order and took it right to the post office as soon as I ordered. Very cool.

So there’s some online exploring for you to do. Obviously, I highly recommend all of the sites I listed. Let me know if you know any great sites that I should be checking out. I need something more to fill the time between work, dog walking, crafting, eating, and sleeping.

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Now to the change part: I start my new job this week. I will be spending 5 hours a day listening to the complaints of my fellow Americans here in Kyiv. (Well, hopefully at least part of that 5 hours will be devoted to actually helping solve their problems.) That’s right, you’re looking at one of the new Customer Service Reps for US Embassy, Kyiv. Maybe not my ideal job, but it’s something. And I hope that my naturally cheery disposition will help to alleviate the concerns of stressed out Foreign Service families. As with any change, it has it’s positive and negative consequences.

On the negative side: I had about a million things I wanted to do with myself after moving here. How am I possibly six months in - one quarter of the way through our tour - with nothing accomplished? I’m finding it very depressing. I was going to teach myself draping, take violin lessons, work on writing a book, take some steps toward staring a business, and the list goes on and on. I actually have this list written down…and nothing to show for it. So now I’m going to start work and I just know that means I’m not going to feel like accomplishing any of it. Working part-time sounded good in theory (”so I’ll still have time for myself,” I said), but I know that when it really comes down to it, I’m going to be just as busy as if I was working full-time. *Sigh* I’ve spent most of the past week dwelling on my inadequacies, so now I’ll move on to…

The positive side: I’ve realized in the past two weeks that I have entire conversations with the dog. Is this normal? I think it started as me conversing with her solely in the house, but it’s moved on to the public sphere now. I guess the combination of the fact that everyone here looks at me like I just jumped off my spaceship anyway and the knowledge that only about 10% of the people on the street can even understand the things I’m saying has led me to really stop caring about talking to her too much on the street. I’ve got to talk to someone, right? Okay, maybe getting out of the house for 5 hours a day is a good thing.

Before I go further, I will state that I am fine. Honestly. I know that the word “evacuation” causes all sorts of images of me on a stretcher being taken out of Ukraine by Marine helicopter (at least it does in my head), but it was nothing like that. My medical condition was not life-threatening, or even really an emergency. It was just something that needed to be checked out before April 2009, so medevac was the way to go. And for the sake of not sharing too much personal information online, that’s all I’m going to say about my health.

But I will share more details about the experience itself. It was probably one of the craziest weeks of my life. I left Kyiv Monday morning, landed in DC Monday evening, and hit the ground running. I had appointments and testing all day Tuesday and part of the day Wednesday, results were determined by the end of the day Thursday, and I was “cleared” to return to post on Friday (although my return flight was on Monday morning). It was a confusing time of explaining and re-explaining my situation. I had never had an experience with a teaching hospital before, so since all my appointments were at The George Washington University, I got to see the whole intern system in action.

I think my favorite (and I’m laughing only after the fact) intern experience was the one I had at my ophthalmologist appointment. She was very thorough, yet somehow completely lacking in bedside manner. Things came to a head when she was checking the pressure in my eyes. In the past, I’ve always had that done with the weird puff-of-air machine. But in this case, she numbed my eyes and then moved an apparatus in to actually touch my eye. Gross, I know. However, Intern didn’t mention what she was doing in advance and suddenly I realized that my eyes were feeling really funny and something is moving toward them…and getting too close. So I start blinking like crazy - she starts yelling at me that I’m “only going to make it hurt worse” (clearly indicating to me that she plans on causing me pain) - and I finally hear myself shout “What is that thing and what are you doing?!” After Intern took all of 30 seconds to explain what was going on, I was fine, of course. For the sake of her future patients, I hope she learned a small lesson. Oh, and when the real doctor came in the room, she rattled off about 5 things she had found wrong with my eyes. It took the doctor about 2 minutes to determine that there wasn’t anything wrong with them and I stumbled out into the sun, traumatized and with dilated pupils.

So between all the appointments and general craziness of the week, I soaked up some serious American culture. My mom came to spend a few days with me and, let’s say, “over-encouraged” my shopping habit. I was like one of those people on StyleTV that they give the credit card to and tell them to buy a new wardrobe. Unfortunately, unlike the show, I have to pay off my credit card. In my defense, I was in need to new clothes and I now know how lacking my options are in Kyiv. (I prefer to be able to sit down in my skirts.) Additionally, I got to eat at several of my favorite restaurants and saw 4 movies (Harry Potter, Superbad, Nanny Diaries, and Stardust).

So after a week’s diversion, and over 5,000 frequent flier miles, it’s back to real life - loads of laundry and walking a dog that seemed to get a little wilder in my absence. Only 5 more months until our R and R vacation….