The District Demarche

The District Démarche

И снова здравствуйте! / Ee snow-va zdravst-vu-yetye! / Hello again!

Hello friends, it’s been awhile.  Welcome to the first – and likely only – domestic version of this little home-grown rag.  And given that we’re now in a domestic assignment, don’t look for any more Russian or other funky languages, at least for the time being!

Your head feels better already, doesn’t it?

First Things First

What’s with the wacky title?

Well, since the field in which I now find myself is, you know, diplomacy and all, it happens that once in a while you come across jazzy words in foreign languages.  Hence the word démarche (the French noun for gait, step or approach in English), or other French words we use still today, since it was once the principle language of diplomacy (really the lingua franca of all international trade and relations) for quite some time, and in effect remains one of the working languages of international diplomacy today.  So our use today of said French terms is kind of a holdover to a bygone era of French geographic dominance, and as English began its inexorable march to take over as the worldwide language of choice for commerce and foreign relations, some words and phrases tenaciously held on.

In practical terms, a démarche is a formal representation of the official position, views or wishes on a specific subject, provided by one government or international organization and delivered to another.  A démarche can also register opposition or voice a complaint to another state.  Démarches are written and delivered, usually in person, to the receiving state or organization, and when from the U.S. a démarche can be delivered by anyone serving under the authority of the Ambassador or Chief of Mission.

I’ve never delivered one or been involved in drafting one or anything, but this little publication of mine delivers my thoughts and views on any number of useless and inane things from me to you, and I work in the District of Columbia, so there you go.  Plus it just sounds classy.  You’re free to disagree with my judgment on this matter, but you’d be wrong.

A Tale of Three Cities

No apologies to Dickens.  Evidently he was a grumpy old man anyway, so I have no plans to apologize to such a curmudgeon.  Actually, I have no idea if he was a grumpy old curmudgeon or not, but I’m still not apologizing to him.

Our return from eastern edge of freedom in 2017 brought the entire clan together back to the familiar soil of the Midwest, and once again Team Panetti spent a quiet, pleasant week in the north woods of Wisconsin on a beautiful lake in Bayfield County, outside of the little town of Iron River.

My family has more than a 100-year association with this town, as my paternal grandmother was born in Iron River in nineteen-hundred-aught-something to the town pharmacist, Alva Miles.  My father was born in Milwaukee but spent many summers as a child in the town, on the ballfields, and on the lakes up north, and spent at least part of one school year there in the 50s (probably 1952) in order to avoid the polio epidemic back in the city of Milwaukee, which killed several thousand people nationwide. 

When my brother and I were kids, our parents took us to Iron River many times as well, and we have done the same with our kids.  If you’re driving along U.S. Highway 2 across the northland and you blink at an inopportune moment, you’re likely to miss the little burg of about 800-odd people. (The town does have its share of characters!)

A week on Twin Bear Lake, a couple weeks back at the homestead in Bloomington to round out Home Leave, and I was off to D.C. for the start of Tour #3.  For a king’s ransom, we rented a comfy townhome in Arlington, VA, about midway between my job in Foggy Bottom and Kate’s job at the library in the city of Fairfax, in a nice little district called Ballston.  I would forgive you if you didn’t recall that the two of us have a three bedroom place – plenty of space for visitors – since our plan was that #1 daughter would be joining us here to find a job or an internship post-college.  Prior to our arrival but of course after we inked the deal on the rental, she changed her mind and decided to stay in the Twin Cities where she now has a nice apartment in a duplex with a couple of roommates, and two jobs with the Minnesota Historical Society.  Darn kids.

And so it is that Team Panetti is living a tale of three cities; we’re here in D.C. with Riley the Wonder Dog, Tommy and Jenna are in Baltimore (along with a new Wonder-Pup-Wannabe, Webster), and Sophie is making her way back in Minneapolis.

Maybe not the best of times, but certainly not the worst of times, either.  

Sophie’s place in South Minneapolis, and Webster the mini-goldendoodle Wonder-Pup-Wannabe.

Making a Hard Right at Europe

If you use your imagination a bit, you can easily see that it’s a pretty complex thing to employ 75,000 people to fill every single position for the State Department, both here in the U.S. and also in our embassies and missions in virtually every nation on earth.  Inevitably positions go vacant on occasion, for sometimes funding is consumed or cut, or maybe someone has left a job (for all the reasons a person might possibly leave a job or career), and sometimes positions “magically” appear altogether once funding is approved or what have you. 

On the Foreign Service side of the house, positions that are available to be filled immediately are often known as “Now” positions, which means just exactly what the two of you think it means.  These positions are made known to FSOs via unclassified cable, email from a Career Development Officer, word of mouth, or found simply by conducting a search using our specialized program online for bidding on jobs.

Normally, I just glance at these notifications, if I give them any attention at all.  But lately I’ve taken a keen interest in what’s out there, not only because I would be bidding for my next tour later in 2018, but also because my job here in Washington is kind of sedentary, and a little too free-form for me.  In addition, I have never worked in a cubicle farm before.  Not that I don’t enjoy it or the people with whom I work, but this position is also somewhat new, in fact completely new, and so there was no one to provide me with any handover documents or anything, no one to say “Here are your general duties on a day-to-day basis.”  Enter that double-edged sword of having a lot of freedom to make the job what I’d like, but also the freedom to not know exactly what it is I should or could be doing.  But they hire Foreign Service Officers to make things work and to use our brains to figure things out, and so I committed myself to doing just that for this two-year tour.

And then one Friday an email arrived.  A little more than two weeks ago, one of those “Now” positions entered my inbox consciousness.  And it looked good.  Really good, in fact:  An interesting job in an interesting place, and on the surface I appeared qualified.  Right now we’re a little out of the normal cycle of when jobs come available, so I felt that maybe I would have a real shot if I pulled the trigger and applied, since the number of people actually applying would be smaller right now than if I were to bid later in the spring or summer, when competition for available jobs would be greater.

Several somewhat frantic text messages and a few hours later, and Kate and I decided that there was no harm in trying.  The worst they could say is no.

So I applied.  Despite the preceding factors, I didn’t see that I really had a strong chance, but I knew I had something of a shot, and so I applied.  Paperwork completed, references submitted, application entered into the system, email introductions done, and I was officially a candidate for the job. 

Now the ball was in their court, for if they liked what they read then they would contact me and we might set up an interview over the phone.  If not, a pretty standard email would arrive notifying me that, while I was a strong candidate, unfortunately the relevant office found a candidate who better fit their needs at this time, thankyouverymuch.

Well, I hoodwinked them into setting up an interview a few days later, and another day or so after that I received an email just before I left for work.  It was a formal handshake for the job, and I readily and happily accepted the job!

And so now I will have a mid-tour detour, and in May 2018 I will leave my job as a Planning and Coordination Officer in the Office of Global Educational Programs in order be the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. 

I’m about as excited as one can reasonably be when they just volunteered to go to Iraq.  Which in my case is pretty excited.  If you had asked me in 2008 where I’d be in ten years, well, I wouldn’t have guessed Iraq.

I won’t expect visitors. 

Empty Nexting

We’ve been working and living in the D.C. area since September now, and while mostly life continues as it would for anyone, we are able to take advantage of many of the events and activities of the region now that we are empty nexters, a term coined by dear friends John & Kate M.

You might not really care, but neither do I care that you might not, and so here’s a little snapshot of life in NOVA (Northern Virginia) or the DMV (clever initialism for the District-Maryland-Virginia):

Panorama of downtown Baltimore from Federal Hill Park, overlooking the harbor.  Tommy and Jenna live about ½ mile away on the far left, close to the Inner Harbor, the Raven’s stadium, Camden Yards and Jenna’s office.

Theodore Roosevelt Island is in the Potomac and is a very quiet and peaceful park surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city.  We visited last fall with some good friends we met in Moldova.

Of course Riley the Wonder Dog keeps us busy as well, and we are fortunate to have found a place to live that is but steps away from a bucolic park with this babbling brook running through the middle, straddled by paths for walking or jogging.  Come and visit and we’ll wander like we’re lost, even though we won’t be.

A friend visited back in the fall, and we enjoyed a nice rooftop drink before a delicious Afghan dinner in the District.  It was a bit strange to realize later that it was 9/11...

Baltimore sits about 45 miles from our place in Arlington, and one weekend we met Tommy and Jenna in Annapolis for brunch at the Iron Rooster, and then we walked it off with a visit to the Naval Academy and a wander around the harbor front.   The Maryland State House is quite lovely, and includes this statue of Revolutionary War hero, the German born Major General Baron Johann DeKalb.

Friends from Bloomington visited DC a little later in September to stage an exhibition of interactive art and photography on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  After a day in the heat collecting stories that “explore the meaning of peace, one story at a time,” we enjoyed brunch together and then spent the afternoon in the air conditioned Newseum, a fantastic place dedicated to the defense of the first amendment.   We are now members, so come on out to visit and we’ll join you on another visit.

A friend of Tom and Jenna’s was visiting that same weekend, and as things have a way of happening, she’s also a graduate of Prior Lake High School.  We enjoyed a hot afternoon at the Georgetown Food Festival, along with an ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s.

On October 9^th, the federal government observed a holiday for Columbus Day, and so of course we made an excursion to the National Museum of the American Indian, a wonderful relatively recent (2004) addition to the Smithsonian collection of museums.

One Saturday, the three of us (Kate, RTWD and me) hopped in the car and set off on a little marathon day trip. We visited several Virginia wineries, lunched on barbeque, had a short outing to Harpers Ferry, WV (small town and National Park of John Brown fame), and met Tommy and Jenna in Baltimore for dinner that evening. 

(Top) Plaque commemorating John Brown, whose raid on the arsenal in 1859 did not take place at this spot, but rather in the lower part of town, which is the National Park itself.  (Center) The point where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet along a portion of the Appalachian Trail and with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad bridge and tunnel off the left.  (Bottom) Downtown Baltimore in the Italian quarter.

The entire Team was together in late October for Kate’s birthday.  Sophie flew out and Riley joined us to visit one of our all-time favorite places, Shenandoah National Park.  We had several nice hikes, and at least one rather soggy one, and a very chilly and windswept picnic outside a Visitor Center.  But views like this from Miller’s Head Lookout made it all worthwhile.

One of the programs that makes up part of the Office of Global Educational Programs (the office where I currently work) is the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship program, which brings mid-career professionals to the United States for a year of non-degree graduate-level study.  A part of the Fulbright program, Humphrey Fellows come from a variety of nations not typically represented in other programs. I volunteered to assist in the big evening reception held in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the State Department, and while there met Andrei who hails from Moldova and is spending his academic year at the University of Minnesota.

November 10^th happens to be an auspicious date, as not only is it my birthday, it’s also the birthday of the United States Marine Corps.  As is our tradition in the State Department, we honor the USMC every year on or about this date with a black-tie event called the Marine Ball.  At the State Department itself this year, the USMC was celebrated with the recognition for all the Marines do protecting us when we are overseas; speeches were given, and recognition made.  Current and former Marines in the hall stood and sang a verse of the Marine’s Hymn (likely you know the “Halls of Montezuma” refrain), and the cake was cut and served.

Here is the 37^th Commandant of the Marine Corps General Robert Neller cutting the cake.  Moments earlier, in his speech in the State Department, he said “We (the Marines and his audience, FSOs and other State Department employees) live out our oath of office every day.”

Tommy had a birthday in November as well, and we celebrated in Philadelphia where we took in a Wild game against the Flyers.  Philly fans were largely fine despite the fact that we all had Wild gear on and the Wild beat up on the Flyers.  Some fans razzed us a bit, but we crushed them with our Minnesota niceness.

Being stateside means we can see family more than when overseas, and we were pleased that my parents made the drive out to DC from Milwaukee to be with us on Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately Sophie was just starting one of her jobs and had no time off, but she also spent the day with family back in Minnesota.  While my parents were visiting we toured George Washington’s Mount Vernon by candlelight.

Are we thankful?  Pretty darn.

In mid-December we participated in the annual effort to place Christmas wreaths on each of the headstones in Arlington National Cemetery.   65 semi-trucks full of wreaths from Maine delivered nearly 250,000 wreaths which were placed on grave markers by the largest crowd ever to participate, nearly 75,000 people.  It was a beautiful, cool and clear day to pay our respects in this annual rite, which takes place at more than 1400 participating cemeteries in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. 

It was crowded, but we highly recommend it.  Simply search for Wreaths Across America, donate a bit of money and then register in order to participate where you live next year.

We’ve had the great good fortune to experience some fantastic musical events this year, as well.  So far we’ve been to the Kennedy Center four times for a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra and to see the Book of Mormon, An American in Paris with our Dishy, and on New Year’s Eve with good friends for a humorous interpretation of A Christmas Carol called Twist Yer Dickens.  We also went to the National Cathedral for Handel’s Messiah, and best of all we had excellent seats to see Andrea Bocelli live.  So much great stuff here in the area!!

Schedules didn’t permit returning back to the snowy Midwest for a white Christmas this year, but happily the Team descended on snowless Washington and we celebrated with good friends and their little guy here in Virginia.  We recreated local versions of family traditions such reading from the Book of Luke in an old family Bible, and gathering to look out for Santa’s sleigh and Rudolph’s nose so the kids could catch him in the act of filling stockings.  Once again we had no luck, but Santa was certainly generous once more.  Our family is unquestionably blessed.

Early in 2018, I witnessed one of the first days in the United States for a group of 64 teacher leaders from around the world as they kicked off their participation in a year-long fellowship across the country.  The program (International Leaders in Education Program) is paid for largely by the State Department, and in the lead up to lunch that day, one Fellow from Uganda stood and expressed the feelings of all the Fellows in the room in an emotion-filled speech.  He thanked not just the organizers, but specifically all American citizens – whether they are aware or not - for supporting financially and otherwise their participation in this life-changing exchange.

So if you didn't hear it already, thank you.

Assane Sow from Senegal says "Thank you!"

In mid-January, we left balmy Washington and flew to icy cold Minnesota for Sophie’s birthday where we enjoyed a relatively quiet weekend home with our favorite daughter.  She gave us an extraordinary tour of the James J. Hill House, built by the railroad magnate of the same name and now operated by the Minnesota Historical Society where Sophie works.  We then celebrated her birthday dinner with family not far from U.S. Bank Field where the Vikings had just pulled of the Minneapolis Miracle.  Every minute spent in the Greatest State in the Union, and of course with our little girl wherever that may be, makes it all worth it.

We continued our tradition of a chili cook-off again this year, and had a fantastic turnout among our neighbors, and a good time was had by all.  Especially after the breath mints and antacids were passed out.

Until Next Time

When I joined the Foreign Service six-and-a-half years ago, I agreed to serve where the State Department needed me.  My mid-tour transition away from home, from family and from the United States will certainly be a challenge, but the people in the Public Affairs Section in Baghdad have an opening they need filled, I volunteered to fill that slot, and an agreement was made.  Lots of wheels are in motion at the moment, and the entire thing can still come undone for any number of reasons, although we don’t think that’s likely.  I’ll be there for twelve months, and one benefit of a tour there is three R&Rs, so I’ll have a chance to get away, most importantly for some wedding I have to attend this coming August.

Generally speaking, the State Department takes pretty good care of us, and in Iraq I’ll be (theoretically) safe and busy with lots of (hopefully) interesting and important work to do.  The rest of my Team will be here Stateside, and that will be difficult, no doubt.  I can’t say with 100% certainty that this will have been a good move for me to take this job, but I think it will.  What I can say with certainty is that I am forever grateful to my partner in crime, my co-captain of the Team, for agreeing to full-membership in this adventure, and for supporting this crazy thing I just volunteered for.

None of this would be possible without her support.

No shortage of twists and turns for us, I guess. But then again, we knew this when we signed up.  For us, life is good.  We hope you can say the same.

The Team.

The opinions expressed within are my own and not those of the U.S. Government.

Please do not disseminate widely without permission.

November Notes...

Notes from a Small Country

(with apologies to Bill Bryson)

Entering Chisinau from the south, not far from our home.

И снова здравствуйте!  Hello again!

And welcome back to another edition of Notes from a Small Country; I’m glad the two of you are here.

Transitions

I’ve been ruminating about transitions of late.  Not necessarily the kind of major, life-altering transitions (although those have occupied my mind as well, what with the start of this new tour and Number One Son running off to join the Navy), but rather along the lines of more pedestrian transitions, like learning or re-learning daily life and work routines.  Or packing up and moving.  Or getting to and from work.  Like that.

And so it turns out that this new life (small aside:  can I keep calling it our “new life,” even after more than four years in the Foreign Service?) is filled with learning and re-learning lots of simple tasks that we previously took oh-so-for-granted.

It all starts with the preparations for a big move, which of course we do every couple of years in this job.

In our most recent Foreign Service transition, we actually started the process for our fall 2015 move to Moldova in about October or November of 2014 as we prepared to depart from Haiti.  We had never been to Moldova before, and although we had been to the region and knew people from Moldova, we had never lived there.  So there we were, in the hot and sunny Caribbean with essentially one season, preparing to make a series of rather major moves over the nine months or so before actually arriving in Moldova, a mid-continental, four-season country in Eastern Europe where we would pass the time during eight changes of seasons.  Sounds fairly straightforward, right?

The first move was simply from Haiti back to Minnesota; however shortly thereafter I was scheduled for six months of training in Washington where I would need clothes and personal items to outfit my temporary apartment.  So what from Haiti should go to Minnesota, and what should go to Washington?  Kate was going to join me for two months of language as well, so we had to decide whether some of her things should go straight to DC or to Minnesota first.  In addition, some of our household goods in Haiti were going to be packed up and shipped directly to Moldova by surface shipping, and in an added wrinkle we were allowed to ship about 700 pounds direct to Moldova by air so as to get it sooner once we arrived at post.

What should go in which box and to which destination?  And when eight Haitian men descend on your house to start disassembling things, wrapping them up and putting them in boxes, in which crate will they end up?  Supervising all the movers at once is not entirely feasible, so it takes a lot of advance thinking and planning to coordinate such a complex move:  The second bedroom will have only items going to DC by air and the office will only have things going to Minnesota; once they arrive we’ll unpack it all and rearrange it to prepare for the pack-out from Minnesota and the move to Moldova.  The living and dining rooms will have only items destined to go straight to Moldova, but the area near the window will be designated for items that go to Moldova by air.  Wait, will we need the vacuum in Washington, or should it go to Moldova?  But then they use 220 volt electricity in Europe, don’t they?  So it should just go to Minnesota, right?  What about winter clothes?  Will the surface shipment arrive before snow flies, or should we put winter clothes in the air shipment?  What clothes will I need for work, and for how long, after arrival in Moldova?  Will I really need my Caribbean wardrobe in Eastern Europe, or should that just stay in Minnesota?  What if they send our things to Monrovia instead of Moldova?  Then what??  Such was our life in the fall of 2014, and no one had even moved yet.

Kate left Haiti in early December (move #1), and I departed about three weeks later (#2).  After two weeks in Minnesota for the holidays, I moved to Washington for language training (#3).  Kate moved to Washington in mid-February to join me, and brought along a new wrinkle named Riley the Wonder Dog (#4).  She and RTWD then moved back to Minnesota in late April (#5).  Sophie moved to Washington in May for her summer internship at the National Archives (#6).  She and I moved back to Minnesota at the end of July (#7) in order to do the final prep for our next move later that fall.  I moved to Moldova the last weekend of August (#8), and Kate flew to Moldova (well, to Bucharest, Romania really, but more on that later) with RTWD in October (#9).  None of this included getting Sophie back to school or getting Tommy off to basic training in the Navy.

And that was just the moving part.  Then when all your stuff arrives, you have to unpack it all and decide where it should go.  In a new house with which you are also unfamiliar and which may not have the same electrical supply, storage space, or amenities you had at home.  Or at your last post, where you essentially did the same thing just a couple of years ago.

Once we arrived in Moldova, all old/new routines had to be worked out.  Where to buy groceries?  And how does one ask where the shoe polish is in Russian, anyway?  (где находится крем для обуви?, that’s how.)  Did I buy canned tuna, or is it really pickled pig’s feet?  (The jury is still out on that one.) Does that label say dishwasher detergent or just dish soap?  (Turns out it was dish soap.  At least my kitchen floor was nice and clean after running the dishwasher.)  How does the heating system work?  And this alarm system, is it really necessary?  How does anyone bake things in this tiny little oven?  And how does 350 degrees Fahrenheit convert to Celsius, again?  What do those instructions say (in Russian only) on the washing machine that holds about one pair of pants?  Can I use my credit card when buying gas, and is it safe to do so?  (Yes, and mostly.)  And when the station attendant starts yammering away at you in Romanian about who-knows-what, then what do you do?  (If he’s young maybe reply in English or Russian, if old stick with Russian.  Alternatively, just leave and try another station.)  How do I get to work when I don’t have my car yet?  (Use the Embassy motorpool for a few weeks or ride the bus.)  How do I take possession of the car I bought sight-unseen back in July and which has been sitting here the past three months?  (Wait for Moldovan authorities to accredit you as an honest-to-God diplomat, then wait for the motor vehicle authorities to issue diplomatic plates, then once you have plates you can buy third-party insurance, then once that’s done you can get the mandatory safety check, and after that you can get the keys, but if you want to drive to other countries you will need a special border crossing card.) 

And then you can start working out the cultural norms and legalities of driving on actual roads with actual other people, which is a whole new learning experience.  Can I really turn left from the middle lane?  What does that sign mean?  Wait, there are lane lines?  Oops, is this really a one-way street?   Whoa, those pedestrians can just pop out of nowhere!  (You really have to be on the ball when driving here, especially at night under mostly dim street lights; any lack of attention puts many people at risk.  My lifetime of left-footed braking sure comes in handy here!)

All the activities one usually pays little or no attention to suddenly need rather sustained, focused attention, or you might wind up creating a diplomatic incident or worse, driving the wrong way down a bus-only lane only to find yourself facing an irate busload of Moldovans who wonder who the hell you think you are.  Not that I know anything about this, mind you.  (I don’t, really.  But I have nightmares about it happening.)

If learning new things helps forge new pathways in the brain, then my brain must be about ready to explode.  It is most definitely an #expatlife.

30A Anton Ablov.

Our very own orchard!

The strawberry bed and a small barbecue area.

Great place to make шашлык!

View of the house from the garden.

Modes of Transport

When we in the diplomatic corps attend language training at the Foreign Service Institute, it seems that many of the language lessons are focused on topics like global warming, raising children, health care systems, forms of government, and modes of transportation, among other scintillating subjects.  In reality, getting around the city is kind of an interesting process.

In Haiti, we were not allowed to take Tap Taps, the local form of quasi-public transportation, so we relied either on personal cars or Embassy shuttles, and walking the streets in Port-au-Prince, while not exactly prohibited, certainly wasn’t encouraged.  Here in Moldova, none of those restrictions exist.  Normal caution is suggested, of course, but we are free to ride city buses (mostly powered by overhead electric wires and called trolleybuses), taxis, and minibuses (a minibus is called a маршрутка / marshrutka, and they hold maybe 10-25 people).  Walking in the city, while not always pleasant because of the sparsely lighted streets and uneven sidewalks, is certainly possible and typically is pretty safe, particularly in the city center.

While waiting to take possession of my car (which, perhaps not surprisingly, we have nicknamed Ivan), I started using the local #10 bus to get to work.  Other than the fact that most riders tended to look as if someone had just run over their cat, it was not an unpleasant experience, even when riding the creaky old Soviet-era model.  (I do know which of my fillings are loose now, though.)

I would walk about five minutes from the house to the bus stop where the trolleybus came by every 3-4 minutes during the morning rush.  Once there all I had to do was hop on and wait a bit, for after a few minutes a lady would come by and tap me on the shoulder, which is the signal to pay her bus fare and get a small paper ticket.  Bus fare costs 2 lei, and the ride itself for me was about fifteen minutes.  Now, 2 lei isn’t very much to pay.  In fact, when there are roughly 20 lei to the dollar, my morning commute cost roughly 10 cents, which is a pretty good deal if I do say so myself.  Gas is about 19 lei per liter, or just under $4.00 per gallon, and while it’s true that I wouldn’t use much gas to get to the Embassy, 10 cents is probably not the real cost of driving every day.

But then my car was ready and I pretty much stopped riding the bus, at least to work.  I am an American, after all.

Bus fare.

Drawing an Inside Straight in Chisinau

Now if that doesn’t sound like a B-grade film from the 50s or some strange modern mash-up of Zane Grey and Alexander Pushkin, I don’t know what does.  However, it happens to be something I did not long ago. 

A colleague had invited me to play poker one Friday night, and of course I readily agreed.  The stakes were high, let me tell you:  a 200 lei buy in for Texas Hold ‘em, with the option to buy in again at the half-way point when the stakes would then double.

I got there a bit early, so a few of us were watching pre-season football and having a beer when the doorbell rang.  Much to my surprise, the last entry in our friendly little game was the United States Ambassador to Moldova, James Pettit.  Suddenly the tenor changed:  Is it appropriate to raise the stakes on the Ambassador?  What if he loses all of his money?  The book on protocol doesn’t really include a chapter on cleaning out the Chief of Mission in the country where you are assigned.  This was definitely new territory.

Turns out the Ambassador isn’t a card shark after all, and in fact is as much a regular guy as anyone else, he just happens to be the President’s representative to the Republic of Moldova, speaks four languages and is married to – wait for it – the Ambassador to Latvia.  Evidently he never managed to absorb the rules of poker while learning all of those languages, and, you know, being kind of a badass guy in regular clothes.  In fact, after we cashed in for chips and sorted out who would have the first deal, the Ambassador pulled out a cheat-sheet from his pocket which he had printed from Wikipedia.  It seems that he needed help recalling whether two pair beat three of a kind.

At some point during the evening, our in-between hands discussion turned to spirits.  And no, not of the metaphysical type.  Hennessey, the various high-end versions of Johnnie Walker, Bombay Sapphire and some South American top-shelf rum were discussed, and several were brought out for sampling.  So naturally I brought out my locally produced bottle of vodka called Exclusiv (sans “e”), a liter of which costs about 100 lei or $5.00.  (I’m quite the high roller.)  High quality stuff, that.  And since I like to share, we all did a shot together.  Including the Ambassador.  Yup, it was quite an experience in cognitive dissonance.  I’m still wondering how all of that played out, especially since when the night ended, and with no evident favoritism at play, the Ambassador managed to take everyone’s money.  It was a night for the record books, that’s for sure.

На здоровье!  Well, maybe not...

RTWD becomes an IDOM

So of course by now, the both of you now know that we have a new addition to Team Panetti; one four-footed, furry and uber-friendly golden retriever named Riley.

One day in mid-January, while I was in Washington and just after having started language training, I received a phone call from my co-captain.  Seems she had seen an ad from the local Humane Society back in Minnesota that a golden retriever was up for adoption, and she called to see what I thought.  My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I kind of think the conversation went something like this:

Me:  So, how old is he?

Kate the Puppy Pushover:  about five, they think.  What do you think?

M:  Is he healthy?

KPP:  Well, he has had seizures, but they’re not too bad, and we’ve managed them before with Snickers.  What do you think?

M:  Ah, I see.  How long has he been there?

KPP:  Just a couple of days, actually.  What do you think?

M:  Huh.  What’s that sound in the background?

KPP:  Sound?  I don’t know.  What do you think?

M:  Are you already at the Humane Society?  Is that what I hear?

KPP:  I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.  What do you think?

M:  You’ve already adopted him, haven’t you?

KPP:  But he’s soooooo cuuuuute!!!!  You’re going to love him!

-         click    -    

So it came to pass that Riley the Wonder Dog joined the Team, and what a pick-up he’s been.  A more loyal, loving puppy would be difficult to imagine.

And now he’s become an International Dog of Mystery!

Long ago we had agreed that I would head to post alone, and Kate would stay back in Minnesota in order to help get Sophie ready to start school and to see Tommy off as he transitioned to Basic Training outside of Chicago.  And, of course, that’s exactly what we did.  However now we had RTWD and another set of concerns with which to contend, such as:  How do we get him to post?

Well, after more researching, questioning, debating, discussing and no small amount of fretting, we arranged to have RTWD fly with Kate when she was scheduled to arrive in Moldova, about six weeks after me.  It turns out that traveling with pets, if they are just the slightest bit bigger than a breadbox, can be quite the ordeal.  Since RTWD weighs about 80 pounds, and his travel crate us just so big, the total weight of the two together trends toward just under the 100 pound limit by which most airlines allow you to bring the pet as excess baggage instead of having him go as cargo.  Unless you’ve done this before you might really have no idea how much of a difference that makes.  Classifying him as excess baggage meant the cost to get RTWD on the plane was about $200, as opposed to a classification as cargo, which would cost something like ten times that.  Good thing he cut the chocolate cake out of his diet!

And then a new wrinkle emerged, as it is wont to do.  It would seem that one can fly with pets all the way to Moldova, but only if they are under a certain weight and total size.  Which Riley is not.  Evidently the airlines which service the Moldovan capital don’t fly to Chisinau in planes big enough to handle crates his size, and so plan “B” it was!

Plan B was to fly from Minnesota to Moldova via Romania, and upon arrival in Bucharest simply collect the baggage – inanimate as well as animate – and drive to Chisinau.  So that’s what we did.

Riley transforms into the IDOM in our very own wine cellar!

An Interesting Week

A few weeks before Kate and RTWD flew to post, I was asked by the DCM (the Deputy Chief of Mission) if I would be the Control Officer for an upcoming CODEL visit.  CODEL, if you didn’t know, stands for Congressional Delegation, and being the Control Officer means you have to, well, control things.  Mostly it means coordinating and arranging for other people to do some particular task:  arrange for accommodations, transportation, set up meetings with appropriate people given the CODEL’s focus, stuff like that.

I was fortunate in that this CODEL was only going to be in town for about 36 hours, and Moldova was the last country on their four country tour.  These trips are notorious for being massive amounts of effort with minimal benefit (think of the “junkets” you might have heard of in the past, and you might have an idea).  This trip was two Congressman (no spouses), one professional Congressional staffer, and a military officer escort. 

Late on a Tuesday evening in mid-October, the Ambassador and I met Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Mark Sanford at the airport.  I rode with them to their hotel, got them checked in and settled, and they then spent the evening on their own in Chisinau.  The next day was filled with meetings of various sorts, and mostly I just arranged the details (who, what, where and when), although I did sit in on one and take notes.  On Thursday, Congressman Sanford departed Chisinau for South Carolina on the 700 am flight, which meant getting him to the airport at 530 am, which meant I needed to get up at about 400 am in order to get ready for the day and get him there on time.  The others had further meetings to attend, and then they departed around 1230 pm.

The CODEL at the local BBQ restaurant the Smokehouse.

At the Ministry of Defense.

After the last of them checked through security, my job as Control Officer was done, so I went home, packed, and then drove the seven hours from Chisinau to Bucharest to pick up Kate and Riley for their arrival the next day.  That made for a long day, let me tell you.  Add to that the fact that I had never been to Bucharest, had never driven on Moldovan or Romanian highways (that particular experience will wait until the next edition), and in fact had only had possession of my car for about four days previous and it was quite the adventure, I must say.

And so that’s how RTWD became an IDOM.

Further Transitions

And so it’s probably time to transition back to reality now, and let you get back to more pressing matters.

We are extremely fortunate to be in Chicago at the moment, having flown in to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with both kids, Tommy’s girlfriend Jenna, and a good portion of the family.  Tommy and the other naval recruits were given about ten hours of leave from the base, and so we had a wonderful meal together in downtown Chicago at Aunt Susie’s house, complete with my first ever turducken.

The matryoshka of meat.

My girls.

Tommy is about to complete his eight-week stint in Basic Training at Great Lakes Naval Training Center next week, and so we will spend some time visiting family in the Milwaukee area and then will return to Chicago for his graduation next week before heading back to Moldova.  Overall it will be a short trip, but we are very, very grateful to be able to come back to the US for the holiday and to all be together for this next milestone event.  Sophie’s semester abroad is fast approaching, and we are so looking forward to meeting her in Rome in the New Year, immediately after which I will hopefully have the opportunity for some additional training in Frankfurt, Germany.

And then before you know it, we’ll all have transitioned ourselves into 2016, and everyone will perform that ritual duty of making exclamations about where the time has gone.

But in the meantime, we wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, a happy holiday season, and all the very best as 2015 comes to a close.  And despite recent events which have shaken many, for us life is good, and we hope you can say the same.

Extremely blessed, and very, very thankful.

The opinions expressed above are my own and not those of the U.S. Government.

Please do not disseminate widely without permission.