On Personal Heroines and Suburban Living:

Yesterday, I went to see Julia Child's kitchen at the National Museum of American History. It was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. It was tidy, but well-used and filled to the brim with every imaginable cooking tool known to man or woman. It bore no resemblance to the granite counter-topped, stainless steel applianced, utterly sterile kitchens one sees in modern-day American McMansions. It was lovely in its utility and proved once again that a kitchen need not be a glistening showroom to work well.

As with everything relating to the venerable Mrs. Child, the kitchen exhibit at the Smithsonian reflects the profound love she and her husband, Paul, shared. I was so moved by their partnership and how it served as the backbone for everything they did and accomplished. I'd like to think that Stefan and I have a similar type of respect for and devotion to one another. I would also like to think I too might be able to use my time overseas to advance my own culinary career. I am not, by any means, drawing a comparison between Julia Child and myself-- let me be clear-- I just would like to somehow capitalize on my experiences abroad and make them own, and not just my life as it relates to my husband's. I found the exhibit very motivating.

In other news, we got a preliminary housing assignment yesterday. It came in email form and all the anticipation leading up to it was nothing compared to the disappointment both Stefan and I felt once we'd opened it. It would seem, based on yesterday's email, that the only suitable housing for the Whitney family was to be found in a distant, Flemish suburb of Brussels called Steerebeek. While the house itself was perfectly adequate-- large enough for an even bigger family, with four bedrooms, a small garden and a garage-- the location is not at all what we'd hoped for. Not only does it represent an hour commute in either direction for Stefan, but the locals speak Dutch! Stefan will have spent 3 months "polishing" his French and I will have spent more than a few hours at the local Starbucks clicking my way through the French Rosetta Stone. How much sense does that make? None, I tell you.

When we filled out the initial housing questionnaire, we were very clear that we are willing to sacrifice space for proximity to the city centre. Really, all this means, is that we want to be on the metro line. Steerebeek is no where near the metro. Public transport to the embassy would include a bus and a train. The good thing about Steerebeek is that it's close to the American School, but with a 6 month old and a 23 month old, that means little more than nothing to us. I know that for some, this probably seems like splitting hairs because we are going to a wonderful city in a wonderful central European location. But, come on, what's the point of being there if we can't enjoy it on something near an every day basis.

We were given only one option and based on everything we knew up until this point, we expected at least two, if not three. So, we felt entitled to write back and say, "Isn't there any other possibility considering that none of our requirements are met with this option?" Our housing contact quickly replied that she and her colleagues will look into leasing something more appropriate. Let's hope they can find something closer to town in a French speaking commune, because if they don't, I foresee a LOT of bitching and moaning here on Devonnaire (and every where else in our lives).

I am still alive.

Despite a complete disappearance from the blogosphere, I am still very much alive and kicking. I let the summer get the best of me-- lakes, beaches, single-parenthood (largely), and family drama all made me feel like I couldn't get my head far enough above water to get to my laptop for 10 minutes. I have also been thinking a lot about my new (and forthcoming) blog, which I intend to be a much more professional and less personal type of blog covering what I hope will be my overseas career as a culinary observer. Details on that to follow later.

In the meantime, I have been thinking a lot about our journey to Belgium. The tickets are reserved, the dogs have their place as very special luggage on our plane, we have a good idea of what we'd like to bring as our HHE. It's all coming together and yet, here we are, in purgatory, waiting and waiting and waiting. Personally, I am ready to get there and get the next two years of our lives underway. While it's true that we have an abundance of great activities lined up here in Falls Church-- music, art and yoga, I am anxious to get Adela into La Farandoline, the french-speaking, co-op style preschool we're hoping will be her first formal place of education. I'm chomping at the bit to explore our new city and hopefully, find some form of daycare for Flora, so that I can begin looking for work as a cook. There's a lot to do that can't be done until we get there, so let's get there already! Here's to hoping that Stef's gift for languages proves itself and he passes his test with flying colors.

The waiting might not be so bad if we knew what type of house/apartment is waiting for us (because truthfully, that's the thing I'm most anxious about). But, despite all reports that the housing people in Brussels are the most attentive, we've heard nothing for weeks from them. I guess this is par for the course, but it's our first time, so we have no idea what to expect. There is so much variety, it seems, in the pool in Brussels, that we could end up in an apartment downtown (please, please, please) just blocks away from the embassy or all the way out in the 'burbs with no metro station for miles and miles. I just want to KNOW so I can both get emotionally prepared and practically prepared by locating the appropriate schools and figuring out of our new minivan will fit anywhere near our home.

Alas, these cycles of anticipation are just another aspect of our life in the Foreign Service, but as a sometimes blogger, I feel like I need big, momentous changes to write about to keep things interesting and for now, it's just a lot of waiting and preparing.

At Long Last:

Way back in May when we first arrived in Falls Church so that Stefan could begin his A-100 class, my stepmother came down to lend a hand. When she came, she brought a bottle of 1989 Perrier-Jouet champagne that she and my father had been given on their wedding day. For some reason, they never drank it or used the hand-painted flutes that came with the Belle Epoch edition bottle. When she gave it to us, she suggested that we would drink it on Flag Day to celebrate our first post and the beginning of our new life.

Our first Flag Day came and we were posted to Frankfurt and while we were relieved not to have been posted somewhere completely remote and difficult to live in (easy all you hard core Foreign Service types... We will do our time. We just didn't want to do it first with an infant and a toddler and all the tension that goes along with having them), we didn't seem compelled to really celebrate in the "pop open a bottle of Champers and run around screaming and jumping up and down" kind of way. It was good, not, like, totally great. There was the whole "compound" living thing and the fact that Frankfurt is almost completely devoid of romance, but it had its advantages and we were happy. Just not 20 year old Champagne happy.

Well, I think now that our second Flag Day has come and gone, we might just crack that bottle open and run around screaming and jumping up and down because we were posted to...

BRUSSELS, Belgium!!!!

And we are very excited.

Argh.

All week long, I was trying to concentrate hard on what was right in front of me-- the kids, the lake, my lovely extended family. However, in spite of my best efforts, there has been the unrelenting nag of the not knowing where we're going in the back of my head.

For better of worse, Beaver Lake is a tiny community and most people who are at all interested have some idea of what's going on in your life. So, of course, I am asked "the question" at least once a day.

"We'll know this Friday," I've said with confidence on multiple occasions this week.

That really kept me sane-- the whole "we'll know on Friday" routine.

Then Friday came around.

Stefan, god bless him, has been in the fiery inferno that is Northern Virginia while the girls and I have been enjoying the lake. So, I expected him to call some time late yesterday morning with the big news. My blackberry was glued to my hand at all times. We were assigned while all the CDO's (Career Development Officers are responsible for assigning posts) were on the 154th A-100 class retreat on Thursday and it made sense that Stefan's CDO would call as soon as she was able. That wasn't soon enough. Stefan called her around 10AM.

That phone call proved to be a major set back for the Whitney family (at least in the immediate) because she revealed that she's not in a position to tell us our post until FLAG DAY! Mother f-er. Seriously? OMG. WTF!!! God-damned bureaucracy! This normally calm, collected, roll-with-the-punches mother of two is starting to really lose her f-ing mind.

"I can tell you that you did get one of your "highs," however," she told Stefan sheepishly.

Of course, I can't tell you any more than that... until Flag Day. We were completely inflexible this time around and we only bid 6 jobs "high." Those six jobs are in 4 cities. Those 4 cities are among the best and most beautiful in the world. The good news: we got one of our highs. The bad news: it's starting to feel like we're never know where we're going.

Ooooops...

It would appear that my last blogging effort came through incomplete. I guess that's not a complete shock since I sent it from my blackberry and I have pretty shoddy coverage up here at the lake.

The last sentence should have read:

... Its so heartwarming to watch Adela eat a lollipop next to her cousin Violet after a long day of learning to swim off the Porter's dock. Especially since I too learned to swim there. Bringing her and Flora here makes me feel like I'm giving something back for having had the same opportunities.

This is a humble place. There are no frills or attitude. The road is roughly paved with loose stone and the docks are often bowed. The "beach" is roughly 20 feet by 20 feet and the keg at Saturday's Weenie Roast was filled with Budweiser. There is no air conditioning in most of the summer-only cottages and "out houses" are still in use all over the lake. But, somehow, the docks feel just right when you run off one and dive into the lake with its perfect lake smell and its murky bottom. The beach is a heavenly place filled with children, getting to know each other and the best ways to makes sand castles stand tall. The Bud is cold and pairs perfectly with a kraut-topped hot dog and even despite this intense and unyielding heat, the lack of air conditioning doesn't seem to hinder a perfectly restful night's sleep.

When you read the paper and drink a cup of coffee at the counter at the General Store, its impossible not to run into someone who remembers you as a child and can recall the way you ordered your ice cream cones.

Perhaps I'm naïve (or more likely, ignorant), but I don't think there are a lot of places like this in the world- a perfectly beautiful place with a community whose connections have a 100 year plus history.

I feel so lucky to be here and to have the opportunity to share it with my children.

Greetings from the Lake!

Well, the Whitneys are fully ensconced at the lake and we are virtually incapable of obsessing over "the post." For, our days are filled with splashing around in the lake and our nights are characterized by big, robust, corn-riddled buffets and of course, Saturday night was the first "Weenie Roast." It was a wonderful opportunity to see many, many old friends of the family and eat way too many hot dogs to recall.

Being here as an adult with two kids makes me realize how truly incredible it was to be a kid here. Without the burdens of washing towels, grocery shopping, and cooking meals, all that's left is to enjoy the lake and all its bounty: boating, fishing, swimming, walking, playing tennis, etc. Its so heart-warming to watch Adela

Shuffle to Your Past:

I don't know what it is-- the summer weather, a new sense of well-being since I dropped 15 lbs. (so far) on Weight Watchers, or the prospects and opportunities that await us overseas somewhere, but I am so into music right now... in a way I haven't been since I became some one's wife, then mother. Listening to loud music and waxing philosophic is generally reserved for people without a care in the world, rambling across European countrysides in old trains and daydreaming about lost and new found love.

A few days ago, I was driving in my very sensible family station wagon (hopefully soon to be replaced with the even more dreaded minivan... totally my choice too by the way. I care not for what the world thinks... just whether or not I can fit two car seats, two Labrador Retrievers and a week's worth of groceries inside. All you minivan haters out there: talk to me when you're in my shoes. Until then, shhhhh! Minivans rock!). Anyway, I was driving along, with my two gals in the backseat and I decided to turn off NPR and hit shuffle on our Ipod.

I was transported to such long ago times that I was forced to view myself as, um, kinda old. Were my girls a little older, they would have surely had a laugh as I bopped my head and mouthed the words to Cypress Hill's "Cock the Hammer," and reminisced about a time when I walked around the streets of New York, dressed like some kind of faux-hoodlum in baggy jeans and big, gold, dangling hoops. Oh, to be a child of the 90's in Manhattan (for some reference, there was a movie made not to long ago called "The Wackness" that really captured the essence of that time. Also, the movie "Kids" was made while I was living in New York and many of its stars were people whom I regularly ran into-- this is not so much a source of pride, but just a matter of fact).

Cypress Hill soon gave way to Portishead's "How can it Feel So Wrong?". That might not even be the name of the song, but if you ever saw "Stealing Beauty" with Liv Tyler, you know the song I am referring to. The soundtrack to that movie became my own one summer, after high school, when my girlfriend and I toured around France and Italy on trains. One late night, we were riding from Nice, France to Pisa, Italy (a stopover) and just as we had gotten ourselves good and comfy in our cabin, a man joined us from Monte Carlo. He stunk of booze and his tan lines revealed the places where his watch and jewelery were before he'd gambled them all away. He was creepy and kept saying, "Vous le vous coucher avec moi?" so when he got up to use the bathroom (and probably to restore his energy with something illegal), my girlfriend and I gathered up all of our belongings and ran for another cabin. We found two completely deaf Polish students whom we tried desperately to inform that we were running for our lives from a would-be Italian rapist. They were so sweet and confused by our hysterics.

Then it was Bonnie Prince Billy, who took me back to a time when I was living in Big Sky, Montana when I would drive 40 minutes through the most breathtaking canyons to go grocery shopping in West Yellowstone. His somber and sentimental lyrics suited this very lonesome but introspective time in my life. When, soon after I broke my ankle badly enough that I was rendered immobile for almost 6 months, I felt just as somber and melancholy as Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham) seemed to.

And finally, since it wasn't such a long ride after all, came Feist's "Mushaboom," which truly was the soundtrack for the most incredible summer of my life, the one when I met my husband on a beautiful, warm, spring day in San Francisco. As I listened to her warbly voice as she sang of snow and crackling fires and watching her as-yet unmade babies grow up, I looked at Stefan and hoped for all the things she sang about... with him.

Music is so amazing and I hope that with all our upcoming adventures, we will have many new songs to attach to them. We found out this morning that we will, in fact, have to wait to hear about our new post until the 154th class is assigned. That's sometime next week. I wonder if there is a good song to capture the anxiety of this time somewhere on that Ipod of mine????