Separation

Back to being separated from my guys.  I'm finding it hard not to cry all the time. We had such a lovely three days.  Saturday Selim and I picked 6 pounds of strawberries and made jam.  In the afternoon we went to the Dover pool and he showed me how much he has been working on his swimming. Sunday I processed the laundry mountain, weeded in the garden and Mom came over. Monday we did a little morning shopping and then off to the airport in the afternoon.  In the evenings we were together as a family, just hanging out. Heaven.

Because I've been studying about consular work, I asked Nedim about his journey to US citizenship on the drive back home from the airport on Friday night.  I knew the basics, but this time he told me more in detail.  I liked hearing the story, knowing that it turned out OK.  It would have taken him much longer to apply for citizenship had it not been for one CBP agent.  Nedim was coming back into the country after visiting his family when one agent asked him why he wasn't a citizen yet.  He had been in this country for 15 years or so and had remained a Legal Permanent Resident.  Nedim told him that he didn't know how the process worked.  The agent gave him the form, told him what he needed to fill out and where to send it. Thank you nice Customs and Border Protection Agent.

Last night I got back to the hotel in time to see the fireworks over the Capitol.  I had contemplated lugging my carry on out of Union Station and finding a place to watch the show up close and personal.  But I decided not to after seeing the hoards of people flooding out of the Station towards the Mall.  The view from my window turned out to be pretty swell.  I'm a few miles away, so the PBS show had a better close up view, but I had a 180 degree display along the Potomac, including the Capitol, that was pretty awesome.  The people on the planes flying in and out of Reagan must have seen a spectacular show. 

Today was back to training.  It was the last full day before our exam tomorrow afternoon.  We had a review session and at the end I asked if we were able to complete the review exercises, should we be really nervous.  I'm scared that I'm going to have a complete brain freeze and fail.  The instructor said not to worry.  During the exam we can ask five questions.  That gives me a little mental breathing room.

Speaking of breathing room - there wasn't any on the subway tonight.  I took the FSI shuttle to Main State and walked from C Street up 23rd to I Street, expecting to shop at the Whole Foods that I had spotted the other weekend.  Note to self, before you assume that signage on the outside of the building equates with a fully-functioning store inside, look more closely.  I walk up to the building and saw tarps, construction debris, ladders on the inside and no food.  The signs on the outside of the building give off false advertising.  The store doesn't open until September.  So I took the metro back to the other store, walked the five blocks down to the market and five blocks back up with two bags of food.  The subway from Rosslyn to Crystal City was so tightly packed with hot, sweaty bodies, that I couldn't have fallen down, even if I had tried.  Unfortunately as I got on I ended up facing backwards and couldn't turn myself around.  And it was 93 degrees out and not even the strongest AC in the train car could cool the inside to comfortable.  My mantra, as I started to get tingly with claustrophobia, was "don't puke, just don't puke."