Separation Anxiety

Dear Nimblesticks,

By the time you read this, it’ll be almost a week since you all left for Niamey. It was good to know that after a fairly uneventful journey, you both made it to Niger — I’m sure you’ll provide a full account of your travels in due time. I suspect Ma is super busy trying to get settled, so I figured I’d drop you a letter so that you can fill her in.

After you both boarded the plane to Africa, I finished emptying out Ma’s Government Issue Apartment and hauled what was left back to Villa Villekulla[1], including Bitch Kitty, whose career as a diplocat was cut woefully short. I tell you what, she was NOT happy to be back at the ranch sharing the house with the other senior residents, Cat With Very Little Brain and Scaredydog. There was much growling and hackle raising but I reckon she has calmed down a bit now that she has re-established herself as the Empress Queen Supreme of Food Bowls.

As far as maintaining relationships of the remote kind, this ain’t my first rodeo, but that is not to say that it sucks any less. The reality of being an ocean away is starting to hit hard — I mean, Ma has been gone from home since April but it’s one thing when you can jump in the car and drive half a day to see her, as opposed to it being an ordeal involving getting a visa and preparing to travel halfway across the globe for two days straight. Not to mention having to worry about Ma getting flattened by a lorry full of goats navigating the bedlam that evidently goes for traffic in Niamey (which is, apparently, more concrete a threat to life and limb than the civil unrest there).

Another reality check has been how damn expensive it is being a Foreign Service family. Sure, they’ll provide you free lodging and various allowances but those don’t come close to covering the real expenses of getting the trappings, services  and provisions required. And then there’s the whole Government Bureaucrazy — I don’t even have to directly deal with the madness but it still gives me hives even witnessing it second hand. There’s a steep learning curve, and oodles of Tribal Knowledge passed via social media groups, but even this arcane knowledge often falls short. Whoo-wee. It’s an acquired taste for a lifestyle for sure.

All that being said, we are in high spirits here in the Villa, enjoying the most gorgeous fall weather in years here in the South. I’m looking forward to seeing y’all in a few months! (Half a year, maybe? Next summer?)

With love,

Pops

[1] Ed. note: A 100+ year old Craftsman abode very reminiscent of its Pippi Longstocking namesake.