And craziness settles in

Within the past couple of hours, there has been a monumental shift in the game plan for moving to Mexico.

Originally, the plan was to spend the month of October squeezing in the last of the trips we wanted to make, packing up our stuff, and shaking our booties at our despedida. NOW we have rethought that plan because we remember how expensive it was for us to move from DC to Lima a little over a year ago. Moreover, the new legislation passed to grant State Department benefits to domestic partners doesn't cover committed heterosexual couples (see earlier post). So we are facing quite a few unexpected expenses, on top of the ones we expected to move our pets from aca to alla.

To explain in more excruciating detail, Anthony's orders for the new post have yet to be cut. This means that we cannot plan anything. And I mean ANYTHING. We can't schedule the date for our pack-out, have HR purchase Anthony's airline tickets, nothing. In terms of my plans, this means that we can also not purchase my airline tickets yet either, because the entry point for all Foreign Service employees serving in Nogales, Mexico, is Tucson. Since Tucson is an hour drive from the consulate, and a government employee must be sent to pick us up at the airport, I have to wait to coordinate my airline arrival with Anthony's (Bubba, our Jeep, will not ship until several months after we arrive). Yet, the longer I wait, the higher the prices get.

SO.

We have decided that the best option is that I will leave Lima on Friday - as in this Friday, September 18th - as was already planned. I will fly into DC, meet up with old friends and colleagues, take the Foreign Service Oral Exam, have a little fun with my doctors and dentist, and then fly to MA. Instead of showing up in Boston for my 6AM flight back to Lima on October 3rd, I will stay in MA until we can figure out a good time for me to meet up with Anthony in Tucson.

All I can say at the moment is that I am incredibly stressed out. So I just sent Anthony to the store to buy me some beer. Because, goddammit, I need one.