Reasons Why My Parents Are Awesome (Today's Short List)

I arrived back at the hotel today to find that there was another package waiting for me – whee! Now, what makes this even better? The fact that when I opened it, I found a copy of Eloise, which if you’ve never heard of it, is just about the best book in the world, and my favorite book as a kid, only made it better. If you’ve never heard it, you must go out and buy it immediately. Really, it’s okay – I’ll wait.

The other thing that was so great? They enclosed a card with a cute lil’ unicorn and a glittery rainbow on the front. The front said “Sometimes life is all sunshine and rainbows.” The inside said “Other times, it’s just a steaming pile of crap. (We’re there for you in any case.)” I almost snorted. I’m woman enough to admit that.

We had another guy arrive yesterday from our Paris office – a transportation guy about my age, and it’s nice to have someone my age around. I realize it shouldn’t really matter, and TL really is a nice guy (and is certainly talkative enough for me and a few other people), but it’s just different. He’s here for a week, and J leaves tomorrow, so we’ve got quite the revolving door going here. Franz had us all over for drinks tonight – he and his wife are really nice, so it was a fun evening. It has been so incredibly windy lately, especially at the hotel since we’re perched on top of a hill. I was almost knocked over when Franz dropped us off at the hotel last night – as I’m not a small girl, this was no mean feat.

N called me earlier to see if he could come over and ask me some questions about project stuff, and I had to explain that he couldn’t come to my room and I couldn’t come to his room – we had to meet somewhere else. He was a bit perplexed, but I gave him a brief introductory lesson to appropriate gender interactions in Yemen. (I think he’s still perplexed. But on the bright side, he can hold hands with TL as much as he wants.) He said “Is…um…is TL…is he always that…talkative?” I laughed and said yes, but I’ve been working on my extraction technique.

I think we’re going to drive around the city tomorrow to let N see the sights and help him familiarize himself with the city. I may go with them to take a few more pictures, but I’ve still got plenty of work to occupy myself with tomorrow. Hey – at least I’m consistent, right?