criplomats

John pointed out that this is the ninth Christmas in the Foreign Service – we’ve celebrated in Washington, D.C., Cuidad Juarez, Tel Aviv, Islamabad, and now, Guadalajara. We got off work early on Christmas Eve (and amazingly, no emergencies kept me at the office!), so we went to see the new “Star Wars” movie – fun! We opened presents on Christmas morning – for two people who don’t really do much for Christmas, we sure had a lot of packages to open!

I was happy to see my two annual favorites – chocolate-covered cherries and the new Audubon calendar (I use them to jot down what I do everyday and have them dating back to the mid-90s). John gave me a sloth wall calendar that will go in my office – so cute, and it reminds me of our wonderful time spent in Costa Rica way back when!

After presents, we watched “Love Actually,” a great Christmas morning tradition. Later in the day, we went to a friend’s house for an informal lunch, and have been enjoying the long weekend, talking with lots of family and friends.

We were a little surprised by an overcast sky and drizzle yesterday (eventually turning to rain in the evening). Before the precipitation started, John and I walked up to a small holiday fair where a lot of local vendors were selling their wares – mostly young hipsters selling clothes they designed, artisan soaps and candles, jewelry, and baked goods. The local adoption shelter also had a pen of dogs for adoption – so cute! (John and I are determined to get a dog at our next post!)

This week has been fairly routine, but we had a lot of interesting cases at work to keep us on our toes. John is on duty this week, and yesterday we worked on a death case and did the death notification to the next of kin.

For the past two weeks I’ve been on a “Downton Abbey” kick and finished Season Five on Friday. We’ve also been watching “Borgen” on DVD, a political drama set in Denmark – very good. Last night we watched a German movie that’s been getting a lot of publicity, “Goodnight Mommy.” We expected to be terrified, but were a bit disappointed – although it was a very interesting movie visually.

I had ordered Mom’s tombstone when I was home in September, and it was set this past week. I was very pleased with it, although it does make me sad since it’s such a final reminder that she is gone.

Tombstone

It’s so hard to believe it’s December already – especially being in Mexico where the weather is lovely. John and I went to a driving range this morning and hit a bucket of golf balls and it was 74 degrees at noon – perfect weather. We had a lot of fun and moseyed through a little crafts market we stumbled upon on the way home.

I really enjoyed having our friend Cathy here. I took Monday off from work and we went to Tlaquepaque for lunch and a little shopping. She left at the crack of dawn to head home, so it was back to work as usual on Tuesday.

I’m training a new officer in ACS work, and stayed late Wednesday night to help with the English class for the local guards. Thursday John took me to a nice dinner out at Alcalde where they serve good Mexican fusion dishes – really good.

I worked Saturday trying to get caught up on desk work, then John and I went to play board games with the English-speaking group. We were at a new venue called “El Gato Cafe” – right up my alley, and there were even two darling kittens wandering around as well.