100 days plus one

Arlington National Cemetery

What, another blog post, so soon after the last one?! I thought there wasn't anything to do in Arlington while on Authorized Departure. Well, there isn't...much. Except that this morning, on our 101st day back in the U.S. while waiting for the word to return to Ethiopia, I took a walk. A long one. As the very tiny handful of regular blog readers and Facebook friends are aware, at least once a week I go for a lengthy stroll. Last night, after the local weather forecast called for the region's oppressive humidity to return from Thursday, I decided today (Wednesday) would be a good time to head out. I was out the front door of the apartment building just before 0800 hours, and proceeded along my usual route - joining up with the Custis Trail and following it down to the Potomac, where it connects to the Mount Vernon Trail, and where I then headed south, past Theodore Roosevelt Island and crossing under the Theodore Roosevelt and Arlington Memorial Bridges.

Each week I try to extend my walk one-way by at least five minutes, so this week I stopped at the 95-minute mark and found myself at the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial, which for some reason reminded me of the home run sculpture at Marlins Park (Google it):

Panting on the Potomac. Humid it wasn't, but hot it was. By the time I returned home later in the morning it was already 88°F (31°C). As I write this, the temperature in Washington is 90°F, marking the 20th consecutive day the thermometer has reached that threshold. The record is 21, likely to be matched and exceeded this week:

Usually, I backtrack along the Potomac to Rosslyn, then return home via the long uphill climb along Wilson Boulevard. This morning, however, I opted for a different return route, hence the blog post. I crossed under the George Washington Memorial Parkway...:

...to the Columbia Island Marina, situated under the flight path from Reagan National Airport:

Seen across the appropriately-named Pentagon Lagoon Yacht Basin is the Pentagon:

I headed towards the LBJ Memorial Grove, dedicated to the 36th president in 1976:

Considering his mixed historical legacy (landmark civil rights legislation vs. the Vietnam War), I'm surprised there's any sort of memorial to him in the D.C. area. Apparently, the grove is in recognition of his signing the Clean Water Act of 1965. In those days the Potomac was a contaminated cesspool; I wouldn't go swimming in it today, but it has been significantly cleaned up in the succeeding decades:

Crossing the Boundary Channel:

The channel gets its name as it defines the border between the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia:

Back in Virginia, I continued walking, crossing the Arlington Memorial Bridge and its vaguely fascist-looking eagles:

This gentleman was performing a strange stretching ritual in front of a memorial to Navy Seabees. I wanted to film what he was doing but...:

...I was interrupted by several police motorcycles that arrived to stop traffic leading up to Arlington Cemetery:

I asked one of the police officers what was happening, and he told me it was for someone who had been "killed in action", which put a damper on what had been a fine morning up to that point. A sad reminder of the seemingly permanent state of war this country has been in since 2001:

I walked along the perimeter of the cemetery and its silent rows of white headstones (see photo at the start of this post), before cutting through the Marine Corps Memorial to reach Arlington Boulevard and the final, long leg back to Ballston:

This morning's all-important stat lines:
Time - 3 hours 21 minutes
Number of steps, according to Fitbit: 18,872
Length of walk, according to a website that converts steps to miles: 8.9 miles (14.3 kilometers)

Next week's plan is to go for 100 minutes, and to see how close I can get to Gravelly Point. The weather, however, might have other plans - the current forecast for next week calls for temperatures as high as 99°F (37°C) and thunderstorms. Oh, the humidity...

100 days and counting...

A beacon that currently isn't beckoning to people in my situation

Like an old Seinfeld episode, another blog post about nothing. Today is Bastille Day; it's also Day 100 of our confinement Authorized Departure (AD) in Arlington, Virginia. And there's still no light at the end of the COVID-19 excavated tunnel. AD has been extended for another 30-day period, up until August 10; more importantly, the powers that be back in Addis Ababa አዲስ አበባ have decided the embassy should remain in Phase 0 for the time being. So what this means is that we remain stuck in the D.C. suburbs, watching the country seemingly go down in the coronavirus flames, while much of the rest of the world (or Asia, Europe and Oceania, at least) seems to have gotten a handle on the pandemic.

There's no point any longer is getting outraged over the government's handling of the crisis, or of society's numerous ills. The daily video doses of anti-mask imbeciles or privileged Karens going off on perceived slights or supposed human rights violations no longer hold much entertainment. Even Facebook hasn't given me much to rant and rave about. The closest argument I've had recently was on YouTube, with a woman named "Susan Murray" who felt the need to point out a black person and a slightly obese woman in a video taken in the Enoshima 江の島 area, to the southwest of Yokohama 横浜. Her response to my query was to write that "black people have chips on their shoulders" and that "the best amongst them rise above their peoples' history", W(ever)TF that means, and then to share a link to a video showing a black guy getting angry at a Japanese Starbucks. It just boggles the mind how people like Ms. Murray seemingly function in the modern world. Not worth the time nor the trouble...

So I spend my days when I'm not sleeping or teleworking by spending way too much time online, to the point where I now have to use an elbow support pad due to the nerve damage in my fingers from too much typing. Even the view from our 21st-floor balcony is starting to lose its luster, with only the occasional brilliant sunset...:

...or passing rainstorm to break through the ennui:

Perhaps I'm slowly losing touch with reality due to this lockdown, but a few weeks ago I had a "Twilight Zone" moment. Looking from west to east from our balcony you can see the highrise buildings in Bethesda, several antennas and the Washington National Cathedral:

However, on one overcast morning, all those familiar landmarks seemed to have vanished in the mist (they were apparently returned via a dimensional slip later that morning):

Another break from the monotony came with the 4th of July fireworks on the National Mall, which we could partially glimpse from our balcony:

About the only thing still keeping me (arguably) sane is walking. Though I've stopped going for morning walks due to the heat (temperatures are now routinely in the low 90's F, or over 30° C for those of you in the rational world) and humidity, once a week I wake up early and go for a lengthy stroll to generate some sweat and further wear down my shoes. These days I'm up to 90 minutes one-way, and my usual route takes me from Ballston down to the Potomac River:

On the way back I sometimes pass by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea Chancery Annex, representing one of many countries difficult for Americans to visit at the moment (with the fault, of course, being entirely ours):

For a change of pace, last week I took my walk in the opposite direction, i.e. away from the river. Other than the occasional historical marker (like this one for the Travers Family Graveyard, located in an otherwise nondescript suburban neighborhood), there was little of interest to see, so I'll stick to the water on future walks:

This license plate sums things up nicely:

I suppose if we had a car things might be a bit more interesting. We do occasionally rent a vehicle so the wife can do some shopping at Asian supermarkets - our affluent white neighborhood has plenty of cafes, gyms and nail salons, but for some reason the white hipsters haven't demanded any Asian grocery stores be sited within walking distance of our building. I used one of the times when we had access to a car to drive to Windy Run Park in order to take what the Japanese call a "green shower" 森林浴:

The scenery wasn't quite as soothing as the photos suggest, for the sounds of traffic from the George Washington Parkway and the planes from Reagan National Airport flying overhead were a constant reminder that I'm sharing the NOVA region with approximately 3.2 million other souls. The trails themselves turned out to be a tease. One branch supposedly led to the Potomac Heritage Trail, but deadended on a small cliff:

Military helicopters are a common sight along the Potomac:

The other branch led under the G.W. Parkway, where someone had written "I Can't Breathe" under the bridge, only they seemingly ran out of spray paint before they could color in the final "E":

The path did parallel the road but apparently isn't much used, because the trail soon became too overgrown to continue. At least there were views of the Potomac:

Despite the trails to nowhere, and the 79°F (26°C) and 76% humidity weather, it was good to bathe in the forest:

Another reason for renting a car was to drop off the application forms at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) 臺北經濟文化辦事處 in Washington D.C. to renew my daughter's Republic of China 中華民國 passport. In true teenage fashion, Amber was less than thrilled to be pulled away from her computer games in order to have a proper passport photo taken at a studio near our residence:

Due to professional courtesy, I'll only briefly describe our morning at TECRO. Considering the building is Taiwan's unofficial embassy, it was surprising to find only two women working in the Consular section. One was seeing to Taiwanese visitors, while the other was taking care of non-citizens, and both were also answering telephone calls. Although Shu-E had called ahead to make sure we had all the proper paperwork in hand, the woman at the Taiwanese counter told her they couldn't accept our daughter's birth certificate because she couldn't be sure she could "trust" it. She was also hesitant to accept Amber's Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA). Following a discussion with her colleague, she informed us they could accept the CRBA, but not the photocopy that we had brought with us. This meant we had to drive home (fortunately only 20 minutes away) to retrieve the original document. However, upon returning to TECRO, the same worker wouldn't take it at first because it wasn't notarized! Finally, in true universal bureaucratic fashion, she announced that she would send all our documents back to Taipei 台北 and let the home office decide if all was in order:

Shu-E was contacted by TECRO a few days ago and told everything was fine, which means Amber's passport will be ready...in 6-8 weeks' time. I don't ever want to hear anyone complain about American Citizens Services again.

And so that's how things stand 100 days into our departure from Ethiopia. How long this will last I have no idea. The longest period of time I can be reimbursed for our housing expenses here is 180 days. After that, it's anybody's guess where we go from here.

In the meantime, I know where I'm going right now...

Older though not necessarily wiser

Not all the storms that have been battering this country recently have been of the figurative variety...

As I write this, we're into the 70th day of our incarceration extended stay in Arlington, Virginia. With the extension of Authorized Departure for yet another month, we're here until at least July 11, but more likely for longer than that. The COVID-19 numbers for Ethiopia show so sign of slowing down, with 3166 confirmed cases and 55 deaths from the virus - yesterday, in fact, saw the biggest daily increase in new cases. Without evidence of a downward trend, it's unlikely the embassy will be given the go ahead to resume normal operations anytime soon.

And so here we continue to stay, living out of our suitcases, as almost all of our worldly possessions are still back in Addis Ababa አዲስ አበባ. Other than telework and the daily walks, there isn't much to do. The book the girls gave me for my birthday today seems apropos for our present situation, though the prints included within show people in outdoor situations, not practicing social distancing as they work to further the goals of the revolution:

Coronavirus aside, at least things are going well in the country as a wh...oh, who am I kidding? To remind me of all that is wrong in America these days, a relative of mine shared the following on Facebook yesterday, which is how it ended up on my feed. The relation who thought I needed to see this is married to the man who called my wife a "mail order bride", whom I "bought" using my late father's money so she could give birth to my child (see here for the ugliness). If you're wondering why the U.S. is the way it is today, keep in mind that the fear, ignorance and ugly racism you're about to read is how literally millions of people in this country (including some of my relatives) view the world:

Normally I don’t repost things. Normally I don’t post political. But I saw this and thought it hit home with what is going on in the world today.
This may open up a ton of outraged comments by some. Many who will argue how "wrong" this post is. My suggestion, save your time and effort! You're not changing the reality of what we are living by trying to somehow justify this insanity. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist because we are becoming the Twilight Zone.
We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!
• If a dude pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
• Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
• Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
• It was cool for Joe Biden to "blackmail" the President of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquires about it.
• Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote.
• People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
• Inflammatory rhetoric is outrageous, but harassing people in restaurants is virtuous.
• People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
• Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
• Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang-bangers who jump the southern fence are welcome.
• $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.
• If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.
• People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.
• We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan to us.
• Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.
• Criminals are catch-and-released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of THEIR rights.
• And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us "racists"?!
Nothing makes sense anymore, no values, no morals, no civility and people are dying of a Chinese virus.
We are living in an upside down world for sure.

Virtually every single point expressed is so clearly wrong, and yet so readily accepted and believed by so many Americans. Just check out that xenophobia - immigrants voting illegally! Immigrants with TB and polio (Polio?!)! Immigrants getting free college educations! And we're all dying from a "Chinese virus"!

It's because of sentiments like these above that we can't have a nice country. And it's because so many espouse sentiments like these above that I fear for the future of the United States. Despite all the progress made over the past several decades, there are still significant numbers of people who favor "law and order" over ending police brutality, who despair over the "browning" of America (notice how the original poster frowned over the difficulties "Irish doctors and German engineers" were supposedly having in getting into the U.S.), who think universal health care is "Socialism" that will result in the collapse of society (like it has in all the other developed nations that ensure their citizens have access to working health care systems) and so on and so on. And it's due in no small part to sentiments like these above that I'm anxious to return to work in Ethiopia.

Oh well, one should always look on the bright side. The outpouring of demonstrators on the streets is a hopeful sign that real changes are possibly on their way, even if it means people like the poster (and the relative who shared it) will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the real world. But with age comes cynicism (or more of it, in my case), so as the old saying goes, I'll believe it when I see it.

On at least one positive note, for the first time since we were in the Seychelles back in mid-March, we actually went out for a meal this evening, celebrating my 57th at Urban Tandoor. Hopefully we can do this more often from now on, provided we don't catch that COVID:

The rainstorm pictured at the top of this post actually missed our location, but did provide an entertaining lightning show as it went by:

I'm now up to 75 minutes one-way on my weekly trek along the Curtis and Mount Vernon Trails, which took me to this point alongside the Potomac with views of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Watergate complex:

And when life when gets you down, there are always sunsets to appreciate:

In reference to an earlier blog post: