Catching Up

It's been a crazy couple of weeks at work. I've got a thousand things to post about but here are some highlights:

The bee eaters are back! These birds have remarkably bright feathers that are hard to miss in the tan landscape we have here. And boy are they noisy! They migrate from Europe to Africa, using Dhahran as a winter stopover. I've only seen then up close twice; usually I spot them in the evenings flying very high across camp, going to wherever it is that they sleep at night. It seems that I always see them in pairs or groups, never just one by itself.

My dog classes have started. DOG-101 is overfilled with 10 people but I suspect a couple will drop out in a week or two, leaving me with the 8 that I wanted in the first place. And my DOG-201 Rally class is underway with just 5 of us. I'm happy with that since teaching rally is a new experience for me. I'm definitely going to post more on this later.

Even though I just got back from visiting all of you in the US, I'm already preparing for my next trip out. This one will be my repat, my very first one. Aramco gives us a repat payment equal to the price of a roundtrip ticket from Dhahran to our point of origin (in this case, mine is Dallas, Texas). We are required to be OOK for 14 consecutive days every year. I get four extra vacation days just to use for the repat. I'll be spending most of my four weeks in France.

Upul survived Hurricane Mimi with minimal damage. He's even agreed to look after the dogs while I'm out on repat. For the August trip, I borrowed a twin bed from a friend and pushed it up next to mine in my bedroom. Didn't leave much room up there but I thought that Upul could sleep on the twin bed and the dogs could sleep on my bed.

Well, the dogs had other ideas. By the second night, they were snuggled up next to poor Upul on the twin bed. He was surprised but I think that he got used to it after a while. Not that he had a say in the matter.

When I was discussing my repat dates with him, I said, Upul, no matter where you sleep, the dogs are going to sleep with you. So I think you should just sleep in my bed in November. You'll have more room, the dogs will be happy, it should work out better. Oh yes, he agreed. That will be better.

Turns out Upul learned the hard way not to leave food out on the counter. He left some plain crackers out and Hurricane Mimi consumed them. He said the bag was on the floor torn up but not a crumb of cracker was left. He was pretty surprised that the dogs could get to the top of the counter but I told him about the pecan pie and the chocolate sheet cake. They have no problem with it, I assured him. He thought about this for a second, then said, maybe you should put up a camera to see how long it takes them to do it!

Ha!! I think he's really warming to my crazed beasts.

I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary with Aramco. It's not been an easy year. New culture, new country, giving up so many of the things that I loved most. But I'm trying to adapt and find joy where I can.

Decanting my first batch of red whine tonight. It still has to sit for a few weeks to clarify but at least it is grape juice with alcohol in it.