Bureaucracy With a Heart
Did I tell you we’ve been stationed with two embassies, and at the second, I worked as a Foreign Service Officer? I know how busy and how harried the diplomats are, and I know how beleaguered the consular offices are with requests for visas and tourists who have lost their passports. They see it every day.
I lost my passport. My bad. Totally on me. I can’t expect anyone to feel obligated to help me out, but fortunately, there are mechanisms in place to expedite. You have to pay extra, but it’s worth it when you have a trip booked.
I told you about our run to New Orleans to submit paperwork and my delight to learn I would have a new passport soon.
I told you about the phone call telling me they needed a RECENT photo, not the same one that was on my last (never used, bright shiny new never used) passport.
I’ve been on edge all day. I’m away this weekend on a religious retreat, and I wasn’t feeling very religious. I was feeling nervous. I wonder if my passport reached New Orleans, or did it fall somewhere between the cracks? I wonder if Fridays are even work days at the passport center? What if it doesn’t get there and I don’t even know?
A short time ago, I got a phone call, from the same bureaucrat who called me about the photo. She was just calling to tell me that the passport is ready and will go out expedited this afternoon. She knew I would be concerned, and just wanted me not to worry.
I almost cried in gratitude. Who thinks of compassion when dealing with a bureaucracy? It was pure grace.
In the lifetime of our nation, we have elected some real doozies in high public office. Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Governors – some real characters. I don’t worry too much when lunatics run for high office, I thank God we have a solid bureaucracy, rarely corrupted; a bureaucracy that keeps plugging along when things get crazy. And thank God for this one particular officer who had a heart to reassure me that my passport is on the way. God bless her mightily.
My Passport and Donald Rumsfeld
It’s seven in the morning, I’ve fed the cat, made the coffee, fixed some cereal and taken care of first-thing-in-the-morning things so I can sit with my morning Lectionary readings, and as I start, the phone rings. It’s seven. In the morning. I figured it was an emergency grand-child babysit call, but the call is coming from New Orleans, an oh no. I know I need to answer it.
It’s the really nice lady who took care of me on Tuesday, and she says “We were putting together your new passport and we noticed you used the same photo you used on your last passport.”
“Why yes!” I said proudly, “when I had them taken, they gave me two, so I just used the second one.”
Big mistake. They needed a RECENT passport. My never-been-used-shiny-new passport was MONTHS ago and I need to get RECENT photos and send them immediately so they can compete the passport with the right photo.
I think about good old Donald Rumsfeld, with the things you know you know, the things you know you don’t know, the things you don’t know you know (love that one) and then – horrors – the things you don’t know you don’t know.
And then I head down first thing to UPS where the nice people took my photo and sent it off so that they will have it as soon as possible.
And . . . I am wondering what else is out there that I don’t know I don’t know.
Breakfast at the Ruby Slipper in Pensacola
When you are heading for the early service (AdventureMan calls it Episcopal Church Express) a lot can happen at the last minute. Write the check for stewardship. OOps, it’s raining, where is the umbrella? But it might not last long, where are my sunglasses?
We hurried, hoping to slide in under the wire, before the procession, when my friend stopped me at the door.
“There’s a new restaurant you will love! It opens early!”
“Where is it?” Restaurants that are open early on Sunday mornings are sparse. They exist, and they are full.
“It’s called Ruby Slipper, and it’s just down the street at Palafox and Main” she told me, and we scrambled to our pew before the procession started.
After church, we thought we’d give it a try. Was not hard to find – the streets are empty, and then there are all these cars parked, and there is Ruby Slipper.
I love the name. When I see sparkly shoes, I smile. Judy Garland searched for those shoes to take her back home to Kansas when she was eager to leave Oz. The name reflects how happy the restaurant was to re-open in New Orleans after the great flood and devastation following Hurricane Katrina. Ruby Slipper has four restaurants in New Orleans, and now this one in Pensacola. We are arriving on Day 2 of it’s opening.
I’m surprised – and delighted – to see how big it is, how spacious. For all the cars, there are four separate seating areas, one outside, one just inside where the coffee bar is, one large seating area and then one more private area in the back. We are greeted at the door, and shown to a table. Service is cheerful, and enthusiastic, and everyone looks very happy to be working at the Ruby Slipper.
The menu is extensive. It’s just two sides of one sheet of paper, but so many choices that sound SO good. We know we will have to come back several times. It takes us a while to choose what we want today. I had thought to go with the ‘signature dish’ Eggs Cochon, but it seemed so rich.
AdventureMan ordered the Costa Rican breakfast, which he loved. Eggs on beans and rice, and very tasty. Enough for two people. Easily.
I ordered the Smoked Salmon Bennie, and it, too, was enough for two people. It also had very good smoked salmon, the hearty kind, like you can sometimes find canned in Alaska at the specialty stores. Oh YUMMM.
We are greatly impressed. When we arrived here, Palafox was quiet. Not much was going on, and when night fell, nothing was going on. An amazingly generous couple ‘not from around here’ has made an enormous difference, investing in downtown Pensacola, buying derelict buildings and polishing them up, putting in cute little restaurants and boutiques and specialty stores. Someone put in an Al Fresco dining area. Someone else started up a monthly Gallery Night, which brings huge crowds to downtown one Friday night each month. All it took was a little vision, and soon Palafox, the main artery in downtown Pensacola, was voted one of the best main streets in the United States. Woooo HOOOO on generosity, and a little vision and investment.
Ruby Slipper has a great location and a varied menu. We wish them well, and welcome them to downtown Pensacola, where they brightened a rainy, dark and dreary Sunday morning.
“Come Back Soon; I Have So Many Questions!”
We wanted our house guests to experience a truly Southern experience, so we took them to Sonny’s BBQ. It doesn’t get much more down-home than Sonny’s. We saw one of my friends from water aerobics, we saw another friend from church and our son’s boss, all sitting nearby.
We all ordered barbecued smoked chicken, and the 10 year old ordered french fries and french fries for his two “sides.” He got frustrated with the knife and fork – it does slow down eating chicken – so he pretty much stuck to the french fries. As my friend from water aerobics left, she came over and hugged AdventureMan, and kept her hand on his shoulder as she met our guests.
To make it all even more bizarre (I am trying to imagine this from the Saudi point of view), we have the car seats for our grandchildren in AdventureMan’s car, so we used my car to drive to the restaurant. I drove.
It was a lot for them to absorb.
As we were leaving, our favorite waitress caught my arm and said “Come back soon! I have so many questions!”
Busy Edmonds Saturday (and Mukilteo, too)
It’s a short trip, and we’ve stayed on Pensacola time, so we are up early on a Saturday morning; we know the Edmonds Pancake Haus will be open. I’ve been going there for about 20 years and it always looks the same. It’s an institution. When I lived in Edmonds, a large group of “8-o-clockers”, i.e. those who attended the 8 a.m. service at Saint Albans on Sundays would head down to the Edmonds Pancake Haus afterwards, hoping we could beat the Lutherans (or Baptists or Methodists or Presbyterians) to the coveted larger tables in the back room. There are a lot of Edmonds people up early.
The menu has undergone some renovations; prices up, a few things gone, a few added, but they always have Swedish pancakes with lingonberry sauce (sigh, yes, it is a Scandinavian thing). I think lingonberries also grow in Alaska; I can almost remember going out on a boat somewhere to pick them, but I was a kid and memory is fuzzy.
My memory of Swedish pancakes, however, is sharp, as is my appetite 🙂
AdventureMan has his favorites, biscuit and gravy, and hash browns, and bacon, LOL. Now that we are all grown up and childless, we can do what we want. Sometimes, we even order dessert first, no, I am not kidding. Why waste calories on something healthy when you can have dessert?
From the Pancake Haus, we head for the Edmonds Market. “It’s not a full market yet, not until June,” Mama warned, but it was actually a fairly large market, with bakeries, pizzas, many flower vendors, a few vegetable vendors, and a lot of assorted vendors – soaps, jewelry, knit goods, pictures, plants and fresh fish and frozen meats. Lots to see, lots to buy; we found a bouquet of flowers just right for Mama, to replace the Mother’s Day bouquets which have bit the dust.
We visit for a while with Mama, then head out for a drive to Mukilteo, where we almost bought a house once. I still go visit that house from time to time, knowing it wasn’t right for me, I am glad someone bought it and is enjoying the view.
AdventureMan loves me, he suggests we eat at Ivar’s in Mukilteo. I LOVE eating at Ivar’s in Mukilteo, and by one of life’s amazing and wonderful coincidences, we are seated at my favorite table.
This is the view:
Choosing something from all the great options at Ivar’s is hard, and just this very day, Copper River Salmon has come in.
I’ve been yearning for something else, however, something we can’t get in Pensacola. I would call it a Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse, and I think that is what they used to call it, but now they call it something else. AdventureMan ordered the same thing, and because it is messy (Alaska crab legs; you have to pull them apart and crack them to get the sweet crab meat out of legs and claws) they bring a large plastic bib, which I am not to proud to wear because cleaning crab is truly a messy job.
We got so into it, I didn’t take a photo, LOL, but here is the description:
Actually, it was something a lot like that, something on the fresh menu last Saturday but not today. It was sort of like a ciopinno, something made specially for that day, I guess. It was so good, so good, we savored every morsel.
Outside the restaurant, fishermen are trying their luck at catching something as the ferry comes in and out, bringing waves of fish:
This is what the ferry boat riders see as they arrive, a view of Ivar’s from the water side:
And this isn’t even a holiday weekend; there are always lines for the ferries, but on weekends, especially during summer, those lines can take hours. Some people keep cars on both sides of the ferry, because you can always walk on; it is cheaper and you don’t have to wait in line.
The sign telling you what matters at Ivar’s in Mukilteo:
As we are leaving Mukilteo, we have a stream of historic planes coming towards us; it is part of the historic flight air show out of the Mukilteo flilght museum:
Small Glimpses of North Seattle
“As Sallam wa alaikum!” I smiled at the Sudanese women coming in to their jobs in our hotel.
They stopped still in their tracks.
“You speak Arabic!” they said, astonishment clear on their faces.
“Only a little!” I smiled back.
I had a whole squad of new friends.
Now that financial times are easing, many hotels we have visited over the last few months are renovating and getting new mattresses. This was a real bonus for our Sudanese friends, and all of their friends.
Have you ever tied a mattress on the top of your car and tried to drive? It is a wild and dangerous adventure; the wind lifts and pushes the mattress toward the back as you drive. Unless the mattress if firmly and thoroughly tied down, you are in for a wild ride.
And then again, if you are new in a country, and in need of a mattress, a wild ride is a small price to pay.
On our way back to the hotel, we see protestors in red shirts at every corner. This is not protestors Ferguson style, these are Seattle style protestors, making a big demonstration for fully funding public education, and all the signs are grammatical 🙂
We are so full from lunch that we just want a small dinner. We find a good Ethiopian restaurant listed near our hotel, and head there, but when we arrive, there is plywood over two windows and a sign saying “Sorry, dear customers, but due to car accident our restaurant is closed until it is fixed.”
We end up at Ivar’s Seafood Bar, which is quick food, but not cheap food, and very very good food. We are greeted by an older man as we enter, he says “Welcome to Ivars! I hope you have a great meal.” We thought he might be an official greeter, but no, he was a customer like us. We ended up sitting in a booth next to his, so he stopped on his way out to see what we had ordered (halibut and chips, smoked salmon chowder, Dungeness crab cocktail) and just to chat. It’s an Edmonds kind of thing, neighborliness and civility.
Santa Fe Hotel and Hacienda, Santa Fe
Twice in one trip I was able to totally WOW AdventureMan with a hotel. Seeing his face as we drove into the Santa Fe Hotel and Hacienda made my heart dance. Seeing his face as we checked in, surrounded by the smells of a wood-burning fireplace and the sounds of a solitary Indian flute playing and works of art everywhere put me over the top.
There are a lot of nice hotels in the arts-friendly city of Santa Fe. It was hard narrowing it down, but this hotel is majority owned and operated by Native Americans, and filled with Native American art, and I liked the looks of the rooms I could see online.
Just driving in to Santa Fe is a thrill. We love the desert-friendly adobe, we love walking friendly towns. We take one look at Santa Fe and we know this will be number one in the places to which we want to return, maybe with family and grandkids. This place is purely awesome.
Of course, it is Spring, and still chilly in Santa Fe. The big heat is coming 🙂
This is the exterior of the Santa Fe/Hacienda Hotel:
Sculpture at entry:
This is one of the landings where they serve coffee in the morning:
Another landing, each different, each beautifully done:
We spent the afternoon at the pool; we had it all to ourselves. It was pristinely clean. We also soaked in the hot tub in the glorious sun, but the breeze was cool so we were thankful for the nice bathrobes:
Sculpture by the pool:
The dining room at the Hotel Santa Fe’s Amayo restaurant. This was one of the best meals of our trip:
You can reserve the outdoor teepee for an evening of dining out Native American style:
AdventureMan loved his dinner, duck breast:
And anytime they serve grilled salmon on garlic spinach, I am delighted:
In the breakfast room the next morning, they had impressive buttery croissants as well as the normal choices:
Lots of seating areas; the lounge is also used for presentations on local history and culture for guests:
You get to Santa Fe, you park. You leave your car in the hotel and the Purple Bus takes you on a loop where you can get off anywhere you want, and it will come back and pick you up when you call:
We can’t wait to get back to Santa Fe.
Sparks, NV to Provo, UT, The Worst Day of our Trip (and it wasn’t bad)
AdventureMan is still feeling really bad, so I am going to drive most of the day, until it is time to navigate our way into Provo, UT and he is going to sleep.
About an hour out of Sparks, I feel uneasy, and I ask AdventureMan, who has briefly awakened, to check behind me to see if my purse is there. It isn’t.
I stop, call the hotel, and by the grace of God, the purse was turned in by the breakfast room lady, who found it where I left it.
So on one of the longest driving days, I add two hours driving by forgetting my bag.
It could have been so much worse. The bag could have been not turned in.
I am busy beating myself up and AdventureMan consoles me. I am wondering if this is the beginning of Alzheimer’s, and he laughs and says I had a lot on my plate. He is so kind, just when I need it.
As it turned out, AdventureMan sleeps most of the day, and the drive is quiet, uneventful – and beautiful. There are a lot of hills, and the car eats gas because of all the uphill stretches, and some of those uphills go on for a long time. I think I am doing fine on gas, more than 3/4 of a tank, when we pass Elko, NV, one of the last places to buy gas. It matters because when we get to the salt pans, we are down to 1/2 a tank, and the salt pans go on forever, and there is no gas station. Even past the salt pans, it is a long way to the next gas station, and we are breathing a sigh of relief, even paying outrageous gas prices, when we find the next gas station.
We’re about an hour away from our hotel when AdventureMan takes over the driving, through Salt Lake City, which goes on forever, to Provo and our hotel. As he is driving, we laugh. I have had a gorgeous day for driving, but suddenly, in the midst of the thick traffic, it appears to be starting to snow. Oh aaarrgh!
All AdventureMan wants for dinner is a can of soup from the MarketPlace, and there is an Arby’s next door, so I walk there. It is empty when I enter, and I order, and then, behind me, comes a group of 11 very happy looking people, from teen agers to grandparents.
“We each have $3.49 to spend!” one says breathlessly, “What can we get for $3.49?”
The counter-server is momentarily flummoxed, and one of the eleven says “I’m just going to have a cookie, so you guys can share what is left of mine.”
I couldn’t imagine how this was all going to work out, so I grabbed my order and left. As I walked to the hotel, snow flakes were hitting my head.
Cucina Verona In Fort Bragg, California
This was AdventureMan’s pick, and we both agreed it was one of the best meals of our trip.
Fort Bragg is quirky. It’s a real people kind of town, with grocery stores and drug stores and bakeries.
At dinner, at Cucina Verona, there was an aged guitar-player, but it almost seemed like he might have been someone famous at some time. He played very abstractly, with almost identifiable tunes, but just when you would think you were about to figure out what it was, he would drift off into something else.
Cucina Verona was nearly packed. We had made reservations, good thing. The menu was impressive. They have great waitstaff, helpful, chatty but not intrusive. They made us feel welcome, helped us find the right local wines and checked often to see if we needed anything.
(Just in time, I figured out what I had done and switched back to color!)
AdventureMan had a Pacific Coast Bouillabaisse, and he said it was the best, ever.
I had scallops with a seafood risotto; five or six exquisite, rich scallops (I adore scallops, but they are so rich I never can eat a lot of them) and a rich, creamy risotto full of sea-flavor with local crab and shrimp, oh yummmmmm.
The North Cliff Hotel in Fort Bragg, California
When AdventureMan and I saw this hotel on TripAdvisor, we had a feeling it was a good place for us. Space? Yes, lots of it, and a balcony, too. A grand view, 180 degrees, with, yes, crashing waves on rocks! Check! And just for grins, throw in a whirlpool tub with a view of the sunset, oh my, what heaven. AdventureMan really enjoys a good massage, and these long days of driving and hiking leave him eager to try the hot swirling waters in the privacy of our own room.
When I call the North Cliff Hotel, I first ask if they have any rooms available, and then I ask if the military discount is also available for retired military. It often isn’t, so I always ask.
“Of course it is!” she replied, “You served your time, didn’t you? Of course you get the discount!”
Wow. That totally sealed the deal. We wanted to stay there anyway, but having that nice discount made it even nicer.
AdventureMan was so helpful; I said I wanted to take photos before we messed up the room, soaked all the bathtowels and robes, etc. and he was patient with me.
What I didn’t know was that I had somehow set the camera on black and white, so I got all these sepia toned photos, weird because it was an accident, but nice because I like how they look.
There were people who complained about the fog horn. Folks, it’s the coast. If you want the coast, and the crashing waves, you’re going to have to welcome the fog horn. It’s a safety thing . . .
We loved this place, and we loved the quirkiness of Fort Bragg altogether, it felt more like a real-people town than Mendocino.
This is what the sunsets looked like from our room:
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