Fun with the cousins

Kai is LOVING spending time with Amanda and Alexandra - they sure do wear him out by the end of the day! Auntie Kaye, Uncle Saehoon and Juliet have been a huge help during our stay - Kai took no time at all to adjust to the new surroundings and has been trying to keep up with the big girls ever since. He love chasing Harry the dog around the house, but we both miss our cats back home. I've also noticed Kai gravitating more to men - sure sign he misses his daddy so much since he usually only has eyes for the ladies!

Kai in Rapps

No commentary, just some pictures from Kai's second trip out to Rappahanock. This time it looks like he's a bit more aware of what's going on around him (he was only a couple weeks old during his last foray to Kate and Sam's)...

I realized that ya'll don't know who we work with and thought I would include a picture of the public diplomacy staff getting awards from the Ambassador a cuople of months ago. My direct colleagues - the cultural staff, are in the first row - starting from left to right - Susan (my boss, the woman in the white coat), Vukica, Dida and Jelena. The Ambassador is the taller gentleman in the back row closest to the flag. We're kind of in a slow period right now, at least slow-er while literally the entire country is on vacation in Montenegro, but things will probably pick back up next week as people return and Belgrade's culture engine slowly revs back into action.

It's still tough to be without K-man and Ames, and the bachelor ways have definately returned. It's funny how quickly we fall back into old patterns and habits when left alone to our own devices - I won't bore you with the details but needless to say our housekeeper has a bit more work than usual at the Johnson/Canon residence... Hurrican Kai creates a unique type of mess, but 35-year-old bachelors are another story entirely!

Will post more later - Ames should be putting up some pictures of their trip to the US fairly soon as well!

Empty Nest

Wow - Kai and Ames have only been gone a day and I already miss them beyond belief! Can't say I'm complaining about the first 8 hour block of sleep I've had in 10 months though :) The cats are also looking around saying "hey, where's that little thing that runs after us screaming at the top of his lungs?". I suspect they probably need the break and the extra attention as evidenced by the fact that they've plastered themselves on me ever since he left...

Now I guess I'm left to contemplate our life here in Belgrade for a while, and will actually get to see some of the cultural events I've been funding for the last year. We give a lot of money to support local artists, galleries and musicians but the serb nightlife (dinner, concerts, parties) starts at 9 pm and really doesn't get rolling until midnight or so - WAYYYY past my bedtime with the little man is home. I think many people would be amazed at how rich the scene is here - lots of cutting edge visual artists, music, and dance that no one hears about because of the self-imposed isolation of the country - if they would just get Mladic in jail the world would be a lot more willing to create permanent connections. We'll see what this year brings - maybe after the Kosovo issue is resolved things will improve.

Funny thing in the papers today - I think this is pretty common in all former communist countries. One of the first big changes that the Soviets imposed was the renaming of all the streets to reflect the heroes of communism both within the actual country and also Lenin, Stalin, yada yada. The joke in Latvia is that they kept all the old signs in a warehouse and are ready to trot them out again when the great Bear rolls back into town. In Serbia, however, they've left many of the old signs up from Tito's rule (people are much more nostalgic about socialism here than in other countries) and just added a new sign with the pre-1940s name under it. Also, in some of the near suburbs apparently people have taken to naming their own streets and are using exactly the same names as some of the downtown signs. So now when I take a cab to a meeting or a contacts house I say the street "Karadjordjevic" for example, and then have to explain which of the 5 "Karadjordjevics" I mean. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having signs in the first place? Once you get used to living here it is really quite fun, but getting to that comfort zone can be frustrating for some....