What do Ralph Dibny, Jimmy Olsen, Eel O’Brian, and Skizzle Shanks have in common? Yes, comics fans, they are indeed all endowed with super stretching powers as Elongated Man, Elastic Lad, Plastic Man, and Malleable Man. Yes, they were all members of the Elastic Four.
But what’s their most important attribute? They would all do great in the Foreign Service because they are so damned flexible!!
Yes, that’s right, our plans have once again changed. First though, I’m happy to announce that Kirby is cancer free! He recovered like a champ and he and Tyra are currently in boarding. Now we just have to see whether or not Hurricane Irene shuts down all flights on Sunday, thus trapping them here for yet another week. Seriously, it’s like god isn’t even trying to hide the fact that he’s screwing with us now. He reeeeally doesn’t want our dogs going to Uzbekistan.
In the meantime, I’ve decided to cancel my trip to Dallas for my niece’s Bat Mitzvah. It was a great idea, but it turns out moving to a different country is pretty hard. Lisa’s been a trooper on her own there for the last week. However, the idea of having her face all those challenges on her own for another month just doesn’t feel right. Plus, of course, I miss her. Also, I’m ready to finally get this adventure started. So, after much consideration, I’m heading to the airport tomorrow and I’ll be in Tashkent by Saturday night. That is, if things actually go according to plan. Sorry Benjamin family and Austin peeps. I’ll miss y’all!!
One of the biggest challenges in booking my flight has been finding out whether or not my bags will be checked through to Tashkent. When Lisa went, we thought we needed to follow her starting airline’s baggage guidelines. Turns out she had to get off the plane in Frankfurt, get her bags at baggage claim, go through customs, stand in line for ages only to find out her bags were over the highly restrictive Uzbek Air weight limits (a single bag at 44 lbs plus a 12 pound backpack). She had to get approx. $650 worth of Euros at an ATM then go to another window to pay for her extra baggage. Everyone at the embassy was shocked. No one else travelling this year has had this issue.
My flight is on a different airline, but every time I call I get a different answer. I’ve called six times and spoken to six different representatives. Three have said that there is no baggage agreement between Lufthansa and Uzbek Air so I’ll have to do what Lisa did. Three have said there IS an agreement and my bags will be checked through. I decided to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Today I packed up one of my big suitcases and Metroed over to a UPS store. I shipped the suitcase to our personal diplomatic pouch address in Dulles, Virginia. It’ll take about three weeks to reach Tashkent, but I only had to pay $35 or so for shipping it in the US. I’ll still have some overweight luggage fees if I have to recheck my bags, but it’ll be much less than if I had both my big suitcases in Frankfurt. We’ll just see what happens when I check in for my flight.
In addition to my big move, I’m starting a new editing gig. I can’t talk about it yet, but I’m looking forward to telling y’all more soon. There’s also a twenty hour a week job at the embassy that might be interesting to me. I’ll find out more when I get to post. It could be cool to work in the embassy and still have plenty of time for writing, editing, and supermodeling. For now, I’m off to do some writing on a spec project. Zeus willing, my next blog update will be from Uzbekistan!