The Evolution of The Maguire Wire

Dear readers,

Much has happened since our last blog post four years ago. The Maguire Wire as we know it is no more. The Traveling Maguires are still traveling, but traveling in separate directions. Details do no one good, but it is well known that the Foreign Service lifestyle will exacerbate existing problems.     Where are we now? The FSO is overseas and with a little public support may be encouraged to write his own blog. I, the FSS, is posted to TBD. The diplobrats are growing up fast as they fly back-and-forth between parents and cultures, thriving on learning new languages and manipulating their parents in order to get purple hair.

Now don’t be fooled. When I say “cultures”, I don’t necessarily mean different countries. Our adventures in the last three years ranged from New England to the Midwest. We live in one amazing country, but not one homogenous culture. What it means to be an American changes from town to town and state to state, with variations in language and values. It is just as shocking to go from the East Coast to the Midwest and back again as to another country. The kids and I, keen observers of culture, took it all in. Then moved on before settling down.

This new blog focuses on me, the Diplobrats, and two new additions, Dog and Cat. Or maybe we won’t focus on them at all, and I might just write about my random thoughts and feelings as we travel through this crazy lifestyle, as before. Let’s hope the dog and cat travel with us to more places than the bunnies did. Shh, don’t tell White Dog and Black Cat what happened to White Bunny and Black Bunny.

Join us on our next adventure as we transverse the flooded plains of the Midwest on our way to the political quagmire of Northern Virginia.  Read on at The Traveling Dog and Cat. 

Shanghai Air Quality Index (AQI) Apps and Links

China is notorious for poor air quality. About two years ago world newspapers wrote about political fireworks (Get it? Fireworks and China? No? Okay, blog on that later.) set off by State Department Mission to China into the smog filled Chinese skies. China, too, had a system to determine air quality, but the readings differed in substances monitored, and frequency. Air quality rumors still abound, but the political differences were worked out long before the Maguires arrived in Shanghai.

The State AQI is located somewhere on the US Consulate compound. This is public knowledge, but I have no idea where the monitor is and don’t really care. On ground level, after I have stopped, dropped, and rolled, I find the air to be fresh and clean there as it is filtered by a park-like abundance of trees, plants and flowers. Still, the shafts of sunlight highlight millions of particles floating in air and the air I breathe tastes gritty.

The air in the outlying neighborhoods appears to be worse than at the Consulate. This is not proven true, but completely antidotal. I don’t electronically check the air quality every day. When I walk the children to school in the morning we observe the buildings in the distance. How distinct are the outlines? What color is the sky? We can usually guess within 30 PPM. This may seem like a wide margin of error, but we are really talking about the difference between unhealthy and unhealthy. See below.

2014 Holiday Card

To all of our family, friends, and dear readers:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Maguires. 

Home Leave Before Moving Abroad, Going to School, and Starting Normal Life All Over Again

Traveling and living abroad, I tend to idealize American childhood. I know that my summers were terribly boring, but my memories are full of fishing with sticks and cold cuts, climbing trees, and walking in the woods. Maybe some of those memories have been polished with time, but they are confidence building. I want to give the kids the same thing.

My goals for the summer were never written, but included camping, fishing, and hiking. We only tramped around the backyard woods twice and never made permanent trails. They did fish, though I tried to avoid the worms, fish, hooks, dock, and everything associated with it. We did camp once in the backyard.

Hiking through undergrowth takes concentration, but camping is a bit slow and my mind wanders. I start to think of all the trips that came before. My first camping trips were with the girl scouts. Will the kids experience scouts? There must be troops all over the world. They need to experience that distinctive scent of the green plastic platform tents and the sound of girls trapped inside that large A-frame being catty and mean.

Ah, the memories. The gates are open and the memories rush through too fast to collect: hash campouts (which my phone autocorrected to vampires), Marceline and Toon-Fest, kayak and canoe trips- remember kids people go in the kayaks and the beer and gear go in the canoe! Glimpses into the torrent reveal funny memories and inside jokes. The kind of stuff that is mine to hold onto and at times not hold in, like marshmallows. One of life great mysteries explained.

These are the thoughts that helped me smile as I laid on the cold ground, because someone didn’t want to use the air mattress; at the bottom of a downhill slope, because that is where the tent was pegged; and being kicked by three pairs of feet, because four people don’t fit into a 2-man tent no matter what size those people are, and living in fear because pee flows downhill.

The mosquitoes were terrible, so we all ran and jumped in the tent. The inside of the tent glowed red with light from the star watching app. Star Walk was my frequent companion in Africa, but rarely used during the bright city nights in DC.  Ted turned it into a game, blinding us with close-ups of stars and the moon. He played with the app and we never would know what stars were above us. It was a full moon, so maybe we would not have seen much anyway.

Lightning bugs are great to watch from the porch, but nearly invisible through the white, synthetic walls of the tent. The other bugs mobilized, ignoring the bug spray soaking our skin and attacked looking for blood. The bombardment continued as they tested the tent fabric for weaknesses. Lying quietly trying to ignore the discomfort and inevitable flood, I heard creaking. Did the mosquitoes join forces with a ground insect in order to tunnel in? Creak. Creak. I felt around the bottom of the tent. Nothing was moving. Listening carefully I found the spot. Slowly I put my finger down and pushed until, crack! Creaking stopped and I was a little freaked out by the size of the something that cracked under the tent.

At around 11pm I snuck out of the tent to use the bathroom, modern conveniences just steps away. There was something odd about the air. On the way back to the tent it hit me- nothing hit me. There were no bugs biting, wings and legs humming. No bats above. The air was perfectly still. Do I wake the kids and look at the stars? Nope, tell them tomorrow. I tried to sleep. At 2am I bailed on my loving family and went to sleep on the couch downstairs rather than the bed, just in case a coyote attacked them.

The old stories of people sleeping under the stars are romanticized. Cowboys sleeping with a saddle for a pillow, elves and men sleeping in abandoned watchtowers. Are there not Tolkien-size bugs out there? Snakes? Other creepy crawlies that slither, wiggle, and fly during the night? Romantic? In my younger, tentless days I tried it once and would never again. Sleeping under the stars is cold, rocky, and buggy. 

A week after tenting, when the family was caught up on sleep, we took down the tent. The large, crushed, critter was not found. The tent, now on its way to Shanghai, has been retired for the season. We have hit everything on the list and the kids had a good, memorable summer. Ted's only disappointment, still no pocket knife. 

Making trails in the backyard.

Swimming at Grandma's.

Fishing with cousins and the aunts who bravely face hooks and worms.

Embedded deer tick.

Climbing trees.

Berries from the backyard.

Running with no purpose and no direction.

We're off on the Road to Rhode Island! We're driving 9 hours on 95.

These world travelers are headed to Rhode Island for our yearly dose of Americana. That is right, Foreign Service Officers are required to travel to the States for a minimum of 20 days a year so that we can maintain our American identity and not "go native". Since we have been in DC for several months we are heading to the center of the universe to get a good dose of quahog before continuing onto the land of the dragon.

One day I will make a video of the kids singing, but for right now they just sing the first two lines. Sure the whole song is great, but truly, they do not need another word for poop, they have enough of them already.  In the future I plan to use the show as educational punishment whenever the kids lose touch with their roots.

So without further ramblings from me, because this posting is going nowhere, please join us for  a Family Guy sing-along thanks to youtube and Family Guy wiki lyrics. Forgive me Seth MacFarlane for stealing your brilliance for my own ends. Oh and Seth, if you do read this blog, I love you.

Lyrics

Brian: Listen kid, there's- there's something I've been meaning to tell you. It's not easy for me to say.
Stewie: Oh God, you're not coming out of the closet, are you? Oh God--why does everyone always come out to me?
Brian: I just wanted to thank you for everything you did today. I know this whole trip has been a mess.
Stewie: Well, it hasn't been all bad. I must admit, there have been some moments that were, dare I say fun?
Brian and Stewie:
♪ We're off on the road to Rhode Island ♪ ♪ We're having the time of our lives ♪
Stewie: Take it, dog.
Brian: ♪ We're quite a pair of partners, just like Thelma and Louise. 'Cept you're not six feet tall... ♪
Stewie: ♪ Yes, and your breasts don't reach your knees. ♪
Brian: Give it time.
Brian and Stewie:
♪ We're off on the road to Rhode Island ♪ ♪ We're certainly going in style ♪
Brian: ♪ I'm with an intellectual who craps inside his pants ♪
Stewie: ♪ How dare you! At least I don't leave urine stains on all the household plants ♪
Brian: Oh, pee jokes.
Brian and Stewie:
♪ We've travelled a bit and we've found ♪ ♪ Like a masochist in Newport, we're Rhode Island bound ♪
Brian: Crazy travel conditions, huh?
Stewie: First class and no class.
Brian: Whoa, careful with that joke, it's an antique.
Brian and Stewie:
♪ We're off on the road to Rhode Island ♪ ♪ We're not gonna stop 'till we're there ♪
Brian: Maybe for a beer.
Brian: ♪ Whatever dangers we may face, we'll never fear or cry ♪
Stewie: ♪ That's right, until we're syndicated, Fox will never let us die. Please?
Brian and Stewie:
♪ We're off on the road to Rhode Island ♪ ♪ The home of that old campus swing ♪
Brian: ♪ We may pick up some college girls and picnic on the grass ♪
Stewie: ♪ Uhuhm, we'd tell you more, but we would have the censors on our ass ♪
Brian: Yikes!
Brian and Stewie:
♪ We certainly do get around. ♪ ♪ Like a bunch of renegade pilgrims ♪ ♪ Who are thrown out of Plymouth Colony. ♪ ♪ We're Rhode Island bound. ♪ ♪ Or like a group of college freshmen ♪ ♪ who were rejected by Harvard and forced to go to Brown. ♪ ♪ We're Rhode Island bound... ♪

http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Road_to_Rhode_Island_%28song%29 

Short-timers

With less than 30 days left in DC we are all going through the usual effects of being short-timers. Usual for us, but maybe not for everyone.

I burn bridges.  Usually I start to fan the flames about six months out. Three months ago, I started a new job. Bad timing, those people will only know me with one foot out the door.
 
The kids are crying over old friends. They are asking to Skype with buddies they left a year ago. They have stopped asking for paydates as the last day of school gets closer. They desperately miss their cousins and have yet to say "good-bye".

Currently, I am trying to make the most of our last weeks in DC. We have tickets to two plays next weekend. Today we went to the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic. Every evening for years I have played classical music as they settled to sleep, so it should be no surprise that both kids went straight to sleep at the beginning of the concert. Josie, was out before the first note. Almost two hours later they woke up and enjoyed the finale. Ted is quite goods at picking out the individual instruments from the notes.
 
A giant group birthday party for Teddy and his two best buds will mark the end of our TDY language DC tour. His birthday is always a big send off. This time we will be literally sailing of into the sunset, complete with water cannons.

Tag you're it!

It has been nearly a year since the last post. I wish I could say that our lives are so exciting that we don’t have time, but truly that is not the case. Life is just too busy with everyday stuff.

We left Maseru on a mission. We were going to expose the kids to every activity available. Great idea at the time, but turns out activities take time. They now have organized play almost everyday. In fact the calendar is locked down pretty tight every day of the week from 7am until 8pm. Saturday is free, or I should say Saturday and Sunday are free after noon.

They like their gymnastics, swimming, and soccer, well enough when there, but they hate moving on to the next activity. There are always big fights going out the door. 4 and 6 years old and I know they are going to grow up to be procrastinators like me.

They have no choice. They must learn how to play soccer if they are going to live overseas. What else is there? Cricket? Rugby? The weird thing is that they really don’t know how to play soccer. There are important lessons to be learned in teamwork and sportsmanship in this style of instruction, but less about footwork and resilience. On the playground or back alleys is where the kids really learn how to play games and how to play hard. There is nowhere to learn a game like that in our apartment building. My kids have to learn everything through organized and supervised play.

Organized play has killed creativity.  These guys get up in the morning and immediately turn on Netflix. They don’t play Legos or run around. I have to find a way to break this habit as well. We used to be a no TV family. What happened?

Living in the States has made these guys soft. My son is about to turn six and doesn’t have a pocketknife. What 6 year old boy doesn’t know how to use a knife to make a bad guy trap in the woods, or torment his sister? Not that I endorse this last act as they absolutely drive me crazy tormenting each other, but it does seem to be an important part of growing up. As much as I want him to have this experience, i.e. bad guy traps, I am terrified he will do something stupid and hurt himself.  Enter here the mischievous uncle.  I need you to help get this kid muddy.

The 2012 Christmas Card Part 3

In 2012….

After a month of working on this year’s video card, I have decided to follow the lead of Peter Jackson. Why spend a solid work week of time editing and simplifying a painfully long movie, when I can break it into several movies? In the case of the annual Maguire Christmas Card, you don’t have to pay for the extra admission tickets. Such is my loss.

Movie synopsis: Ted and Josie were Brave, they are The Lucky One(s), I hope they have Total Recall of the Beauty and the Beast(s) on this Journey to The Mysterious Island Continent. Spencer and I found that the Dark Knight Rises at work, but Skyfall and Argo are just movies. Sound tracks provided by Teddy’s and Josie’s Dance Party playlist 2012.

Hunger Games: Maybe we shouldn’t get out of the car

Marveling at the Avengers: Teddy Danger and Princess Josephine Conquer the World

American Reunion: Different places, same old life

There and Back Again: The hobbit and his family’s journey from Lesotho to the United States Hitting theaters July 2013.

The 2011 card can be viewed here http://travelingmaguires.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-in-africa-southern-africa.html