Foreign Service Officer wannabe, day 49

Today I spent many, undeniably depressing hours separating what little I have into "luggage" and "UAB" piles (UAB = unaccompanied air baggage, or the 250lbs of your belongings State is willing to box up and send to you within the next few weeks).  The process is, of course, complicated by two factors:

1. The fact that the majority of my belongings are still en route from Lima, Peru.  The Management Officer at U.S. Consulate Nogales tells me that everything may actually cross the U.S.-Mexico border late today and be delivered tomorrow, but, like everything else when dealing with a large, bureaucratic machine, it depends.  The positive side of this is that it is very likely that this shipment will get to the house in Nogales before I depart for DC on Monday.  That gives me some time to sort through everything myself and not have to entirely rely on Anthony to go through it all and separate my stuff out.  It will be an even more positive experience if we can somehow get that shipment here tomorrow, so I can take some things out of it and put them into my UAB shipment, which is being packed at 8AM on Friday morning.
2. The time has now come to officially separate *our* things into smaller Ryan and Anthony piles.  It is yet another physical reminder of the painful separation we are both going through, and I am not looking forward to it.  There is no real positive spin to put on the game of "this is mine and that is yours."

So, despite the fact that the majority of the federal government has been shut down all week due to snow, some of its parts are still actually moving.  And one of them happens to be me.