Bad Day 240--How do I describe my career?

Today was career day for the 5th grade, so I went to Child 3's school and gave her class a presentation on being a Foreign Service Officer, and I have to say that I was awesome. Really, there was a guy who jumped out of airplanes and a police officer with a gun and even the lady who is a train-crash analyst said my job sounded really cool. I have to admit that crashing real-live locomotives into each other to see what happens when they hit at high speed is way more interesting than working with budgets, but I am a better story teller. And I brought pictures. No one else had pictures. Visual aids are important with any audience, but most especially with 5th graders. Here is one of the pictures I used.



Then I explained that my job was nothing like that, and they still thought I was awesome. See, you have to know your audience. I know that I was awesome because they oohed three times during my presentation and only once during the paratrooper colonel's when he said he shot an AK-47. Also, Child 3 said I was and when I picked her up today, two of her classmates recognized me and asked me more questions. Now I'm the cool mom with the cool job and I love that.

Tonight was also the International Dinner at the high school which Child 2 insisted on going 2 which was a pot-luck. I am learning that pot-luck really means "nothing that I can eat except what I bring myself" because invariably, everything at the pot-luck will be made with wheat. Seriously--think about what you make for pot-lucks, even the fancy Foreign Service ones! Lasagna: has wheat. Macaroni and cheese: what do you think the macaroni is made out of? Bulgogi: soy sauce. (OK, that is just pot-lucks in Asia because even in China there were lots of Korean families and that is what they bring to a pot-luck.) On to the desserts--brownies, cake, pie, lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies--they all have wheat! And chocolate! (I so miss brownies.) So since I did not have time to cook, I brought Yangzhou-style fried rice (which has no soy sauce) from the bad Chinese restaurant down the street and I asked when I dropped off the dish if I could just take some then because there would be nothing else for me to eat. And they almost didn't let me! Their big idea was to get in line early, which is impossible to do at an event where there are teenage boys, which I pointed out. I also pointed out that of all the dishes present, the only other one I wasn't allergic to was the marinated cucumber salad. So they let me have some rice and that is all I ate. I am so not going next year. Husband can go because he has a stomach of iron and can eat anything he wants, especially brownies. I bet they have brownies where he is in Afghanistan.

This identity thief in Colorado is having a worse day than me. She went into an Applebee's and ordered a drink and when the waitress asked for her ID, she just handed it over. This is a picture of the waitress.



Pretty, isn't she? Here is a picture of the ID.



Hmm. She looks familiar, no? Yep. The thief handed the waitress the waitress' own license which had been stolen. So the waitress handed it back to the thief and then went in the back and called the police who came and  arrested the thief. So thank you, Ms. ID Stealer, for being dumb enough to get caught in the most spectacular way and for giving back the waitress her rightful property, even though you obviously did not intend to. And thanks for making me grateful that my ID has never been stolen and I hope it never will be. Although if you steal my identity, please take the wheat and chocolate allergies with you. Oh, and The Dog. Because you will deserve to have your favorite shoes chewed to bits.