Fusterated

Isaac will sometimes ask me if I am fusterated. Sometimes I am. And I am honest with the boys about that. When they are disobeying, I will sometimes say, Mommy is frustrated.

Isaac interprets that as fusterated. Same thing.

So right now, as I type this, am I fusterated. A bit. So excuse a bit of complaining.

When it comes to the mail on Base? Yes, I'm fusterated.

When it comes to the Internet on Base? Yes, I'm fusterated.

When it comes to the groceries on Base? Yes, I'm fusterated.

I love living here, but there are just a few things that are starting to really, really get to me. I have narrowed them down to three things for the sake of not going off the deep end.

1. Mail is a fusteration.

• Two times now, people have sent us something, and it has gotten returned to them for apparently no reason at all.
• I sent a package to my friend Becky that arrived at her house -- empty.
• We sent some pottery home a few weeks ago. Three out of the five pieces did not make it alive. Bummer!
• The Post Office is closed all the time for down days, training days, holidays that no one else is celebrating.
• I sent a letter back to the States last week for Becasue of Isaac. The first letter I sent took almost three weeks to arrive. The next week, I sent a similar letter, and it arrived in three days? What?

I know we live halfway around the world, and decades ago our correspondence would have been even more pitiful and sparse. I just wish mail was a bit more reliable and consistent in today's day and age.

2. Internet: I am typing this from the Starbucks on Base. It is the weekend, and our Internet is out ... again. We pay an incredible amount for our Internet. It is slow and unreliable. Everyone on Base is annoyed by it, but we are given no option to use another carrier. We must use the one on Base. At least two weekends a month, our Internet goes out at our house. When we call, on Monday, when they open again, they hit one switch and it comes back on. For real? Again, I recognize how lucky I am to have Internet. I can't imagine living overseas without it. But when you are spoiled, not having it really hurts my feelings.

3. Groceries: I like our Commissary for one big reason. It is so small that I can zip through it in a matter of minutes. But the fact that you can pick out a recipe, get twelve things on your list, and then realize they are out of a key ingredient and have to scrap your whole grocery list, is quite fusterating. You may decide, like we did, that we should get a rotisseri chicken at the last minute for dinner since we didn't plan well. So you run out to the grocery store and they are totally gone. It isn't that they don't have things. It's that they don't have things consistently that is so difficult to deal with. I can't tell you how many times I get an email from a friend or see a post on the Incirlik Yardsale page on Facebook asking if anyone has ____. Pumpkin at Thanksgiving was becoming something people begged for!

Okay, so I recognize this is a complaining post. I try to stay positive about living in Turkey, but today, I'm just a wee bit fusterated. Thanks for listening.