The Frictions

If you’d prefer to listen to this week’s newsletter, you can find The Fig podcast here.

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Dear Friends,

One of the perks of living overseas is what we call a “Unicorn Day.” As the name implies, it is full of rainbow sparkles and magic: a day when the embassy is closed for a US government holiday, but the school remains open.

Though Nora’s international school follows an American academic curriculum, its school calendar is more aligned with local holidays. So Nora gets breaks for things like Orthodox Christmas (January 7) and Orozo Ait (March 20) while Jake and I get a kid-free day for Columbus Day and MLK.

Usually we’ll spend our Unicorn Day doing something out of the house. For Labor Day, we went to the hot springs. Other times we’ve gone out to a long Turkish breakfast. Breads and spreads! But today, I’m taking a wallow-in-the-house day.

The government has been shut down for almost two weeks now.