CONSULATE

I bike across town to Patient’s Medical for my glutathione push. I come prepared (this time) because I’ve begun to read books about antioxidants.

The ride across town is often hellish. I sit on my bike stalled in dirty traffic.  I can’t zig zag in and out (any more)... it’s too precarious for my lazy feet. So I wait in line behind other stalled cars and I must look delusional... I must look like I think I'm driving an actual car.

I lock my bike up at the same street post on the corner of 42nd Street and Second Avenue. There are cement barricades on Second Avenue to deter terrorists from driving into the building (I guess).

I use these cement blocks to guide me to keep me steady as I walk to the building entrance.

I teeter my way precariously through the revolving doors. It takes focus, faith, and a little bit of (here goes nothing) to get myself though these moving doors.

I carry my bike seat in hand because it would be easy to take from my bike.

I see the black female security-guard (who knows me now) "Do you need to see my ID?" - (it's a struggle to balance myself and dig for my wallet)

"No, it's okay, I know you, you're here every week, you're alright." She smiles with genuine warmth. People like me more now because I struggle to walk.

Suddenly, a serious young man (in a suit with an earpiece) interrupts... He is all curt urgency.

"Is your bike parked on the corner?" He eyes the bike seat I'm holding.

"Um... I don't think so, no. " (Why am I denying this? I AM parked around the corner) "I mean, I guess so... why?"

"Is your bike white?"

"yeah"

"Has a little motor?"

"uh, yeah."

"You're here every week and leave your bike at that same spot?"

"Yeah, I do."

The female security guard jumps in, "He's just going to the doctor."

"You go to a doctor?"

"Yeah, on the ninth floor?"

He is affable and respectful now. I'm a sad disabled guy, doing his best to get around this big city.

"I'm glad I ran into you. The police are on their way to break the lock and take the bike away. It's a security risk. The Israeli and African Consulate are in this building. We have to take all precautions. But I'll let them know. Your bike's okay. I'll take care of it."

He smiles and I push away the bubble that appears above my head of the anguish and chaos my day would have been had I not randomly run into this guy. Or was it random? Is someone watching out for me? Is prayer protecting me?

I hobble to the elevator the security guard helps me. (The whole city of New York is actually very helpful. Everyone struggles here, selfishly fights for a little bit of their own space, so that when they see an opportunity to help someone genuinely in need, they pounce on it).

I get on the elevator and in my handicapped lazy (I'll talk to anyone) persona, I ask an elderly African American woman what a consulate is, or rather I put it to her this way "I guess, there are a lot of consulates in the building, do you know what the difference between an embassy and a consulate is?"

The woman doesn't explain what the difference is, she merely reports that she works at the African Consulate. This is a tricky way of evading the question (I think).

When she gets off on the seventh floor, there's a lot of African art and sculpture on the lobby walls.
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According to Answers.com

"A consulate is like a junior embassy. It's generally located in a busy tourist city, and takes care of minor diplomatic tasks such as issuing visas. The word consulate literally means office of the consul, who is a diplomat appointed to foster trade and take care of expatriates. You can read some pointed essays about the role of the modern day consulate at the American Foreign Service site.

Embassies are much bigger deals. The word embassy comes from the French ambassade, or office of the ambassador. Ambassadors are high-ranking diplomatic representatives who serve as spokespersons for their national governments. If one country recognizes the sovereignty of another, they generally establish an embassy there. Embassies take care of the same administrative duties as consulates, but they also represent their governments abroad.

This can be tricky business. For instance, the United States doesn't maintain an embassy in Taiwan (in order to maintain diplomatic relations with China), but it does operates a consulate there to take care of its overseas citizens. For an interesting online look at another prickly diplomatic relation, check out the U.S. Embassy in Malaysia, which features a reaction statement to the recent incarceration of Malaysia's former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

You may recall the famous photograph from 1975 of American citizens ostensibly fleeing the American embassy in Saigon. The building was in fact an apartment complex across the street, but the message was clear: once the embassy leaves, the country symbolically leaves."