Date: 2007-11-28 17:02 Subject: Scenes from a Mall Security: Public

Our closest "hypermarket" (the French are too cool to copy us call their huge stores "supermarkets") is at Khimki Mega Mall. Mega is a fairly accurate facsimile of an American mall with the lingerie stores ("Women's Secret" in lieu of "Victoria's Secret"), Gap like clothing stores based out of Finland and Germany, and the Claire's wannabe accessory stores. Like American malls, there is a food court. With the exception of a KFC, a McDonald's and a Sbarro's, none of the fast food resembles anything I feel comfortable eating. I can't tell what it is, but I'm not adventurous enough to find out by experimenting in a mall food court. Odd greasy noodles in mushroom gravy with sausage bits ladled into a eggy pancake and called Chinese. Call me crazy but I'll wait until I get back to America. Whoever opens a P.F. Changs here is going to make a million dollars. Any takers?

Abby and I manage a trip to the mall about every 10 days. This is about as long as I can go without a trip to Auchan, the insane babushka store aka Wall Mart meets Piggly Wiggly meets K-Mart under one leaky roof. Seriously. One day standing in line whilst a snow storm raged outside, snow wafted through the skylight onto the carts parked in line. And no one seemed to care.  My last trip to Mega I visited IKEA to finish furnishing my house. I have 90 assorted boxes and pieces of stuff piled in my living room waiting to be assembled. I do have a couch now so we can watch our 10 year old BBC reruns in a modicum of comfort.

On another recent trip, we decided to swing by McDonald's for sustenance. After four hours fighting the rampaging herds in the grocery store, we're usually dehydrated and starved.  After I managed to bluff my way through an order in very poor Russian, we parked our trays at a nearby table right next to the ice skate rental. Each dlelicious bite of my Royal cheeseburger was a joy. I felt my blood sugar percolate toward normal. I closed my eyes to savor the oily American cheese. And then it started playing: Britney Spears "Baby One More Time."  I'm sitting in Moscow, eating McDonald's listening to Britney in her better days and a pair of Russian teens walks by my table effortlessly singing every lyric. For twenty seconds, I was home. Surreal.

Abby and I laughed.

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Date: 2007-11-16 09:32 Subject: Fear Itself Security: Public

Sometimes as an expat, I feel like I'm living in a fishbowl. There is the rest of the world--the places and people outside the glass--and then there is here, home, Russia.  Calling Russia "home" may be premature, but considering our house sale closed this week, we no longer HAVE a home in the US. Russia is our "de facto" home if not our emotional home. Home or not, living in a country that scares people is a fascinating experience. 

The level of paranoia in the West about Russia, whether it is residual Cold War mentality or a simple lack of understanding, intrigues me in the sense that this paranoia doesn't seem to exist about the only major remaining Communist power in the world, China. Instead, Russia, which lurches between corrupt capitalism and strongly nationalistic, centralized pseudo-dictatorship inspires such dread that I'm not sure what it is people are afraid of. They certainly aren't afraid of the Chinese who routinely imprison bloggers and activists who speak out against the government or force late term abortions on women who are violating the 1 child law. No one blinks when American companies like Google turn over Chinese nationals to the government for attempting to use the internet to dissent against TPTB in China or when Chinese attempt to express religious ideas and are harassed, jailed, detained by police. My AMERICAN sister in Shanghai can't read my blog because it is censored. LiveJournal is extremely popular in Russia and we even have MTV Russia in all its corrupt, debauched rock-and-roll glory.  Americans freak when the Russians make nice-nice with Iran (hello, we are in the same TIME ZONE as Tehran so do you really want to tick off your neighbors?) but few Americans realize that the ongoing genocide in Darfur is due, in no small part, to the Chinese keeping the present Sudanese government in power so the Chinese can maintain a steady oil supply. When are Brad and Angelina going to start griping about that?

I have a theory. I believe that since the Chinese make Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls that Americans think they are benign. The Chinese feed the insatiable American appetite for cheap Target consumerism and so Americans are willing to modestly avert their eyes to Chinese human rights abuses. China goes bye-bye, there goes the after Thanksgiving cheapskate festival when Americans descend on the mall like locust on Pharoah.

So why is Russian the Big Scary kid on the playground?

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Date: 2007-11-08 07:31 Subject: Wherein JA waxes eloquent about TV Security: Public

So I have several entries that I've been working on--they're in various states of completion. My usual newsy, cultural blurbs about the quirks of living overseas.

But what I really want to talk about is television.

I am not one of those snobs who pretends that the only TV she watches is PBS and CNN. I freely admit that TV is my favorite form of entertainment. (I don't count reading because reading is like breathing to me--a totally separate issue entirely). When I lived in America, I often had the TV on while I worked, usually TLC or the Food Network, but I usually only sat down to physically watch, without distractions, a few shows during any given TV season. Those hours were the rare time when the nattering dialogue in my head ceased. To do lists, worries, frustrations, plans would all go away while I visited "The Office," the Island ("Lost"), the "Battlestar Galactica," the "Gilmore Girls" in Stars Hollow or "The West Wing." 

When I came to Moscow, we would go days without hearing another person speaking English--let alone with an American accent. The first time a cashier at KFC said "Have a nice day" in English to me, I started to cry. In our apartment, our hour of sanity is when the girls and I would gather around our laptop computer and watch an episode of "Everwood." It was one hour when we could forget the clouds of pungent cigarette smoke wafting under our door, the screeching traffic outside, the ongoing struggle of trying to cook meals without usable pans in a cooking space that could barely accommodate a Paris Hilton mini-mutt and the fact that we felt like aliens in a strange place far, far away from home.  We were starved for any cultural touchstones that linked us with home. 

When my dear friend 

bgirlla sent us copies of the fall 2007 pilots, you would have though Christmas arrived early in Russia. We could barely contain our excitement at the previews of  "Pushing Daisies," a script I had read the previous spring and fallen in love with, "Gossip Girl" and "Reaper."  For those brief moments, those TV shows closed the 11 hour time difference and the 6,000 miles that divides us from friends and a country we love. Those few precious hours of television were the cultural "shorthand," the place where "everybody knows your name" that gave precious moments of respite in those long weeks when we had no internet, no telephone and no shipment and knew hardly anyone.

I vividly remember one miserable afternoon as I attempted to prepare dinner--an exercise in futility--and listened to my iPod (which has since died a painful death). The song of choice was "Make Your Own Kind of Music" by Mama Cass, an anthem that was purchased by one of my daughters after it was used in the season 2 opening of "Lost." As I sat there washing dishes so I would have enough dishes to feed my family after I cooked, I started thinking about how I felt like I was on a desert island--an urban one--but a desert island. Everything was so hard--somedays it still is. Cooking, exercising, laundry, shopping, things that I used to do unthinkingly all require so much time and thought. Nothing is mindless. But there was Mama Cass in my ear, reminding me that I should walk up Tverskaya, head held high, ignoring the sneering faces and urban grime, making my own kind of music. If the Losties, Desmond and Juliet could hang out on a desert island and figure out quell the impulse to throw themselves into a volcano out of that stultifying combination of boredom, exhaustion, tedium and frustration, then by golly, I could survive Moscow.

 

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Date: 2007-11-05 21:19 Subject: Back in the Saddle Security: Public

Hey there cats and kittens I'm back in the game.  We finally had internet installed a few days before we left for the girls autumn break in Bologna, Italy.  After getting back around midnight last night, I've been playing catch-up today--paying bills, taking care of things in America and talking to my college aged daughter on the phone. Now I just wanted to let my friends know that life has returned somewhat to normal and I will be updating my LJ at least once a week for the immediate future. This doesn't count as an update, just a heads up that I'm no longer on hiatus. I do have a wicked cold, though. I can't just have a cold, I have to have a monster one. Hopefully it doesn't become pneumonia.

Stay tuned and watch this space for more news and views of expat living :)

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Date: 2007-10-08 15:30 Subject: Still Alive Security: Public

So this isn't as much an entry as it is a telegram from the battlefield telling everyone not to worry because we are presently without regular internet access. I am writing journal entries on my computer and will upload them when said computer can actually connect with the internet again. Amazing how things were before we had the world wide web. Primitive, odd, disonnected...it feels like I'm living in outer space where no one can hear me scream.

Supposedly we will have a visitor from Oregon in 12 days and we will go to Italy to see my sister in 19. Everyone is still functioning and transitioning to our new home. We have been blessed to have neighbors that have fed us and loaned us things like blankets and towels since ours are still in a crate in Holland.

Love you all and talk to you soon.

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Date: 2007-09-27 15:35 Subject: Update on the way Security: Public

Hi all:

It's been a crazy week. Good crazy, not bad crazy. We're supposed to move into our home in Rosinka a week from Saturday. I say "supposed to" because this is Russia and anything can happen. We're waiting to find out if our shipment has cleared customs (it is here, in the country, but customs is its own special animal). We go to IKEA next Wednesday to buy all the furniture in our house. I went to Auchan today to buy all our cleaning and house supplies--laundry detergent, toilet paper etc. and next Friday I buy our small appliances like the iron, blender, toaster etc. 

Abby is doing extremely well in school--97% percent on her pre-algebra midterm. We have good days and bad days homeschooling. The bad days aren't bad, they're just tedious or long. It will be nice to be able to break things up with walks, bowling, swimming and the other activities at Rosinka.

I would say more but today is just crazy and I have a regular, long update with all kinds of fund anecdotes that I've been working on as I've had access to the computer. Time to run. Just wanted to let everyone know that we're okay :)

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Date: 2007-09-18 14:59 Subject: this n' that Security: Public

For finishing the Avon Breast Cancer walk this past weekend, Congrats to bgirlla! (I would do one of those nifty LJ links, but the scripting software is doing some weirdo things). For being the bride and the birthday girl, congrats to tbelle!  I hope pookha has a terrific trip to Europe (hello, Oktoberfest) and that all the rest of you are happy.

Since the twins aren't home from school for an hour and Abby has given up trying to play "Ciao! Bella" for the day, I thought I would update. This past weekend was definitely an improvement. Yes, the hubby is in London, enjoying English speakers, huge numbers of books and Indian curry, but before he left, we had our fair share of adventures.

 

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Date: 2007-09-12 09:01 Subject: Still Here Security: Public

After my last entry, I'm sure all of you are wondering whether I've been hauled off to the psych ward or collapsed on the loveseat in my small, cold living room into a catatonic state. The answer is no, I'm still here and finding ways to be more resilient. Whenever I think I'm going to collapse or lose my mind over my three small pans and my cooking/preparation space that's smaller than the kitchenette we had at the Marriott Residence Inn, I picture my pioneer ancestors, huddled around the fire with their ONE cooking pot, trying to feed their families on whatever they could hunt, pick or carry in their wagons. 

One moment of triumph last week is when I figured out how to make pancakes. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you realize I have no bowls, no measuring cups and a frying pan that's smaller than a dinner plate, it changes perspectives a bit. The pancake making desperation came after two hours of searching guide books and the internet for somewhere to go to dinner for Parry, Abby and I. The girls were babysitting and we thought, "Gee, let's go out." Except there are three challenges with dining out in Moscow (if you don't want fast food):

1) Access--without a car, we are on foot or a combination of metro and foot.  It needs to be in a safe neighborhood that is close enough to the metro that we can walk.

2) Cost-Abby and went to Hard Rock last week. We SHARED a plate of chicken nachos and a piece of chocolate chip cookie pie w/ice cream. We each had a soda. The bill was $40. Did I mention that the nachos were burned on one side? And all the toppings coagulated into a gooey heap of cheese in the middle? But we were so STARVED for familiar food that we scarfed them down gleefully. The only bargains in Moscow are a few ethnic places (and you need to know where to go and what to order because hey, I don't have Uzbek food everyday) and the chain fast food places that sell blinnis (crepe like pancakes filed with meat, caviar, cheese), sausages/hotdogs or Italian (I would not buy a pocket lasagna from a squat woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth with a half an inch of ash building up that's working in a hut the size of a drive-up cofee booth).

3) Atmosphere--On Saturday night in Moscow, there is no "family" type place to go. It isn't like you can pop into Chili's or Red Robin. Every place is a bar--alcohol, smoking--and here they take their recreation seriously. They eat, drink, celebrate with gusto. Which is great if you don't have an 11 year-old who just wants to eat her quesadila without a table of drunk, loudmouth Euro scenesters with pointy leather shoes next to you, disrupting the meal or blowing their cigarette smoke in your face.  Seriously--all the Hollywood people who are whining about California's indoor/outdoor clean air laws should come live in Moscow because they can smoke anywhere, anytime AND have all the Evian water they want without the Health Patrol lecturing them about a second-hand smoke.  My family? Most of us (except Parry) are asthmatic so there is that minor complication when it comes to smoking. But I digress.

So I found a recipe for pancakes on Allrecipes.com and figured out how to make them by using proportions, not exact measurements. They turned out lovely and I've added another item to my list of food that I can make using my three small pans.

There are good things about Moscow. The Metro is amazing. You can get on at almost any time of the day or night and go from one end of the city to the other quickly and relatively safely. And clean? There are patrols of workers who spend half the night scraping stickers ads for punk bands off the escalator lights so the place is immaculate. They sweep the cigarette butts out of every crevice.

They have instant raspberry flavored oatmeal at the grocery store--with real pieces of deydrated raspberry in it.

They know how to make bread--their yeast breads are amazing. We had a chocolate-filled donuts that rivaled anything we ever had in America.

You can load minutes on your cellphone at these kiosks with ATM-like machines, 24 hours a day. 

Concerts and performances are cheap (except international rock concerts like Gwen Stefani).  Excellent Boloshoi tickets are only about $30-40 per ticket. The top tickets in the whole place are around $100, not starting at $100 like in the US. 

And last but not least, they still have toilets that flush with gusto. Unencumbered by the sissy low-flow wimpy, politically correct toilets that plague parts of the Western world, you can count on a Russian toilet to do its job with muscle. 

Those are my thoughts for today. Maybe we will get lucky and "Top Dog" on Animal Planet will be replaced with Animal Cops: Houston SPCA again. That's about as exciting as television gets around--because I don't count a Russian-dubbed version of  "The Two Towers" as exciting. More like...surreal. Which is my life, in a nutshell, these days.
 

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Date: 2007-09-05 12:42 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: moscow, russia

 

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Date: 2007-08-30 14:49 Subject: Life on the extreme Security: Public

This has been a week of contrasts.

On Tuesday, I had Back to School Night at the Anglo-American School of Moscow. You know the school in "The Princess Diaries" movie? The school that when I saw it, my first reaction was, "Right. Hollywood school." Well that's the girls school. Really. Sherbet colored halls. A cafeteria with a crepe bar. 18 kids in a class being considered "large." Swimming for PE with a hard core Aussie chick who could save a 400 pound man and still make you a cup of tea when she was done.  The decor, the smiley principal, the soothing couches in the spacious lounge area--all of them feel like something from a movie set. They have not one, but two theaters--the larger one reminded me, no lie, of a cross between the ArcLight and the DGA theaters in LA. Except with all the gadgetry necessary for putting on plays like catwalks and multi-million dollar tech resources.

There are three classes of people at AAS. The rich people (which could include some expats, but a lot of them are rich Russians), the expats and the embassy people. The rich people are easy to identify with their Parisian couture or their $3000 Armani suits and their gorgeous shoes.  The expats look a little tired, a little less polished but have more snazz than the embassy people who look and behave like career bureaucrats. Though all of Ally and Rachel's teachers were impressive (motivated, passionate, serious), my favorite was their math teacher, Mr. Caskie from Scotland whose eyes are not entirely visible through his coke bottle glasses. He would fit right in at Hogwarts. I found it funny that Rachel's American history teacher is British. Should be nice to know how those across the pond saw our little revolution. The curriculum is impressive--serious literature in the English class, primary sources, classics in social studies and lit--even Ally's dance teacher was a professional ballet dancer for 15 years. I had a shivery moment when, on my way to the big parent meeting, I saw the banners for each of the graduating classes of AAS in recent years including their class picture. Each senior class has a formal portrait taken in front of St. Basil's Cathedral. Ally and Rachel are going to be there in three years, I thought. This is why we're here.

On the other hand is grocery shopping at Auchan. 

Auchan is a French store. Except it feels more like what would happen if East German athletes on steroids designed Wall-Mart and asked gypsies to run it. I can hear the French planning it now. Zay weel want lots and lots of tings. Zay weel want zee clothes and zee shoes and zee olive oil. Then a heavy sigh, laden with French ennui. But zay will not appreciate us. Phoeey on zee ungrateful Les Russes et expatrie. I spit on zem. We will show zem. Heh. And then they sign the whole thing over to a consortium of gypsy families who haven't quite hit the crime family big leagues but who see Auchan as the first step on the road to dealing narcotics to miserable expatriate housewives. First they make them crazy shopping, and then they give them a happy pill pick-me up. It's all a conspiracy.

 Babushkas ramming unsuspecting shoppers with their carts. Bargain hunting houswives throwing clothing over their shoulders as they sort through the bins. 200 brands of shampoo, all in Russian. 100 check-out lines (I don't exaggerate). Clerks shoving carts loaded with boxes steamrolling past you. Half empty boxes. Aisles overrun with carts and people cursing in Russian. Of course, most of Russian sounds like cursing when you don't understand it. An aggrieved fish monger surrounded by four 50 foot, open, Costco deli sized counters overflowing with fish that smell like you're standing on a dock. A bitter produce woman shouting for the next person to queue up and weigh their veges already can't you see there are twenty other people in line? Phooey to you.

 Dairy products in about 15 languages. Did you know the Finns are nice to their cows? I didn't know that. Apparently the Russians are not nice to their cows and they pump them full of all kinds of bad hormones. Much like the Chinese. What is it about communists and former communists chemically abusing their livestock? So we buy Finnish dairy products. Because they, like California, have happy cows. The Scandanavians are definitely the granolas of Europe. It's all happy whole grain cereal and happy cows. Their products look clean and have lovely, airy pictures of meadows and rivers on them. Russian products? Loud logos, cartoons, and Cyrillic cursive looping all over the place. Bright red. Bright blue. Or absolutely plain and severe. Like Comrade Rice or Comrade Flour. It's like Putin products meeting Lenin products in the grocery store. (Which sounds suspiciously like the beginning of a joke. Putin walked into Auchan to get a few things before the TsSKA Moscow basketball game and who should he run into? Lenin! "Comrade Lenin," he says....) 

I have never been overstimulated by a store until today. IKEA comes close. But this makes an IKEA opening look like a child's birthday party.  Imagine what would happen if someone moved a farmer's market, a Costco, a K-Mart, and a Walgreens into one building, stacked the shelves to the ceiling and then let in 1000 + people. This is a weekday. On Saturdays, apparently the 100 check-out lines are 2 hours long. HOW CAN YOU HAVE 100 check-out lines with 2 HOUR WAITS? Isn't there like a fire marshall standing there with a counter sending people away at that point?

But in the midst of all this mayhem (somewhere, the French are laughing. I'm sure of it. 'Auchan" is probably a hit reality show in Paris and this is a Truman Show like set we're shopping in), I met my fairy godmother. Rather, I met Carolyn. Carolyn is a woman from church who just magically appeared at back to school night and magically appeared in the frozen food section at Auchan when I was about to have a nervous breakdown. The lights. The noise. The rampaging babuskhas. And then, fairy dust trailing behind her, I saw Carolyn. She is a dumpling of a woman with reddish-brown hair, stocky arms and legs and hails from Canada. She is married to a career expat--her last home was in Damascus, Syria. In the midst of the madness, Carolyn takes me on this calm walking tour of this insane asylum they call Russian capitalism, describing her favorite products in her lilting, soprano tones. "And this cheese is so creamy. Melts like a dream. Delightful with crackers." You would have thought we were at a junior league meeting.

When it came time to check-out, our driver Oleg met me at my check-out stand and helped me pack groceries and order the cashier around. He is a traditional Russian male who is offended by the notion of women being burdened with 50 pounds of groceries. Later in the car, he explains.  It is a mehn's job. You see it bozers me that these Muslim women--zay shop alone and carry big bags. Mehn should help. And then he lapses into a 20 minute silence as Abby snores, exhausted by Auchan, and I try futilely to read the billboards and building signs. We then talked about cars which led to a revealing conversation about Russia's values and future. Russia doz not build televisions, cars, DVDs. Rockets, missiles, spaceships. The army gets money and zay build tanks. Government won't care until all the gold, gas and oil is gone from holes in zeh ground and zen Russia will build cars zat are not poison and schools and televisions.. Maybe the average Russians and average Americans have more in common than we think. 

I'm still convinced that somewhere, the French are laughing at our expense. This is revenge for "Freedom Fries."  And Auchan proves beyond a doubt that the French, to quote the West Wing's Toby Ziegler, are the guys who go to 7-11 to get Satan's cigarettes.

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Date: 2007-08-28 08:14 Subject: The underside Security: Public

So I've been talking about these enchanting, novel things about living in Moscow. It is just fair that I give equal time to the not so novel and enchanting things about living in Moscow.  Most of these things are coming from a suburban dweller living in a big city and are problems with apartment living generally--the downstairs neighbors who smoke which makes keeping the windows open a gamble; the upstairs neighbors who clunk around all night. The traffic and speeding motorcycles on Tverskaya all night long. Having to hike to the grocery store etc.

But I'm really dreading this weekend. 

There have been ads all over the city for Moscow 860. I've assumed this is some kind of anniversary or birthday for the city. I've read the history of the city and know it has been around, as Moscow, since at least the 12th century, but I don't know what the significance if of 860 years ago. Maybe I just need to dig some more. As I was walking up Tverskaya yesterday, I noticed a mammoth stage and stands being constructed, surrounded by the usual glossy black Audis, Lexus, Mercedes and the drivers in their black suits. I looked across the street and there were more stands. It definitely looked like a concert venue.

When Parry came home last night, he told me that our temp driver Oleg told him that Tverskaya is going to be shut down for two days and nights this weekend for a street party of mammoth proportions.

*sigh*

You see, this isn't like the US where there are rules about drunk and disorderly conduct and where the last vestiges of Victorian morality impose a measure of self-restraint. This is Moscow. Hedonistic, indulgent, opulent city extraordinaire of 14 million people who believe that vodka is the 5th food group. And the party is literally on my doorstep. Not a street fair. Not some "Live Aid" humanitarian extravaganza. This is drugs, alcohol and prostitutes. This is hundreds of thousands of people in the metro coming to my neighborhood. This is giving tens of thousands of people a license to vomit on the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

If I could go to a hotel outside the center, I would if for no other reason than I could guarantee a good night's sleep.  Really. I can't have my kids going out on the streets with that kind of stuff going on. No McDonald's runs. No grocery trips. No tourist outings. We will be couped up in the apartment for days. I feel like we're going into survival mode for some Bacchanalian siege. 

I'm sure there are those who would see this as an opportunity for some light hearted indulgence. Clearly these people are not parents of children 15 and under who can be accosted, pawed and assaulted by writhing masses of drunkards and it is a little bit frightening.

Yeah. This isn't the fun part.

I wish I were at tbelle 's wedding instead. *pouts*

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Date: 2007-08-26 16:56 Subject: I get around.... Security: Public

Yet another day of attempting to thwart jetlag. I felt better when, at church, a woman told me that she usually takes three or four days before she isn't a zombie. Parry and his boot camp mentality makes us hit the ground marching and we never get to indulge the urge to simply lay around and feel like warmed over death. Of course today is Sunday and since I would take a nap at home on Sunday, I took a nap today. Not as long as the nap yesterday when I ended up with a migraine while walking around the Kremlin, but still a nap.

Speaking of the Kremlin. Red Square. Whoah. It is big. I realize that's not a very picturesque description, but so often it seems when you finally reach these world famous monuments or locales that they aren't as grandiose as they are built up to be in your mind. This is what happened when I saw the Pieta in St. Peter's. My whole life I have wanted to see Michelangelo's Pieta because I've heard it is one of the most extraordinary pieces of sculpture ever crafted. But I almost walked right past it in St. Peter's because it is encased in bullet-proof plastic and sits back away from the main walk. I was a little, "Eh" when I saw it because of said bulletproof plastic. No intimacy.

But Red Square delivers. Pow. If the tsars wanted their enemies to feel small, they certainly accomplished that with the Kremlin and surrounding environs. It is bold, forceful, assertive--my friend  pookha in her high-heeled boots and 6 feet of height would just start to be proportionate to this place. The centuries old cobblestone, Lenin's tomb, St. Basil's, GUM department store with all of its French designer make-up stands--it is overwhelming. They had terrific impersonators outside the fortress for picture taking--I saw an excellent Putin, Tsar Nicholas, Lenin and Stalin.

I also had memories of Soviet military parades set in Red Square that made me shiver a little. Back when I was growing up at the USSR was the ultimate Big Bad, Red Square represented all that was dark and totalitarian. I had a another moment of pause this morning when I was riding the metro, one of Stalin's lasting contributions to Moscow. The first stop after we boarded was Lubyanka. That name probably means very little to most people, but to me, it reminds me of Lubyanka prison, the infamous, KGB torture chamber where dissidents and traitors were inhumanely tormented to their deaths. A fair amount of blood from free-thinking individuals who dared to question the state is spilt in that place. Now, its just a metro stop.

Speaking of the metro, the girls had their first encounter with a babushka today. Babushkas are the Russian "grandmas" who literally rule Russian society. You give them your seat, you let them go first, you do when they say when they grunt at you. We climbed aboard the train around 8:20AM, expecting it to be less crowded than it was. We stood through two stops when it appeared that there would be vacant seat. Just as Abby was about to sit down, a babushka rounded the corner and I swiftly yanked Abby back to the pole where we were standing. I could see that we caught her eye--she may have been patting the seat beside her for Abby to sit by her. Babushkas love children. Russians in general respect and love children. I think that may be my lucky charm when I'm dazed walking around the city and no one has tried to pickpocket me (knock on wood): Abby has an innocent sweet air about her that should make them feel good and guilty for trying. Anyway, a few people next to the Babushka got up and she made a much broader gesture for the girls to join her--all three of them. She started yammering at them in Russian. Allyson made her cursory Russian reply that she doesn't speak Russian. But the Babushka smiled and kept going. When we hit Sokolniki, they waved good-bye, said their "dosveydanyas" and the Babushka was pleased.

I also got to see the street cars in action today. These are those rickety metal torpedo like cars that are in the opening scenes in Moscow in Dr. Zhivago--Lara is riding one. If I didn't know better, I would think that those cars had been around for a hundred years by all the clickety-clackety noise they make. Still, it could be Stalin-era old. It is strange to me to think of Stalin as anything but this evil menace ranking above Hitler in terms of his murderous tendencies. Here in Russia, though, he is seen as a visionary who advanced their lives in important ways--like the metro which is better than almost any public transportation I've been on including the Tube and the New York Subway which, in my opinion, is a stinky, sauna-like death trap waiting to happen. Moscow's metro is ruthlessly efficient, fast, predictable, clean, cheap. But then there's Lubyanka... Such contradictions surround me everyday. Being able to keep them in my head at the same time will be part of learning to live in Moscow. The brusque babushkas with the soft spot for children. The brutal dictator who actually did something right.  Maybe it feels poetic because I'm jet-lagged and hungry for something that isn't instant or bread and cheese.

Maybe I'm just starting to glimpse the complexity of this life I'm about to embark on.

More on satellite TV, grocery stores etc. later.

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Date: 2007-08-24 13:42 Subject: A report: Day 1 Security: Public Mood: tired Tags: mcdonald's, russia

I don't think this daily reporting thing is going to be typical, but I'm trying desperately to stay awake and writing an entry is about all I can think of. I'm afraid if I turn on a movie or read a book, I will fall asleep. After all, my biological clock, in spite of sleeping at least 6 hours last night, tells me it is dark in Portland and that I should be in bed. Adding to the jet lag miasma is the heat. As New Yorkers and Washingtonians (as in DC) will attest, there is a peculiar brand of hot that is unique to major cities. Perhaps it is the sidewalks, concrete and tall buildings that keep everything bottled in like warm carbonated soda ready to burst, but humid-hot in Moscow is not the same as humid-hot in Portland. And I didn't have air conditioning in Portland--there's at least a little box on the wall here that pretends to be an air conditioner. But here I am, waiting the arrival of the taxi that will take us to the Anglo-American School to pick up the twins after their first day. We are all betting that we're passed out cold by 8PM tonight.

The apartment is located at number 6 Tverskaya. For those of you playing the home game, Tverskaya is a main street heading up from Red Square that is the center of the Tverskoy district. It is also Moscow's famous theater district--the Bolshoi and Stanislavsky are only a few streets behind me or down from me. It is a wealthy area, filled with famous designer shops (hello, Tiffany's was on the way to the grocery store)and cafes. Pushkin Square is about a city block above me; Red Square is a city block below me.

In the midst of this is McDonald's.

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Date: 2007-08-23 19:33 Subject: Welcome to Moscow! Security: Public

We made it!

We are living in Tverskaya until our long term home is ready. Central Moscow--Kremlin down the street.

I'll have lots of newsy things to write soon, but I wanted to let Chelsea, Bridget and the Inklings know that yes, we are alive and that we are in tact.

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Date: 2007-07-22 08:02 Subject: Time to Grow Up Security: Public

I went to update my icon pictures today and realized I hadn't updated in many weeks.

There are a lot of reasons for this.

Since my last post, my life has changed. Instead of the gritty details, here are the highlights, in chronological order.

1. My editor of seven years informed me the novel I was supposed to start in September has been postponed indefinitely.

2. After three years, my church volunteer job organizing and running one of our youth groups ended. This was after six weeks of killing myself to make a hand-pieced quilt for a girl who muttered a "thank you" and moved on to her tan-a-thon in her backyard.

3. My sister-in-law with cancer asked me to be her medical advocate.

4. My oldest daughter graduated from high school.

5. My husband was promoted and we will be moving. More on that in a minute.

6. I had to make some difficult, painful end of life decisions for my sister-in-law that ultimately allowed her to pass away peacefully. I don't really want to talk about it because it was one of the worst days of my life--and considering that my house burned down and my brother died of causes related to drug abuse, that should give everyone a good idea about how bad it was. Let's just say that not everyone was their best self when the stress hit. Attended her funeral. The world spins madly on.

So back to #5.

Sometime in August, pending the completion of the paperwork, our family will be moving to Moscow, Russia for a minimum of 3 years. My oldest daughter will stay in the USA, starting her freshman year at Brigham Young University-Provo where she can be close to grandparents and relatives. The company will pay for her to visit several times a year so we will be seeing her on her Christmas break and after she completes winter semester at the end of April.

My baby sister's husband just signed with the EuroLeague team in Bologna so we will be doing visa trips to Italy. This is a major bonus.

My twins have been accepted to the Anglo-American School of Moscow. My youngest daughter is on the waitlist for AAS so we will be homeschooling her until her spot in the queue comes up. We don't have a place to live--yet. My husband is in Moscow right now. I assume he made it to his hotel near the Kremlin and that he'll be emailing me soon to let me know that he's arrived safely.

We pack out of our house on August 9/10. We wrap things up on August 11/12 and move down to SLC on August 13. Our "letters of invitation" are supposed to arrive between August 20-23. We are tentatively planning on leaving for Moscow on August 25

Between now and August 10, I am supposed to get three of my children ready to live in Russia until next summer, get my oldest daughter ready for college, throw away or CraigsList 3/4 of my stuff and prepare my house to sell. I have prescriptions, clothes, transformers, school supplies, snowboots, ice skates, and selling my house.

I am trying to sleep--not doing so well on that count. Thank you schizophrenic Pacific Northwest weather.

I am trying to be a good sport about the lack of control I have over everything. Sometimes I succeed better than at other times. Sometimes I just want to sit in my room and watch Ace of Cakes re-runs.

I really am okay about this move. But I'm also grieving--so many changes, so many people and places I may never see again. I feel like Harry Potter and I are both reaching the end of our journeys together. I have cried a lot this weekend.

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Date: 2007-05-07 06:24 Subject: Before the Upfronts Security: Public Tags: television

My TV Update

What I'm Still Watching....

Lost--what hannasus says is true. This show is back. I don't have to kick Damon and Carlton in the shins anymore (reference to seeing them in the ABC commissary back in March :))

Heroes--I have little to no comic book baggage to keep me from enjoying this escapist dessert of a show

Battlestar Galactica--even though the season is over, I'm still thinking about it. And that says something after some of those midseason "meh" episodes.

House--a weekly dose of snark is all I need.

Ace of Cakes--I love those people. I want their lives. Really.



What I'm Ready to Give Up On...

Grey's Anatomy--Gizzie, the stupid chief thing, little to no Bailey, and the travails of Meredith Grey who should have drowned. This show has become a parody of its former self. Not enough there to keep me caring about the whiny, neurotic adults. I'll watch to the end of this season for Alex and then I'm done.

24--I loved it last year. This year, it feels tired.

The Office--it pains me to write that and this, of all my shows, is on the bubble. But it feels self-conscious and I don't need a half-hour of sex jokes to bring the funny. There's this effervescent balance the show has managed to keep for a long time, but sometimes when the fame and acclaim show up, it becomes...West Wing Season 4 which leads to Studio 60. The jury is out, but if it doesn't shift gears, I may have to move it down my TiVo Season Pass list.



What I've Given Up On...

Gilmore Girls--Between Rory's bohemian friends, Lorelai's marriage and the townies who became a little too quirky, watching this became painful. I don't care if Chris and Lor are divorced now, I can still barely deal. I hate what Amy Sherman Palladino did, out of spite, to this once glorious show.

Veronica Mars--It became too much soap and too little emotionally authentic drama for me. I gave up after the campus rapist was discovered. If it survives into a new format, I may go back to see if it helps. In my heart, it will always be season 1--and parts of season 2. Until the end of season 2. Which was baaaaaad.

Studio 60--I will TiVo the episodes that are left, but Aaron lost me when Matt started popping pills and he, straight faced, wrote scripts that insinuated that Harriet was going to have a shot at Best Supporting Actress. Paint it Black indeed. Fade to black is more like it.


I'll be interested to see if any of the pilot scripts I read actually end up with pick-up orders. The one to look out for? "Pushing Daisies" from Bryan Fuller.

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Date: 2007-04-04 13:00 Subject: But at least I get to make eyes at Jean-Luc Security: Public

Your results:
You are Beverly Crusher

Beverly Crusher 60% Deanna Troi 60% Chekov 55% Geordi LaForge 55% Will Riker 55% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 55% James T. Kirk (Captain) 50% Uhura 45% Jean-Luc Picard 45% Worf 40% Spock 30% Data 30% Mr. Scott 25% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 20% Mr. Sulu 10%

A good physician and a caring parent. You are devoted to your children and to your occupation.

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character am I?" quiz...

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Date: 2007-04-02 09:05 Subject: When does the good karmic rebound start? Security: Public Mood: sick

So I've spent the last two weeks being sick. And not just a little sick. It was one of the worst colds I remember becoming bronchitis, sinusitis and laryngitis. I spent most of spring break in bed. I did manage to see "The Namesake" and would recommend it.

On Friday, I started to turn a corner and I actually began to feel like myself. To celebrate, I cooked a big old Sunday dinner. My twins were making orange rolls while I was making slow-cooker pork chops. The kitchen was crowded and I was kind of all over the place. 

What I think happened next is that I didn't properly clean up or wash-up and that I cross-contaminated something. Within six hours, I had serious gastrointestinal distress. Only me. The girl who handled the meat. The roll people weren't sick. The consumers of the pork chops weren't sick. Just the person who handled the meat.

At first I thought it was the cayenne pepper in the new seasoning I bought (I can't do cayenne), but by 3AM I was still nauseated, I threw up and my stomach hurt so much I was awake from 3 until 6AM. I am subsisting on 7-Up and diet Mountain Dew some pepto.

Food poisoning sucks. 

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Date: 2007-03-20 10:38 Subject: Through the viral curtain Security: Public

So my youngest daughter has a cold that she has generously shared with me. One of the unfortunate side effects of being sick, for me, is my brain going into this frightening, fixated place where everything that has been swirling in my healthy consciousness starts to meld into something resembling a Quentin Tarantino movie. Witness: the dream I had last night of my family trying to escape a soon-to-be-bombed Asian country. 

24: Bomb story (check)
Asia: My sister from China wrote yesterday (check)
Marx: I'm studying for a class and I'm knee deep in revolution (check)
BSG: Adama family stress (check)

This all swims into a miasma of weirdness that cannot be explained. What lingers is the prayer that tonight Nyquil will take care of it all and I will drift into blissful REM sleep and awake with no disturbed recollections.

And my husband updated my computer to Vista and it really is stressing me out. Between Marx and Microsoft I feel like I'm surrounded by people trying to tear down my world.

A few television notes:

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Roslin? Really. I love her and I feel like BSG is back. They do season openers and finales better than almost anyone. I suspect last year will be the end and THAT'S OKAY.

I think Grey's has jumped the shark. I'm grateful Kate Wash is leaving because it gives them a chance to start again with the coolest character (next to Christina) and decide, in advance, not to turn the show into Days of our Grey's.  Besides...Taye Diggs. 

LOST will likely go 24 in terms of format next year. I think that is the best way for it to work. I'm surprised it took them this long to figure that out. I figured it out when I bought the season 1 DVDs and watched them back to back. It really was a lot more compelling.

Veronica Mars. Whatever. I should be more upset about rumors of cancellation. If they did a Veronica/Bones crossover, though, and fast-forwarded to special agent Veronica working with... never mind.

Gilmore Girls. Whatever twice over.

Now I'm going to bed.

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Date: 2007-02-02 09:25 Subject: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes Security: Public

I could try to be profound and say something meaningful. But really--there's no point. I haven't updated in so long I might as well focus on what's happened so that people don't think I've fallen off the planet.

I took a final in one of my classes yesterday. I think I missed about 5 out of 79 questions which means I passed. Go me.

Two weeks ago, I was in Utah taking care of my sister in law Amy. She is dying. She has been dying for several years, but I think she's reached a place where she has to decide if she wants to live or if she wants to be comfortable. Her IV food is wiping out her liver. Unfortunately, the medication she takes for nausea is also wiping out her liver. They could continue her preferred nausea medication, switch her over to a dextrose/electrolyte mix, take her lipids and away and just give her essential fluids but I'm fairly confident she would drop twenty pounds and become little more than an emaciated skeleton. There is no part of this that doesn't suck. I spent five days in the hospital with her, duking it out with doctors and nurses and I'm just sick of it. I think it made me a little crazy because I feel like I am returning from a war zone. 

Thanks to the amazing mikijean who gave me some lovely yarn, I have been knitting myself into a stupor and that is a good thing. I haven't quite finished my first ball of yarn, but I think I will this weekend. It is a very zen experience.  I feel like I have been run over by a car and left in the middle of the road so a little healing via knitting is a good thing. I think one of things that makes me so frustrated is that this is supposed to be a wonderful time for us. Parry is taking his sabbatical this summer (two months of paid vacation), Sara graduates from high school....but instead I'm sitting around like a ghoul waiting for things to get worse. 

We did have some great news last week. Sara was admitted to BYU-Provo, her first choice school. She was prepared to apply to two liberal arts colleges (one in the midwest, one in the east) and two state universities (University of Utah, University of Arizona) but being accepted to BYU-Provo eliminates the need to spend the time and money. BYU has become a fairly selective school in recent years. The average incoming freshman GPA is 3.7 and the average ACT is 27. They look at more than test scores, though, it is a mix of extracurricular activities, recommendation from church leaders and level of academic difficulty in high school courses. It is a real accomplishment for her to earn a spot. 

Rachel and Allyson performed exceptionally well last semester. Ally earned a 3.8 and Rachel earned a 4.0. Abby is busy with the BSD Science Ambassadors program that is done for 5th graders and sponsored by Oregon Health Sciences University. She had her first lesson in DNA and genetics last week. All the kids are doing well and I am proud of them.

It's just obnoxious that I really hate people as much as I do and dread so many parts of my existence right now. 

:sigh:

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