Reaching for the Sun

Another remarkably beautiful day in sunny Moscow and I’m loving it. Crystal clear skies but the temperature doesn’t seem willing to go above 8°F, which means that as lovely as it looks out my window, it is still much too cold to really take any long walks.  I did manage a half hour outing before heading to the grocery store to warm up and gather some food for tonight’s dinner party. We have invited the principal of the high school, a single woman who doesn’t cook and is departing for a principal position in China in July. She is a lovely lady and we look forward to having some private time with her tonight. 

Last night I made a nice little pasta with peas, bacon, onion, garlic and cheese, tossed with a mixture of regular and spinach pasta. This is the kind of soul satisfying meal that makes you tingle while eating.  The frozen peas really were delicious and tasted like they had must been shucked. You can take a look here.  Cindy, in an effort to sleep through the night, decided to just have a glass (and a half) of wine with dinner and nothing before or after. Needless to say, cleaning up was really easy with only two wine glasses and two water glasses.  It worked to a certain extent, but she was still wide-awake early and decided once again to take the early bus. I think she has only taken the late bus once in two weeks.

When we first moved here we were amazed at the number of ATM machines that seemed to be everywhere, from the corner store to the Metro passages to restaurants and cafes.  It wasn’t until we tried to use one that we found out that they are really payment terminals where folks without bank cards can actually pay for their utilities, cell phone bills, bank loans, etc.  Well now it appears they are going to try to enter the US market so keep your eyes open and remember, you heard it here first.

Remember poor Yuri Luzhkov, the 17-year mayor of Moscow who was thrown out of office last year? Well he has been shopping around for a European country in which he could establish residency so that he would be free to roam Europe without the hassle of visas, something Russians must have for each country they visit.  Well, he was declared a persona non grata in Latvia yesterday, dashing his wanderlust hopes. Don’t count him out just yet. With all the money he funneled to his wife, they have untold millions of Euros that they’ll be able to spread around as they continue to shop for a permanent residency.

Entangling Alliences

We have had so much sunshine in the past four days that my plants are starting to do that old heliotropic thing.  As I began to turn them so they wouldn’t get too bent in one direction, I noticed that one of my plants has decided to embrace another. It is really cool and I hope the attached picture doesn’t make you blush as it did me.

And finally this, which will make me stop complaining about walking in cold temperatures.  I guess you just gotta believe!

Best to all, Cindy and Wm

PS from CC:  I had my usual weekly meeting with my tech team today (5 young Russian guys). These meetings typically go very well and today was no exception; I have an agenda of things we need to discuss and then I say we’re done - and then they keeping talking and talking.  It’s rather cute – they wouldn’t admit this in a million years, but they like sharing things with me, and I suppose they appreciate the fact that I really listen.  Today one topic was about occasional work for them on Saturdays, such as videotaping a special event.  Here’s the quotation of the year from one of them:  “You can never control how your Friday night is going to end.”  I’m still laughing – notice he didn’t say predict or know, he said control.  Hmmm, I’ve had some interesting Friday nights in my life but I don’t ever recall not being able to control the ending!

Venti, Trenta, Morte

 I got my walking in while the walking was good. The weather was spectacular, another bright blue sky and lovely sun with temperatures about 12° and a light breeze.  I was able to do about an hour before my face felt like it would fall off, so I walked over to the embassy and had a nice, affordable espresso.  One of the boys was there and I asked if they had stocked the frozen peas and tuna yet. He said no but asked how many packages I wanted of each and told me to come to the warehouse in about fifteen minutes.  He had my stuff all ready and priced and I added a few bottles of wine and some other little stuff and headed home.  The day has now clouded over and we are expecting more snow for the next several days, which should also bring warmer weather.

It appears the water man came without calling and luckily our housekeeper was here, but she had to pay with her own money so now I’m waiting for her to come back so I can repay her.  Quite a system they have for delivering water; random is the word that comes to mind. 

Dinner last night was a simple roast chicken with lots of carrots, onions, potatoes and garlic nestled under the cut up chicken, which I had rubbed with herbs du Provence.  It was a great meal for a very, very cold night.  I had a bottle of rosé tucked away in the fridge so I broke that out and made believe I was in Provence while Cindy opted for a strong red; nice to have choices.

I noticed as I was walking home from the embassy at noon that my shadow was very, very long.  The sun is still just swinging on a southern arc and never gets high enough in the sky to not cast long shadows all day long.  Just for a giggle I compared daylight hours here vs. Charles Town.  Today we have 7 hours and 46 minutes of daylight in Moscow and 9 hours, 47 minutes in Charles Town. The good news is that we are adding 3.6 minutes per day here and only 1.4 in Charles Town so I suspect we’ll catch up sometime in April. 

I note with astonishment that Starbucks, ever on the front lines of customer health, has decided that Americans just don’t get enough calories, fat and caffeine from a 24 oz Venti drink so they are introducing a new super-sized cup, the Trenta, coming in at an astounding 31 oz. Now you’ll be able to have a triple shot, caramel latte with whipped cream served in a quart container for your personal consumption. The Trenta’s final capacity is a staggering 31 ounces or about 916 milliliters.  The average stomach capacity is 900 milliliters.  I guess the company is saying you’d better be prepared to pee if you pick one of these bad boys up.  When the smallest size of drink is off the menu and a gut-busting cup becomes the new in thing, I suppose you can say moderation is out the window.  Remember when we would buy a quart of milk or juice and the whole family would share!

As I was yet again reviewing my Russian Alphabet, I came across a type of Sesame Street version.  Unlike the USA, where they go out of their way to have a child of every color, you will note that the only nod to diversity in this version is the Pink Muppet!  Perhaps the folks in the survival pod will be able to stock Russian Muppet tapes to help them while away their forty days of enclosure as the world ends in 2012.

And to brighten your day with new advances in technology and online shopping, I think you’ll get a kick out of this news item. 

Best wishes, Cindy and Wm

Vtoron Gear

Happy MLK day to all and Happy Anniversary Kent and Valley.

Today was a bright and sparkling day here in Moscow.  The sky was cloudless and azure and the sun, while not providing any warmth, was a delight to see.  Today’s high was only about 9°, but with all that sun no one seemed to care and foot traffic was heavy.  They were supposed to deliver water today so I had to stay home until 1 pm, but they never came and there is some automated voice on their phone but it is all in Russian so I’m guessing they might be on vacation. Everyone seems to still be on vacation, even those working.  All the Christmas decorations are still up and no one seems in a rush to remove them. Perhaps they just want the color and light until January is over and we start to look forward to spring.

I finally got out of the house at about 1:30 and took a bit of a walk on the way to the grocery store.  It is very, very brisk out there but it felt great to get out of the house and away from the three loads of laundry I did this morning.  All the bed linens are fresh as a daisy, as are the towels and other laundry. Cindy and I did three loads on Saturday as well so I’m hoping we are all caught up.  (In case you’re wondering, the washer is very small and can’t take much at a time.) The grocery store was finally well stocked so I got all the staples as well as some indispensables like cookies and fresh fruit.  It was actually fun to shop, except for the fact that they now have the cheapest little plastic bags for the veggies.  It is almost impossible to open them, but it is funny to watch everyone blowing on them, rubbing them together, and trying to find a way to get the darn things open. 

I purchased too much for one person to carry home, but fortunately I had the backpack bag so was able to get everything into three bags and off I waddled.  Feels good to have options in the kitchen again. On Wednesday, I’ll fill in the gaps when I shop at the commissary. I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out who has the best prices, but most of the time the only things we get at the commissary are those which are unavailable anywhere else, or just too expensive anywhere else.

We were going to go out to dinner last night but it was really, really cold and we just didn’t have the energy to go out a third time in one day.  I rummaged through the freezer and came up with enough stuff to make a rather decent dinner.  We had pan seared tuna fillets with a lemon butter sauce, Brussels sprouts braised with onion, garlic and bacon, and a light risotto cooked in the water used to parboil the Brussels sprouts.  We tried a new wine, a 2009 Entre Deux Mer from Bordeaux, which was just perfect with the fish.

Cindy called about fifteen minutes after I got back from shopping and wanted me to get the odometer reading on the car since it is due for service on Thursday and the Green Guys will take care of all the details once they have the reading.  So, rather than get all dressed again just to run out to see the reading, I slipped on my regular sneakers and threw on my coat and gloves; I mean how cold could I get in three minutes?  No sooner had I gotten the reading and was locking the door, when up comes this young sad eyed Russian guy asking if I can jump his car.  (All communication was done with hand signals and guesses for words like battery, cables, etc.)  I started the car and drove over to where he was trying to push his car out from the slot so as to gain access to the battery. He was very well dressed for dancing, not for pushing cars, so I got out and tried to get some traction with my sneakers and we finally got his car out into the middle of the parking lot.  I drove my car up to his and opened the hood only to find out that he thought I had cables. He had nothing but a dumb looking towing line.  I checked out his car and found out he had a stick and so we went though the motions of my asking him if he knows how to jump a car.  I get in and show him the gear to be in(vtoron) and how to pop the clutch. I then rearrange my car and hook up the two cars and begin to pull him. I’ve only got until the end of the lot and if he hasn’t done it by then, we’ll have to push his car out of the way so that I can back up.  Fortunately his car catches just as I’m about to hit the fence.  I got out and disconnected the cars to his jubilant shouts of tank-u.  I’m now freezing to the bone, my feet are wet from the snow banks and I’m dirty from all the efforts to get him started - but I have to admit, it felt good to help someone here in Moscow.  

Off to create a dinner for my darling.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm

Cold and Bright Sunday

A marvelously lazy day began to unfold about nine this morning.  It was just getting light enough to go outside but the temperature was only 12° so we had to bundle up like Eskimos to brave the chill.  We each got on our thermal undies and started to layer with shirts and sweaters, pants and boots, jackets, hats, gloves, and scarves. I swear astronauts don’t have to spend as much time getting ready for a spacewalk as we do for Moscow winter walk.  We did a long walk to a new Georgian restaurant we want to try tonight. It is actually not far from the apartment, but we wanted the exercise so we went out of our way to get there.  It looks good and they don’t advertise live music so we’ll give it a shot.  Our normal restaurant has just become far too loud with the music to the point that we can’t even have a normal conversation while the chanteuse is wailing about love, loss and betrayal.

On the way home the sun came out and it is now a bright and shiny day, but the temperatures have dropped even more so we’ll stay indoors for a while.  We are just lounging around in our thermal underwear, Cindy looking like something from Victoria’s Secret while I look like Mikhail Baryshnikov’s worst dream.  My plants are actually sighing with pleasure as the first rays of sun in the New Year embrace them.  I feel like I should leave the room. 

Dinner last night was fun, but time consuming to make. We picked up some frozen cod at the embassy and I decided to make Greek Cod, which is nothing more than an onion sliced and layered on the bottom of a bread pan. On top of that I placed five chopped cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, olive oil and the juice of a half lemon.  I mixed it all up and then placed the two cod fillets on top with slices of lemon and a few little pats of butter. I sealed the pan with foil and placed it in a preheated 400° oven and let it cook/steam for about thirty-five minutes.  Meanwhile, I diced up a carrot and one of the slices of onion I had saved and cooked them in boiling water for six minutes.  I drained that reserving the water and then cooked some frozen cauliflower in that water for five minutes.  I drained that, reserving the water and added a cup of rice to the water to let that cook while I smashed the carrots, onion, cauliflower with milk, butter, yogurt, Parmesan cheese, whole grain mustard and salt and pepper.  When it was the way I wanted it, I put it into a glass bowl, added more cheese, sprinkled it with nutmeg and placed it into the oven with the fish for the last fifteen minutes of cooking. I then kept stirring the rice that was now cooking nicely with the water and the smells were incredible.  When the rice was risotto consistency, I plated everything and brought it to the table with hot crusty French bread and a great bottle of French Chardonnay.  Photos are here.

I shall leave you with a bit of a rant.  When did Miss America become Miss Teen America?  I noted with great dissatisfaction that the new Miss America is a seventeen year old high school student. Burt Parks would be very displeased.

Happy Sunday, Cindy and Wm

Slow Snowy Saturday

I put in another full eight hours at the embassy yesterday, staying until the job was finished.  I now have a new nickname among the boys in the warehouse, The Engineer.  Now those of you who know me can continue reading after the bouts of laughter have stopped, but for the rest of you, let it be known that I’m just not that handy.  However, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.  I simply made three or four subtle suggestions regarding the way they off-loaded merchandise, the way they were arranging things on the shelves, and a few hints on how to rotate the stock.  For instance, they don’t have to move all the cat litter so that the oldest is in the front since there is no expiration date on cat litter.  To their credit, no one really knew what cat litter was; they thought it might be cat food.  But then again yesterday I was working with an all-Russian crew and none of them spoke English and I’m assuming none of them had cats, so perhaps I should be more charitable.

I learned a whole lot more Russian yesterday than I do at our weekly lessons.  At first the boss man, who was entering the data into the computer and who speaks excellent English, was confirming numbers in both English, for me, and Russian for the rest. When I switched to Russian numbers, he happily just did everything in Russian and I got to really practice all my numbers.  I’m really good at 12, 24, 48, and 144 since those were the most frequently used numbers as we counted the box contents. It was a great deal of fun working with these guys and I was the only volunteer that showed up so they really appreciated the help. They have one Russian intern who is working there who really doesn’t get it and at the end of the day when we had finished everything, the boss came to me and said, “ If I had two of you we could have done this in one day.”  Then looking at the intern – who didn’t understand English - he said to me, “And if I had two of him, we would be done in a week.”  This really cracked up the boss and we were both laughing a lot.  He had a lot of what he called anecdotes - which were really jokes - and he would tell them to me first in English and then translate them to the crew in Russian. At the end of our time, after all the hand shakes and goodbyes, he told me that I had moved to the top of the list of all shoppers in the commissary and I was to feel free to walk into the warehouse anytime I wanted and ask him for anything I needed. If it was there, he would price it and give it to me, which really is a big deal.

I was even more exhausted after yesterday’s work since it involved a lot more lifting and stacking on shelves so when six rolled around and we turned out the lights, I accepted the invitation of the manager to have a beer in the new bar, Uncle Sam’s. They just spent a whole lot of money renovating the bar and it really looks wonderful. The bartender, who was also helping us unload the other day, got me a small draft beer and asked about the day’s progress. He was impressed that we had finished the entire shipment.  The bar is an oasis of relatively cheap drinks compared to any of the Russian bars.  At happy hour a small beer, .33 liters, is only 60 rubles ($2) and a big beer, .5 liters is 120 rubles ($4).  You do the math!  When I asked why you would get .16 liters more by getting two small beers for the price of one large one, he just shook his head and told me he didn’t do the pricing. I got home at about six forty-five, extremely tired and all I wanted to do was to sit down with a tall scotch and get into a warm bed with a cool woman. Cindy, the cool woman in question, had to attend three AAS parties, all of which were in our complex. She came home for a bit and we talked while I built a drink for myself and then she had to take off again.  I made myself an egg and bacon sandwich and when Cindy returned we each had a nightcap and headed to bed.  We slept for ten hours! 

Today, we took a nice walk in the morning snow and got some fresh bread and an apricot pastry and came home for a long breakfast.  We both caught up on emails and other work and then we took another walk to the embassy for some shopping.  The boss man was outside smoking and I introduced him to Cindy and he told us to go in and he would be there soon.  One of the Filipino workers, Nikko, was also there and I introduced Cindy and he was happy to meet her and see me again.  I showed Cindy the warehouse and she was mightily impressed.  The boss man came back and said that they would have most everything on the shelves by Wednesday and I should come back that morning for some early shopping so as to insure I would be able to have whatever I wanted before it was shelved.

We ran into a woman at the embassy who I met two days ago and who Cindy has known for a while. She has had lots to do with the school and paid a tribute to Cindy, saying that they wanted her so much they even allowed me to come to Russia! Actually, she said they never bring just one person, it has to be a working couple, but for Cindy they made a huge exception. I was very proud!

Happy Weekend,  Cindy and Wm.

Wee Working William

To end the suspense, Cindy did get a proper hot meal last night. Not terribly innovative, a potato and onion omelet with cheese, but it was hot and tasty so not to worry.

I got home about five minutes before the Russian tutor and slogged my way through conjugations of verbs, not what I consider useful.  One of the other people who lives here joined us and when the tutor left, we had a drink and by the time he left it was eight and I hadn’t even had a minute with Cindy.  I quickly prepped the dinner and we finally sat down to eat and talk at 8:30.  Not the most relaxed evening we have ever had, especially in light of the fact that Cindy leaves at 6:30am and doesn’t get back until 5:30pm and that is on a good day.

My work at the embassy was backbreaking, mostly due to the fact that I was the only volunteer during the off loading time.  Once a month the commissary gets a big 18-wheeler filled with everything you can imagine. The truck comes from Ramstein Air Base in Germany and takes three days to get here.  Yesterday there were 18 palettes of foodstuff and we had to haul it all by hand from the loading dock to the warehouse.  I’m an expert now in using those little palette pushers. 

Once we had all the frozen stuff in the freezers and the cold products in the coolers, we had to start the inventory to match what the invoice said was there and what was actually there.  This involved opening each box, say a box of salad dressing, bringing one bottle to a desk where there was an ancient computer and scanner. There that item would be scanned, and it would say how many there should be and if the counts where ok, I would transfer the box to a smaller pushcart for storage.  Very time consuming, very inefficient  and I know that the person in charge wants to make it more efficient but I’m not sure she would be encouraged to do so.  I’m sure you have all seen people in grocery stores with little hand held scanners checking on inventory.  Something like that would make the job go ever so much faster.

I was there from 10 until 5:30 and I must say I’ve become unaccustomed to manual labor. By 4:30 I was actually tired from lifting boxes and pushing palettes. However, I met the nicest people while working there and enjoyed myself immensely.  So much so, that I’m leaving again in thirty minutes for another full day, which is why this is being written at 9am.  I don’t expect to get home until after 7pm tonight so I thought I would get this out and then fill in the details tomorrow when I have much more time.  

Until then, Cindy and Wm

Cindy's Turn

Greetings from the other half …  William decided to volunteer at the Embassy today and he is stocking shelves at the Liberty Store!  He must have flown out of here because the breakfast dishes aren’t done and he didn’t even put the cream away.  Very un-William-esque.

I’ve had a busy week at AAS – in some ways it felt like I’d been gone forever, not just 3 weeks, and in other ways it was as though we didn’t even have a weekend off much less a real vacation.  I guess it’s good that your brain works that way because it means you can hit the ground running when you return.  On Wednesday I led a workshop for the entire faculty (140 strong) along with my friend Peggy who is the Director of Curriculum and is also new this year.  We put the teachers to work answering our questions about the best ways to get the students to use technology in the classroom.  It went well and now we get to respond to their answers; in other words, now the real work begins.

We have quite a bit of snow on the ground and the forest near the school is just beautiful.  Walking remains treacherous wherever you go, although lately the crews have been working on the sidewalks and parking lots since we haven’t had much accumulation of snow for at least a week and the roads are clear.

I am worried sick about dinner because I came home to an empty apartment with no aromas emanating from the kitchen.  What to do?!  I suppose I should start cooking – duh – but our Russian tutor comes tonight so I don’t really have time.  Either we’ll have peanut butter or we’ll go out to eat.

I can hardly wait for Wm’s oral report on his exciting day at the Embassy – you’ll have to wait until tomorrow though for the written report.

Love, Cindy (and Wm)