Current mood:

chipper

What's Russian for "Man-jah"?
Good day. Here’s a twist… we had lunch at our apartment. Yup. The Universe has gone 'ploink'. The fabric of space time has been altered. We brown bagged it. Popped down to the corner store for a loaf of fresh bread (kind of a naan type of thing) and made some soup we had brought with us. If only we had a table to sit at and eat…

Another change from the usual… today we got to feed Asella her lunch. This was very exciting, and Sarah did some limbering up in order to shovel with the same speed that the caretakers do. And better yet, a new activity to take pictures of! Here she is all gussied up as Aunt Jo-Mama, getting ready to head into the trenches.



Asella thought it was rather humorous that this strange American woman was stuffing her face with the meat/potato glop, and did lots of squirmy appreciative movements. She downed it faster than Sarah could deal it out, but overall Aunt Jo-Mama performed admirably, managing to get nearly all of the food into her waiting jaws. Note the “Air Berlin” bib. Sassy.



Open up the airplane hangar, here come a fleet of 747s and a few hot air balloons!



Objects on spoon appear larger than actual size.

Once she polished off lunch, she washed it down with a shot glass of milk. This gave Sarah a bit of trouble, especially when Asella decided that now would be a fine time to practice her “phhhllllbt” noises. Hopefully it will be my turn to feed tomorrow. Get ready for some mashed potatoes in the hair!



Our visit was soiled only by a horribly smelly and dirty diaper, which the caretaker mercifully, well, took care of (naturally). She gets goofier every time we see her. Today she was chatting up a storm, telling us all about the repeal of the French law that had all the students there in an uproar and the merits of the metric system vs. the English system.

We followed the visit with a pleasant afternoon of notarizing. I think we willed our house to the head of a large Kazakhstani wheat conglomerate, but I could be mistaken. This seems to be a more formal process than in the U.S. They have offices specific for notaries, with large waiting rooms; and the notaries have assistants that take care of everything while the actual notary talks on a cell phone. Neat!

Dinner was at the marginally authentic Italian place, which has lots for Sarah. They do a decent job, but have a tendency to put too much salt in everything. We’re now both very thirsty. The habit has officially begun as we stopped at the little shop on the corner for our ice cream bar. Tonight we splurged and spent $1.20 for two bars, so tomorrow we’ll have to go back to the other little shop on the corner, which is right next to the little shop on the corner. Anyone following any of this?

Now for the important stuff. If all goes precisely as scheduled (and yes, there is a chance of this happening), we will come home on May 13th. If we add a “just in case day or two”, we will come home on the 16th. I’m gonna check with the travel agent to see what he recommends in terms of booking the flights, but that should give everyone a good idea when we will be back. Our court dates are set (pre-court on the 13th, real court on the 20th), so all we really have to worry about is the paperwork for her passport and the embassy visit to get outta here to go as scheduled.

So there you go. What’s new with you? Transit strike in Denver over yet? Our government still intact? (The BBC doesn’t pull a lot of punches in their coverage of things concerning the U.S.) I feel like we’ve been on the moon. Hope all is as well as can be. Take care.