Please remove your pants....while I watch.

I'm not feeling well. It stinks. Usually I am the caretaker. I don't get days off. I don't get sick leave. But I always get a good story out of hospitals.

Yesterday a car picked me up to take me to the European Medical center. They call it European because it bills you in Euros. Other than that, I'm not so sure.

When I arrived, the receptionist took my passport, insurance card, and asked me fill out forms. Of course I had to bring my coat to the coat check and put blue, protective booties over my shoes. Seemed pretty typical. Then she walked me to the appropriate wing and asked me to be seated.

A few minutes later, a doctor came out and called, "Mrs. Gawdy?" I responded. For the rest of the day, my last name was Gawdy. It's not worth the trouble of correcting her. I've learned that lesson a time or two. At Starbucks I tell them my name is Tanya. Once we were in the room, the doctor asked about my medical history and my current symptoms.

She then asked me to remove my pants. She motioned to a privacy screen where I could modestly undress. I was then instructed to lay on the table in the room, pantsless. What was the point of the privacy screen if I had to walk out in the open without pants anyway? After a thorough exam of my lower extremities, I was told to return to the "privacy" screen, put my pants back on, and remove all tops.

I removed all of my upper layers and proceeded to lay on the table in the center of the room topless. No blanket, no gown, but booties on my shoes. I laid on my back. That was not sufficient. Have you ever seen someone prep a model for a photo shoot? They fix the hair, the makeup, adjust the breasts if necessary, and strike a pose. That was me. With one arm under my head and the other on my hip, I tried to imagine myself as a centerfold for some great magazine instead of in this terrible, sterile, cold building with a cardiologist and a privacy screen.

During the exam, someone knocked on the door. The doctor invited her colleague in, he declined. Instead, the two doctors stood in the doorway, door wide open, while people (other patients) walked past us in the hallway. Did I mention I was topless?

The doctor finished the exam and asked to me to redress. As I did so, she flung open the privacy shade and talked to me, face to face, about my perceived conditions and future course of action. I tried to be attentive to her and the buttons on my sweater.

She referred me to a neurologist where I went today. During the consult he was completely professional, however, there was no privacy screen in this room. I was instructed to remove my pants again. It's always easier the second time. He sat patiently in his chair and waited...watching. How weird is that? I guess I wasn't thinking about my choice of panties when I got dressed this morning.

Best part about all of this: I have to pay them.

Unpacking to Pack

I wrote this post earlier, but I thought I should finally publish it. Sorry for the delay.

We moved. It's new and different in the city. It's new and different living within the confines of American soil in Moscow. I will give you some comparisons to give you an idea of the changes.

Old house: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, fireplace, classroom in the dining room, make-shift storage shelving in every nook and cranny, 2 stall garage, main floor, single entrance, long commute. Number 3 wrote this note in chalk on our front step.

New house: 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, classroom upstairs, closet space we still haven't managed to fill, no garage, upper floor (16 steps per level: 32 total to go to my room), quad-style entrance, no commute

The view from our old house was trees, a lake, and a wide yard. Our view here is the Russian White house and Hotel Ukraine. For two whole years, we didn't have neighbors in the unit next to us. Now we share a quad with three other families. We can hear the kids next door running down the stairs and their mothers shouting at them to close the door.

Number 2 already made friends with nearly every kid on compound. I have barely seen his face inside our door since we arrived. Number 1 is blissfully enjoying the freedom and privacy of her own room for the very first time. She stays up too late each night reading. I can't complain.

Since we unpacked our house, I have been back to the US twice and we will all be there again in March. But it's okay. We've got a place to come back to with no boxes.

Back-up, back-up, back-up!

Number 1 had a birthday this week. Like every good parent, we took pictures of the face before the cake, blowing out the candles, and the smiles when she took a bite of her favorite homemade French Silk Pie. She is eleven. She borrows my shoes, earrings, and asks me why all the boys in this area like her so much. I wonder to myself, "when did this happen?" (stay with me...this post is actually about data recovery.)

Back-up.

Eleven years ago I was a twenty year-old with a newborn. We still took pictures with film cameras and got them developed at the local pharmacy. If you lost the photos, no biggie. Just take the negatives back to the store and have them re-developed. Data is a little more tricky.

Recently my husband and I had a miscommunication. Shocking, I know, but it sometimes happens. We have been the owners of a very nice digital camera for a few years now. I thought he said he did back up the photos but he actually said he intended to. It wasn't until the drive crashed that we realized there was not a second copy. To my friends, especially you, I know you are shaking your head at me. It wasn't me. For heaven's sakes, I am homeschooling, cooking, and successfully keeping six people alive and going. Photos are not my department.

I was kind of sad when I realized that our trips to Hawaii, Paris, New York, Washington DC, and our lives in Moscow were on that drive as well as important mile markers in our kids' lives.

We brought the external hard-drive to many of our intelligent, high-tech friends who make nerdy jokes that I didn't really understand. Anyway, one of the local geeks we know recommended a company he read about in Wired magazine. Who even reads that?

So we called up Drive Savers and they gave us the protocol involved for sending our drive. We didn't have to pay any fees or commit to anything. They would wait to see if they could fix it before charging us a dime. Who does that? They called every couple of weeks to update us on the recovery process.

Good news! Today we received our drive via FedEx. It contained 12,943 photos beginning in 2006. As I copied them onto our PC, I literally watched six years of my life flash before my eyes. I had forgotten about my trip to Florida with my best friend in 2008, Hubby's trip to New York to see Old Yankees Stadium, how beautiful Sacre Coeur gleamed in the sunset, and how much my kids have actually grown. Thank you Drive Savers. Thank you Wired.

So friends, this is a commercial. Back-up your stuff. Make CDs. Load them to an online archive, because believe me, it would have been a lot easier than paying $891. And trust me, those little people in your house won't be small forever.

Babushka

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. I realized today that trying to teach the kids school after Christmas is like trying to spoon-feed a baby on a trampoline. Unusual metaphor, I know, but you get the idea. I have declared tomorrow a day off so we are all free to enjoy our new gadgets, sip some cocoa, and watch holiday classics.

That being said, I am taking some time to blog and I want to talk about somebody special. The Babushka. This is pronounced "Bah-boosh-ka". Contrary to popular opinion, it is not a scarf. It is a grandmother. Not my grandmother or yours, but somebody's. Something I have come to realize while living in Russia is that the place is teeming with Babushkas. They lurk in corners, they strut on buses, and they hit your feet with their cane on the metro.

When I go anywhere in this city with my children, we are like a parade. We hog the sidewalk and if somebody has a tune in their head (this is very common) they may gallop or skip to the beat. Babushkas are not impressed. They are looking at me with hawkeyes to make sure that my children are covered properly. Are their scarves wrapped well enough? Are they wearing tights under their jeans? In the Spring when it gets warmer, I still make sure my kids are wearing hats because out of some dark alley, a Babushka will hop out and yell at me. Not them. Me.

When I was a child my father used to yell out, "Close the door! Are you paying the bills?" In similar manner, I tell my kids each time we walk out of the door, "Cover your head! DO you want me to get yelled at by a Babushka?"

The other day I was on the metro escalator without my children. As we ascended, my hands crossed in front of me and brushed the Babushka's coat. She turned around and slapped my hands. I apologized in Russian and put my hands at my side. A minute later, she turned around, put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me down one step. Apparently, this particular Babushka did not want me to stand so close. I can't imagine why she cared. If you're not shoved up against somebody here then you're doing something wrong. It's the way of life.

One last thing about Babushkas. They are always right. It doesn't matter where or when. They know all. One particular Babushka in the 1970s wanted an Orthodox church to be re-opened. Of course this was the time of Communism and it wasn't permitted. She sent so many letters, so aggressively, that the government agreed and opened her little church. They were so tired of her endless complaints. Perhaps the Communists should have hired her. She may have made their regime last longer.

(The photo at the top is of Number 4 dressed for -10F on a bus. We rode this bus for 45 minutes dressed this way. It wasn't worth the risk of a Babushka getting on the bus.)

Things Can Change

I feel like the senior in the freshmen hallway. We've been here for almost two and a half years. Most people are braving their very first Russian winter while I am entering my third.

Today it is 12 degrees. That's right-twelve. When I suited up to go outside, I smiled and said to myself, "It's kinda nice out today." When I lived in the States, I wouldn't shop for the necessities in 12 degrees, much less go out. But today I volunteered to walk to my friend's apartment to pick up my son from a sleepover. It wasn't far. Only a 15 minute walk one way. My smiling boy echoed my thoughts. "It's pretty warm out today, isn't it?"

My mistake was wearing my boots. These are Sorel boots from Canada. Russians say, "there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." We've found this to be mostly true so I paid $200 for boots from Canada. I wore them all last winter, but today they chafed the back of my Achilles and I returned home with bloody feet. "Geesh," I thought to myself. "I should have worn my heels." For this typical comfort-over-fashion girl, things sure have changed.

This is, however, my first winter living in the city. It's beautiful. All the shining Christmas trees and traffic sounds a little bit more like "Silver Bells." Well....maybe not. When we got out the Christmas decorations, my four small people decorated everything while I sat down and drank a fresh cup of coffee. I didn't have to police their arrangement of the ornaments or remind them not to break anything. They did it all perfectly by themselves.

This morning I woke up with a sore throat, a headache, and sore joints. My kids dutifully took care of the dishes, worked on their school assignments, and tidied up the house. I laid on the couch and tried to feel better. There was a time when these little ones ran circles around me. Now they are waiting on me and telling me to take it easy. What a difference.

I know this post is random. At least I had five minutes to write it. I just wanted to stop and recognize that things can change and they often do; right in front of your very eyes.

And we're back

Wow. I read my own stats of when I posted last and I was ashamed. I've been dealing with lots of things I haven't done that I need/want to do, but that is just uncalled for. I apologize.

My life in Moscow is new and different. Lots of my friends left and we moved to a whole new part of the city. Now I am struggling with where to find groceries, how to say no to activities, and where or when it is appropriate to sneak out of my house in my pajamas to take the trash out. These are real concerns.

Anyway, I felt like the material I had to work with was somewhat mundane. Until this weekend. We attended a fancy-pants fundraiser at the Ritz Carlton for our church. There was a silent auction and a live auction (which featured a good friend's unique, inspiring piece) as well as dancing, food, and music. The music is where I will begin the fun.

The Emcee introduced a Russian pianist who looked directly out of a stereotypical cartoon: frizzy hair, black tails, tall, thin, and generally unattractive. His musical ability certainly compensated for his fair looks. As he pounded away at Rachmaninov, I was very impressed and struggled to look anywhere in the room but at the black and white keys. After two songs played from memory, he put on his glasses and pulled out sheet music. A few measures in, I heard an operatic voice entering the room and heading toward the stage.

It sounded like the range I would sing, so I expected to see a woman. He wasn't. Despite the ponytail, he was extremely masculine, well dressed, and expertly trained by the late Pavarotti. He beautifully sang "Ava Maria" and then moved into a jazzier genre. This is where it got interesting. I immediately recognized the music as "Summertime" made so popular by Porgy and Bess. Then I realized, he wasn't actually singing any words. He was sort of humming and blowing the tune through his nasal passages. I started to eat my meal until I was forced to look up to see his new talent.

My husband leaned over to me and says, "He's playing the harmonica." Somebody else at the table leaned in and said, "No, he's not. He's playing his hand." I kid you not. He was wah-wahing his hand over his mouth like it was a makeshift coronet. I wonder if Luciano taught him this. We all expected him to beat-box next. Quite possibly the best entertainment ever at a fundraiser.

I promise to get back to regularly posting. This stuff is just too good not to share.

What I thought I wanted

It's three o'clock in the morning. I wish I was suffering from jet lag, but I'm not. I've been in the States for six weeks, with two more to go before I return to my home in Russia. The doctors visits are almost wrapped up, the shopping list is almost complete, and my kids are thoroughly ready to return.

I apologize for the absence. I wanted to "vacate" while I was here and just enjoy the moments. There have been plenty of good ones to cherish. While I was visiting with some friends this weekend, one commented to me, "you probably haven't written because you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or say something that questions your loyalty to your home." WOW! After hearing it said out loud, I determined that was perhaps the very reason.

So back to the title. One of my favorite songs has the lyrics "what I thought I wanted, what I got instead..."

I feel this way because I had an idea of how this trip was going to turn out and it seems so completely opposite, yet good. Things with the kids came up, things with family came up, and friends often went above and beyond to help me out. I thought I wanted a working vacation, but instead I haven't touched the schoolbooks at all. There's just been no time. I thought I wanted time and space for myself, but it's been a challenge to be alone.

I am just writing this to tell you all that I'm still out here. I'm okay. Each day has its joys and disappointments, but this will soon be a memory. I've got pictures to prove I was here and yet I don't feel my own presence. I guess this is what you get at 3am. Stop by in a few weeks and I'll give you the real scoop.