Some Impressions From a Move In Process

They came and took our air baggage on Monday morning. Of course, since that is the little bit of stuff that is supposed to get to Dushanbe more quickly than the rest of our household effects (and since we now know that all our other "HHE" will go via slow boat first to a US government site in Belgium and then on some unknown route to Dushanbe, perhaps taking many months), we felt some pressure to choose wisely on what went into our air freight.

We hadn't really done the forethought to realize, for instance, that we'd want our desktop computer (and would therefore need to back up the hard drive and all) to go by air, so that was stressing us out on Sunday, once we'd realized. And of course there is always more sorting and organizing than you realize. But now we've had a little breathing room with the first packout day out of the way, and we are gearing up for the remaining packout to be done on this coming Monday and Tuesday.

At least next time, when they come for everything else, all we need to do is separate out what we'll take on the plane with us, and all the rest just needs to get packed and shipped -- not as many choices to be made.

Although, it's true that this packout is the one where you need to make sure whatever you don't want packed up is either nailed down, sealed in a secure and properly marked location, or forced outside where it can't hide and die in the shipment (that last again referring primarily to the risks involved with cats, but of course if a stray diaper were left in a diaper pail for the several months the shipment were travelling, that too would very quickly smell like something had died). This is the packout where your nightmare is that your passport gets packed up into one of the boxes -- then what will you do? (They even have a public service announcement about that on Armed Forces Network TV -- it's one of my favorites, right after the toddler choking hazard warning, "shady character from the nuthouse," spot.)

Of course, as we are preparing to leave I'm having little exchanges of both the positive and the negative kind, and they impress me differently than if I knew we were staying. The main negative one: the single, solitary response I have gotten to my public, online advertisements trying to find new homes for our cats was an accusatory message about "how dare we not try to take our pets with us," how "we humans are responsible for the animals we take into our homes" -- which made me furious and unable to shake my anger for several hours. (It subsequently has come to light that the sender was dumped with her parents Angora cat when they moved, but, hey, why take out your bitterness on me, lady? Take a moment to think before you press "send"!)

But I've also had some good interactions lately that make me feel good about the life we've had here in Vlad and in Russia, and not so much sorry to go, but I guess confident in some way that I'll be able to find similarly comfortable modes of being in Dushanbe.

I took in a bunch of old, too-small baby clothes the other day to donate to a local church, something I'd been meaning to do for a while. Of course, you can imagine that that wouldn't be a terrible experience, but in Russia you never know what can go wrong or turn out to be unpleasant. But, sure enough, I went into the lobby of the church out on the peninsula leading out to the lighthouse on the edge of town, and the lady manning the religious items and books kiosk that seems to always precede the actual sacred space in Russian Orthodox churches was all aflutter and happy to show me where to leave my boxes, and assured me that even little baby clothes would come in handy for the kids the church supports. It made me feel good to finally check something off of my list and of course -- an easy one -- to know I was doing something small that might benefit the local community.

Yesterday I took in a CD of photos to get them printed (I'm making a surprise gift for Marina of a little photo book with pictures of Anya all throughout our stay), and the guy in the photo shop was really nice, wanted to speak English with me in a friendly way, and in general the transaction went very well and the printed pictures were good quality and very cheap. (It even made me realize I should go back and print up another set to make a little photo book for Anya, as a keepsake of her first two years, spent in Vladivostok. What a concept -- digital photos on paper! It's been so long since I've developed photos...)

And then Anya and I went to the open market for some veggies and fruit, which has become my habit, finally, after many months (and on earlier visits to Russia, the equivalent of years, I suppose) of anxiety that made it difficult for me to tackle the market on a regular basis. But now I feel confident enough of myself and my Russian that I won't get ripped off (I can even demand unbruised pieces and can bargain a cup of berries down from exorbitantly expensive, if need be!). Now I enjoy going to the little market down the hill from us to get my fresh produce and dried fruit and nuts. This time the lady behind the counter where we bought our grapes was helpful when I had my arms full with kid and produce, and when Anya remarked "you hungry!" as the little bag of fruit appeared, the seller asked with a chuckle, "Does she know Russian too?"

I realized that I feel a confidence just being out and about a lot of the time here in Vlad that is a nice counterweight to some of the doubt I feel about how I've pursued my professional work here. For the most part I'm happy with the research I've done, and I know I've gathered a hell of a lot of material that will make a good history. But I guess I have learned something about myself in the past few years, and that is that I will always have trouble contacting live people who might be good to talk to for my work, and that has been true here for sure. Books and archival documents are just so much easier, there's so much less risk of a bad relationship! Anyway, I've been feeling bad that I am somehow unable to contact and speak a bit more to one of the virologists in town who studies tick-borne encephalitis today, feeling that I'm no good for having that trouble and, when all is said and done, for most likely never calling or meeting with her again. But then when I go around town running my errands or whatever, I realize how much has gone well in life here, how much I've been able to accomplish (and have needed to accomplish: the bottom line is we've been in a new, foreign place, not at home!) in other, more mundane, but no less important realms: knowing my city and driving around with confidence (I guess for the past year I've actually been the only spouse** here in our American group to drive at all!); shopping and getting what I need and what pleases me either food-wise or things-wise; having a few friends and balancing that with my work, and having success at gathering data and working with inanimate legible sources, if not with the animate kind; and taking good care of and having fun with Anya, whether at home or at Montessori or on the playground. I guess that is a pretty good set of things to have achieved, and I'm not unhappy with that.
[** Ha! I realized only belatedly that this idea really shows how much I've swallowed the reigning sexism of the Foreign Service: I'm of course the only female spouse (weaker sex, anyone?) here who has driven among all who've lived here this past year, but the one male trailing spouse, well, of course, he'd probably never dream of not driving -- not to mention his apparent views on not working...]

All of that is positive, but I have to at least note -- it is such a terrible set of events that I still don't know how to understand, so I can't write much more -- that we've also been following with trepidation as Russia and Georgia came to armed conflict in the past week. We've been thinking of our friends in Tbilisi, have been shocked at how quickly it all came to pass, and depressed about what it means for the people on the ground and for what it demonstrates about the political and foreign relations realities.

What we are saying:
all kinds of colors: yeyo, bwu, red, white, oinge, bwak (and a similar range in Russian)
comparisons: big, "hmah" (and sometimes even "small" -- we're getting better at s + consonant pronunciation)
(And, interestingly, Anya has made a very strong connection between big and heavy: to the point of even thinking and saying that if a butterfly is big, it's also heavy, or a hug that is big is also heavy.)
A series of numbers that demonstrates at least the start of an understanding of the concept of counting. Whenever there are more than one of an object, you're likely to hear "wann-too-fee-fawf," which is Anya's version of 1-2-3-4-5, with 4 and 5 sort of smushed together into one word. (Hey, those are big numbers, once you get up into the stratosphere, what's the difference?)
Many requests, and many of them accompanied by "please." Here is a typical exchange these days in our kitchen:
"More milk!"
"What do you say?"
"More milk, pweeeez..."
"Very nice, here you go."
Also: "kiss it!" and "hug!"
Also some past tenses: "kisst it!"
And some rocky starts to the use of pronouns, as in: "you hungry!" "you tired!" "you finished!" and "you scared!" when really what is meant is "I'm ....," or "carry you!" and "help you!" in place of " ... me!" I guess when your main mode of learning is repeating, of course you're going to get those things wrong when the perspective changes and you're saying it yourself instead of mom or dad asking whether you feel or did something.
Also a pretty good memory: especially getting reinforced when we turn down the leafy street that leads to the Vlad Motor Inn, and Anya remarks correctly that both sausage and slides/playground will soon be enjoyed.

What we used to say (for the record, an attempt at compiling past idiosynchratic words, with an asterisk denoting those that are not yet obsolete):
appi
bop
happa
bik
manna
wawa*
yaindann*
sseepie
uppadeez
noi
pafo*
hmoon
fumm
fingam
ayah
tikka*
payday
Tay-tay
Agga
tututu
bayo*
pato*
psai-psai
bayefai
aissee
tahs
tah-fee
pishi
yeg*
yabb-i*
yek*
Nimma
H'mp'hah
paya
fawf
oyay
e'feh*
gaggy
kroya
akkapiya*
pla-puh*
gai-yay
yips*
(Translations available on request.)

A week alone for Dad and Anya

Lisa is away for a week on a research trip to Khabarovsk, and Anya and I are flying solo for the second time ever (Lisa took another short trip to Khabarovsk previously). While of course we both miss Lisa/Mommy, we are also enjoying spending some time together. For me it is a nice opportunity to catch up on some of the developments in Anya’s personality that I might otherwise have missed because I’m not with her during much of the day. I’m still not, by the way: she’s with her nanny Marina from 9am to 6pm while Lisa is gone.

But I do participate in all of the morning and evening routines that either Lisa or both of us would ordinarily do. I don’t usually feed her in the evening, for instance. I’m not saying it’s a pile of fun, but over the last few days it seems that Anya has been in particularly goofy moods while eating. It doesn’t do a lot for actually getting food into her chowhole with any frequency or speed, but she has a couple amusing habits. One of them is to look at a parent out of the very corner of her eye, then to catch you doing the same to her. Squeaks of pleasure usually follow. Another is pointing out various things going on with her feet under the tray – like socks falling off, or feet kicking, or toes poking out or hiding (“peekaboo!”).

Anya’s linguistic development has been particularly interesting lately. I just wrote about it to my Mom, and hopefully she’ll forgive me for repeating the gist of that email here:

Anya is now at that amazing and charming stage (other parents have told us about it) where she is starting to string words together. We went to the beach with a colleague on Monday, and she was busy pointing things out: “Daddy rock. Anya rock. Daddy Anya rock.” (We do, of course, rock, but that latter sentence was meant to indicate that I was giving her a rock.) Then she put it in a cup: “Anya rock cup.” The particular path of her development is interesting to me, in part because she’s doing it in two rather different languages.

(An aside: for some reason, the fact that Anya was learning Russian along with English very unexpectedly made me sad when I first started thinking about it. Why? I still don’t know, but I think there were two [equally foolish] thoughts. The first was that there is this side of Anya’s developing personality that I don’t really have access to. The second was that I felt sorry for her – for the confusion that comes from having to cope in two languages. Of course that is silly, because kids just pick this stuff up – it’s not a punishment or a struggle! But I just felt that way, that I was somehow letting her down. Anyway, I’m happy to report that I’m feeling better about it, particularly as I get to interact with her some in Russian and explore that part of her world.)

Back to the linguistics. I imagine that most kids must learn nouns first, and Anya is no exception. She has quite a meaty collection of them, and she is just now starting to figure out what I guess we’d call cases – i.e., subjects, objects, direct objects. Word order is still fluid, though, and she toys with it: "Daddy Anya kiss. Anya Daddy kiss." Both involved me kissing her. She likes to go through several iterations in one go. She still isn't really learning the little helper words, like prepositions, etc. But, more and more, verbs are entering the picture: “Anya baby PUT,” (accent very strongly on the last word!) when she puts her doll in her bed. And “Daddy SING” (more on that in a moment). And she is learning some phrases simply by imitation (“kiss it,” “lying down,” “socks on,” etc. – Lisa has reported on these), and she’s close to parsing the individual words.

What’s particularly interesting, though, is that she is going through this same process in Russian – which, despite its very distant shared roots with English in Indo-European, is a very different language. So (forgive the short linguistics primer), where English establishes what is acting upon what by word order (we know the subject, object, and verb in the sentence “I mail the letter” only by their location in the sentence), Russian does it primarily through grammatical inflection (like Latin and many other languages). That is, the nouns and verbs have special (morphemic) markers that denote what part of speech they are – and thus who is doing what to whom.

So, I'm interested to see if word order (English) or grammatical inflection (Russian) comes to Anya first. So far, the nod is slightly toward inflection. She appears to be learning the accusative case (“lyublyu papU” – Russian for “I love daddy,” with “daddy” in the accusative case and "love" conjugated in first person singular). (Yes, by the way, she really says that!) Unfortunately, I think she’s so far just mimicking Marina, and is not really thinking it through. I’m sure if she did, of course, she’d find it to be a very fine thing to say. Well, there's the language acquisition memo for the day...

As I put Anya asleep tonight, I was in for a nice surprise. She looked up at me and said, “Daddy. Sing.” Then she hummed a little song herself, and appeared to be saying the word “clouds.” It became clear to me that she was referring to a specific song that I actually sing to her frequently – Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” (although I sing her the Pete Seeger version, with the added last stanza beginning, “daughter, daughter, don’t you know, you’re not the one to feel just so…” ). As most of you know, the song begins,

Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I looked at clouds that way

(Although for some reason I sing it “cotton candy everywhere…”)

What was remarkable was that Anya had picked up the “cloud” reference. Beyond that, it was of course fun to be asked to sing, and also to hear her version of singing, which was kind of tuneful in a strange baby sort of way.

Otherwise, for those who might be worried about our welfare without Lisa, I assure you that we're surviving! Although Anya needs to lay off the booze.

The Graduate

No, there are no mortarboards here for us. No future in plastics, either, or awkward run-ins with Anne Bancroft. It's just that it seems we kind of graduated in a sense when the Pink Elephant Montessori center closed and we were forced to check out another place.

Wow! The Pink Elephant was nice and fun and all, but if you want to try out the Montessori principles for real, the Summit (Vershina) is the place to go! I obviously say this with limited experience of the Montessori system, so we may still be on the low end of rigorous application, but I really like this new place (and our teacher, Galya) for its more serious attention to some of the basics of Montessori and -- probably even more importantly -- the reasons why these principles are seen as important, what abilities they can hope to help a child develop. Not that the Pink Elephant won't always occupy a special place in our memory, and it probably was a great way for both me and Anya (and Dan) to ease into this preschool thing. But I can see that it is worth paying attention to some of the details of the Montessori system rather than just letting the kid bypass them and simply play, like we tended to do at the P.E.

We've attended Vershina now for about 3 weeks, twice a week instead of the single weekly class we were attending at the first place. On our first visit I was quickly given a rundown of the Montessori fundamentals: the main rule, "porabotal - uberi," or "when you're done playing ('working,' in Montessori parlance), put it away"; the fact that we work on a defined area, a little mat; the idea that the kid should be allowed to take the lead in deciding what activity to work on; and the idea that the adults provide some basic rules within which that freedom can be expressed. She also gave me a sense of why we're meant to do these things, what qualities this system is meant to inspire in the kid if she's able to follow it for a while, including independence and self-discipline, responsibility, self-confidence, and self-reliance or the lack of reliance on outside praise to understand that you've done something well.

Well, OK, it isn't all going to happen in the couple of months we have left at Vershina, but it sounded good to me as a general set of principles, and I can see now that we are going regularly how some of these things really could come from engaging in these activities within this kind of structure. Needless to say, now that I see some people who are a bit more dedicated, to varying degrees, to this system, it makes me curious to know more about what might be motivating Russians to explore the Montessori system, especially what parents might see in it in the post-Soviet era. But I'm afraid I won't have the time to do the interviews that I fantasize about doing to get to the bottom of that one before we leave Vlad. (I'd love to find a place like this in Dushanbe, but I don't expect it, given what we know about the options available there.)

Vershina is actually a small local chain of schools, so we are just going to the location that's most convenient to us, slightly further away than the Elephant was (unfortunately through a couple of messy intersections that can get clogged up in the afternoon, when we're headed there, so making it to class on time and not excessively early can be a challenge). This place is also a little groundfloor apartment just converted into a preschool space, but bigger than the P.E. was, and actually in slightly shabbier condition (which is to say not that shabby really, since Pink E. had just opened in September 2007 and was kind of impressive in its tidiness and the newness of its elements). Our teacher, Galya, seems to know a lot more about Montessori and child development than the very sweet class leaders at the Elephant did, and I really like her style of working with both the small and the big students in the classes, how she chooses to step in and help or give advice.

How does Anya like the new preschool ("sadik")? She seems to like it pretty well: she still has a great deal of enthusiasm for the toys and playing activities, although she's not thrilled at the need to follow new and firmer rules. After a few weeks of this school, she's doing much better with putting away one toy before switching over to a new activity, even doing it on her own without prompting a few times. But she's still not on board with stopping all play and sitting in a circle to listen to a story and say goodbye to all her peers at the end of class. So far we are still taking the option of not playing but instead sitting as quietly as we can in a place where we don't disturb the story and then returning with reluctance to the circle to say goodbye. Galya assures me that Anya is not alone in this transition difficulty and that I'm handling it fine, so hopefully we'll get the hang of it soon.

Beyond Vershina

Some of the success in the rules may be due to trying to apply them at home too, especially the putting things away rule. Here I don't do the whole "porabotal, uberi" thing, but I did realize that Anya is probably old enough now to be invited to help put her toys and stuffed animals away when a particular play time is over and we are moving on from one space to another, whether for bedtime, mealtime, or going outside. For some reason that didn't really occur to me much until we started coloring with crayons and I set up a little coloring station kind of area at the dining room table (in an attempt to delineate a clear coloring territory that was far away from temptingly blank walls or other surfaces). There, it just seemed natural to put the crayons away in their container before we leave, and we're trying to introduce the principle of tidying up and putting things away elsewhere around the house and yard, including at the sandbox and at the bathtub.

We had a busy couple of weeks a while back, going to the playground a bunch and going to a children's concert at the Philharmonic (the Ugly Duckling: we got about 2/3 of the way through before we started getting ugly ourselves, and repaired to the cafe downstairs for a snack and a drink with our friends, Vika and her daughter Arina). Then it rained for a while, and sadik was our main activity. Now pretty much the whole household has a cold, so even sadik is off limits if we want to stay within the bounds of respectability and not infect anyone. We did have a weekend full of behaving well at meals, two as guests in other people's homes, and once at a good old brunch out on the patio at VMI. And there have been lots of chances lately for Anya to expand her food repertoire and eat pretty much what the big people eat, from our trip to Shkotovskii raion to our friends' houses this weekend, to sampling homemade yogurt with homemade granola, and homemade kid's-version pizza, here at home. She's definitely growing into that strong personality she has been displaying for a while, but she is still a good kid and enjoying all the things we're able to show her here in Vlad.

What we're saying

Still very fond of the preposition-noun combinations, like "soxonn," "shirtoff," "shoozonn," "jakkettonn," etc. Also noticing some other good directional words like "unner neaf" (underneath).

Two funny language items from the recent past:
When it started to get warm here, in April/May, I started to realize that I think I was mistaken when I thought "isseee" meant icy or cold. Anya was continuing to point out the window and say this word, despite my assurances that it wasn't very cold out anymore. It struck me as funny that perhaps only in Russia could a parent go 4 or 5 months mistaking a kid's version of "outside" for "icy." And only in Russia could the concepts have been conflated as they may have been in Anya's mind!

The other one was just a moment the other day when we were descending the stairs, Anya in slippers, and (as usual these days) clutching her favorite bear, and me not wearing anything on my feet. Anya remarked "ssippah - Anya - Mommy" and I said, "that's right, Mommy isn't wearing any slippers, she's just got bare feet." Anya took a sideways glance at her bear and chuckled at the idea that my feet were somehow like his.

In Bloom

Often the irony of life in Vladivostok has meant that for one reason or another I haven't really been able to describe life here very well to those who'd like to hear about it. One reason comes at times when nothing much is going on, and the general mood has been a bit melancholy, and therefore there really isn't much inspiration to write either e-mails or blog entries about news here. The other reason is at play when there's a lot going on, when the mood picks up, but when there's just so little time to write something about the developments and news. We've gone from a winter of a lot of the former to a spring with already a bunch of the latter, so I feel I need to force myself again to at least try to write entries to the blog a bit more often and make them a bit shorter, just so I can get the news out the door. It feels like I've been jotting down ideas of what I want to report throughout the past month since the previous entry, only to lack the time to really edit it well, and then I watch as things change yet again, and the news of the day or the week shifts. I need to catch things more often and offer them up so that you can see them!

Play
The Pink Elephant is no more. Sometimes it seems like all the good things in Vlad just end or disappear right after you've found them and have started to get used to them being a joyful part of your life. I was pretty bummed about the closure right after I became aware of it, just before May Day. But then I decided we should just get right back up on the horse again and check on another local Montessori center I'd heard about for the under-3 set. Who knows, I told myself, maybe this one will actually be better than the P.E.! Then, in the couple of weeks after the Pink Elephant breathed its last, life of course sort of oozed into the cracks where that activity had been fitting, and after one frustrating unsuccessful phone call to get the basic info on "Vershina" ("Summit" -- a decidedly less interesting name...), it took me a little while to make another attempt to get us signed up and try it. An update on the new place will follow in the next post.

We did exchange phone numbers with the class leader from the Pink E. with whom we clicked the best, though -- Vika. Well, since we encountered three different leaders there in our 3 months of going, all of whom were named Vika, that isn't very precise. But we know which one we mean, and we are planning to meet her tomorrow for our first attempt at the children's performances that are given at the Regional Philharmonic. Tomorrow will be "The Ugly Duckling." I told you, there is so much going on, I need to set myself to writing a little shorter posts a little more often to really report it all on time -- so news of performances will have to go in the next entry, too.


Drive
OK, I admit that I was kind of a whiner about the car. It probably sounded like I was a spoiled brat who couldn't bear to take public transportation (except that, for those of you who have seen our location, really, it is not the easiest place to move around from without a car, am I right?). It was mainly the shopping (getting there and back AND lugging groceries or other purchases, e.g. big bags of diapers) that I did not relish having to do on buses. But, to be honest, I've actually had fun this past month viewing the city from a new perspective, taking the bus and marshrutka (minivan fixed-route taxi) to get around when it's just me and my work. And what has undoubtedly allowed me to have that fun was our decision to go ahead and use the car a limited amount, for grocery shopping and going places with Anya, just to try to stay off of it, like a bad ankle, as much as we can. Well, that, and the fact that it really is finally spring.

For some of the places I need to be for my research and writing, the bus can actually be a better way to get around. Right now I'm working at the state archive down next to the railroad station, and sometimes at the regional medical library, down across from a large candy factory and just up the hill from the regional clinical hospital (and upstairs from the regional blood bank - just in case!). Both of them are on easy and reliable bus routes, just a single bus to get there and back. And taking the bus certainly lets you see your surroundings in a different way. I'm really able to look around in a way that isn't possible when you're driving -- I see the ads for the latest performances in town, plastered on all the fences (Tibetan yaks at the Vlad Circus, anyone?), notice new businesses that either just opened or never caught my eye before. And you're just able to coexist with people in a more direct (if anonymous) way on the bus than driving around in a car lets you.

(And about the car itself: oh, it is a long and drawn-out saga indeed. Let's see, when I last reported in, we had had our steering wheel mauled by a particularly mal-meaning Russian mechanic, had made first contact with Nissan USA, who then made first contact, before first light, with the Riverside branch of the family. Everything from there just kind of got more and more mired in the muck. The well-meaning Nissan rep apparently gave us the wrong contact number, so all of Dan's increasingly urgent calls over the last two weeks of March went unheard. A few more calls at hours when most of us are asleep, to Riverside and to Vlad, and we determined that nothing this side of Irkutsk has enough of a legitimate connection to the Nissan corporation for the folks to send the part. But we determined we could get reimbursed for a part and labor we paid for directly, as long as Nissan is on the bill(s). Dan immediately ordered the part from a dealership in Virginia and our feet seemed to be loosening from the mire.

Cut to this week, when the part finally arrived via diplomatic pouch (no special delays, that's just how long it takes), and Dan goes with the help of a friend and colleague to begin getting the work done. One disappointing moment is when we learn that indeed neither of the 2 places that appear to have a connection to Nissan have enough of a true claim on the name to put it on their official bill. But the more depressing and frustrating news arrived when the better of the 2 choices of mechanic, apparently a thoughtful guy who was very willing to hear Dan out and not leap in where he didn't have enough information or didn't know what the heck he was doing, noticed that THE PART SENT BY THE U.S. MECHANIC GOT BROKEN IN THE MAIL! So, who knows what recourse we have with them: as Dan notes, they probably just threw the thing in a box to our Dulles address, not taking into account the beating it might take between State Department warehouse and plane, etc., and if they hear the whole transit itinerary they will surely withdraw all responsibility for its loss of integrity en route. We are just heading into the weekend, so we haven't had a chance yet to take stock or investigate what our next steps are. All I can say is: what a royal hassle!)


Work
Whether thanks to the bus, or spring, or just an unrelated change in momentum, my research is resurgent. I returned to the archives in March and I've finally found a lot of interesting primary documents on regional public health and tick-borne encephalitis. I have a bunch of things I hope to get a chance to look at (and the time left is just starting to seem like perhaps too little to get through it -- but regardless I'll have time to collect a bunch of interesting stuff).

It's also just fun to be back in the archives, after an absence essentially since last summer, before I took the Consulate job. There is a weird kind of feeling you get working there and being accepted by the ladies who run the reading rooms, one of whom especially here in Vlad is very serious and bureaucratic until you crack her, and she then really is friendly and supportive when you need it. It sounds good, but there's a weird side that emerges when you see someone flailing who hasn't cracked the unsmiling exterior, and you feel a little superior and comfortable in your position -- I don't necessarily like that feeling, but somehow having a little success in Russia in the face of adversity can do that to you.

My experience generally in archives so far in my career, primarily during my dissertation research, was a very needle-in-a-haystack experience, mainly because of my topic. I think that feeling is actually pretty much par for the course in archival work, but I suspect that the way my dissertation topic was defined so very differently from the way the archives were organized (and from the way any Russian asks questions of Russian history), it made it difficult to easily pinpoint what files might be useful. But now, simply by virtue of the fact that I'm interested in a particular disease, one that has a regional significance, for the first time in my work I've actually had the experience of writing in my notes "Jackpot!," after finding a file titled "Data about the morbidity and mortality of tick-borne encephalitis and malaria for 1940-41."

A Brief Update

What we're saying:

This month we have turned to verbs! And we're just recently getting into prepositions, noticing when those that are essential to a particular verb get attached to words in English. So, "put your shoes on" gets repeated as "shuzon"; "let's take your hood off" becomes "hoodoff."

tawai! = "vstavai!" ("get up!" in Russian)
go-oup = go/get up
syajish! = "syadis'!" ("sit down!" in Russian)
shiji! = "sit!" or "sit there!" in Russian
sit down! (very well enunciated - no need to translate - and almost always all of these sit-related imperatives are directed at "Beah," the funny little stuffed puppy whose species in the sleep-deprived mode of new parents we evidently could not identify, and thus he received the name "Rabbit-Bear," which for Anya is now and will surely always be "Beah.")
want (another one that really is pronounced pretty much on target, and is starting to be used to good effect.)
no (unfortunately this one is now in VERY wide usage. I know it would have gotten in there inevitably at some point, but I think I can actually trace its integration pretty well to the week we received a gift from Cousin Stacey and family: a really good little book, "Where's Spot?," whose refrain in every location where Spot is sought is, sadly, "no." Anya picked up on it very quickly and has run with it.)
pway! = play!
syuda = this way, over here in Russian
syagi = sadik, "preschool" (what I call Montessori center) in Russian
bai-sik-ull = bicycle (a real obsession for some reason, surely related to the appearance of our neighbors' tricycle outside, Anya's recent notice of the adult bikes perched unused downstairs in our house, and the existence of a picture of a trike on one of her blocks)
yogurr = yogurt (more to report next time, but I'll note here that we have ourselves a fan of homemade yogurt. And a person who has trouble distinguishing between the concepts "yoga" and "yogurt" when they are referred to too close together in conversation.)
syippah = slipper
tapogi = tapochki, "slipper" in Russian (For some reason, the little slippers with the velcro closure that I picked up on sale for the equivalent of about $7 at the local Bubbl-Goom store are a real hit.)
caw = car
mahina = mashina, "car" in Russian
crukk = truck
bussss! = bus (often followed by the comment "biiiig!" and more often followed by the comment "noi[se]" -- and in general when the identifying-vehicles mood strikes, it seems like every third one is a bus, so this word gets a whole lot of play.)

Coming Home

We're back, once again, at home in Vlad, after our "Rest and Recreation" trip to the United States.

It's strange, since we've made this transition back plenty of times now, with all of our travels, but it's still jarring in a new way each time we return from a trip. This time weather probably plays some part: we traveled at perhaps the best time of year to Southern California and Arizona, and had what passes for great summer weather to us by now, with temps in the upper 70s and low to mid 80s the whole time, and mostly sunny. (We also had our grownups' getaway to the Bay Area, where it was a little chillier of course, cf. Mark Twain and all that "coldest winter" commentary; but that was more about other kinds of fulfillment than what the weather can give.)

There are certainly other things banging around in our heads that are making us nervous this time around on the return end -- our ever more closely impending permanent departure from Vlad is certainly one of them. (We will probably leave in July or so, but, without a firm plan, our approach to these last 3-4 months [ulp!] in Vlad and the logistical preparations for the move are just a bit more anxious.) But mainly we continue to try to re-establish routines and work enjoyable and satisfying things into our lives, as always.


Our Vehicle, Off Road
Unfortunately, just as it seemed we were close to obtaining that precarious balance again, we discovered a problem with our car. First the steering wheel was a tiny bit loose, and then we took it in to what apparently passes for a Nissan service center in Vlad, where Dan watched the "master" (Russian for mechanic) poke, pry and manhandle the steering wheel much more violently than he felt comfortable with, as he tried to get in there to disengage the airbag and see what was wrong. Their diagnosis was that we need a part that must be ordered from the US (since it's a US model car, not Japanese, which is the norm here), so we are in a bit of limbo.

In principle, the car can be driven, and Dan has talked to more than one American Nissan repair place (in which we have a bit more faith, although of course they haven't seen the car), where he's been told that it is unlikely to be unsafe to drive it rarely. But when your house is perched on an outcrop and you can either tumble down a steep and dusty path to one of the main bus arteries, or pick your way over a similarly dusty path up to the main road, without sidewalks, to catch a minivan taxi-bus into the center, and when you are used to driving around town both for work and for many errands, the prospect of having to use a combination of feet, public transportation, and taxis to accomplish your routine activities and keep the household running is daunting. (And unfortunately, since Nissan USA has trouble figuring time zones and area codes, a certain household in Riverside is also feeling some of our pain in the form of early morning phone calls....)

[I originally had a section here with some thoughts about food, but I wasn't happy with it -- I need to think some of this through better and then I'll put it back up in edited form.]

The Roundup:

What we're watching:
more "Arrested Development" on DVD
all the boring movies Lisa accidentally allowed to surface at the top of our Netflix queue (oops!), starting with "The Battle of Algiers" (yes, I know, we are philistines, but it all sounds well and good and edifying until you have just put your kid to bed and the last thing you want to watch is a subtitled movie from 1966 that will broaden your appreciation for what has happened in Iraq and perhaps much of the rest of the Middle East... You really want something to make you laugh.) (But, that said, we did like it.)

What we're listening to:
can't get enough of that crazy "Upper West Side Soweto" mix on Vampire Weekend's album (who let them describe their music that way??)
finally, the new Diggs album!
yet more Feist
the live In-Concert-at-MKhat stylings of Garik Sukachev

What we're saying, in the US and in Russia:
fingum = finger
hmumm = thumb
yabbi = rabbit
oyey = ears
sseepie = sleepy
izzi = Izzy, Judy and David's dog
Gnamma, Nimma = Grandma
Gha-pah = Grandpa
fann-ee = funny
ma-mom = gabonk, the splash-accompaniment sound made in the pool when you slap your cupped hand into the water
bop = (in addition to bread) "pop," the sound made when your Grandma undoes your buckle
bakk-l = aforementioned buckle (and when you want a big person to help you buckle it and unbuckle it ad infinitem, that's the word you want to repeat over and over and over again)
hman = fan, as in ceiling fans, of which there are many in the Old Pueblo, aka Tucson
tapp! = stopped!, as in, "The fan has been stopped!"
fokk = fork
hmun = spoon (excellent progress has been made on the utensil front)
ba-yell = bottle (not such great progress has been made on the bottle-weaning front)
yizza = lizard
fwow = flower, pronounced early and often in the lush spring landscape of the Southwest US
yakki = jacket
buud = bird
wokk = work
manum = building (these last 2 said often, together with noi [=noise] and man, to describe what's happening at the handful of construction sites visible from our outdoor play and strolling area)
syo = vsyo, Russian for "that's all" or "I'm done"
kudtka = kurtka, Russian for jacket

And I should add that many of these words are now employed in combinations that appear to be proto-sentences. Such as: "Tay-tay sseepie. Sseeps." (?? Why, "Sanchez is sleepy. He's sleeping," of course.) Or: "Man. Noi. Manum. Wokk." ("Those men are making noise and working on the building.") Very exciting developments!

On the Eve of R&R, Year 2

What we're saying:
'tatch = attached (as in "My hair's attached to my head!")
'syo = Vsyo, or "that's all" in Russian
No mo' = no more
bikk = book -- lots of books and pointing to what we know these days
Wah-nioh! = "oignon!" (repeated with Daddy many times in silly-exaggerated-French-voice as we were preparing French onion soup last week)
Tay-tay = Sanchez
Agga = Edgar


What words we're practicing in yoga class:

грудина = breastbone, sternum
подбородок = chin
(As in, "Это подбородок. Грудина вверх." / "That's your chin. Lift your breastbone.")
копчик = coccyx
втягивать = draw or pull in
(As in "втягивайте копчик.")
поясница = small of the back
крестец = sacrum
пах = groin
лобок = pubic bone
голень = shin
ягодицы = buttocks
талия = waist
грудиная клетка = thorax
сустав = joint
таз = pelvis
бёдро = thigh
тазобедренные суставы = hip joints
стопы = feet
мячик стопы = ball of the foot
плюсна = metatarsus
колено = knee
чашка колена = kneecap
позвоночник = spine
позвоночный столб = spinal column
вытягивать = extend, stretch
(As in "вытягивайте позвоночник.")
лопатка = shoulder blade
пятка = heel
локоть = elbow
плечо = shoulder (as in, "плечи назад и вниз" / "press your shoulders back and downward.")
ладонь = palm of hand
лодыжка = ankle
ступня = sole of foot

What we're listening to:
The Diggs, Commute (and waiting for their new album to drop in Vlad via dip pouch)
Vyacheslav Butusov, "Pesnia idushchego domoi" (one of the few things I hear on Russian radio that I like)
Kim Wilde, "Kids in America" (another pleasant surprise heard on Russian radio recently)

Balls, Hoops, and Future Plans

We've been back in Vlad for just over a week, and it feels like there is already so much to report that I don't know where to begin.

We spent more time than we would have liked on our vacation, and the first week back, poring over the decision of what to do next: stay in Vlad a third year; return to DC; or do another overseas tour. We were forced to mull this over while in South Africa because the State Department shot the starting gun on the administrative process by which Dan is eligible to apply for any overseas posts, and the window for applying and agreeing to take one of the positions that were posted was only 2 weeks long. The positions on offer didn't include a lot that we were interested in, and given our (especially my) mood lately, it seemed like a no-brainer that we would return to the US. But Dushanbe, Tajikistan, was there, and before we came to Vlad we had both had interest in Central Asia, and particularly this position, not to mention the couple of years training in Persian that I did and had hoped someday to make good on. So, after a surprisingly tortured week of considering it, getting in touch with people there, going back and forth and back and forth as to what was the smartest and best thing for us to do, we decided to sign up for another 2 year tour, this time at the US Embassy in Dushanbe. Unfortunately, since the country is showing up on the front pages and my Google news alerts for the extreme (and atypical) cold temperatures and the related impending humanitarian crisis it may endure, that decision is a little hard to swallow right at this time, but we are confident that the place and the community will be an interesting and good change from Vlad, and that the lessons we've learned on this tour will allow us to approach the next in a way that will also improve our lives in Tajikistan.

Meanwhile, the break in South Africa and the intense discussion we've been having about what to do and what we want, even despite the stresses that came along with each of those, has had the effect somehow of jolting me into more activity and a better attitude here at home.

Although I haven't yet made it to a class, I'm closer to making yoga a part of my life again, since I've at least starting researching when classes are offered at the handful of places near us. I gave notice at my job at the Consulate on Monday and of course have promptly begun actually getting done some of the tasks I had been trying to get motivated to do, but hadn't yet. Both Dan and I have been out more socially (maybe it took a little going out separately in S. Africa to confirm for us that this was OK and even necessary: to trade off leaving one of us at home, when we can't get a babysitter), including two outings for me this past weekend spending time with friends and just hanging out and having people to talk to. And, partly inspired by Anya's big leaps in development, I finally called and took her to a Montessori development center/preschool, which we both loved and which we plan to keep attending once a week, for a 1.5 hour "class" each Thursday morning.

Tonight's outing for me, since Dan is scheduled to do a poker night with the guys this Friday, was to take the Consulate season tickets to the local "Spartak-Primorye" basketball club's game against "Ural-Great." Again, this is something we have been meaning to do, as the tickets rotate around among the few interested employees at our post, but somehow we have not gotten around to it. Tonight I went with our neighbor and Dan stayed home with Anya, and I think it's safe to say that I'm hooked! It was surprisingly fun to watch the team, cheer along with the locals, sit through the gyrations of the dancers, admire Spartak's mascot, Lyosha the Tiger, scan the public and observe Russian hoops fan behavior (many of them do wear team colors -- I was mildly pleased we'd both coincidentally worn red sweaters), and try to figure out how the Americans on the 2 teams felt about playing out here in a small arena in Vladivostok. And it was of course all the more enjoyable since Spartak pulled out a win in the end, inching back from about 8 or 9 points down from about 4 minutes remaining in the second quarter to finally put themselves over the edge with a couple of foul shots with 20 seconds left on the clock.

What we're eating:
a lot of spicy Thai instant noodle soups, since we got about $50 worth from ThaiGrocer
more homemade sourdough bread (Anya loves it)

What we're listening to:
Feist, The Reminder (it -- especially tracks 2 and 9 -- can't help but lift your mood)

What we're saying:
Manina = Marina (our nanny)
kusay, kutay = kushai, or eat! in Russian
yakki = yucky (often in reference to a diaper change)
zaika = rabbit in Russian (referring, of course, to rabbit-bear, her favorite stuffed animal, who is "beah"/bear in English)
pat = pants
hatch = hat
aissee = icy (a very appropriate observation much of the time)
uppitti = upstairs (or downstairs, for that matter)
hail = hair
bop = bread
koo-kee = cookie, but really means almost anything starchy
appo = apple, but really can mean any fruit, also interchangable with "peah" for pear
pokka = poka, or "bye" in Russian (now said with very good pronunciation when someone is leaving, and accompanied with a wave)
kah = car, or any little car-like toy that has wheels
zeppa = zipper, still a favorite
mekk = milk

Oh, and another rather big recent achievement: Anya recently learned to use a straw and now can drink (with supervision) out of an open glass by slurping up through a "trubochka." Luckily in Russia cafes and restaurants give straws out even to adults without asking, so this now it's pretty easy to give the kid a drink while out!

From the Southern Hemisphere

We are a little over half packed (and a little under half baked) and getting ready to get back on a plane tomorrow midday and do that journey all over again (10 hours to Singapore, 5 more to Seoul, this time an overnight in Korea, and then the 2 hour flight back home to Vlad).

Since it's still fresh in my mind and my eyes while we are here, I figured it was wise to make an update now, rather than when we're back home, once all the preoccupations of life there take over.

[Sorry for the formatting -- I've got to figure out once and for all what I'm doing wrong. For now I need to leave this as is and fix it later.]

What we have been spending our time doing:

not sleeping (especially for the first 4 days or so)

greeting the morning with a "caw! caw!" in homage to the hadidah ibis birds that are so prevalent and which wake us when it gets light at about 4:30am)

visiting parks, botanical gardens, game reserves, and zoos

eating lots of breakfast with Loren, our fellow egg worshipper

rearranging the onions, limes, and tea boxes in Loren and Caroline's kitchen

enjoying sundowners and other cocktails in and out of the house with Caroline and Loren

sleeping (thankfully, more in the last couple of days/nights -- just in time to undergo readjustment back home!)

driving between Johannesburg, KwaZulu-Natal province's premier state game reserve, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi, and Durban

communicating with various friends and colleagues to determine whether a stay in Dushanbe, Tajikistan is really in our future

charming the pants off of people (primarily the diminutive ones in our group), especially in our gorgeous party dress at the wedding (pictures to follow on Flickr)

What we are saying:

[the vocabulary is shooting skyward so rapidly that this is of necessity going to have to start being less exhaustive than previously...]

pissi, pishi, shi-shay = fishy

pay-tay = pencil

pay-day = PJs

beow = beer and/or bear

om = down

up = up

heppah = help

koo-kay = cookie

manna = banana

soss = sauce (including ketchup)

tuh-tuh = turtle (as encountered in the bathtub)

tickah = circle and/or tickle

teba = zebra

pala = impala

toe-uh = towel

toh = toe

pee-ah = pear

ack! = egg

hadda = hadidah

yeh-rah-yeh-rah = yeah, right; yeah, right (as heard among the big people in conversation)

tade = shade

What we are listening to (a selection):

Born to Run on the road through Nongoma

Sticky Fingers in Newcastle and on the road through Vryheid

sounds of the bush (and unfortunately from time to time the whining of a less-than-interested toddler) in Hluhluwe reserve

What we are eating and drinking:

Kingklip-Prawn Jalfrezi from the Indian restaurant in Norwood

Diemersfontein pinotage (a LOT, before, after and during the wedding party)

much biltong and draewors

South African fastfood on the road from Hluhluwe to Durbs (and lots of chips/french fries all the time for the little people)

huevos rancheros a la Landau

delicious "tuk-tuk" cocktails from the kitchen of Caroline and Loren (involving passion fruit, ginger ale, and vodka, among other blended ingredients)

fruit and nut bread from Woolworth's

A Little Pre-South Africa Update

What we're listening to:

Can't get away from those Tiny Cities (I forgot to mention last time: this album holds a special place at least in my heart, since we played it constantly during the first couple of weeks after bringing Anya home from the hospital, when we were just figuring out that she was a pretty colicky baby. This was the music to which we did that legendary baby-soothing shuffle that folks from Marc Weissbluth to Harvey Karp love to talk about)

Pierre Akendengue, Espoire a Soweto (OK, so we won't be staying in Southwest Township exactly, but we are getting pretty amped up for our South Africa trip)

La Bamba: Sones Jarochos from Veracruz

Ravi Shankar, Three Ragas



What we're saying:

ball: "baw," "bah," "boe"

water: yes, "wa-wa" does appear to mean all things liquid, from milk (sometimes interchangeable with "nam-nam"), to water or juice, to coffee, tea, wine or beer (referring to when big people are drinking them), to water from the faucet or in the bathtub

diaper: "day-ba"



(OK, I hope you won't get grossed-out by a few bathroom-related words, but, hey, that's life with a toddler...)



ca-ca: I guess this one's universal. I can actually see where the word may naturally arise from, since Russians encourage babies to make a little grunting noise when trying to go to the bathroom, and it's really just a slight shift from there to "ka-ka"

pee-pee: "pay-pee" (easily confused with "bay-bee" but decicedly not the same thing)



Clearly our bathroom related vocabulary is growing, even if the connection made between relieving ourselves and actually hitting the pot is not yet really within our (OK, just Anya's, thankfully) grasp.



A: "ay" (Usually quickly followed by "Anya," in recognition of what most important function this letter often fulfills. [Yes, I think that a combination of the A-shaped Anya cookies and the talking Alphabet Pal toy my mom gave Anya for Christmas is surprisingly helping Anya really recognize the letter A, and say its name correctly. Pretty cool.])

cock-a-doodle-doo (which in Russian basically translates to "ku-ka-re-ku"): "kakaraga"

peek-a-boo: "pyka-paw" (rhymes with "Ty kuda," as in "where-ya-go, where-ya-go")

ice: "ais" (and the recent weather here, hovering around -12C, but going down to -20 last night, has given us plenty of opportunity to practice that one!)



What we're eating:

homemade sourdough bread, made from daughter-starter scooped from the jar of our neighbor, Noriko

(Anya especially likes sourdough grilled ham and cheese sandwiches)

Ginger chicken a la Madhur Jaffrey



What we're reading:

I am on an 18th century jag -- finished the masterly, truly inspiring New York Burning, and now am on to The Speckled Monster, but am reading it intermittently with The Oracle Bones.

And surely I will pick up something interesting in South Africa, too.

A New Year's Sampling

The New Year's season in Vladivostok has brought some renewed social activity and, especially during the long break from work that is now a pretty well ingrained tradition in Putin's Russia, some new wintry activities.

The interesting thing to me about a lot of these New Year's events is that, despite having spent a bunch of time in Russia before, I guess since that was without a kid and sometimes involved taking advantage of the holidays as a time to get away, I never got to see some of the things Russians associate very closely (and enthusiastically) with New Year's.

I should note that, thanks to the official atheism of Soviet times, Russian New Year's encompasses a lot of the kinds of celebration that Americans associate with both Christmas (and in fact also Thanksgiving, given that it comes so close to Christmas) and New Year's. You get the family-oriented time of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the gift-giving traditions of Christmas, and the dress-up, go-out-and-party ethos of New Year's all rolled into one holiday. And even though anyone who wants to is now free to celebrate Orthodox Christmas, it seems like this latter holiday is either more singularly a religious occasion, centered around the church and spiritual life, and/or an added chance for family-centered gift-exchanges, rather than supplanting the familiar New Year's traditions for which I can now fully see Russians have a great fondness.

Thanks to a friend from VladMama, Anya and I both experienced our first "Yolka," the traditional children's New Year's party that takes its name from the holiday fir tree that is its centerpiece. Kids apparently tend to go to more than one of these, or probably as many as their family can afford, and at the very least a morning New Year's party (utrennik) with all the same trappings we experienced is de rigueur for those who attend preschool in Russia. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the utrennik for an American is the fact that all kids wear costumes to the party (as our nanny Marina confirmed for me, if we were to go to the party in just regular clothes or even party clothes, people would definitely think we were weird parents). So, after I first fretted over how to make time to go and buy a costume, and what might be the least amount of money I could get away with spending on it, Marina came to the rescue and reminded me that the Jack-o-lantern costume she'd seen tucked away in the closet would make a fine costume, and had none of the associations with Halloween here that might have caused a few raised American eyebrows were we to wear it anytime outside of October in the US.

So we set out to the VladMama-sponsored party as a "tykovka," a little pumpkin, together with our friends Nina (fellow VladMamochka) and her daughter, Vika (who was dressed as a princess). It was really quite a morning, especially since the smaller of our pair (well, heck, and the larger of us, too) is not all that used to interacting with very many others at one time, especially not a crowd of excited, screaming kids, running around in all directions in anticipation of Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost, or the twentieth-century version of Santa Claus that is still very much a Russian cultural icon).

There are some videos of this on YouTube: two help you to imagine the jubilation that was on display even during the preparatory stages, prior even to Santa's warm-up act of a Rabbit and a Wolf with a very witty repartee, and probably a full half-hour before Moroz made his big appearance and had us hopping and touching our toes and guessing various things and dancing around the holiday tree. All with his usual sidekick, the beautiful young snow-bunny Snegurochka. The third video shows Anya off to the side, reveling in the miracle of the Velcro that was intended to hold her costume on, and ignoring the kids and moms dancing in a circle and awaiting the time of the party when Moroz would hand out the presents.

Imagine my surprise when it turned out that we had not really flown under the radar, but that "Tykovka" was actually one of a handful of guests at the party who were discussed and admired online on the VladMama forums. The general consensus was that Tykovka was a real cutie.

What other parts of Russian New Year's did we experience for the first time, with fresh eyes, or with a new twist? The work/professional New Year's party, now in its post-Soviet incarnation (we splurged for the VIBA [Vladivostok International Business Association] Christmas/New Year's party). We do not yet have photographic or video evidence, but Dan was an avid (if reluctant) participant in the silly reverie that is the adult version of the children's utrennik. (My armchair interpretation of why Russians are so extremely fond of New Year's is that not only do adults engage in some heavy nostalgia during this period, everyone gets to be a kid during the extended festivities -- and much more than we tend to in American Christmas or New Year's celebrations.)

[As you might have gleaned from this post, our closer look at post-Soviet New Year's has given me new interest in this as a cultural and historical phenomenon. If you're curious like me, here is one interesting (Russian) article I found exploring some of the roots of the familiar twentieth-century New Year's traditions that Russians continue to enjoy, and which themselves continue to evolve, today. And here is a blurb and photoessay tracing the New Year's Yolka from its 1936 reintroduction into Soviet life up to the (recent) present.]

We also -- again thanks to my friend Nina -- were able to see the latest cinema craze to hit Russia: a sequel to the very classic New Year's movie "The Irony of Fate (or, Happy Steaming!)" (that is obviously a rough translation: the parenthetical part of the title refers to the engine of all the mischief of the 1975 original, where vodka plus banya plus a trip to the airport plus the monotony of Soviet architecture and city planning equal mayhem on New Year's Eve). The annual viewing and the antics of the plot easily bring to mind a Soviet version of "It's a Wonderful Life." The 2007 version of the New Year's movie has a similar scenario of mistaken identity and mistaken location playing out among the adult children of the pair(s) who were central to the original movie. And in grand Russian capitalist style, it featured loads of annoying product placements. But it was fun -- so much so that I planned the following day, December 31, around the scheduled TV broadcast of the original.

Finally, what else? Well, probably that's it for New Year's and maybe I should leave it there, and promise to report on the more general outdoor winter sporting and recreational activities at a later date. You can see some scant pictures of this on our Flickr pages.

And now for an update in other categories...:

What We're Saying:

ah-choo!: "Aaah-TCHEEE!" (Cf. What We're Listening To)

water?!: "wa-wa" (so far almost exclusively, in the two days I've noticed it used, in reference to a cup or bottle of some liquid)

hi: "hai," "ha," and sometimes even an honest-to-goodness "hi"

Edgar (the cat): "Adda," "Agga"

Sanchez (the cat): "Didi," "Didji"

omelette: "omma" (Cf. What We're Eating)



Responses:
1. Question: What do ducks say?

Response: "Wock, wock!"



2. Word said: Bear (teddy or otherwise)

Response: [smile, close eyes, hold hands and arms to tummy] (= hug!)



3. Shape seen: "A" (Cf. What We're Eating: Anya cookies)

Response: "Aing!" (or even "Anya!")



Points to in response to the word:

Ears, eyes, mouth, teeth, nose.

Also much pointing to head and recent fascination with belly buttons (own and parents').



What We're Eating:

pan-seared duck breast with mushroom-red wine reduction sauce, with spinach salad

(fancy night! thanks to Dan)



omelettes

(Hot Feeding Tip from Anya Kronenfeld: If your toddler refuses to eat something, even something she ate with gusto just yesterday, or even this morning, just cut/mash/puree it and add it to scrambled egg and a little milk to make a pan-fried omelette. Fool's 'em every time!)



cassoulet

(mmm! but rich -- note to self: limit portion size next time)



Simple Things: non-instant oatmeal ("Gerkules" to Russians) with fruit (dried or fresh) and brown sugar almost every morning; chicken and rice/arroz con pollo with homegrown windowsill basil; roast vegetable and Molinari's pepperoni and salami pizza


"Anya cookies" (see below for recipe)



Recipe for Anya cookies (with apologies to Joy of Cooking):

Cream 1/2 c. white sugar with 1/2 c. unsalted President butter.

Beat in 1 tsp. vanilla from your belated honeymoon to Tahiti;

2 Ussuriisk eggs;

2 1/2 c. sifted all-purpose flour;

2 tsp. double-acting baking powder, Clabber Girl, brought from home;

1/2 tsp. salt.

Chill 3-4 hours (or 3-4 days) before rolling.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Roll on a lightly floured cutting board. The play rolling mat from your old toy baking set will do just fine.

Use your only cookie cutter (heart-shaped), or look for something in your shape-sorter toy (especially suitable is the "A" shape for "Anya) to use as substitute cutter.

Place cookies on greased cookie sheet. You may decorate them with sugar, or sugar and cinnamon. Makes several days' worth of extra-small not-too-sweet cookies that little girls named Anya love very much.



The Most Unlikely Toys From Around the House:

A ribbon

Your winter hat with the ear flaps

Measuring spoons and cups, preferably in a combination of plastic and metal

Tupperware

Bibs



What We're Listening To:

"Jim Gill sings the Sneezing Song and other Contagious Tunes" (especially good for laughs: The Sneezing Song; Cf. What We're Saying. also fun, esp. when mom pantomimes: Silly Dance Contest)


Sun Kil Moon, "Tiny Cities" (songs from Modest Mouse in a very different mood)

Some Local and Far-Away Observations

You know you've been in Russia too long:


When you find yourself, on autopilot preparing the next batch of baby food, having put both oatmeal and cabbage soup on the kid's menu
(As the Russians say: "shchi i kasha - pishcha nasha," or "cabbage soup and porridge are our bread and butter.")


When you cross a rustic urban courtyard and notice only on your exit, not on your arrival into the space, that that fishy smell was actually the raw sewage in the open holes in the ground enclosed (in a generous reading of the situation) behind ratty wooden doors dangling from their hinges -- what suffices for public toilets for at least some of the people who work and live in the surrounding buildings

(Yeccch - it never ceases to amaze me the extent to which Russians are willing to put up with the most primitive toilet situations.)


When you steer clear of huge potholes that still lie beyond the rise in the road and haven't yet entered your line of vision, because you sense that you need to avoid the part of the road that's given you a nasty jostle before



What we're saying these days:

Daddy ("Dadji")

potty (with alternate pronunciations of "pah-tee" and "pah-dee," which inevitably spiral into "ab-dee" - "ab-bee" - "abbi" - "appi")

"Bay-do," "Bay-joe," "Bed-jah" (most likely Anya-ese for Edgar, the more appealing of our two cats)

Mommy (both the more American "Mah-mee" and "Mamie" (as in Eisenhower), and even sometimes "Mammy" (?))

"buh-buh-buh" (repeated in a staccato in response to the question "What does a doggie say?")

"Gah-ghee" (cf. buh-buh-buh; probably "doggie," but also possibly an experimental take on "Dadji")

"bit-bit-bit" (said sometimes in response to the question "What does a froggie say?"; missing the "rib" part of "ribbit")

"tiku-da-tiku-da-tiku-da" (mumbled quietly and rhythmically while padding about any given room in the house; we think this is like the equivalent of her walking around muttering "whe-ya-go-whe-ya-go-whe-ya-go": Marina probably says to her "ty kuda, Anya, ty kuda?", Russian for "Where ya goin', Anya?" when the kid is wandering around in circles, all business-like and focused)

"ka-pah-ka" (cf. tiku-da; sounds most like "Bye-bye" in Russian, and was indeed accompanied by Anya's version of a wave (closing and opening a folded hand at face level))




Impressions and memories of our Bangkok trip:


Anya surviving in large part on these sweet, miniature-sized Thai bananas that we bought in huge hands and kept (on hand) to feed a picky girl


The sliver-to-chunk of skyline visible above the woven plastic upward-extending shades on the side of the water taxi; locals pulled down on the attached bungee cords to lever the shades up and avoid a spritz of the canal water (probably a wise idea), but we were kind of marked as tourists on a primarily commuter line, preferring to just look out at the view


The amazingly vibrant street life, full of commercial activity, especially full of food and drink for sale; people walking all over the place drinking fruit juices and Thai iced coffee from plastic bags with handles -- apparently the local version of a to-go cup


Whizzing along downtown boulevards, and past a zillion images of the King, in a puttering little "tuk-tuk" motorbike taxi; Anya losing her pacifier off the side of one of them


Everybody and his cousin setting their banana-leaf floats on their way, bobbing in the canal below us, while we ate dinner at a combination streetside cafe and sports bar (note, toward the end of the video, the outdoor bigscreen TV showing UK football matches to a sometime cheering Thai crowd)


The fluttering and chanting at the very top of the Golden Mount