S'Wonderful

Submitted for your consideration: WONDER VISION!

 

Isn't that a riot? I get handed this at one of the Metros now and then. I love how Stevie is, at long last, freed from the darkness. Free at last, free at last!

In other news:

• Cat-O peed in the tub this morning. Uh-oh.
• Someone stole ALL my umbrellas. I kept them in a brass pot on the landing outside our front door. They have been there for TWO YEARS. The whole mess o' them disappeared last night. Crap kid umbrellas. Nice new IKEA umbrellas. The umbrella I bought at Crate & Barrel last summer. Who would take ALL my umbrellas?
  

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Thanks, Kate, for the tip!

Oh, the Weather Outside Is Frightful

Yesterday afternoon around 3:00, I suddenly looked out the window and realized something was different:

Same scene, about 9:00 p.m.

Playing with the flash. Now you can see the snowflakes. And the Continuing Hell that is Moscow Rush Hour. It's after 9:00 in the p.m. people!

And, again, this morning:

The sidewalks have been swept, so they should now be Nice and Litigiously Slippery. Perhaps today is the day to try out the YakTrax I brought back from the US.

Seriously, though. This is what I signed up for. If I am going to live in Moscow, I want it to be snowy.

Snapshot: Moscow on a Monday

Things are actually sort of normal here, Chez Beet. By that I mean everyone who was supposed to went to school/work this morning. And the temperature outside is actually -3C.

Much more what one would expect for Moscow in December, no? None of this +6C rubbish.

I got roped into accompanying Skittles' class on a field trip today. So what follows are some snapshots I took along the way.

But first, for your reading pleasure, I have included a vivid image of "Hell As I See It." Or maybe as I "Feel" it.

Imagine, if you can, that you on your way to the school wearing a pair of tights with a dress. And the tights are, apparently, older than you realized.

As are your undies. Elastically speaking.

So old, in fact, that midway between your front door and the Metro, you realize that the tights are not only sagging, but they are actually sliding down off your body.

Pulling the tired old undies with them.

Your bare behind is al fresco, albeit covered by your dress and coat. But, baby, it's still cold outside!

Now imagine ducking into alleys and trying to PULL UP said undies and tights without flashing Greater Moscow.

Good times.

I'll try to erase the horrific image now undoubtedly searing into your brain, by sharing some slightly more Family Friendly Shots.

I'm not really sure which museum we visited with the class today. My best guess is that it was the Museum of Packaging. Which sort of makes sense because I vaguely recall another mother saying once that her kid's class went to what she thought was a Museum of Labels. It could have been this museum.

There were lots of labels.

It's a very small museum, just one room, really. On my map that block of Novaya ploshad is marked "Polytechnika Museum." Maybe . . .

The kids heard a lot about packaging, however. The history of glass containers, paper, barrels, cardboard.

And we saw some packaging.

Yuri Gagarin on matchboxes, for example.

My Star Dog friends, Strelka and Belka on a tin.

Then kids got to play with all sorts of cute things other kids made out of recyclables. 
I swear, the little guy on the left looks like he has the words E coli on him. 
It can't really say E coli. Can it?

This doll was made out of candy wrappers. Isn't she fabulous?

This fairytale illustration was also made from candy wrappers. 

Note the icon made from an Alenka chocolate bar wrapper.

Here's Alenka again, this time masquerading as a Mexican Madonna.

But enough of the Mystery Museum. Let's go back out and hit the streets, tights and undies still dragging.

The shrubs are all wrapped up for winter now. 
This site is a shady sidewalk cafe during warmer weather.

The Russians are really into the Chinese New Year animals. 

Everywhere you look now you see tigers for sale in anticipation of the upcoming Year of the Tiger.

This is an illustration of how much I confuse the two alphabets now. Recently I have seen a lot of people on the Metro reading a book called Legends of the Arbat. I can actually read that in Cyrillic. The title, that is. Arbat, in Cyrillic, is Арбат. I actually thought, at first, that this was a poster for a movie version of the book. It's not. It's for the movie Avatar.

Duh-oh!

Jewelry Makes Me Feel Funny . . . But Don't Let That Stop You

Like anything for sale in Anthroplogie, I get all . . . GIMME, GIMME, GIMME! when I look at jewelry. I don't know why. Half the time I acquire pieces, and then I don't even wear them.

I just want them.

WANT THEM!

In Anthropologie, I'm so overwhelmed that I never buy much.

BECAUSE I WANT EVERYTHING!

But especially the bedding.

Like that's all going to fit nicely in my suitcase.

I also have a lot of very nice jewelry from Robert Redford's catalog.

Back before we had kids and I still had a Job-Outside-the-Home, I used to mark up catalogs as a sort of entertainment. I just wanted to consider the items for a while, but I rarely, if ever, ordered them. Like shopping at T.J.Maxx or Odd Lots: sometimes I just like to put the items in my cart for a while. But then, I put them back. I got to have them for a few minutes, and I wasn't that much happier for having done so.

One year around Valentine's Day, The Spouse uncovered one of these Wish-List-Catalogs and ordered everything in it that I marked.

It. Was. Great.

Almost as good as the year he went to Burdine's and got me a lovely sapphire and diamond ring, and even though there was a purse-snatching in progress, the clerk held on to him like grim death, thoughtfully suggestive-selling him other items while her colleagues begged her to "Please, give us the phone!" and then "Please, dial 9-1-1!" because the perp had shoved the victim down and she had bonked her head. Every time I wear that ring I wonder if that poor anonymous shopper is okay.

That was The Valentine's Day to End All Valentine's Days because that ring was the Grande Finale in a series of gifts that also included

• The Largest Garfield Card Ever
• A Dozen Red Roses
• A Whitman Sampler 
• and the thing I wanted most . . . dinner at the now-defunct Las Puertas in Coral Gables, Florida.
  

He really outdid himself that year. I don't think he's reached those heights since.

Anyhow, I was bopping along, reading comments on a recent post by one of my very favorite serious bloggers,* and I found a comment by the woman who has this site.

I've been a very good girl, Santa. Can I please have this?

 Or this?

Preferably both?


* She's not "serious" as in "humorless." She's serious as in "seriously makes me snort my coffee out my nose, that's how hard I am laughing."

These Boots Were Made for Walkin'

A while ago I bought these winter boots.

You need to know, if you care about me at all, that I used to be REALLY EASY TO SHOP FOR. Shoe-wise, that is.

So easy, in fact, that my mother used to call me The Imelda Marcos of the Midwest.

Seriously. I could buy shoes from catalogs. Alas, those days are long gone.
I'll spare you the details of my Podiatric Hell. My kids are probably the best people to ask about how annoying it is now to go shoe shopping with me.

Why can't I find stylish, dare I say it, CUTE shoes that don't hurt?

But I digress.

I found myself a nice pair of winter boots. Stylish enough. And, oh, so comfortable.

Then, one day, a few weeks ago, tragedy struck.

On my way out the door to get the children from school, the zipper on my right boot suddenly refused to zip. I pulled. I swore. I got the tool box out and tried to find a way to maximize my leverage. Or maybe it was my torque.

Nothing doing.

I tried, in the late afternoon gloom that is Moscow in November, to see if I could identify what was wrong with the zipper teeth.

I had to go get my reading glasses in order to see the black zipper on the black boots in my dimly lit hall.

I even applied soap, hoping to entice it to S-L-I-D-E. No luck.

NOTHING LOOKED AMISS. What the hell was wrong with the stupid zipper?

Eventually I was able to get the zipper zipped past the Problem Area. I was even able to get my foot in the boot. But the zipper gaped open below the Problem Area. And proceeded to get worse.

Oh, spit.

After consulting with my trusted Moscow Expat Friends, I confirmed what I suspected:

• Russian women break boot zippers, too.
• Boots are expensive.
• Any of the Shoe Repair Kiosks all over Moscow ought to be able to repair or replace the zipper.
• I should expect to spend about 200 rubles ($7US).
• Which is less than I was quoted to replace a much shorter zipper in the Ancestral Village this summer when I took in a pair of ankle boots I essentially trash-picked out of the detritus of my father's third wife's belongings. (They have fur around the ankle, and are CUTE CUTE CUTE. But not as comfortable as my tall boots. No way.)

There is a nice shoe repair kiosk in the Mall-Under-The-Street about 800 meters from my door.

Just far enough that I want to make sure the shop is open before I go over there. It's not on my way TO anywhere I regularly go.

So, of course, I went over the other day, carrying my one boot in a bag. And even though the sign in the kiosk window said it should be open, it wasn't.

So I got to take my boot to the grocery store.

Harumph.

The Spouse said he would go with me on the weekend, but then he ended up in the hospital. I wore the boot anyhow, feeling like everyone in Moscow was Staring at The Gap in My Zipper.

I'm sure it was barely visible to the naked eye, but I was very self-conscious.

So yesterday I thought I would try again.

I girded my loins, put my boot in a bag, and marched off to the repair kiosk.

Let me just tell you that December 3 shall henceforth be known as Saint Shoe Repair Dude Day. Because Shoe Repair Dude fixed my boot zipper!

Yes, he had to faff about with it a bit, going through the same WTF?!-It-Looks-Like-It-Should-Work-Just-Fine Analysis I did.

He got out tools, and then different tools, and then still different tools.

I was frantically practicing in my head just how I was going to mime "Can I pick it up tomorrow?" when he suddenly solved the problem, demonstrated it several times for me, and charged me 50 rubles.

That's like a buck seventy-five.

I was so grateful that I bought a tube of Super Glue and some black shoe polish from him.

Well, not grateful, exactly. But feeling guilty cuz I only had a 1000-ruble note.

This was the high point of my day. I'm still all giggly about my Newly Refurbished Boot.

Sad, isn't it.

Love This Site

I don't usually push this sort of thing because I am, essentially, very lazy myself.

But I happened to notice that this particular contest ends tomorrow. So I can't whine and grovel and annoy you about it for very long. Especially since I will probably forget all about it myself in a few minutes anyhow.

But if you have a moment, be a love, eh? I'm curious to see what would happen.

I mean, if you don't, things could get ugly.

I'm just saying.

BEFORE and AFTER

BEFORE: Wednesday, 5:17 p.m.

AFTER: Wednesday, 7:17 p.m.

He was sent home with three drugs (one inject-able) and the cardiologist's blessing to do whatever he feels up to doing. Follow up on December 7. Cleared to fly. And drink wine.

Food Is Love

I was the recipient of an EXCELLENT good deed today. See, the Festive-Spirit-Peace-On-Earth-Good-Will-To-Men thang has reached even here in Moscow where it is already dark as I type at 3:22 in the p.m.

The Spouse has been in the hospital, lo these many days. But fret not! He is due to be sprung later today. In fact, as soon as I post this, I'm going over to the hospital to hang out with him. For. The. Last. Time.

Yay!

And Yay! for the Interwebz, which is how I met Fellow-Blogger-in-Mockba-Girlfriend. The other day Fellow-Blogger-in-Mockba-Girlfriend told me she was cookin' up a mess o' marinara sauce and would be sending some my way.

Today was the day.

She called me this morning to say she was going to have someone bring it over to me and was now alright?

Are you kidding me? Homemade spaghetti sauce delivered to my door? You betcha now is alright.

And, sure 'nuf, about 20 minutes later the Delivery Dude called to say he was out front, so I scampered down to the street to be handed the MOST HEAVIEST GROCERY BAG EVER.

There was, like, a GALLON of sauce in there.

Mmmmmm. Sauce.

I was thinking, "Gee, I'm down to a crust of Parmesan cheese . . . I'll have to duck into the grocery store on my way to pick up Skittles from school."

(As you may recall, while Baboo is Quarantined for Strep, Skittles is still forced to attend school. It's been like that scene in Madeline when all the little girls cry, "Boo! Hoo! WE want to have our appendix out, too!")

But I digress.

Do you know what Girlfriend did?

Girlfriend included a wedge of  Parmesan cheese in the Care Package!

A GINORMOUS wedge.

Do you have any idea how expensive Parmesan is here?

Sauce, cheese, and even a bag o' pasta! Girlfriend is THE BEST!

This is not just dinner. This is love.

I will pay it forward. I promise.

'Tis the Season to Be Jolly!

The Spouse is being released from the hospital later today.

Film at eleven.

Is It Happy Hour Yet? Somewhere?

Oy, such a day I've had of it. And I'm nowhere near done.

Got up at 6:30 after a very restless night's sleep (Baboo being sick and me fearing swine flu).

Took Skittles to school at 7:30.

Stopped by the grocery store on the way home.

Called doctor's office across the street to schedule Baboo a look-see. Got an appointment for 12:30.

Now 9:15. Ran over to see The Spouse and bring him clean clothes. Stayed until about 11:00, then came back home.

Checked email, called the insurance company, tracked down some needed documents before running out the door (late) for Baboo's appointment.

Thems some UGLY tonsils, girl!

Met the Fabulous Dr. M who first treated The Spouse. He checked out Baboo, diagnosed strep, not swine flu, and sent us home with horse pill antibiotics. So glad I didn't just go to the pharmacy and mime that I wanted anti-viral meds!

Largely because I couldn't remember "Tamiflu." All I could think of was "Theraflu."

Baboo is 43kg/94.6 lbs and 154cm/60.6 in/5ft.

In an attempt to nurture myself a little, I am now roasting a gorgeous big, fat chicken with clementines and butter and garlic and parsley under the skin. And I made a big pot of potato soup.

I'm sure the kids will shun both.

While at the hospital this morning, The Spouse reported that he was told that there was NO WAY he'd be sprung on Wednesday. He needs to be in for at least a total of ten days.

Further, no gym after for quite some time (I don't know what this means) and no walking to work (with dropping off the kids and then walking to and from work, he walks 7 km/day). Again, I don't know what this is going to mean. Obviously, I'll be taking the kids to and from school now.

The last I heard the doctors seem to think sitting at a desk and flying in planes are the culprits. Not sure how to get around either of these things either.

I guess all will be revealed.

Comic relief follows. Alternative captions encouraged.

Basement Cat Cat-O Is in the Box

Now Basement Cat Crooky Is in the Box.

I still get to run back to school in time to collect Skittles at 5:30. Then I can relax.

UPDATE: The Spouse reports the tentative release day is back to Wednesday. That's day-after-tomorrow Wednesday!!!

Nooooooooooo!

When I arrived at the hospital this morning a little after 10:00 a.m., The Spouse was slightly more chipper.

They let him have coffee with his breakfast.

Ah, the simple pleasures.

While I was there the Doctor On Call stopped by to take a look-see and have a chat. Once he discovered The Spouse speaks French he switched from Russian to French, and then I was able to follow a bit better.

What I learned:

• This is likely NOT hereditary.
• It is likely NOT due to his height
• Other than the fact that being so tall makes it difficult to sit comfortably in chairs and on airplanes.
• He is, for whatever reason, prone to producing blood clots in his legs which have traveled to his lungs.
• But only to his lungs.
• And only to small veins/arteries/blood vessels in his lungs.
• And only to the lowest part of the lungs (which is the best place if you are going to have clots in your lungs).
• His blood pressure has been in the normal range, and his blood oxygen fine since yesterday (when it was actually better than when he checked in on Thursday night).
  
• Christmas travel is NOT necessarily ruled out, especially now that he is being treated. But we will make the final decision the week we intend to travel to the US.

While I was there the babysitter called to say

• The electricians are here to replace your electric meter (which has NEVER functioned in the TWO YEARS we have lived here)
• Baboo is sick and won't leave our bed.

So I scurried home to find Baboo with a

• Sore throat
• Fever of 101F/38.3C
• Aches
• Irritability

Oh, spit.

That's all we need.

She responded well to Advil and while she's not feeling totally okay, her fever came down and her mood lifted. But if she's still poorly tomorrow morning I'm marching her across the street to the doctor and keeping Skittles home, too.

In the meantime, I have managed to find myself with little anyone wants to eat in the house.

Fennel anyone?

How about some beet salad?

Aw, c'mon! It's GOOD!

Maybe I can leave them long enough to run out for carry-out pizza.

Hospital Stay: Day Two

I couldn't sleep when I got home last night, so I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. drinking wine, playing Bejeweled on Facebook, and listening to two episodes of Criminal Intent.

Woke up at 7:45 a.m.

Probably wasn't a good idea. I tried to have a bit of a nap around 9:00 a.m., but just couldn't do it. Up is up.

So eventually, I dragged my sleep-deprived ass over to the hospital.

No Spouse.

But soon he returned, chagrined because they made him ride around in a wheelchair. He had just come from Ultrasound where they determined there was nothing wrong with his legs.

Then a neurologist came in and questioned him at length about his headaches (This guy thinks they are NOT migraines but, because they begin at night, have more to do with the position of his neck when he sleeps, and you know what? I think the dude is right. But that's another blog entry.) and did a full examination of his reflexes. Determined no brain damage (since there was/is this clot in his lung, and we are now starting to suspect it has been there since 2000, who knows where else clots may have landed?), but tomorrow will be What IS in His Head? Day with MRIs and other scans to make sure. After I left, they did some heart scans and plan to do more and different ones tomorrow.

Blood clots generally form in the legs, which was why they examined his legs. When they break off they land in either the lungs, the kidneys, the heart (causing a heart attack), or the brain (causing a stroke). And one of the tools/tests they use to evaluate if someone has inappropriately clotting blood is called D-dimer.

The doctor at the French clinic ran a D-dimer test on Wednesday night after The Spouse returned from his day in the Russian Hospital. If I understand correctly, a normal reading is below .5 and The Spouse's was .7. Last night the staff at EMC ran another D-dimer, and this time it was 1.3. This suggests to me, expert that I am, that, for whatever reason, there is more clot formation and disintegration going on, and that cannot be good. I mean, I'm guessing that maybe the clot in his lung is breaking down (good), but its residual rubbish is now floating merrily around and could land who knows where (bad).

Good thing he's on anticoagulants now.

I haven't been there for The Chats with the other doctors, but, from what The Spouse reports, they all suggest a strong tone of "Jeez-us! You Dodged THAT Bullet!"

They also believe, based on lengthy probing of The Spouse's medical history, that the chest pain incident in Miami in late 2000 was related to this, as was another chest-pain/trip-to-the-cardiologist event in Bratislava a few years back.

They cannot believe he flew to Paris last week in Cattle Class. Nor that he went to the gym several times this week (he usually goes 6 days/week) and did an hour of cardio each time.

Not that exercise is bad, mind you.

All of this makes me far more creeped out NOW that he is being treated than I was yesterday when he was wandering the streets of Moscow as volatile as Krakatoa in the summer of 1883.

Word today is three- to six-months of treatment. They will not release him until they figure out WHY he has these clots.

I spent the afternoon taking pictures.

The Ostankino Tower in the distance.

Lactated Ringer's Solution . . . yummy.

It's hard to play with your Blackberry with one hand. Here, he was responding to work emails with "I'm hooked up to my IV right now, so you'll have to figure it out without me."

There is a rocket in front of the Armed Forces Museum that you can see from his window.

Comic relief: this was on the way home. I thought the blue neon says "SUSHITERIA,"

but now I think it only says "SUSHITERRA." Not so funny.

This is funny. This is a Spicy Tuna Roll.

The Thing I Fear Most

I remember being in Argentina and The Spouse ended up in Miami for a project that was supposed to close but didn't for weeks.

It dragged on and on with me down there and him in Florida.

During all of this he called me one evening to say he was alone in the office and, oh, by the way, "I'm having chest pains."

I believe my response was, "Why the hell are you talking to ME?! Call Reception before the lady who vacuums finds you on the FLOOR UNDER YOUR DESK!"

Frankly, I was relieved he was in Florida, not so much for the healthcare delivery but because my big fear has always been that something would happen to him and I would have no one to deal with the children.

How do you even get someone to an Argentine hospital in the middle of the night when the kids and all your friends are sleeping?

Thankfully, I never had to find out. And the diagnosis that time was muscle spasms probably due to job stress.

In the last week we've had a similar situation.

Patient presented with what was at first hard-to-define chest pain (I thought it was a rotator cuff injury initially), no fever, trouble inhaling at times, and occasionally coughed up blood.

Pleurisy?
TB?
CANCER???

Wednesday he finally went to the French place across the street where a VERY concerned GP sent him to a Big Russian Hospital out by Izmaylovsky for a chest scan.

Which ruled out lung cancer, but did confirm pleurisy and identified something in his lung right where the pain was.

He came home with pain killers and antibiotics and instructions to check in Thursday (yesterday) for word on all the blood work they did.

Seems all those symptoms are the classic, textbook definition of pulmonary thrombosis, otherwise known as blood clots in the lungs.

So The Spouse was instructed to

1. Leave work immediately and
2. Get over to the hospital. That very evening. Please.

So here is what I have learned so far:

1. I have lots of friends who are willing and able to help out. Kids slept over with one family, and we even got a ride to the hospital (although it is very close, and I walked home).
2. Blood clots can land in the lungs, the heart, or the brain. Seems we won that spin of the roulette wheel.
3. Yes, it can be a fatal thing, but it is very treatable with blood thinners. That just requires a few days in the hospital usually at first because blood thinners are, essentially, rat poison, and monitoring is encouraged. But after that the patient can typically go home and take a prescription.
4. The smell of freshly cut hay? That's produced by a natural anticoagulant.
5. EMC has a LOVELY new facility near the Olympic Stadium.
6. We're not sure what caused this (the broken ankle in 2001 is a possibility, as is job stress).

I went with him to the hospital last night where he was examined again, had a hep lock installed, and was assigned a room (on the website you can see the funny, pointy-end of the building that is all glass . . . that's what he has). They gave him some drugs (I'm guessing IV heparin, an oral warfarin/coumarin-type drug, and a sleeping pill), and I left at midnight as he started to doze off. I should be allowed back after 10:00 this monring. I want to run by his office and pick up some toys (MP3 player, etc) and hope I can hang out with him until school is over at 4:30. Not sure if kids can visit.

At the moment we think he'll have to stay until Sunday, but it all depends on how he responds to the drugs.

Let the Holidays Commence!

The question has been raised: what DO we Americans listen to at Christmas if we don't listen to those UK favorites?

What follows is a sample. I never said these were better. Just the devils we know.















And my personal favorite . . .sing along, with me!



Finally, I have to add this song. I had never even heard of this singer before Loyal Beetnik Katbat mentioned him in the Comments. Then I found a mention of him in The New Yorker on the same day. He's a friend of Lyle Lovett's. How have I never heard of him? The song epitomizes everything I miss about the US of A--the good, the bad, and the ugly.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

You wouldn't think living in Slovakia and Russia would teach me about British culture.

Oh, the wonders of Sky.

Anyhoo . . . what I wanted to say is that I now know all sorts of interesting things about British culture.

Like how they use the word brilliant all the time, sometimes shortening it to, God help us all, brill.

Pants are not to be worn on the street. Well, not without something over them.

Just say the words fanny pack and watch the reaction.

Moreish has nothing to do with the Alhambra.

Fancy dress does not mean black tie optional. (I just learned this the other day.)

Christmas (or Crimbo . . . yes, they say that) brings a WHOLE 'NUTHER realm of cultural differences: the Brits have endless favorite Christmas songs THAT WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF.

All of which receive endless hours of airplay on the video channels.

Yes, I know.

It isn't even Thanksgiving yet.

After you listen to these Classic Christmas Favorites (should that be Favourites?), you'll wish you hadn't. Because you won't be able to stop humming them. And some of them are JUST AWFUL. Or weird. Or both.

You have been warned.

I'll start with one you might know. It's even in HD for your viewing pleasure.



I kind of like this next song. Well, I did the first one hundred times I heard it.



We always thought this was just the Tesco theme music. Guess not.



I'm really sorry about this next one.I had never heard of this band until I read Touching the Void. One of the guys talks about how he has a Boney M song stuck in his head the whole time, and he can't believe he's going to FREAKING DIE with a Boney M song stuck in his head. I think having this song stuck in my head makes me want to kill myself. That's what I think.

But if you stick it out until the end, all FIVE minutes and THIRTY-NINE seconds, you get a surprise.



I love Paul McCartney. Really, I do. But honestly, I will hum this song for the next FOUR weeks and hate him the entire time. And now you will too. Heh heh.



This one isn't so bad.



This is pretty, but sort of melancholy.



They really do say Happy Christmas instead of Merry Christmas.



But our VERY favorite Weird British Christmas Classic here Chez Beet, is this little number. It is disturbing on so many levels.



Kind of makes that American tradition, the annual Day-After-Thanksgiving-Shopping-Hell known as Black Friday or, say, having your teeth drilled, pleasant in comparison now, doesn't it?

And Now for Something COMPLETELY Different

Here are photos of British Humour Night taken by the bar's photographer.

The Germans sketch

 

 

Neil's monologue

It's the Arts sketch

 

Lysistrata

 

 

BRITISH HUMO(U)R NIGHT 2, Some Highlights (Thanks Alice!)

D.A.R.E. to . . . What?

I was all in a lather and ready to fire off some rapier-wit snipes to this columnist because this time she really has GONE TOO FAR.

But, in the end, I decided it is best to treat her like a misbehaving toddler and just ignore the behavior.

Instead, I bring you some good karma.

Do you know about Operation Beautiful? Go check it out.

Isn't that nice? Talk about your random acts of kindness.

I have a Facebook Friend who always posts lovely positive affirmations. And not in a Stuart Smalley way. Not that Stuart isn't wonderful, you understand. But FB Friend lacks Stuarts self-doubt.

Speaking of D.A.R.E., there seems to be something up at the French school. We got the following email from the PTA:

Subject: Information prévention des conduites à risque‏

Chers Adhérents,

Monsieur LXXXXX , Proviseur du lycée, nous charge de vous informer que l'intervention concernant la prévention des conduites à risque aura lieu dans les classes 4ème à Terminale pendant la semaine du 30 novembre, une séance plénière destinée aux parents sera programmée. Ces interventions seront conduites par deux experts français.

Bien Cordialement,

Le bureau de l’APENG

Even I understood this. It says something like

Dear Folks,
We're going to have an intervention regarding risky conduct for those students 8th grade and above.

So it doesn't apply to us. But it set The Spouse and me to puzzling: what kind of risky behavior?

"Doesn't say it's limited to flu," mused The Spouse. "Might be passing out condoms, for all I know."

But then we brainstormed a little and came up with this list:

• Crossing the Garden Ring while not using the underpass.
• Publishing an article about human rights abuses in Russia.
• Being on the street late at night or at any time if you are from Tatarstan.
• Not using the sidewalks in the winter.
• Using sidewalks in the winter.

Guess we'll have to wait a few years until our kids are old enough for L'Intervention.