I'm in the Lead!

At least for the moment. Thanks to everyone who has been voting for me. Here's the link again.

New Cat Update: While Crooky is cute, she has hygiene issues. I've had to clean klingons off her little behind twice in two days now. I'm sure it is a common issue with longer-haired cats (and I have never owned a long-haired cat before). Possibly it is a result of not having time with Mama for sufficient training. Whatever the case, she is less welcome on beds and furniture than she once was. Not without Butt Inspection anyhow.

Original Cat Update: I offered Cat-O Sheba brand cat fud yesterday. This is cat fud that looks so nice, I would even consider eating it. Again, he did his burying-something-foul gesture and walked away. This is a cat who once hooked a slice of hot dog I had put in his dish and flipped it out in disdain. He just wants his crunchies. And a little plain yogurt now and then. Thank you.

Book Recommendation: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana by Stephanie Elizondo Griest. I've only read the part about Moscow so far. And while it is slightly dated, it is also a very good description of life in Russia. Here is a link to the author's site with a description of this book.

Ice Update: Coincidentally, the Moscow News had this story about slippery streets last week. Apparently, City authorities had recommended elderly citizens "refrain from going out alone." I guess the buddy system isn't just for sharing a bottle of vodka.

Smut Update: While I hate to give this woman any more publicity, she is sort of like a bloody car crash: you can't help looking. I would also like to take this opportunity to deny rumors that I am her/she is me. I write much better sex scenes than she does. Unfortunately for you, I must wait until The Spouse and my mother are painlessly beamed up by aliens before I can share those writing samples with you here.

The Bigger They Are . . .

I keep forgetting to take my camera with me when I go out so I can document for you the state of the entrance to our building. Today, I finally remembered.

On the Plaintiff's Steps, the individual steps are obscured by the ice that wraps itself over the edges. One false move, and you will slide off and land in The Lake of Doom.

Today is much better: the Lake of Doom has shrunk a bit, and you can see that the building maintenance crew has sprinkled some grit on the steps.


Yesterday, I encountered an old lady with a shopping schlepper standing, helplessly, on the far side of the Lake. The only way to continue on what I loosely call "the sidewalk," was by walking on the lowest step: the Lake covered the entire sidewalk. I saw her there, dithering about how to navigate the journey. Abandoning my own groceries and any attempt to speak Russian, I just started saying, "WAIT! WAIT! I will help you!" I took her by the arm and led her across.

If I understood her properly, she said, "WHAT a winter!" And, given her age, I'll bet she's seen a few.

Skittles fell down on the way to school yesterday. Baboo has Wednesdays off, so it was just Skittles and The Spouse. They had barely reached the corner, when Skittles went down in spite of the fact The Spouse was holding her hand.

As she got back up, muttering, "Well, THAT was fun," The Spouse went down. Feet-over-his-head-cartoon-style down.

It was to be his first fall of the day.

The second came last night as he walked home from the local expat hangout/bar. He was talking to me on the phone about who he had met there when suddenly I heard a crash and a curse.

It is a very helpless feeling to shout, "ARE YOU OKAY!" into a phone when you can only imagine your words, spilling out on the other end into the dark Moscow night.

Thankfully, only his pride was wounded.

I cannot begin to imagine navigating Moscow's winter streets while on crutches.

Humor the Proud New Owner

So the blog has (temporarily) turned into Grandma's Brag Book. I'm very sorry. Bear with me just a little longer. A vigilant Beet-nik specially requested more cat pix, and who was I to refuse?

Here is the little angel with Cat-O. Look! They're sleeping together in the Cat Chair! Awww. So cute!


Here's a pretty good shot of The Tail. It's a riot, this tail.

Today, I opened a pouch of that smelly Cat Fud. I divided it between two bowls and offered each cat its own bowl.

Crooky ate hers.

Cat-O smelled his. Then he began to paw at the floor near the bowl. As if he were in the cat box. Burying.

He's done this before when he has inadvertently tracked poo from the box to some other part of the house. He realizes something smells BAD, and makes as if he were burying it. It's a dead give away for me that I need to look carefully and see what needs to be cleaned up.

So when he did it next to his bowl of Cat Fud in a Pouch, well, I guess it really does taste as good as it smells.

Not.

Meet Crooky

Because of the crooked tail.

My uncle said the words "Siberian Forest Cat." The national cat of Russia. Sounds good to me.

In Which We Let the Cat Out of the Bag

The Cat arrived.

"Primo" bides his time.

In other Moscow news . . .

While out today, we saw a Cinderella carriage drawn by two white horses. On the Garden Ring. That's a little like seeing a horse-drawn carriage in the middle of the Indy 500.

Then, while walking through one of those "Under the Street Underpasses," we saw a guy playing Mack the Knife.

On a saw.

And not particularly well.

Baboo said, "My day just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

She's So Cold Like an Ice Cream Cone

Current Temperature: A very balmy -6C
Snow: Um, yeah. Non-stop since about 2:00 this afternoon.

I would be humming "We're havin' a heat wave . . . a tropical heat wave . . ." if it weren't for the snow that suddenly started this afternoon.

It was in the -20C range over the weekend. I, wisely, remained inside most of the weekend, except for an hour on Sunday when The Spouse and I dragged ourselves to the bank, the pet supply store (to buy what a dear friend refers to as "shitty-kitty"), and the grocery store. Everyone has been sick, and it was a good excuse to hibernate indoors. Not that we ever do much more on the weekends anyhow. Just this time there was not even a smidgen of guilt.

It's a fun bug, with a painful, unproductive cough that no drug, NO DRUG can lessen. Made all the more annoying by the fact I wet my pants every other time I cough. Worse than the unfortunate Trampoline Incident of 2002. I tell you, Midge, I am kegeling my brains out here. I ought to be able open a beer bottle by now. Why can't I cough with confidence? Why?

On to prettier thoughts. Below is a picture of the window in the door in our bedroom. This is the interior door (most Moscow doors and windows are double). The room was toasty warm . . . or I was in and out of fever/chill cycles all weekend and didn't attribute temperature changes to the environment. I was not so delirious that I couldn't see that the pattern in the frost was lovely.


Today the water guy arrived with our delivery of drinking water. It was early (between 8:00 and 9:00 . . . they start delivering at 8:00) and the bottles of water were partially frozen. A first for me, actually.

Can you see it in the photos?



Today was one of those odd Mercredi Liberés (Free Wednesdays). Both girls were home, and I had a mission: Clean Their Room.

I announced my plans yesterday. Since the girls had no school and The Spouse's workday does not technically begin until 10:00, we could have a more leisurely morning. He was fed and gone by the time the water guy arrived. I told the girls that we could relax until 10:30, but then we were going to be cleaning demons with lunch at the pizzeria across the street as our reward.

We commenced cleaning on schedule at 10:30. We stopped at 1:30 with 95% of the work done. We changed sheets, picked up clothes, straightened bookshelves, threw away junk, filed magazines, dusted every flat surface (including under the bed), vacuumed, and wiped up paint spills. It was dirty, sweaty work, but their room looks (and smells) right pleasant now.

We went to lunch.

Then we went to the grocery store.

As we left the grocery store with our purchases, I said to the girls, "This is pretty much what I do while you are at school, you know. Minus the nice lunch out."

Baboo says, "I hate your life."

Skittles says, "See . . . this is why I am going to GET A JOB."

Brrrr.

In Other News . . .

A vigilant Beet-nik drew my attention to these three stories from today's Moscow Times.

First, Aeroflot passengers rejected their pilot, suspecting he was drunk. Turns out he was. My favorite quote:

"I don't think there's anyone in Russia who doesn't know what a drunk person looks like," said Katya Kushner, who, along with her husband, was one of the first to react when the pilot made his announcement. "At first, he was looking at us like we were crazy. Then, when we wouldn't back down, he said, 'I'll sit here quietly in a corner. We have three more pilots. I won't even touch the controls, I promise.'"

Then, it turns out that the pilot of the flight that crashed in Perm last September tested positive for alcohol.

Investigators said Medvedev [the pilot], who was due to land the jet, passed the wheel to another crew member, saying, "You see yourself that I can't," the report said.

Nice.

Finally, a helicopter full of VIP's crashed in a remote part of Russia last month, killing everyone on board. Turns out the VIPs were senior government officials shooting endangered argali sheep from the air.

Oy. [smacks forehead]

Moscow in the Cold

How Did It Go?

The short answer is that if I have enough vodka, I can do anything. Including singing badly in front of a friendly crowd. No stage fright, so now I'm invincible. Look out.

Perhaps the funniest moment was early in the set, when the emcee (a fellow expat) invited me and J to the mic to join in on what I was sure was Brown Sugar. . . NO! Worse! After googling lyrics, I realize I was expecting Honky Tony Women.

Anyhow, intro complete, we all inhale and open our mouths. I sing, "I met a gin-soaked bar-room queen in Memphis . . ."

The boys sing, "Mustang Sally . . ."

I don't even know the words to Mustang Sally. Well, I can doo-wop, "Ride, Sally, ride!"

Which is what I did.

Quietly.

To myself.

What followed was a barely passable rendition of Dead Flowers and a caterwauling of Back in the USSR. Then lots of dancing, more drinking, good fun, and an early escape to have me home by midnight.

Note to Self: If you're going to jump around like that, you better Kegel more. Got it? Good.

Hungover, but ebullient (in spite of the fact someone beat me with a baseball bat all night, right? I mean I feel like someone beat me with a ball bat . . .), I even took pity of the poor, sickly Spouse (he now has the same bug Skittles had . . . and she now coughs like a barking seal, but has returned to school), and escorted the children to school in his stead. On the Metro, having dropped the girls off at school, I made a Metro Matron smile!

What I call the "Metro Matrons" are the very Soviet style women who sit in little control booths at the bottom of the escalators. Apparently they can bark orders at you through the PA system, although I have never seen that. But I never tried to eat a piece of pie on a Metro escalator like a less fortunate friend told me he once did. His pie eating resulted in a stern dressing down.

The Metro Matrons are fierce and humorless and very, very serious about their jobs. It has long been my goal to make one of them smile. But rarely am I even able to catch their eyes.

Anyhow, this morning I was approaching the bottom of the escalator when I caught sight of the woman working this particular booth. She was very matronly, broad and buxom, sporting the best big, white, bouffant hairdo this side of Dollywood. In her severe Metro uniform. The whole look just cracked me up, and I smiled.

She caught my eye and smiled back at me! It was a lovely little moment.

I can now leave Moscow.

Forget Gold. Invest in Zucchini!

Just a little look at how crazy food prices can be in Moscow. Maybe my perspective is off because I've been an expat for so long. It is possible that I have 1999 American prices locked in my head and everyone else has moved along except me. If so, please tell me.

But here are some things I bought yesterday at my grocery store. This is not, by any means, the most expensive grocery chain in Moscow. It is what I would call mid-range. I am in the center of town, and things always cost more here. But still. There are much more expensive places to buy food.

Below is the price label on chicken breasts. You can see that they cost 266.90 rubles per kilo, the package weighed slightly more than a kilo (1 kilo = 2.2 pounds), and the price for this package was 270.37. As I type, the exchange rate, which has been very much in flux as of late, is 32.9 rubles = $1US. Let's use 33 rubles to the dollar to make the math easier.

I paid about $8 for a little over two pounds of boneless, skinless, chicken breasts. Not cheap, but within the realm of reasonable, right?


Moving on. Red, yellow, and orange bell peppers are, as I recall, always more expensive than green ones. Below you see that a kilo of "premium" peppers (this one was orange) costs 275.90 rubles/kilo or about $4/pound. I bought one pepper, and it cost $1.54 (51.04 rubles), which seemed okay to me by Moscow standards.


I had seen James Martin's show about Brittany on TV this past weekend. He and a chef friend made a sort of cauliflower and cheddar cheese mash that looked really good. Certainly the classic low-carb answer to mashed potatoes. I thought it would go well with the Parmesan chicken I was planning to make.

I looked at the small heads of cauliflower, but rejected them because they were well over 200 rubles apiece. Like in the 230 ruble range. A head of cauliflower, CAULIFLOWER! costs something like $7. Forget it.

I decided to get zucchini instead. I selected two average-size zucchini. I took them to the woman who works the scale to get them weighed and priced.

Two zucchini . . . a little over a pound of zucchini (700 grams) . . . cost me $8.50. More than the freakin' chicken breasts!


Now, I get 15% off my total bill through a combination of specials the grocery store has been running this month. But still. Four-Dollar Zucchini? What's up with that?

The Metro, Like Elvis, Never Disappoints

So I'm on the metro today, heading to school. The car isn't crowded at all. It is the first stop for this line, so I have a whole bench to myself. Across from me is a young, professional-looking guy with a newspaper.

"Pssst."

I hear a sound. I look up.

Dude has just opened a bottle of beer. He's discreetly cranking a brew while he reads his paper. The time: 2:15 p.m.

Only in Moscow.

Shameless Self-Promotion: Wednesday and Thursday nights are regular expat happy hour events at a local joint called Papa's. I have an expat friend here, let's call him J, who, like me, has a rotten birthday date. Mine is New Year's Eve. His is New Year's Day.

Once, a while back, I whined to him about how my birthday never lives up to my (very unrealistic) expectations.

I don't want much. What I want is a gathering where my friends are all there. This is virtually impossible when your birthday is New Year's Eve because everyone is scattered to the far corners of the earth. I want a place, like the bar on Ally McBeal, where everyone knows my name. With a great house band. And where my friends and I, from time to time, get to join the band on stage for a song or two.

In my fantasy, I'm doing just that: singing, with no stage fright (in spite of my exhibitionist qualities, I have terrible stage fright). The Rolling Stones walk in. They play a few songs with the band. And I get to sing with them.

That's all. Not so much to ask.

J, of course, agrees with me. So much so that he takes the idea and runs with it. So now, on Wednesday, J and I will sing Dead Flowers with the band du jour at Papa's. I am also supposed to sing Back in the USSR. We'll see. Not sure if there is enough vodka in all of Russia . . . But this is one of those Life Check List items for me: get up and sing in front of a friendly crowd.

You're welcome to stop in if you're in the neighborhood. The band plays from 9:00 until 11:00.

More Shameless Self-Promotion: I completed a sort of interview about this blog here. You can vote for the blog through that link. Look for the image below once you get there.

I don't know what this is going to get me. It is a little late in the month for me to win Most Votes for January. But it could be fun. Vote often! Tell your friends!

This Is Normal. Well, Here It Is.

Yes, I know, loyal Beet-nik. Two posts in one day. No, I don't have a million more productive things to do.

I have been trying to get pictures of this for some time now. When it snows, the building maintenance crew goes up on the roof to clean it. Since we are on the top floor, I can hear them up there, tromping around. Sometimes they even access the roof through our stairwell, and I can hear the locked gate squeak when they pull it open.

Most days, all I can see is the occasional shovelful of snow raining down past my windows. Today, I got lucky.

The sound of shovels scraping on pavement creeps into our dreams at night. Teams of Central Asians hit the streets as the snow falls and work around the clock to clear sidewalks, parking lots, and, well, roofs.

This morning I could hear the shovels and a small snowplow in back of the building. They also had someone with a bullhorn shouting to, what I finally realized were, the guys on the roof.

These pictures were taken while standing on my stepladder in the kitchen. The glass in our windows is so wavy, I had to use an open window to get decent images. Don't worry: the opening is quite small. No risk of falling out.

Looking at what they were doing, I see that they do not clear the entire roof. The weight of the snow must not be an issue. Or at least not today. What they are doing is clearing the downspouts, probably to prevent icicles.

Icicles are a formidable hazard in Moscow: people are killed by falling icicles every winter. The City has strict ordinances about keeping icicles off eaves. As a result, you often see workers knocking them off the edges of buildings. To protect passersby (from both random falling icicles and snow/ice thrown off the roof by workers), they cordon off the sidewalk in question with what looks like crime scene tape. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, this usually results in forcing pedestrians to walk in the street. This rock-and-a-hard-place is one of the many unique features of Moscow life.

Below: there's more than one guy up there. Here's his snow.


The ladder you see is, indeed, our fire escape.



When I first got to Moscow, I thought these low roof fences were to keep the snow from falling on people. In Vienna, I saw a simpler, more stylized architectural feature that served to hold snow.

Then I realized the fence was to keep YOU from falling off the roof.

Beta vulgaris

Note to self: that's the Latin name for beet.

A Vigilant Reader sent me this link for the evil black radish (Raphanus niger). I especially like the bit about how they "have a strong bitter flavor and are often responsible for bloating." Shudders.

But let us clear our minds of such unpleasant thoughts.

Let's talk about chocolate.

One of the blogs I follow posted this today about a Russian chocolate brand called Alenka. I am familiar with Alenka chocolate and its lovely, very Russian-y packaging. I buy it sometimes. However, because the product name is written in italic, I had no idea what the name of the brand was until this morning when I read the article.

An aside: Don't get me started on the script or italic Cyrillic . . . letters change completely in the switch from block print to this. I can read regular Cyrillic well enough to sound things out. But when it's script . . . and you would be amazed how many menus are . . . I don't even try. But the handy chart below, although cut off, highlights the six most drastic differences.

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Back to chocolate.

The beaming child's face always reminds me of Baboo as a child.

And, on my very first trip to Moscow, I saw the Alenka advertising on the outside of the main Detsky Mir store. Not knowing about the chocolate, I thought it was an ad for the Russian toy store, and, in any case, was impressed enough by the image to take a picture of it. I remember talking about the irony of how this serene image was on the building right next door to Lubyanka, the former KGB headquarters.


Then, sometime last school year, Baboo told me she needed several of these chocolate bars for a school project. She was very specific, "The ones with the baby on them."

The result came home a few weeks later in the form of a Mother's Day tribute. A very clever art project, too.

In Which I Am "Beet-en"

I love beets. I truly do. I make a mean beet salad that even beet-o-phobes will eat. I haven't had beets in a while, so when I saw this recipe on The New York Times site, I thought "Yum!"

I buy some beets. They seemed to be on special and were packaged a bit differently. Still, beets are cheap: one of Moscow's few bargains.


The interesting angle in this recipe is that the beets are peeled and diced before roasting. I peeled myself a beet. It looked wrong:


More alarming, it smelled wrong. It smelled . . . earthy and all. But with a familiar piquancy that is decidedly un-beet-like. I couldn't quite put my finger on it . . .


I call The Spouse.

"What's R-E-D-softsign-K-A?" I ask him. "Is it some kind of beet?"

"Um, nooooo," he says, not unkindly. "It's radish."


Radish?

Fuck.

I can't roast a radish.

"Do you think I can roast them?" I float the idea to The Spouse.

"No." He's pragmatic. "It's a radish."

Internet to the rescue.

I google "radish recipes" and come up with a few salad ideas. Radish and Fennel Salad looks good. I have a bulb of fennel. I even have a new food processor. Slicing veggies extra thin will be a breeze.

This I do.

I take the lid off the processor bowl.

The radish fumes make my eyes water.

I try a slice.

It is thick and woody and HOT. And not in a good way. Like horseradish hot. These are mutant radishes. What, do they come from Chernobyl?

I pick the slices of radish out of the bowl, toss the fennel with olive oil, and stick it in the oven to roast. At least I have a Plan B.

I was going to roast some carrots to go along with the fennel until I opened that package. I think the carrots came from Ukraine, too.

A Star Is Born? Errr, Maybe Not

Just a little preview from my experience with the Russia Today crew yesterday. The show is called Moscow Out, and will air Friday, January 30.

I volunteered to do this. This episode is titled "Moscow in the Cold," and I was the guest. The show has also covered ballet and opera, winter sports, palaces, dating and Valentine's Day, Russian cinema, the local airports, and so on. I don't know how I got matched to this particular topic, but it was fine by me.

The crew picked me up around 1:00 in the afternoon. First, they took me to an ice sculpture park off Prospekt Mira. The funny thing about this place is that, for someone who doesn't really get out all that much, the entrance to the park involves walking through the lobby of a building that also has a restaurant where I sat and had drinks on Saturday night. But on Saturday I had no idea this garden was behind the building. Had never been there before, and now I've been there twice in one week.

Note: I'm wearing The New Coat.


This path featured ice sculptures in an "Around the World" theme. There was an Eiffel Tower, a Leaning Tower of Pisa, Copenhagen's Little Mermaid, the Statue of Liberty . . . that sort of thing.


Then we went over to Patriarch's Pond. I do like this area. And the light became so golden and lovely. This is a completely staged shot of me talking to Martyn, the host of the show. We did it just so I could have a photo.

No Zamboni. Just a guy on a tractor with a plow and a giant brush. But the surface of the pond is smooth enough for skating if you BYO skates.


There will be a YouTube video available once the episode is finished. In the meantime, I found this one which gives you an idea of what the show is like. The list of museums is interesting and there is even a bit about the ice sculpture park that was filmed at night with pretty colored lights. We didn't get to see it that way since we were there during the day.

I Owe, I Owe, So Off to Pay I Go

Have I explained how one pays bills in Moscow?

I pay bills in one of two places: either at the Post Office (like I did in Slovakia; I pay the house phone bill this way) or at these free standing machines found all over town.

I use these machines to put credit on my mobile phone. If I do it at any old machine, the machine company takes a commission (maybe 1% . . . I can't remember). But if I do it at the machine in the phone store (which is right next door to my bank . . . very convenient), then the machine does not take a commission. If I have my act together, I do it this way.

Yesterday, The Spouse reminded me that I needed to put more money on our СТРИМ (STREAM) account. As STREAM is our Internet provider, this is important to me. STREAM also provides our local cable, which is important to The Spouse and who was watching Law & Order dubbed in Russian when we had this conversation.

He told me to put 1300 or 1400 rubles on the account.

This morning I went to the grocery store because I had some things to pick up and because there is one of those machines just inside the door.

The machines do not make change, so I needed to buy groceries first. I had three 1000-ruble notes and some small bills (but not enough to deal with the STREAM account). My groceries came to 1032.03 rubles. Apologetically, I handed the clerk two of my 1000-ruble notes.

"Don't you have anything smaller," she asked. "Not even a hundred?"

No, I lied. I did not. My hand to God, this was all I had. I fished out 2 rubles and 3 kopecs for her. I'm not a total asshole. She dealt with it and all was forgiven.

Then, with my three bags of groceries, I went to the machine by the door. Many places in Moscow have double doors because of the cold. At my grocery store, there are two machines in the space between the two sets of doors. So when I enter the Sedmoy, there is a set of automatic doors, and then a very small foyer with the two machines and a DVD vending machine (we think this machine burns copies to order for about 300 rubles or around $10). And a portable heat blaster. Then another set of doors.

I try one machine, but it doesn't seem to handle STREAM. I do this every month, but I can never remember. In the meantime, a guy has stepped in front of the other machine and begun his transaction. The heater is going full out in this tiny space, and I am starting to sweat in my (new, down) coat. Thankfully, he is a pro and finishes quickly.

I stab at the touch screen until I find what I want. But the format seems different this time. I have to chose between two options. I don't remember seeing this before. Shit!

I call The Spouse. I will read the options to him over the phone, and he will help me. Oh. But that means I have to say the words (for some reason I can't send photos from my phone since we moved to Russia . . . this account doesn't let me).

Better start practicing.

While the phone rings, I sound out the words to myself.

Duh-oh! HURRAY FOR COGNATES! It wants to know if I want to identify my account by account number or phone number! I have the account number; I save it in the address book of my mobile. That's what I usually use. I stab at this option with my finger.

The Spouse answers the phone. I can't talk to anyone now! I need to look up the STREAM account in the phone address book.

"IhadaproblembutIsolveditIwillcallyoulater!" I tell him and hang up.

STREAM account number successfully entered, I feed a 1000-ruble note into the machine. The screen reflects this. I feed in 100 rubles. And another 100 rubles. And another 100 rubles.

Damn. The commission seems really high. The Spouse said to put in 1300 rubles, but after the commission the account doesn't have that much.

The heat is getting to me.

I feed in another 100 rubles. Now the account balance says something along the lines of 1320 rubles. I wish someone would come in or out of the store so the damn doors would open and I could get some cooler air.

But what if he said to put 1400 rubles? Rats! I can't remember. I think he said "1400 to be safe." Heck, in that case, another 50 ought to be enough.

I feed in a note.

The screen announces I have 1900 rubles worth of credit.

Shitshitshit! I have just fed in a 500-ruble note instead of a 50-ruble note.

Oh well. It will just sit there in my account until next month. When I have to do this again.

*****
Wanna know a secret? In about an hour, I am going to be interviewed by a Russian TV station for a show about expats in Moscow. I'll post all the details when I get back.

Keeping Up With the Joneses? Keep It to Yourself

Call it hormonal mood swings, but I am apparently fixating on the similarities and differences of my fellow expats' experiences here in a manner that is extremely vexing and offensive to The Spouse. What I call "Looking out my window and making observations" seems to come across as "Hey! How come you're such a lousy provider?"

Certainly not the intent at all. I probably deserve a sound smack.

Take the volatile nature of real estate prices in Moscow. When we arrived here a year ago, at the peak of the pricing bubble, I thought The Spouse negotiated a very reasonable price with an even more reasonable annual increase. In the months since we signed, I have friends here who have had their landlords approach them, in spite of a signed contract, and ask for increases. They've had to pay up or move in many cases. Some have gently referred the landlord to their contract and escaped unscathed. But not all.

Since the economic downturn began in the fall, I've observed the reverse: tenants approaching landlords to ask for a decrease in rents.

Obviously, all of this begs the question "Does anyone here honor a signed contract?"

Yes, people do. But anyone who has lived in Eastern Europe has experienced the signing of a contract followed by the almost immediate disregard for it.

So, on the one hand the contract protects both sides from abuse. On the other, am I being a fool for not playing the "When in Rome Game"?

The Spouse is tired of discussing it.

He also doesn't want to hear me describe anyone else's situation, housing, or benefits package. Again, it never occurred to me that making observations would feel like judgments. I can understand that, and, of course, feel awful about it. But, as the accompanying spouse, I clearly have no idea what it feels like to be the one who brought the family along. Obviously there is a huge sense of responsibility coupled with inevitable (and unnecessary) guilt.

One of the other (many?) weird things about being an expat is that you are often sorted not so much by your socio-economic background as by your native language or passport cover. Yes, at home there are always wealthier neighborhoods and, even, wealthier neighbors. But I always found myself more or less among people who were pretty much on the same page.

Here (and, as I think about it, in all my expat gigs) it is quite easy to mix among the extreme ends of the spectrum. Some folks are here as students, doing the backpacker thing, using Lonely Planet guides to find adventure and stay on budget. At the other end are the company managers who get large and lovely apartments, drivers, and international school tuition all provided courtesy of the employer.

We are somewhere in the middle.

We have a comfortable life.

We are even saving money in the World's Most Expensive City.

But it is impossible not to measure oneself next to other expats. It isn't always even a catty thing (although, I won't lie: sometimes it is). The urge to talk about what I see is irresistible. Sometimes I find an appropriate ear with a girlfriend. But sometimes it seems like the only person I can talk to about this is The Spouse.

Clearly not recommended.

Chalk it up as a lesson learned. Some things are better left unsaid.

ABBA Redux

I am loathe to revisit ABBA. Somewhere, and I am unable to verify this, I read that record numbers of people received the Momma Mia! DVD for Christmas this year. As delightful as the movie is, I want, more than anything, to stop humming the songs all the time. ABBA, as a concept, has resulted in some pretty good chuckles recently. These I will share with you.

First, I have to explain that in 1977, I was an AFS exchange student to Australia. That summer I remember being forced to listen to a lot of ABBA, which I, in my 17-year-old American snugness, was already way past (this was all long before Muriel's Wedding made ABBA cool again for me).

I was seriously into Wings that summer, and, in fact, could not believe that my mother refused to mail me my copy of Wings Over America while I was Down Under for two months. The nerve of her. How unreasonable. I also recall humming a lot of Leo Sayer (specifically "When I Need You").

My point is, I was living squarely in my glass house. Rolling my eyes whenever my Australian classmates put on an ABBA song. I distinctly remember a much younger girl telling me how she was so moved that ABBA had vowed always and forever to record "only in Australian." Oh, she was going to be a fan for life because of that.

I think I managed not to snort in disbelief while in front of her. I mean, she was sweet and oh, so sincere.

Fast forward to Christmas 2008.

The Spouse and the kids are watching Momma Mia! with the subtitles on.

"This is wrong!" The Spouse says, incredulous. "They have the subtitles wrong on 'Dancing Queen'."

He reports that the DVD says

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, dig in, the Dancing Queen

Dig in? Dig in? I always thought it was "Dig it! The Dancing Queen." (And I support my position that others heard it this way because when my girlfriend who hosted the Christmas Eve party sent me photos of us singing, she titled the email "Dig it, the Dancing Queens.")

No, no, no, says The Spouse. It's "Diggin' the Dancing Queen."

Much arguing ensued. I mean arguing of a "I don't think I can stay married to this asshole another moment" caliber. Followed by much googling.

Sure enough. Every source I find says "dig in."

Out of the Mouths of Babes

"Do you know why there are no stained glass windows in Russian Orthodox churches?" Skittles asked me as we walked home from school this afternoon.

I had never thought about it, actually. But now that she's mentioned it, I don't recall seeing much stained glass here.

She learned in school that the traditional Russian Orthodox churches felt it was inappropriate to create holy images on something breakable. This is partly why icons have so many layers of paints, says she.

Possibly. What do I know? But it sounds like I'm getting something for my tuition money. But I would love to hear from anyone who has any expertise on this.

Coat Update: It's warm and so incredibly light! I've never owned a down coat before. I can leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's a bird! It's a plane! NO! It's the Expatresse in something that doesn't weigh a ton.

Weather Underground: We were supposed to get a Big Snow yesterday. It did snow, but it hasn't been a big deal. The streets are clean. The sidewalks, however . . . Ugh.

I think the City of Moscow has a policy about not using salt and other chemicals on the streets and sidewalks. In fact, there was an article in the Moscow Times last winter about how the City vowed that they would not use anything that could ruin your shoes. "If your shoes get ruined, bring them to us for a full refund!" they even promised. Yeah. Right. Like I have a lifetime to wait around for that.

Instead there seems to be a policy of using sand, clay, cat litter, and clumps of mud to provide traction on the slick surfaces. This results in the muddy, buttery sea of slush that gets tracked into the farthest reaches of your house even if you remove your boots outside your front door.

Then there is Roof Cleaning/Icicle Hazard. People die every year from falling icicles, so building owners and management are right vigilant about removing snow and ice from roofs. I often hear the building crew tromping around on our roof after a snow. I can see the snow falling past my windows as they shovel it off.

To protect pedestrians while roofs get cleaned, many buildings have barricades made up of what looks like crime scene tape and odd ball fencing. Yes, this forces me to walk away from the building walls, but more often it forces me to walk in the street where I get to play Dodge 'Em with the drivers. Truthfully, the streets are always easier places to walk in terms of ice. But the risk of being sprayed with brown slush (at least) or flat out squished by a car makes it a real rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma.

Easy solution: take the metro! Bonus: today we saw a guy on the metro with a white ferret. The ferret was snuggling in the crook of his arm with far more affection than Cat-O ever shows us. The girls were enchanted.

That's Moscow: derelicts pooping in public one day, exotic pets on the metro the next.

Doesn't That Just Take the Cake?

You may be asking yourself just why a woman with a mink coat needs a new winter coat.

The Spouse asked the same thing.

He bought me a lovely mink coat in 2003 for Christmas or maybe it was my birthday. The dollar was strong against the Slovak crown. I had just finished a Year of Hell (complete with hate mail) as president of the Bratislava International Women's Club. Relatively speaking, it was a bargain. I loved it.

I still love it. However, I did not consider how the style might be more or less effective in different cultures. The coat has a loose, almost "swing" cut. Perfect for dramatic exits from taxis on the steps of the Opera House. Standing around at the Christmas market drinking mulled wine. Make-'Em-Jealous photo opps in front of Parisian Grands Magasins.

Oddly and in spite of the fact that it is fur, it is not designed for daily treks through Moscow streets. First, the loose cut and bell sleeves allow for a certain amount of air flow. The wind blows right up it. Brrrr! I can layer sweaters and fleeces under it. Makes me look like a mink Michelin Man, but I am warm. Second, it doesn't lend itself to having a purse or backpack worn across it: the fur industry people all say this will result in visible wear. Yikes. Finally, while fur can tolerate moisture, it isn't really suited for wet weather. A seriously soggy snow or rainy day with temperatures just above freezing, and this is not the garment. Moscow has a lot of cold and wet days.

I had two other winter coats. But one has a shredded lining. Not only is the hem falling (this I could, if truly forced, fix by hand), but the inside is in ribbons. And on extremely cold days, the sleeves, not as thick as the body of the coat, leave my arms like icicles. But it has great, deep pockets. And a very high neck. And it is stylish. I love this coat.

My other coat was a B.S. (Before Skittles) J.Jill purchase. I have photos of me wearing it while pregnant with her. I was a bigger gal then, so it, too, is too large. But it does support layer-wearing. It is not at all flattering. And the buttons have popped off three, THREE! times this winter alone. But it is a coat. And I can carry Baboo's fencing gear backpack while wearing it.

The Russian women wear such lovely winter coats. Okay. I confess. I wanted a new coat! I bought my ideal coat for Baboo on sale at Detsky Mir last spring: knee-length, down-filled, fur-trimmed. I started looking in a few shops in the city center, but was finding that the adult version ran frighteningly close to $1000. My mink didn't cost that much.

A fellow expatresse suggested I try an enclosed market called Konkovo. It's on the Yellow/6 metro line, about 30 minutes' ride from the center. I went once, by myself, but was so overwhelmed by the choices (and lack of visibly posted prices) that I returned home empty handed. (This weekend we returned to buy a coat for Skittles, and found a kid-sized version of exactly what I was looking for. It is a great coat.)

But there is an economic crisis going on. Even at the market, what I wanted cost a lot of money. And I do have a nice, mink coat. I couldn't justify an equally fancy coat. But the woman I consider my best girlfriend here and I concurred: I needed something. (After all, isn't that what best girlfriends are for?)

Girlfriend then appeared at school one day wearing a very simple version of what I had been hunting: knee-length and down-filled, but with no ornamentation at all. She'd found it at GUM, marked down to 1999 rubles (as I type, the ruble is trading at 31.5 to the dollar).

Since school ends early on Wednesdays, yesterday I took the girls along with me as fashion consultants, and headed for GUM. (GUM is now a posh mall in Red Square. Many expats assume that the upscale nature of the shops means GUM is priced out of their league. But the truth is there are bargains to be had at GUM. And not just during sale season. Read about it here, and see their website here.)

Normally, Wednesday is the day the girls and I have lunch out. But I bribed them with слойки (sloyki, plural of sloyka, are sweet and savory filled pastries available at street kiosks all over Moscow. This guy has some good photos and descriptions.)

In the end, I never made it to GUM. I ended up at Oxotny Ryad (Охотний Ряд). It's another big mall that is almost entirely underground in the park outside the Kremlin. There is an eponymous metro stop there, and I had once entered the mall by mistake, but had never really seen anything. When the girls and I exited the metro, I thought "What the heck. Let's see what's in this mall."

What followed was one of those moments where a piece of the geographic puzzle fell into place with a loud CLUNK. I had a completely different, and erroneous, idea of where and what that mall was. The poor girls had to suffer being dragged around with me while I searched, in vain, for the Sedmoy Kontinent grocery store (long story . . . my Sedmoy had no chickens in the morning, and I was bound and determined to have roast chicken for dinner). But they did reap some rewards when we found the kids' department at Zara (sort of a Spanish version of The Gap or The Limited): lots of nice kid items at normal prices.

I found a branch of the same shop where Girlfriend bought her coat. Found the exact same coat even. But it only came in brown (the color she had) and a size too small for me. We looked in lots of other shops, and finally I found a knee-length, down-filled, plain black coat that fits me for 2495 rubles.

The girls were tired and cranky. Chicken-less, we headed for home. On our way, we were walking down some steps leading under a busy street. The steps were clean (but not dry), and Baboo slipped and landed on her behind with a crash.

"I HATE MOSCOW! Why do we have to live in this stupid city," she sobbed. "A year is plenty."

Stupid Moscow!

Skittles and I comforted her. Skittles suggested that if Baboo had been walking right foot-left foot instead of left foot-right foot, the tragedy might have been averted. A flurry of flailing, swatting arms ensued. (This has been a long-running joke at our house, and Baboo just wasn't in a joking place right then.)

This underpass puts one out in front of the Lenin Library (or Lemon Library, as Skittles first understood it). While Baboo and I were trying to make light of the fall situation, Skittles suddenly announced, "Don't look in the park if you don't want to see something BAD!"

Well, of course we looked.

A man was pooping.

"Hey!" I told Baboo. "How often do you get to see someone pooping in public? This is the icing on the cake of your day."

She was not amused.

"Look," I said, summarizing the uniqueness of her day. "Maybe Moscow isn't so bad. I mean, today you had lunch at a слойка stand, you fell on your ass, and then you got to see a guy pooping in the park! Where else in the world can you do that?"