The blue market

We have now been in the USA for a few months now (yippee!!) but I promised myself I'd do a couple more grocery store posts and I really do want to showcase the different types of stores, since it's pretty interesting. Needless to say, these days when I go shopping at the local Publix supermarket, I really, really, really (how many really's can I include to show how much I mean it!) appreciate all of the beautiful, plentiful, fresh foods they sell. Anyway, on to what Scott and I called the "blue market," because of its blue sign. 

This market was across the street from our apartment building, on the same side of Tverskaya, and quite easy to get to. From the outside (wish I'd taken a photo of the outside, oh well), it looked teeny-tiny, but it was surprisingly large once you got inside. Lots of little rooms with shelves of food that were tough to navigate if you had a stroller. We used this market as our source for Diet Pepsi when our usual, big supermarket ran out, which probably happened once/month. You'd think the bigger market would have no supply issues, but for whatever reason, that was not the case, and this little market almost always had our diet soda. We also went to this market if we ran out of a non-perishable staple, like pasta or rice. This was not, however, our "go-to" for last-minute meat or fresh fruit/vegetables. Another post about that market to come.

Front and center for the beer. You had to walk past this to get inside to the rest of the food.

Milk aisle. This market didn't sell any refrigerated milk at all; everything was in a box and shelf-stable.

View into the 2nd room, which contained cookies and cakes. To the left is refrigerated for yogurt, sour cream, cheese and kefir. To the right is the non-refrigerated, boxed milk (see above).

Mysterious fridge containing all kinds of salted and cured fish in small packages.

Bread selection, none of which tasted very good. Nor did they last longer than a day or two (no preservatives? I guess that's good, but...)

"Fresh food" section. Literally this is all they carried, which is essentially the ingredients for people who want to make borsch (potatoes, carrots, beets, onions). Those iceberg lettuce heads were a surprise - usually this market didn't have any lettuce or other salad-type ingredients. 

jams, canned veggies/fruits and oil. 

Cereals and pastas. Below was a freezer case with some frozen meals in boxes that I could never figure out.

Thank you once again, Mother Russia

This is our apartment's backup hot water heater. 

It's located above the toilet in the bathroom that's in the kitchen.

Why do we have this contraption and why am I posting photos? Because we have officially entered the Moscow-2-week-hot-water-shutdown period of 2014!

Yep, every year the city turns off all the hot water completely for 10 days (repeat, TEN DAYS, NO HOT AGUA) to clean the pipes. So all the apartment owners spend heaps of money to install backup boilers, and ours in particular only works in the bathroom that's in the kitchen (our "guest" bath). No hot water anywhere else (not the kitchen sink or dishwasher and certainly not the main bath).

Why can't the city simply levy a tax and use that money to put more workers on the job, so it only takes a single day to clean all the pipes and then no one needs to install and maintain an extra hot water heating system in their personal apartments? Because This Is Russia. And this is how they do things.

This year the added bonus is that Scott's parents are here visiting so ALL FOUR OF US are now sharing the tiny bathroom, shower, etc in the kitchen. THANK YOU, MOTHER RUSSIA!

It also happens to be my last week in Russia because I'm leaving with Siena and Beau when Scott's parents leave. And last week the elevator broke. We are on the 8th floor.

At least, as Scott said, his parents are getting "the full experience." :-)

Gorky with Babies

The weather has been absolutely beautiful lately so my weekly baby-mom group has been meeting outside at Gorky Park instead of inside at people's apartments. A wonderful idea given how much time spent indoors over the winter!

beau and the ladies: catarina in front, zoe lou in back, beau in the middle, charlotte to the right

this time with augusta (back left) and a resistent ariel (blue hat, in his mom's arms) however no one was really very engaged or happy. oh well!

charlotte (7 mos)

ari (11 mos) and charlotte in the foreground

beau (10 mos) and catarina (9 mos)  fleeing the scene and mom claudia reviewing her pics

margherita and her sweet girl catarina

zoe lou concentrating on the toy mobile phone

mom anna with baby augusta (14 mos)

mom gabriella with baby zoe lou (12 mos)

Finding Motherhood

The Motherhood thing is interesting. I feel like the world expanded and shrunk when I became a Mom. The world is lighter and heavier at the same time.

On the one hand, the world expanded because now I'm part of the "Mom Club" (duh!). I was so afraid that this club might just pass me by. Wow. I'm on the other side now, yippee! I can totally connect with the other members because I am, heart and soul, a Mom! I am honored and humbled by my experience so far. I'm just going to say it again: I AM A MOMMEEEEEEE!

Even more amazingly, I can walk into a room and easily find something to talk about with pretty much any other Mom there. You name it: pregnancy, labor, weight gain/loss, sleep (or lack thereof), poo...all so easy! This is not trivial; it is awesomely empowering for an introvert.

I love watching Beau as he's learning about the world around him. It is delightful to see his little face light up when he figures something out. I love how he looks at me before smiling at someone new. Smiling, babbling, wiggling 9-month old babies make almost everyone smile and that has lightened the world for me considerably.

On the other hand, the world also shrunk, and man, does the Mom Club make you pay your dues! This became excruciatingly clear in Moscow where there are language issues, traffic issues, expat cultural issues and a traveling-for-work-husband issue. In one fell swoop, my daily activities have pretty much lost all resemblance to what they used to be. And I admit it, I miss my old self that went along with those activities. The physical radius of where I go (which isn't often, particularly in the winter in Russia) has shrunk and I am alone with the baby for many, many hours. All the Moms out there already know about this baby-enduced solitude. It's like an extended, unspoken initiation ritual that you experience once your baby is home from he hospital.  I don't go exploring with Siena anymore, and if I take the baby somewhere, we are reduced to the streets and sidewalks that are easiest to navigate with the stroller (ie not many, given the pothole-filled sidewalks in this city) and limited to the time between feedings or naps.

As my sister D pointed out to me early on after Beau was born, with a baby you quickly learn how to get things done in small, irregularly-spaced chunks of time, rather than several back-to-back solid hours all in one day. This is not good or bad, it's just the way it is. But again, I have to admit that I am feeling the loss of my old way of life. And yet, can I even begin to add up how many hours I spend in my special "nursing chair," just me and the baby? I don't want to! I know those are hours of sweet mother-son together/bonding time, but the days and nights often feel so long and so dark. We drift and shift between living room and bedroom and kitchen, if only for a change of scenery and a fresh set of toys. Siena follows us. So much time spent holding him, changing him, playing with him, making decisions for him.

The thing is, I am 100% sure that the world still would have expanded and shrunk if we were in the USA because this baby stuff is universal and all-consuming no matter what country you live in. I love the Mom Club and I'm totally jazzed about all the new stuff that comes with it, but I also feel that the weight of the isolation and the responsibility is heavy on my shoulders.

Back for More Painful Russian 101

As Beau learns about and eats new things, his Mama learns new words in the Russian vocabulary department.

1. Vegetables - овощи ("OH-voh-she")
2. Fruits - фрукты ("FROOK-tee" nice...)
3. Peaches - персики ("pair-seek-ee") I remember this one because it sounds like "pears" and Beau REALLY REALLY likes both peaches and pears. :) So, next up….you guessed it:
4. Pears - груши ("groo-she") I pretty much never get this one even though Beau loves them. That is all.
5. Prunes - чернослив ("chair-NAH-sleeve") not easy. period. I always forget this one too.
6. Cereal - каша ("kasha")
7. Fat - жир ("zheer") important because we are desperately trying to get a little extra meat on our little guy's bones
8. Egg Yolk (or "York" as our Russian pediatrician repeatedly calls it, lol) - желток ("zhel-tok")
9. Happy - щасливе ("shahsleevee") not sure why this came up only now but it's a good one!
10. Teaspoon - чайная ложка ("chai-naya lohzh-kah") kind of easy because the word for tea is "chai" and spoon I already know is "lohzh-kah," though it's easy only now because I've memorized both components
11. Tablespoon - столовая ложка ("stohlovaya lohzh-kah") also easy because I already know the word for table is "stohl"
12. Ready - готовый ("gah-toe-vee")

And here are some random household words that I've recently picked up.

1. Door handle - ручка двери ("rooch-ka dvair-ee")
2. Pen - ручка ("rooch-ka") isn't this funny, given the above?! I could tell, Nanny R got a kick out of teaching me these two.
3. To wash - мыть ("meet")
4. To clean - чистить ("CHEESE-teat") not a good visual.
5. Mop - швабра ("SHVAV-rah") our mop handle broke so I went to buy a new one
6. Broom - метла ("MATE-lah") we were distinguishing between mop and broom, very important
7. Two weeks - две недели ("dvay nee-DELL-ye-ay") VACATION!

New Metro Observations

Went to Metro again and because I'm getting to be slightly more comfortable shopping there, I noticed a few new things!

1) Sooo much sour cream! This is actually next to the infamous wall of mayonnaise and it's a wall of sour cream!

2) Tons of unidentifiable fresh fish. Just sitting out, for anyone to help themselves:

3) Whatever the orange stuff is that's in the back and to the right, it's not cheap (~$55/kg!):

4) Some long slimy looking things. Maybe some big eel? They're all from Russia is really all I can read on the little signs:

5) Live sharks, crayfish, and others, all in large tanks:

6) There's also a ton of different types of SALMON:

7) And we must not forget the caviar. The pricey stuff is in the locked fridge 

-within-the-fridge on the far right:

Just all stuff I hadn't really noticed before - probably because I don't use a lot of sour cream nor do I feel comfortable buying fish here. :) I must remember to take some photos of my "usual" grocery store for comparison.

A typical day with Beau

Eating (not very happy with the menu)...

Pushing up on all fours...

More eating...

Waving "privyet" ("hello")! And note fancy Russian furniture leg in background! :)

Hard work being 8 months old.

In and out

37 weeks in and 37 weeks out. My, how life has changed!

This Dog

a haiku for my Siena

rebellious red dog

stolen pacis need rinsing

Moscow is still cold

Siena sunbathing in our Moscow kitchen.

Does this look like a dog who feverishly gobbles up a pile of cat poop during her morning potty break?

Does this look like a dog who leaps up onto the guest bed in order to reach into her human baby brother's crib and snatch his favorite pacifier?

Does this look like a dog who howls at her mama in defiance and frustration when she's not getting enough attention?

Sigh.

Lightbulb Handcuffs

There are 5 lightbulbs in our apartment that need to be changed and I can't do it.

This is one of the things about my experience here that gets under my skin and really, really bugs me. Simple, non-intellectual, normally easy household tasks that normally wouldn't be a big deal become a Huge Project.

And while I sort out the complex details of the situation (kidding), I see the dead bulbs every day and it feels like they're taunting me, "Nyah, nyah, you can't fix me…"

So the reasons why I can't change them (I actually have spare bulbs so that's not even a factor):

1. First, I don't have a tall enough ladder to reach;
2. When I asked one of the guys from the building to borrow their ladder, he brought it but insisted on climbing up for me (how gentlemanly!). Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out how to get the casing that covers the bulb unscrewed from the ceiling. He said a "specialist" must do it (WhAT?!);
3. The building guy left and asked The Specialist to come up, but HE said the landlady needs to request it first (WhATTTTT?! Okay, maybe I understand that - we're in a rental after all.); 
4. And finally, our landlady doesn't speak English so things like this I need to ask Scott's Admin to call her, explain in Russian what is happening and then the landlady will make the request.

OMG. OMG. OMG.

We're talking about lightbulbs!!!!

Still the Pill

Siena strikes again

Earlier this week we had a bang-up day for Siena and stealing food. She is SO darn fast and SO quiet!

She gobbled up the following:
1) a partially eaten sliced pear right off the kitchen table. To be fair, I had left the room;
2) the top slice of bread from my uneaten sandwich. This one, I was nearby but apparently not close enough!

All within a couple hours time. Afterwards, she didn't even look remotely repentant. Cute, yes; remorse, no!

Later the same day, after she'd already been served HER dinner, she proceeded to make a grab for our dinner while Scott was feeding Beau a bottle and I was washing my hands.

You'd think we never feed the animal!

The Russian Lessons Continue

The pace of my baby/pigeon Russian lessons has slowed because we've pretty much got the basics covered (i.e. bottle, milk, sleep, awake, feed, what time, finish, how many...). However, here and there I still get a few new words in.

I find that my brain still does not retain much and I still feel so frustrated at not being able to have detailed conversations with the nanny. Or with anyone for that matter. Once again, reminded of how lucky I am that the nanny is SO patient with me, because we really do end up "saying" quite a bit to each other each week.

January 11

• turtle -- черепаха ("cheddy-PA-ha"); I love this one. :)

a picture is worth a thousand words

• dancing -- танцы ("tahn-tzay"); to explain what I do at my weekly Zumba classes

February 28

• bib -- фартук ("FAR-took"); this apparently really means "apron," but R always calls the bib a fartook so...fartook it is! This is another one of my favorites. :)

fartook :)

March 6 - this turned out to be the day of body parts!

• ear/ears -- ухо / ушки ("OOSHay"/ "OOSHkey")

• nose -- нос ("nauss"); wow, how easy-peasy!

• cheek/cheeks -- щека / щеки ("SHAYka" / "shaykey")

March 19

• slippery -- скользкий ("skolskey"); it snowed (late MARCH!) so the sidewalks were slippery. And we tried to talk about it.

• to cry -- плакать ("plakat")

• he cried -- он плакал ("ohn plakal")

Can't believe it took this long for us to need the word for "cry."

March 27

• take a walk -- погулять ("pagoo-LAI-yet"); for my Siena.

• feel happy -- хорошее настроение ("haROshay nastraiYEN-eh"); when I put this into Google Translate it came back with "good mood" so that was interesting.

• holiday -- праздник ("prads-zNEEK") or выходной день ("veeHAUD-noy deeyen" which is actually "day off").

• class/lesson -- урок ("oo-ROCK") or занятие ("zan-YAT-yee-eh")

March 28

• refrigerator -- холодильник ("hollow-DEE-nick")

• Monday -- понедельник ("pahn-ee-DEL-nick") strangely and confusingly similar to the word for fridge when a Russian-speaker says it.

• week -- неделя ("neh-DEL-yah")

Feeling Green in Hungary (and not Hungry)

Why green? Well, within 12 hours of our arrival in Budapest for a long weekend, Scott came down with a violent stomach bug! Oh, no! Oh, yes.

Poor guy, he did not leave the hotel (bath)room for the next day and a half! So sad. Actually, I think I gave him the virus (oops), and I got it from Beau, because I was sick with exactly the same thing 48 hours earlier. And likewise, Beau had been 'off' 48 hours before me. Way to take a whole family DOWN FOR THE COUNT!

It was pretty miserable for all of us. Scott was out of town for work when I was in the throes of it so it was rough being sick and alone with the baby. Then it was equally bad for Scott because getting sick in a hotel is just no fun. The only saving grace was that we had unlimited ginger ale, sprite and water from the "executive lounge," thanks to Scott's Marriott "status." I was able to take advantage of the lounge at all hours because not only did we have stomach problems, we also had some baby jet lag issues. It was quite handy when Beau woke up ready to rock 'n roll at 4 am.