Da Svadanya

Hello America, goodbye Russia. 

Goodbye for good. 

After what felt like forever, but was really closer to a year and a half, we decided we were ready to come home. There were lots of factors behind our decision, but missing all of you was the biggest. Boarding the plane from Moscow was bittersweet. I was so excited to get back to our lives here, but a small part of me knew I was going to miss the travel. The plane was pretty crowded so it was only a really small part of me. 

We have decided to settle down in Smith Valley. It is a beautiful valley in western Nevada about an hour from Carson City. We have found a house to rent on 20 acres and just got our iPhones activated yesterday. Mmmmm, iPhones. So, we still need to find a car for me and a horse trailer for Dave. The car shopping is a little frustrating. Especially for Dave. After not being able to put into words the reason I didn't like my last car he said, "It sounds to me like you are saying you didn't like your car because it had a sad spirit." That was it exactly. So now he has the daunting task of finding something with good gas mileage that is good in the snow and also has a happy, joyful, or feisty spirit. Good luck to him. I also really hate it when my knees hit the steering wheel. Fun stuff.

So, this is probably my last post. Probably. There are lots of cowboy jobs in Australia. 

Happy Birthday!

I feel that birthdays are extremely important. It is the one day a year when you are entitled to feel like the queen or king of the universe. 

Dave is a man of consistent taste, what it takes to make him feel like the king of the universe on his birthday is a leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

In the almost eleven years that we have been together either his mom or I have prepared this very specific meal for him. Except for the lamb debacle of 2012. 

We were living around Elko at the time and I assumed that in Basque country I would be able to get a leg of lamb easily. I called all the grocery stores in town and no one had it. I tried to special order it. I befriended the butcher. Maybe my idea of friendship might seem more like pestering to a hard-working butcher, but I really needed that leg of lamb. I failed. I couldn’t get it. Dave was pretty stoic on his birthday, but still drops hints about my epic failure every once in a while.

The next year I purchased the leg of lamb in December and kept it in the freezer for two and a half months. There was no way I was going to fail again. So, when we were planning and packing for our move to Russia I asked him if I was exempt from the leg of lamb requirement for all birthdays in Russia. He agreed that I was with the caveat that if he could find a lamb and get it butchered I would cook it.

As it got closer to his birthday it was really beginning to look like we would be lambless again this year. My only hope was a trip to Bryansk to try and find it.

Cari and I left the girls with our husbands and headed out to Bryansk. We decided that we would try the Miratorg meat store first, have lunch at the mall, hit up the baby store and then check out the gigantic Lenta grocery store in the mall. Miratorg is the company that Dave works for and they have recently opened a few retail stores with a pretty impressive selection.  I asked the gal behind the counter for, “Ovechka” but she quickly answered, “Nyetto.” Nope. I bought what looked like a Rib Eye roast just in case I couldn’t find anything else and we headed to the mall.

This was our first solo adventure without the girls and we were repeatedly amazed at how quickly and easily we were getting our errands done without our usual shopping buddies. We headed down to the Lenta and just basked in the awesomeness. The Lenta is kind of a mix of a Super Target and a Super Walmart. Not exactly that much selection, but retail heaven compared with rural Pochep.

I headed for the meat counter and braced myself for the inevitable lack of lamb. I knew the word for the animal, but in Russian, the name of the animal is different from the name of the food. I probably should have prepared a little better, but at 11 months in I’m pretty used to winging it. I got a very helpful meat counter attendant and after saying, “Ovechka,” three or four times she nodded and pointed to some chops. I then pointed to my leg and essentially said, “Have lamb?” and then pointed to my leg again. She looked down the counter and then nodded. Yes!!! She had it!

I took the lamb leg and put it in my cart and headed in search of Brussel sprouts. I didn’t find any but I was pretty sure I’d seen them somewhere in Pochep. I had potatoes, now all I needed was a chocolate cake. I thought I might buy one. The last time I tried to make chocolate cake from scratch resulted in me setting of every smoke alarm in my mom’s house and a rock hard mass of burnt chocolate batter in the bottom of her brand new oven.

There is a very direct inverse correlation here between how appetizing a dessert looks and how disgusting it actually is. I only saw pretty cakes at the Lenta. I was doomed.

Cari rescued me with a super simple cake recipe. It was incredible. I even made frosting. I’m pretty sure I’ve broken my stretch of bad cake luck, it only took moving to Russia to fix it.

I am so pleased with myself for finding everything I needed for Dave’s birthday. I am a little concerned that I have set the bar a little high, and if I ever can’t find a leg of lamb for his birthday he is going to point to 2015 and wonder that I could do it in Russia but couldn’t quite manage in the States. 

I'll Take It.

               One sure way to make me cranky is to call me ma’am. I feel like I am still way too young for that, but somehow about three or four years ago I started to look old to young men in the service industry. Old enough to be called ma’am, anyway. I still feel like a miss. Definitely a miss. Perhaps if I am feeling sophisticated Madame. I would go home and complain to Dave, “I got Ma’amed again today.”  Yesterday I got girled.

               Here in Russia there are apparently only two categories for women, girl or grandma. The word for girl sounds like Dee-ah-voch-ka. It is used to signal to shopkeepers that you would like assistance, or to get their attention. It seems a little to snobby to me, “Oh, girl… girl, I need a kilogram of cheese please.” Not for me.

               I was walking through the shopping center in Pochep and I was going to go into a rug store but the shopkeeper started to close the door to take his break before he saw me. I turned around and started to walk to another store when I heard him say, “Deavochka!” I was really pleased with this encounter because I was proud of myself for recognizing that he was talking to me, and I was pleased that I apparently do not look like a grandma. Yet. Give it a few more months. 

Home Again

As we drove away from the airport in Moscow I was surprised by how happy I was to be back in Russia. It is pretty easy for me to do nothing but complain about our life here, and I know I did a lot of complaining on our vacation, but honestly I do really enjoy our life here. I guess I hadn't really given myself an opportunity to realize it.


We had a great vacation, but I am glad to be home. It turns out that home really is a relative term because we came back to a different house than the one we had lived in for the last 8 months. We had to move again right before vacation, so I wasn't even unpacked all the way before we headed out. While we were gone the farm turned off the power to  the house so a pipe burst and now our floorboards in the kitchen are really warped. It definitely could have been worse and all of our stuff was ok, so I just need to put a rug in the kitchen and stop worrying about it.


AJ is pretty much adjusted to the time change. She is growing so much, and it is so weird to realize that she has spent almost two thirds of her life in Russia! When we go to the store I tell her to say, "Preevyet, Hi, Preevyet," and she waves at clerk. She also knows, "Paka," for bye, but she won't say anything, she just waves. She doesn't really say a lot, but yesterday I caught her tickling her teddy bear and saying, "Tickle, tickle, tickle."

Who Moved My Сыр?

Our truck has broken down again, so on Monday Janae and her son Walker picked AJ and I up and we went grocery shopping. Having the truck broken down is kind of a mixed blessing. It stinks to not have a truck whenever we need it, but Janae is kind enough to take me grocery shopping and I really enjoy the company. Walker is really great with AJ and she loves it when he pushes her around in the cart. I was trying to get a lot of groceries so I ended up needing two carts. The carts here are like everything else, very small. 

I had just finished at the cheese counter and we were heading toward the check out line when a woman came up to me and started speaking really quickly in Russian. I told her I didn't understand but she kept talking very quickly. I looked at Walker and asked him if he knew what she was talking about. He didn't have a clue either. She kept repeating herself over and over and finally I picked out the word for cheese. "Aha! I know just where the cheese counter is," I thought. I pointed to the back of the store  towards the cheese counter. She shook her head no. She knew where they kept the cheese. 

 I had taken the last of the Parmesan cheese and she was in desperate need of it. 

I was really tempted to tell her to take a hike, but I did not have a specific dish that I needed the Parmesan for, I just like to have it on hand. I decided that if she was going to accost a strange foreigner in a grocery store she probably really needed the cheese. I like to think that I saved her dinner party or helped her make the perfect dish for her husband's birthday dinner or that she had had an uncontrollable craving for spaghetti and it wouldn't be the same without Parmesan. I'm sure it was something equally dramatic. 

Our Fall Trip to New England

Sometimes I have imaginary conversations with Dave. I'll think, "Oh, the fall leaves are beautiful! We should go to Maine and see the changing of the seasons!" 

Meggan: Dave, let's go to Maine and see the leaves. 

Dave: ...

Meggan: We'll buy plane tickets, and rent a car, and drive around and look at leaves! Doesn't that sound like fun???!!! We could stay at old bed and breakfasts and stop in little antique stores!

Dave: ...

Meggan: I'm sure it wouldn't be too expensive, and because they catch the lobsters right there they are probably like half price! We could eat Maine lobster in MAINE!!!!

Dave: ...


This imaginary conversation took place as we were driving through the beautiful orange and yellows of fall in Russia. I decided that this was probably as close as I was going to get get to a trip to New England, so every five minutes I said, "Oh, isn't that beautiful!" And every five minutes Dave said, "Yes."

Pumpkin Search Party

At the end of August or the beginning of September, my friend Janae said, "Now would be a good time to start looking for pumpkins." Having to search for pumpkins is not something I had ever really thought about before. But, Janae has been here almost three years and I consider her my guru on all things related to life in Russia. She reminded me several more times over the next couple weeks, and she was planning on staking out the open market and trying to get one of the Babushkas to provide the pumpkin hook up.

When I saw the mini pumpkin at the open market I knew I needed to take immediate action to secure some pumpkins. I bought that one and then tried to find out if I could get more. I asked what the word for pumpkin was in Russian, it is Kasha. I called Dave's interpreter and said, "Hi Kate, I am trying to get some pumpkins, some Kasha, can you ask this Babushka if she has some and if maybe she could bring some next week?" Kate agreed to try and I went to hand my phone to the Babushka to see if we could work out a plan. She wouldn't take the phone so I had to bend over and hold it up to her ear. That was not working and Kate wasn't making any progress. I thanked her and hung up and considered my next step.

"Yest balshoy kasha?" I asked about 5 times, "Have big pumpkin?" She didn't seem to understand what I was looking for. Then another lady came over and started talking to me really fast. I told her in Russian that I didn't understand, but she kept on talking  and soon another lady got in the mix. They were all three talking to me in Russian, but after a little bit, a few words started popping out. I understood car, pumpkin, house. It finally occurred to me that she wanted me to drive her to her house and she would sell me pumpkins there. She was pretty little and pretty old so I figured I was probably pretty safe. Plus, 15 people were watching us hatch this plan so at least one of them would tell the police where I went with my one-year-old daughter in the event that we turned up missing or dead. 

We got in the truck and she directed me down a side street and past the park and over one of the worst dirt roads I have seen in Russia. I drove up a narrow drive and parked in front of a burgundy garage and fence and followed her into her back yard. I think she expected me to leave AJ in the truck because she just took off without waiting for me to get her out of her car seat. I followed her through a gate and down into her back yard. We were still in the city limits but you really weren't able to tell. There were chickens all over the place and random squashes and about 30 pumpkins all piled under a low hanging tree. 

"Eureka!" I cried.

 Not really."Awesome!" I cried. And then I called Janae and asked her how many pumpkins she wanted. We settled on 8 total and I proceeded to pick out our pumpkins. I think the Babushka thought I wanted to eat them because she kept cutting little divots out of the top of them to show me the flesh. Luckily, they weren't too big, but I did get a little nervous when she walked up with the hatchet. Nervous for the pumpkins. She was pretty nice so I wasn't too worried for me. 


I asked her how much they were and she wanted 100 rubles for the little ones and 200 for the big ones. I couldn't understand most of what she was saying, so I just pulled 1,000 rubles out of my pocket and she seemed pretty pleased with that. We hauled the pumpkins back to the truck and loaded them around AJ in the back seat, I've learned not to put anything that I don't want to be ruined in the bed of the truck. I turned to the Babushka and said, "Balshoy Spaseeba!" She seemed pleased with my big thanks but then looked alarmed like I might not take her back to the market. I gave her a ride back and drove home with my triumphant load of pumpkins.