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."