Tuesday evening I arrived back in Rostov after 4 weeks in Crimea. Oh is it comforting to be back in my own space, my very own place. And as much as I treasure the adventure, the new friends, the challenge of getting acquainted with another city, there's just no place, absolutely no place like home. Even for gypsy me.
Not that I have any choice in the matter. About the gypsiness, that is. And that's another story entirely. Anyhoo, Tuesday evening, friend and brother Misha picked me up at the station, not Rostov's main station but a secondary station in the west, up steep steps over the train line, down steep steps to the taxi queue with heavy bags in tow. No one has ever accused
me of traveling light.
Waiting at home were two boxes from Dallas. Getting connected with these boxes has been an adventure and I've learned a thing or two about dealing with the local post office. So then after Misha left, in a rare moment of delayed self gratification, I decided to unpack, 15 minutes at a time - in true
FlyLady fashion- and then open my boxes. Forty-five minutes later it was like Christmas around here.
My unpacking area in the living room. Oh boy, Oh Boy. One box open, another to go and a glass of iced tea. Can life get better than this?
This box has been around. See that tape? That tape tells me that Moscow postal folks have been checking through just to make sure there's no contraband in the box. Then they taped 'er back up, quite thoroughly in fact.
Over the years, I've come to realize that
peanut butter must be considered contraband by certain folks up there in Moscow. Either that or somebody there loves peanut butter. You see, several boxes have never reached me. And those boxes had something in common: they contained peanut butter, crunchy and a big jar of it. Yep, sounds like contraband to me.
Before anybody gets emotional about this, yours truly in particular, let us think carefully and logically about this issue of the disappearing peanut butter. As I recall from research classes waaay back in grad school, we can not jump to conclusions about cause and effect: We can not say that it's because of the peanut butter that the boxes never made it. But we can say that there is a positive relationship between peanut butter and the loss of the box. (How's
that, Dr Sue Couch?) See, what we need here is a larger sample size. As I recall from statistics (Hey, Dr Gorman!), we need a sample size of at least 40 for the data to be even remotely valid. And so in practical terms, if 38 more people will send me boxes of peanut butter, then we will have data that means something.
Oh, but no need to to send me peanut butter now. Thanks anyway you volunteers, you may put your hands down. Peanut butter is available locally now, crunchy or creamy, imported from Kentucky at about 3 times Louisville price. But it's here intact at the supermarket, all that peanutty contraband.
Speaking of nuts, look - something yummy in here. And what a nice surprise - a hand-written note.
Well ain't this simply special? Laurinda enclosed two bags of of pecan-almond-peanut clusters, a new product that they're making at Frito-Lay, where she works. Yum! What a God-send that Laurinda is. She handles business-related stuff for me -- paying bills, making deposits, collecting my mail -- and she does it as a ministry. Lucky me. The nut treats are optional. They're also. . . they're also. . . well, they're
history.
Oh look - magazines and publications and clothes from Lands' End. Oh am I excited because even better than that, there's stuff to read in
ENGLISH. And that is my native tongue. I can speak English and sound like an adult. I can and do speak Russian and sound like. . . a child. But that's a subject for a whole 'nuther blog.
But at the top, the very tippy-top of the list of things I've been waiting for is my Day-Timer refill. This, oh this, Oh This is what I have been waiting for. Oh Day-Timer, my precious, my beloved
Day-Timer. My Day-Timer follows me everywhere I go. Except perhaps the shower.
My Day-Timer is my brain. Really it is. I've carried a Day-Timer since 1983 (Thank you,
Rita Davenport!) . It's my 2-pages-a-day planner, my month-at-a-glance calendar, my telephone book, my notepad for on-the-go jottings. I depend upon this trusty little system. The only thing my Day-Timer requires from me, is a set of refills come Sept 30th of each year.
Since I moved overseas in 1999, my refill reaches me way early. But this time, not. This time I was in Ukraine for a month in September when the box arrived and, although I had gone earlier to the post office and done the paperwork and talked to the supervisor of the Dept of Packages to make sure it would be held until my return, things went awry.
Late September when I returned from travels for a week and went to the post office to collect this box, alas - alak, some ditzy clerk had already sent it back toward the US as undeliverable. But there's good news: The administrator of that department managed to have it intercepted in the Moscow post office before it left the country. There was also bad news: They intercepted and re-routed package arrived back in Rostov a day or two after I had to leave again for Sept-October. That meant I was without my October Day-Timer refill, a critical situation in my mind. But we made do. The earth continued to spin on its axis, they say and now at long last, my box and I have been connected.
That nice lady at the post office, that supervisor of packages - I'd say she deserves a nice bouquet. Here in the land of Customer Dis-Service, she was head and shoulders above the norm. Jotting note to self in Day-Timer,
pick up some flowers for the P.O. lady. But as for the Clerk of Ditziness, the young lady who caused all this in the first place, no nut clusters for her. No peanut butter either. We might let her take a look at the flowers that her boss will receive and take a whiff or two, but that's limit. Also I would like to see some contriteness. Oh ho ho, now there's a wild fantasy.
Oh my stars - My favorite publications. No worries that they're months old. They're brand spanking new to me. Be still my beating heart. Peace be still, peace be still.
Dear blog readers, have you lived overseas and enjoyed receiving care packages? Please tell us about when and where and if your boxes included. . . spreadable contraband.
The Former Presidents Putin and Bush. The gentleman in the background is a translator. (Photographer Unknown)
Stage and podium at Crawford High School during The Crawford Summit. November, 2001. (Photographer: Unknown)
Lydmila Putina, then first lady of Russia with Laura Bush during The Crawford Summit, November 2001. (Photographer: Unknown)
I could put together a great slide show of things Russian. I could collect lots and lots of souvenirs. I could introduce the students to the Cyrillic alphabet, write their names in Russian, and teach them a song or two. . .
And that's precisely what happened. April of 2002, at the end of a long week of standardized testing, students were ready for a change of pace. Perfect!
So I did a slide show especially from them, From Russia with Love. . .to Crawford. We sang I've Got Peace Like a River in Russian with all the motions. I introduced them to the Cyrillic alphabet and did their names in Russian.
Later that afternoon, Principal Harris showed me the school's collection of memorabilia the summit. I noticed there were no matroshka dolls in the display, you know, the wooden nesting dolls of Russia. So I solved that problem immediately. There's nothing worse than a display of things Russian with no matroshka dolls!
By then I was ravenous - similar to, but different from ravishing, you understand - and The Coffee Station sure sounded good. Plus I had read about the place and seen photos of the Bushes and their entourage eating there thanks to Yahoo! News and Photos. So I went on in. Oh, was that fun.
Chances are this little cardboard container is filled with candy. Now here's a thought: If one container is an ox box, might the plural be oxen boxen?
There are oxes like boxes, there are even stuffed oxes. Oxes on top of oxes. Now here's another thought liguistic: If a confused ox is an ox flummox, would a whole herd be oxen flummoxen? Just wondering. . .
Plastic oxen. Might be piggy banks. Or would that be oxy-banks? Oh, here's a brand new riddle: What do you call an ox that's too stupid to come in out of the rain?
Here we are at the supermarket in candy section, which I prefer to call the department of fruits and vegetables. You can choose from plastic oxen, tin, cardboard. even cloth oxen. Everybody knows veggies are good for you, they're packed with vitamins and minerals, especially the sort of veggies we find here.
It was late one December evening when I returned to Rostov after five or six weeks in Ukraine. In the door and then I set about unpacking and such. Just to set the stage, here's The Great Room during unpacking.
At the risk of giving out TMI - too much information - here's a peek at The Master Suite. Now please don't be hating on me that this is so fancy and all. Just keeping it real here, and this is how things look when we're unpacking.
Care for some?
Took the rest to church: Friday evenings 7:00 we have singing practice. And folks come there hungry from classes and work. So pre-YAT-nova ap-pe-TEE-ta, dear friends!
What a bunch of introverts. So shy, so timid around the camera. So self-conscious about posing.
Okay, slightly more normal, less manic, in a way. It must be those ingredients in the cornbread that's doing this. I promise, there's no trauma, turmoil or flies in there in place of the flour. . . just lots of TLC for some favorite fiends. . . friends, rather. =)
As you see from the left, we have our milk, vinegar, oil, canned corn and eggs.
Starting with the milk, we need regular milk and we need buttermilk. You know how to make buttermilk, right? Just add a bit of vinegar to the regular milk. I'm thinking 1-2 teaspoons per cup of milk.
Canned corn, imagine - corn in cornbread. But it is extra special. Let 'er sit there a minute while the liquid drains off.
So, get the liquid ingredients all lined up: our milk - now combined after the vinegar did it's curdling on the milk, our eggs - cracked and stirred up and our oil.
Why not combine all the liquid ingredients except for the corn. Kind of interesting there. The design this makes. As you would know, things need to happen fast after we combine the dry and liquid ingredients. So between now and then, there's some business we need to take care of: the baking pan, for one thing.
Oil the baking pan. I brought this from the US. Nice, eh? It's a 9 by 13-inch pan as I recall and we're using that size because we're making a double batch of cornbread.
After oiling the pan, a culinary purist would dust the baking pan with corn meal. Okay, okay. . . since there's comp'ny watching here, we'll be purists. Just for today.
So the 2nd knob from the left is the temperature. It goes from 0 to 9. We need to keep it fired up all the way to 9 for about 15 minutes. Or else the flame will poof out.
Time out to check our dry ingredients. Yep, got the dry stuff altogether in a big pan.
Back to the oven, besides keeping it up at 9, the door needs to be ajar for about 15 minutes too. Must have something to do with oxygen. See the oven thermometer inside there? That's my buddy. He tells me what's going on inside that oven and we speak the same language: We both understand degrees Farenheit.
Thing is this oven is allows me no shortcuts, it's kind of strict that way. After about 5-8 minutes of oven on, I tried turning the temp down to 4.5, where we will be doing our baking. Out went the flame. I tried closing the door. Out went the flame. Re-lighted (re-lit?) this oven 5 times, I'm serious. See, the oven rules. And the oven is capricious. Okay oven, enjoy it because when we're done with you, it's all over, Rover. Understand? You get your hour of being the boss and then your out, o-u-t Out. You just wait, Mr Oven.
So, add the liquid ingredients to the dry, not visa versa. Mix carefully only until the dry ingredients are all moistened. You know quick breads, that is - those breads leavened with baking powder and/or baking soda versus yeast - are fairly fragile. They don't need to be handled and mixed and played with ad infinitum. Get those dry ingredients moistened and move right along. Over-handling will result in tunnels and who needs tunnels in their bread? I'd rate tunnels right in there with trauma, turmoil and flies, something to avoid.
You know a person really shouldn't eat batter, right? Because for one thing, uncooked eggs are a source of salmonella food poisoning. And that can be quite dangerous for the elderly, for children or for those with fragile immune systems. Good news: I decided years ago that none of that applies to us (shhhh, it's our secret). So we're going to taste. Oh does this taste odd. I mean absolutely floury. And I realized, that in my excitement and all, one critical ingredient got left on the sidelines. . .
Oh sugar, our sweet precious sugar. Just waiting to be noticed and added to the mixture. But you know what this means. It means more handling of the dough. And it means we'll have tunnels. that means that our cornbread will probably not win the blue ribbon at the state fair. Oh well. Just have to wait and see. Pretty confident that it will not become dangerous. It will not explode in the oven or any such thing.
So here's our dough in the pan, ready to get spread out.
And here we go, en route to the baking chamber. . .
There she goes. Thermometer shows to be 350-ish. That's what we want. This is a typical Soviet oven. One wire rack. And one other shelf, which is solid metal, above here. So we set our timer for 45 minutes and go take a little rest. Oh, but first, let's get another spoonful of that batter. Oh boy is that yummy!
The Rostov train station as seen through the train window. Oh now that is magnificent.
Thank goodness dear brother Misha met me at the station. Off the train and here's the view toward the right. Is that poetic or what. Or what?
And then here's the view left. A misty, moisty evening. Maybe 40-some degrees.
The Rostov train station as seen from the street. Oh dear Rostov, has anyone ever told you how beautiful, beauty-full, bea-ti-ful You Are?!
Oh. . . is it wonderful to be home. And look what's here waiting for me: evidence that I've been gone since. . . since Halloween. Oh is it good to be home.
My unpacking area in the living room. Oh boy, Oh Boy. One box open, another to go and a glass of iced tea. Can life get better than this?
Well ain't this simply special? Laurinda enclosed two bags of of pecan-almond-peanut clusters, a new product that they're making at Frito-Lay, where she works. Yum! What a God-send that Laurinda is. She handles business-related stuff for me -- paying bills, making deposits, collecting my mail -- and she does it as a ministry. Lucky me. The nut treats are optional. They're also. . . they're also. . . well, they're history.
Oh look - magazines and publications and clothes from Lands' End. Oh am I excited because even better than that, there's stuff to read in ENGLISH. And that is my native tongue. I can speak English and sound like an adult. I can and do speak Russian and sound like. . . a child. But that's a subject for a whole 'nuther blog.
But at the top, the very tippy-top of the list of things I've been waiting for is my Day-Timer refill. This, oh this, Oh This is what I have been waiting for. Oh Day-Timer, my precious, my beloved Day-Timer. My Day-Timer follows me everywhere I go. Except perhaps the shower.
My Day-Timer is my brain. Really it is. I've carried a Day-Timer since 1983 (Thank you, Rita Davenport!) . It's my 2-pages-a-day planner, my month-at-a-glance calendar, my telephone book, my notepad for on-the-go jottings. I depend upon this trusty little system. The only thing my Day-Timer requires from me, is a set of refills come Sept 30th of each year.
Since I moved overseas in 1999, my refill reaches me way early. But this time, not. This time I was in Ukraine for a month in September when the box arrived and, although I had gone earlier to the post office and done the paperwork and talked to the supervisor of the Dept of Packages to make sure it would be held until my return, things went awry.
Oh my stars - My favorite publications. No worries that they're months old. They're brand spanking new to me. Be still my beating heart. Peace be still, peace be still.
YOU almost look like a cut out in that picture with Bush! Fun!
I was in Kiev all day with friends here adopting. Walked a ton! The day was so foggy that even tho we were drug to the "Rodina" statue by some other friends, there was just NO SEEING her! Soo funny! Dnipr... no view! :)
Off to Kiev Tues to get the visa, stay overnight at a seminary & to Petersburg early Wed. Ahhhh.... Am I ready for this??!
Hello Eileen! A friend linked me to you blog. My husband and I are in the process of adopting 2 boys from Rostov and we live in Texas! Your blog has been wonderful to see pictures in Rostov as we anticipate are travels there!
Thanks for the view!
Pat