I don't really hate Russia

I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love the rich, diverse history behind this complex country. I love that every day, Moscow surprises me. Not always a good surprise, but surprise keeps me on my toes. I love that my children are exposed to real world issues and have a diverse peer group that, for better or for worse, has forced them to be world citizens at a young age. I love that living here has forced me to simplify my life. Logistics here are too hard to live a complicated life. I love that living here is keeping me far, far away from the politic trainwrecks in the US. I avoid the nightly tantrums of the pundits, thank heavens. However, right now I hate Russia more than I love it. I have never thrived in dark, cold winter days, either here or in Portland. I'm not picking on Moscow exclusively. I'm not a winter gal. I think one of the aspects of living here that makes it hard is that very few people actually understand my life. I remember visiting the US after my first year in Russia and feeling like I didn't belong anymore. I can't recall exacty what set me off, but I remember an epic rant about how I felt like a circus freak with people "ooing" and "ahhing" about the oddities of my daily life from maifia neighbors to traffic horror stories (3 hours to go 20 kilometers was a favorite). I felt like I was being asked to put on a little skit telling people about all the stuff we do that is weird, alien, exotic and scary. I felt like a performing monkey on a leash with a little pillbox hat on my head. I am not a performance artist or a guest on an NPR podcast. This is my *life.* This is my normal, like it or not, and it is hard that most of the people that are closest to me don't get that. In more than two years, I have only had four visitors, two family members (in-laws) and two friends. I love talking to my two friends who visited me because I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING. They get the punchlines. My daughters ask me from time to time if it hurts my feelings that no one wants to visit us. I tell them no, truthfully, because this is not what I call a warm, welcoming tourist destination. Russia is a tough nut to crack--an expensive one at that. You pay a lot of money to come here and are often treated badly once you arrive (unless, of course, you have me to run interference for you). Sheremeteyvo airport alone is enough to send some people running for cover--I know it was for me the first time I arrived there in 110F August heatwave with aggresive taxi drivers, cigarette smoke, and concrete--one of my first impressions of Russia was all the concrete. I understand why people are scared or intimidated at the prospect of a Russia trip. This is a big, misunderstood, messy country that is teetering on the brink of totalitarianism on any given day. I get that people wouldn't want to visit here when you can say, look at fairy tale castles in Germany or contemplate history on the beaches of Crete or Malaga or eat culinary delights in Italy. Besides, Russian food is terrible. That being said, I miss being understood. I realized this when my brother called me on Monday night. He is my first blood relative to visit me here. And he didn't even come to visit me--he came on a business trip. The fact that I'm here is a bonus. He told me about his bizarro taxi ride from the airport (not even Sheremeteyvo--the civilized airport, Domededevo), the awful traffic, the buzz in the air--the hint of an oppressive feeling that people, particularly from the West, sense when they visit Moscow. My German friend (formerly from the East) tells me that East Germany used to feel like this. She didn't realize this feeling wasn't everywhere until she visited the West. I get so used to it that I often don't notice it until I land in the airport of another country and psychic weight lifts from my shoulders. I felt a lump in my throat that felt vaguely like desperation as I talked to him. I was making a connection. He gets it. I didn't realize how hungry I was for that connection until I heard him talking about his Moscow experiences. Tonight, we will take the metro into town to meet him for dinner. We are going to Starlite Diner, the place we expats go when we want to pretend for five minutes that we aren't in Russia. We will take him to Red Square so he can have proof that he *was* in Russia and then we will wave goodbye. And maybe I will hate Russia a little less tomorrow.

CABIN FEVER

These are the times that try men's souls. And women's. And children's and everyone else who lives in a northern climate during the winter. We aren't as bad as Helsinki. But Helsinki has wonderful grocery stores, movies in English and that hardy Scandinavian outdoorsy spirit. They also have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Moving on.... Our skies primarily come in three colors: grey, dark grey, and black. From time to time, we get blue with the caveat that the suun rarely lasts longer than six hours, cutting across the corner of the sky, tantalizing us with promise of natural vitamin D and warmth. The warmth is an illusion. The vitamin D? Last year, my vitamin D levels were at 17. Optimal is around 32. For an asthmatic like myself, temperatures below 15F make any outside activity difficult. The closer the temperature gets to 0F, the greater my chances for a serious asthma attack. This leaves me with yoga and the treadmill as my primary forms of excercise. Also, walking up and down the stairs works too. There is only so much time you can spend indoors exercising and sitting and checking facebook before you start to go a little wacko. I spend probably a half an hour a day on Expedia pricing plane tickets and hotel rooms to get me out of Dodge whenever possible. I muse on the merits of various laundry detergents (!) and get excited by the prospect of three year old reruns of "What Not to Wear" on Discovery Travel and Living. I spend days fantasizing about fresh produce. A few years ago, I went to a farmer's market in Orvieto, Italy. The fresh tomatoes tasted like sugar candy. Those ruby orbs taunt me like the mirage of water torments a man crawling through the desert. Blood oranges, roasted turnips, spinach salad, peaches, raspberries, big old Yukon Gold potatoes.... The good news is that my architecture group starts up again this Friday and we're going to the Tretyakov Gallery to study Russian Orthodox iconography. Also, my brother should be visiting us next week--also positive. Once January is over, I will feel like we've turned a corner and the count down to spring can realistically start. Soon we will be celebrating Maslenitsa (pancake week) and before you know it, winter break in Greece. After that, it will be International Women's Day and I'll be on my way to the UK for a few days. In the meantime, it is the short term stuff that makes me crazy. Like how to get through today's piles of laundry and floors that need washing and refrigerator that needs cleaning without starting to go a little stir crazy and cooped up. Enough with the cold! Enough with the grey! Enough with the musings on laundry detergent!

the eagles live the heart of the matter

The inspiration for the title of my post. Hated the Don Henley album version, but this acoustic one moves me every time I hear it.

The Heart of the Matter

I come from a long line of grudge holders. We are world class in latching onto the smallest thing and using it as an excuse to be bitter for years, even decades. I didn't recognize this tendency in myself until I was in my thirties. Anger that had been simmering in me for eons finally erupted, consuming my thoughts and poisoning my heart.

I will never forget the day when I realized the self-destructive nature of refusing to forgive. I was in the Oak Hills park with my children, helping one of them on the swing. It was a typical overcast Portland day, nothing special. As I moved from child to child, ruminating on my grudge, a voice spoke to my heart reminding me of the bibical admonition: Judge not lest ye be judged. The weight of that epiphany struck me: I would be judged, by God, as I judged others. I also recognized that I would shrink if subjected to the withering criticism that I was subjecting others too. In that moment, I let go. A weight lifted from my soul. Since that day, I have improved. I am far from perfect, but I am less inclined to focus my energy on my grudges. I have not entirely succeeded.

I have to be careful in telling this story because there are innocent, well-meaning people who were caught in the middle of this particular scenario. I will speak in generalities as much as I can.

I have a unusually ability to perceive how events will happen before they happen. Not all the time, but enough that I have plenty of ammo to say "I told you so." In November, circumstances arranged themselves that I recognized that if I made a specific series of choices, there was a high chance I would end up in a situation I didn't want to be in. More like, a situation I dreaded with every fiber of my being and had the potential to trigger panic attack levels of anxiety. My husband told me I was being silly and irrational and paranoid. So I went along with my husband, trusting--hoping--that I was wrong. I took steps to protect myself, hoping that things would turn out differently than I had foreseen. I made a resolve that I would stand my ground and I would not go along with any situation that I wasn't completely okay with.

Right about the time I returned from Boston and that nightmarish travel experience, it became apparent that events were afoot that would land me in the exact predicament that I had tried to avoid.

When I realized what was happening, I spent a day collapsed on the couch, despondent. I cried myself to sleep. I cried in the middle of the day. I shut down. I haven't done that since we first moved to Russia and I was coping with bouts of depression. In many respects, this turn of events tainted my holidays; an undercurrent of anxiety was my constant companion and I was filled with dread. A lead weight filled me. I couldn't believe that after all that I had done--and tried to do--this very unfair burden would be placed on me. I did what I could to mitigate the damage, to try and find a way to make the situation more fair. I talked to people who had decision making power. I tried, futilely to stand my ground.

Long story short: it became apparent that yes, I could stand my ground and get out of the mess, but getting out of the mess wasn't the right thing to do. There was no one else who could do what needed to be done. I had been bullied and railroaded into a circumstance where the choice was between doing what was fair--what I wanted--and what was needed. I could foresee that the "fair" option would have unintended ripples--negative ripples that wouldn't be fair to others. So I went along with it, I took one for the team so that others wouldn't haven't to pay for my justice crusade.

This is the problem I'm wrestling with: I am still angry. I have a bitter taste in my mouth every time I think of the individual whose sloppiness, perhaps even laziness and thoughtlessness, put me in such a bad position. I am confident that this individual is completely unaware of my feelings, most likely oblivious. Something important was taken from me that I will not be able to get back. Some lovely things happened too, but I am still tipping back and forth on the fulcrum of "fair," and "justice," wanting some kind of recognition that I was messed over. It isn't like anything can be undone.

Maybe I want an apology. Maybe I want a recognition that I was right in predicting the situation I landed in. Maybe I want someone to say, "I'm sorry." I need someone to care what happened and at least acknowledge the fact that I was wronged and acknowledge what was lost because this idiot's behavior. I want someone to hurt because I was hurt. I've had sympathy. I want justice.

I don't know why this is bothering me so much. I want--I need--to let go. But I won't lie: I've played and replayed the scenario in my head where I see this individual and I get to say exactly what I think and it isn't pretty. It is incisive and articulate so no doubt can be left in this person's mind. The odds are that won't happen because there's another competing voice in my head that says "Be the adult. Be the bigger person. Be like Jesus. Your problems can hardly compare to His." I don't want to be the bigger person. I want this individual to cry like a little girl and say, "Wow, Heather. I blew it and I'm sorry" and mean it.

I know that how events played out made a positive difference in some people's lives. I received a sweet thank you note from someone just yesterday that made me pause in my grudge holding and recognize that yes, someone, somewhere, cared and understood my sacrifice. They used words like "love" and "joy" and "gratitude" and service"--about ME. Me. Miss Resentful 2010. There is no question that I was sustained by a power beyond myself, enabling me to accomplish something I didn't think I could. Shouldn't this be enough? Shouldn't I be grateful that I didn't end up curled in the fetal position having nightmares?

And yet, from time to time, I am consumed with the violent impulse to smack someone hard across the face and kick them in the shins until big black bruises appear. Fair. Fair. Fair. Just. Just. Just.

In this case, I was right. They were wrong. A lot of people stood by wringing their hands, saying how sorry they were, tutting disapprovingly, but that didn't change the outcome. Why didn't they DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Why didnt' someone PROTECT ME? So why isn't knowing that people are on my side enough?

I had hoped by writing this out I would sort some things out. I think I will be teetering back and forth on the fulcrum for awhile until I can let go. But how?

Curse of the Travel Gods

To blog or not to blog--that is the question. I made a promise to myself that I would avoid blogging when I was bound to write something I would regret. I bit my tongue a lot in December. Therefore, I did not blog. I probably need to write something. So here I go. Also, blogger is doing some wonky things with my formatting. I apologize in advance if this is a mess.

Above is a picture of my dear brother-in-law Peter and his new wife, Kristen. She may be one of the best Christmas presents our extended family has ever received. We love this adventurous, artistic, native New Englander. Parry and I found good (read: reasonably priced) flights from Moscow enabling us to join the festivities in Boston and Newport, Rhode Island.

The adventure going to and from the wedding is another story. Our flight leaving Moscow on Thusday December 10 was delayed by 3.5 hours making our 4 hour layover in JFK irrelevant. We were sitting in baggage claim in customs/passport control watching the minutes tick by as our connecting flight to Boston departed. There was no Delta or Aeroflot representative to be found when we finally got out of customs. We found a nice JetBlue employee who helped us book the last flight of the day to Logan. Naturally that flight was delayed by almost an hour. We landed in Boston at 12:30AM after starting our airport day in Moscow at 12:30PM. By our calculations, with delays, layovers, and flight time, we were traveling for about 24+ hours. We did find our hotel in Lexington, next to Minuteman Historical Park, around 1:45AM. I vaguely recall going to bed and waking up but I can't be sure that I ever slept. Wedding was lovely. The sun shone brightly on a brisk winter day. Usual Jarman family shenanigans being late to the reception ensued (Jarmans have a tendency to be lax about schedules as opposed to my family, the Claytons, who are neurotic about schedules. I have learned to survive it with a good deal of yoga breathing and chocolate). Flowers were lovely. Food was excellent. No one broke any of the china at the New York Yacht club. Even cowboys from west of the Mississippi remember their table manners from time to time. Saturday was a marathon shopping day. We had lists of items to buy for ourselves and our expat neighbors ranging from a laptop computer from Costco for our German friends to multiple bags of shaved organic coconut from Whole Foods for another neighbor. Hubby wanted a suit from Filene's Basement. Suffice it to say, the hardest items to find were marshmellow fluff (yet another neighbor) and Pilsbury Pudding in the Mix yellow cake mix for a forthcoming epic cupcake baking fiesta I had to undertake on behalf of the Anglo-American School class of 2010. Day ended in Boston's Back Bay with exquisite Thai food and a shopping spree, on behalf of my daughters, to Sephora. With plans to visit Modern Pastry and Mike's Pastry for cannoli in the morning, my life attained new heights of bliss. Sunday was return to Moscow day. I should have known that we were in for a long day when we arrived at Logan, on-time of course, to discover that our connection to JFK was delayed by almost two hours due to a incoming storm. An earlier shuttle to LaGuardia had available seats, but we would have to take a taxi from LaGuardia to JFK and along with our four monster suitcases full of groceries. We decided to switch flights and hope traffic between LaGuardia and JFK was do-able. 90 minutes later, they canceled the LaGuardia flight. We bounced back to the JFK flight. Which was delayed again. Lo about 4PM, I was stuffing my face with Fudrucker's bacon cheeseburger and fries, visions of missed connections dancing through my head. The trick with international connections is that typically they close 60 minutes before flight time. We were connecting from Delta to Aeroflot and Aeroflot will not allow electronic check in for US/Russia flights nor will they allow Delta to check you in and assign seats. I have been told this is for immigration/visa reasons. In order to get a boarding pass, we had to physically present ourselves to the Aeroflot desk at JFK before the flight closed. When we were confronted with leaving Logan around 4:20PM, we knew we would have less than 30 minutes from when we touched down to get off the plane, change terminals and check-in. We made it with 5 minutes to spare. Surely, I thought, our bad luck streak had ended. Yes, we were seated in the back of the plane which meant once we landed at Sheremetevyo Airport (regularly listed as one of the worst airports in the world) we would be hard pressed to make it through passport control in under and hour, but hey, we'd be in Moscow, right? 3 hours after boarded our flight, we left JFK. Yes, we sat on the ground, watching the rain, wondering where we were (we had been sent to some obscure corner of the airport by a bunch of warehouses to wait for our turn to take off). We landed in Moscow around 2:15PM. The original scheduled time was 12PM. Sure enough, I was the last one through passport control. By 3:45PM, it became clear that our baggage had been lost. All of it. Including a suitcase that my mother had packed and sent with relatives containing most of our daughters' Christmas gifts. We filed the proper paperwork. Signed a bunch of blank forms (this is scary in Russia--you have no idea what you're signing) and were promised that our bags would arrive on the next flight. Aeroflot would kindly deliver them to our home. All would be well. Never believe a Russian bureaucrat who tells you all will be well. Meanwhile, we had to go straight to hubby's office because he had legal documents that had to be signed before the end of work day. The weather in Moscow, naturally, was dark and foul. When we arrived at Intel's office in Krylatsky, I found an empty cubicle, put my head down and fell asleep. I think we made it home around 7:30PM. Yet another 24 hour+ travel day. Long story short, we had issues with our baggage. It involved many trips to our property management office, asking them to call Aeroflot and find out the status of our luggage. After five days of waiting and calling, property management contacted Aeroflot (after calling three or four different phone numbers) and found out that Aeroflot would not deliver our bags for customs reasons; I would physically have to claim them at the airport. This is Russia's latest ploy to raise money--they are milking customs for everything they can get. People used to be able to get away with loading their bags when they went abroad--these days, not as much unless you are careful and know how to avoid being pulled over for inspection. We had an expat friend with a suitcase full of hams that got nailed this summer. If Russia wants to charge me for that extra bag of Ziploc sandwich bags and Life cereal, they are definitely scraping the bottom for revenue. Thankfully, my friend Elke had a car to take me to the airport. We visited the third world bowels of Sheremeteyvo. This room looked like the warehouse where the US government stored the Lost Ark in Indiana Jones. Hardly a computer in sight--everything was written on ledgers. We spent almost three hours filling out more forms and waiting for customs to decide whether we were being honest about what was in our bags before they finally released the bags to us. The cheese cannoli filling we had bought from Mike's was a bit on the grainy side, but everything else including the all important Trader Joe's Peppermint Jo-Jo's had survived. For good measure, it took almost 2.5 hours to drive the 30 or so kilometers home. At some point, I began to question what the universe might have against me and why everything I attempted during this time period (and continue to attempt--but that's another story) seemed to sour. I'm sure someday I will double over with laughter telling this story, but right now it gives me a headache to even think about. I sometimes wonder why some people are lucky and other people aren't. I don't know if my guardian angels have taken their coffee break over the last month or so, but it seems like I've been taking "one for the team" more often than not. I am painfully aware that my problems are petty in the grand scheme of things which is why I took a blogging hiatus: the last thing I want to do is whine to the world and make it sound like my problems are huge. They aren't. To me they might be big. To the universe at large? Not so much. Someday, when I have permission, I will share a sad story that happened over the holidays. Right now there are confidentiality issues that I have sworn to uphold. Suffice it to say, this story is the story I tell myself whenever I feel the self-pity show taking center stage. In the meantime, the next flight I'm taking is to Athens to see my sister Julie and her family. The weather should be lovely in Greece and there will be lots of feta, cucumber-tomato salad and kebab sandwiches on the Plaka to be enjoyed. As a public service, I'm letting the world at large know that we're flying on Aeroflot, direct to Athens on Saturday February 20 returning a week later. Anyone hoping for a stress-free travel experience probably should consider booking a flight other than the one I'm on....

Raindrops on Roses

When the VonTrapp children were scared by a thunderstorm, Maria sang "My Favorite Things" to them as a way of dispelling their worries. I hope the same tactic will work on a gloomy Russian Thanksgiving day. Rain. Clouds. Mud. Dark. Blech. I've been chased by the shadow of a bad mood for a time now. I can't discuss many of the reasons because they involve other people whose business is not mine to share. Suffice it to say, there is plenty of suffering to go around and I'm grieving with those that grieve. The perpetual rain storm a'la Portland is not helping. Being far away from home at the holidays often makes the days feel long. Every time I receive one of those family emails directed to a bulk mailing list inviting me to the Messiah sing-in or a Christmas party 7,000 miles away, my heart dies a little. A reminder of how not-normal my life is. Time to trot out my favorite things so then I won't feel so bad. What do I love, besides my family, my church and my country? Let's keep this more mindless and shallow, shall we? 1. Waffle cookies. I forgot how much I love waffle cookies until, in my new church calling as nursery leader, I was handed a bag of Russian waffle cookies because one of my regulars, a beautiful young lady named Aviana, loves them. Those light crunchy layers, the sweet creamy filling. Yum. 2. Ugg boots. I have written before about Ugg boots. I love my sheepskin lined warmth for the toesies Ugg boots. I will probably never be able to wear cute Manolos or high-heeled, high fashion drama pumps without crippling myself, but Uggs make me happy. 3. Celebrity gossip. Can't wait for Lindsey Lohan to go Britney Spears. 4.Twinkle lights. They can make an otherwise desolate, lonely looking Russian birch tree look magical. 5. Finding something rare at the grocery store. Found fresh sage, sweet potatoes and fresh cranberries at the store in the last two weeks. :happy dance: 6. Being a nursery leader at church. One of my two church jobs, I take care of 18 month to 2 year old children for two hours every Sunday. I love the kids and I love the job. Life is great when all it takes to make you happy is a nap and some matchbox cars. 7. Books. Priorities are: reading, breathing, eating. 8. Laughing. I've been watching "The Big Bang Theory" sitcom on DVD. My friend Bethany is a PA to one of the producers. I've watched some episodes four times. Laughed. I watched Friends' "The One with all the Thanksgiving Flashbacks" yesterday. Laughed. 9. Nice people. The new mission president invited us for a Thanksgiving meal--that I don't have to cook. I needed someone to be nice to my family today and the invitation was heaven sent. My neighbor has offered to help look after my twin girls when I go to Boston in two weeks. Abby is going to Lindsey's apartment by school. Heaven sent. My sister Julie is hosting my twenty year old daughter over the weekend. I don't worry about Sara being lonely if she is with Julie. Heaven sent. My friend Bethany burns TV shows to DVD from her TiVo and mails them to Russia. Heaven sent. 10. Sleeping in. Thanksgiving prep for Saturday means I will not be sleeping in much. However, there is nothing like waking up when you feel like it. Without an alarm clock playing nasty Russian techno music. There. I came up with ten. No white copper kettles or warm woolen mittens, but I know I'm blessed.

In the Land of the White Witch

I dreamed that I was attacked by a Russian woman in the Rosinka sauna. She was smoking cigarettes and allowing her child to run wild. I told her to put out her cigarette or I'd report her to management. She refused. I marched out into the locker room, prepared to go to the sports center management. She tripped me. I fell and broke my arm. Rosinka paid for my medical bills at the European Medical Center and offered me meals delivered to my house from the Rosinka restaurant. I told them that the smoking woman should pay. They told me she was the wife of a rich client and they would rather take care of me so I wouldn't cause any trouble.

I woke up from this dream at 3AM. The light from Parry's computer screen combined with the street lighting from the road outside our Istanbul apartment bothered me. I took my blanket, my pillow and stalked into the living room to sleep on the futon couch. I fell back asleep until the call to prayer woke me up at 5:30AM. By the end of our trip, hearing that eerie voice out of the darkness stopped scaring me and started being a comfort.

I slept until 7AM. Woke the twins up to take them Cemberlitas Hamam, the Turkish bath. It was raining. The old man at the desk had no clue what to do with three American ladies at 8AM. Much confusion ensued. The black stretchy panties they give to all their clients were not forthcoming. They barely got their bath attendant coupon. There was more confusion. Finally I marched them back to the waiting room and got them going. While the twins were being scrubbed, we (Parry, me, Abby) went over the Galeta Bridge to the baklava place in Karakoy for the third time in three days. This is supposedly the best baklava in Istanbul. As usual, the food was delicious but I had had so many trips to baklava, Turkish Delight and tourist shops that I was sick of standing there and pointing for what I wanted. The first time I went to the baklava place, I specifically said "No no no walnuts!" (I'm allergic) but he loaded my box with like five pieces of walnut baklava. Good thing I'm the only one in the family with walnut issues. I let Parry duke it out with the baklava people. The things we do for our children on the last day of vacation. Allyson wants evil eye tea cups, Abby wants chocolate baklava, I want there to be no stress on the way home. Everything went as might be expected for the next few hours, except the rain which was persistent and annoying, until it came time for our taxi to show. The day we arrived, Mehmet, our host's representative, stood in our flat and wrote out all the information for ordering our transfer to the airport. He said to me, "Wednesday, 11:30, right?" "Right," I said. Something about Mehmet worried me. People on Trip Advisor were all, "Mehmet was soooo great." I wasn't so sure. Guess what. No taxi. We waited. No taxi. At 11:45, knowing that old city Sultanhamet traffic is a nightmare, I dispatched Parry to the craft shop owned by our apartment owner's cousin/brother/relative. We sat for awhile. Watched the rain. Watched the weathered geezer across the street drink Turkish coffee and smoke. Noon passed by. No Parry. No taxi. At this point I am having flashbacks to every travel nightmare I have had in my life. I am plotting on how I can get my hands on anti-anxiety medication and wondering if I still am in the dream with the Russian woman and this is her revenge. About 10 minutes later Parry showed up with a handsome older Turkish man in smart clothing. They were engaged in deep conversation. The older man owned the craft shop. No clue where our apartment owner was, brother of craft shop owner. He wanted to make sure that we weren't stranded so he walked with Parry from his store to our building. The jist? Mehmet, bless his pointed head, scheduled our taxi for Thursday. Which makes so much sense considering that we only paid to stay at the apartments through Tuesday night! I thought about writing something mean on Trip Advisor but didn't want to send that bad karma out into the world. Our taxi showed up. We drove to the airport behind water trucks, garbage trucks and hundreds of Turkish laborers pushing their wares in carts and carrying big baggage on their backs. When we escaped Sultanhamet, traffic was at a standstill. And it was raining. And my head hurt. Yes. We arrived at the airport. We were probably among the last people to check in. I was in the last seat, on the last row of an Aeroflot flight. Behind 40 Japanese tourists coming to Moscow. In almost any country in the world, being behind Asian tourists is not a big deal. In Moscow, when you see Asians heading for the passport line, you RUN to beat them there. Russian immigration authorities are bigots and ethnically profile all Asians. Never mind that these are all seasoned, elite travelers coming to spend big money and tour their country. All Asian looking people are potential illegal immigrants stealing jobs from honest Russians. The harrassment is legendary. I've heard horror stories from parents chaperoning school trips--my husband's Chinese-American colleagues from the Intel-US offices have been threatened by the police. And here I am, the only American in the last 15 rows of the plane (all my family were in the front part) behind a herd of Asians. I hope when Russians go to places like China, Japan, and Korea that the immigration people in those countries torment the Russians and make them twist in the wind. I know the British always mess with the Russians at Heathrow passport control. They have a wary look in their eye until we approach, show them our US passports and then we're all best buddies. But the Russians? Russians deserve this after what they do to people at passport control. The flight was bumpy. The food was terrible. My seatmates were nice. The first nice, pleasant Russians I've sat next to--usually I get ornery babushkas or stinky men who haven't washed their clothing in months. There are plenty of nice Russians--they don't sit next to me on Aeroflot flights. They sit next to other people. I'm sure they thought I was rude, but my head still hurt and my only prayer of surviving was to read. I finished a book on my Kindle. C.S. Harris Sebastian St. Cyr mystery. Was ticked by the ending but will march right up and buy the next book the minute it comes out. We landed at Sheremetevo and didn't pull up to a gate. On one hand, this is nice because we all have a fair shot at getting to passport control. On the other hand, only in Moscow do you descend from an airplane in the pitch black, ice covering the runway in 18 degree weather without the wind chill figured in. People biffed it at the bottom of the stairs. We played an odd game of twisty turny follow the leader around the airport runways. I hoped we might get lucky and pull into the new terminal that allegedly has civilized passport lines. Not lucky. The passport control race began. My line was short. But guess what? Japanese tourists were in front of us. In every line. How they beat us, I have no clue. Maybe these were not our Japanese tourist and these tourists were on a different flight. We sat and sat and sat. We watched the cranky passport people growl at the Asians. We listened to the Russians talk about us--in Russian--without realizing that all three of my daughters can translate Russian. Abby is quite good at eavesdropping on Russians and explaining to us what they are saying. They were being rude and saying derrogatory things about us. So what? Their airport stinks, their passport people are bigots and their national airline serves terrible food. We make it out. We get our bags. We meet our driver. For the first time in almost 2 1/2 years, a very rude taxi driver follows us, nay, CHASES us, to the door, doing everything short of giving us the finger because I told him that we didn't need a taxi and to leave us alone. He scared Abby. The weather is nasty. Everything smells like cigarettes and pollution. Of course the traffic is nasty--it is the end of a Russian national holiday. Welcome to Moscow. On the way home to Rosinka, I called property management to ask them to turn our water on. This is a quirk of living in Rosinka. When you leave town, they turn your water off. In the winter this makes sense because you don't want your pipes to freeze. No clue why they do this in the summer. The temperatures have been low enough that property management told me to call on the way home from the airport to minimize the amount of time the water would be on. I called. No answer. I called again. No answer. I called a third time and after about 10 rings, an answer. I explained who I was. Clearly I didn't get one of their better English speakers. It took three or four times explaining who I was and what I needed for her to get that I was a resident who needed my water turned on. No water, no toilets, no dishwasher, no laundry etc. She said, "I cannot help you. You will need to call back in the morning." I lost it. I started to yell. "I did what YOU TOLD ME TO DO! You will TURN ON THE WATER! I will be home from the airport in 30 minutes. There will be WATER! Do you UNDERSTAND ME?!" First the dream about the mean Russian lady in the sauna, then the rain, then the taxi, then the flight, then passport control and now this. I think she got the message. When we pulled into the parking lot next to our garage, the plumbers were pulling out. Mission accomplished. Water on. When we were in Istanbul, Allyson observed that even the stray dogs in Istanbul seemed happier than the stray dogs in Moscow. What she concluded is that Russia is like Narnia while it was under the spell of the White Witch. People's hearts are frozen and it is always winter. Sometimes I forget that I live in the land of the White Witch. Then I go someplace like Istanbul where the fruit and vegetables are fresh, delicious and wholesome, where the people smile and are hospitable, where the city is surprisingly clean and the environment fun and fascinating. I'm then reminded about all the things that make me nuts in Moscow. I'm not going to be one of those expats who disses on the country she lives in because it isn't the country she comes from. However, there are moments when Russia invades my dreams and tests my sanity that I wonder what I did to have such bad karma. Allyson seems to be born under my bad karma star. She has trained for two months to run in a cross-country competition in Kiev, Ukraine. Monday, while Ally was out at the Gallipoli battlefields, I received an email that the Ukrainian government had closed all the schools in their country for the next three weeks to prevent the spread of H1N1. This applied to international schools too. CEESA (our sports and activities organization) had to cancel the meet. The White Witch has cast a spell, I swear. Or the mean Russian lady from the Rosinka sauna who tripped me and sent me to the hospital--in my dreams. I think Russia hates me. I think Russia hates itself. I think someone needs to come and overthrow the White Witch.