Rite of Passage

Our poor Alex. Yesterday evening she ran into the kitchen to give me some good news (she won a game with Terry) and slipped in her slippery socks and fell, using her arm to break the fall. She complained of the pain, except for when the TV was on. No swelling, no discoloration, she could move her fingers. Figuring she just banged it hard, we gave her Motrin and ice packs and we did dinner, bath and bed.

This morning she continually vacillated between "mommy I hurt so much" and "it doesn't hurt at all" so once it was late enough to call a doctor at home on Sunday I called the Consulate doctor to confer with her. She advised we wait and see for a few more hours and we did, eventually deciding to get an x-ray. She called the clinic that was walking distance from our apartment, set it up and called me back to say they were there and waiting for us. I pack a bag, throw Alex in the stroller and we race down there. We get to the reception area and the girls there have no idea who we are, who we're there to see or why we're there (they do speak English so it wasn't my bad Russian) I eventually have to call our doctor again to put her on the phone with the receptionists and they do indeed find me in their system.

The doctor came out, asked "shto slushilas?" (what happened) and between Russian and pantomime I think he understood that she ran and slipped and fell. He felt her arm and said we'd go for the x-ray. Of course Alex was very nervous but she was brave and did everything the doctors said to do. They let me stay in the room with her too, which helped a lot. The picture came right up on the screen in the room and they showed me the fracture. The doctor even said "fracture" so I am pretty sure that's what it is.

He then said something to the effect that they didn't need to do anything, just the arm needs  .... and then pantomime of something around the arm. I asked "splint"? and he said yes. Turns out that was a miscommunication because he meant that she didn't need surgery and she only needed a cast. So he was probably amused when I asked if she needed to wear it all the time.

He led us to a hallway with a bunch of clusters of chairs in front of doors and said something I didn't quite catch, so I asked Alex if she'd understood. "Yes, he told us to sit down." I am sure she hears that command a few times a day at sadik! so I figured she was probably right. And she was. They put the cast on, which was another nerve-fest for Alex but I held her good hand and she clung to the stuffed animal she'd brought and we made it through. She has to wear a cast practically up to her armpit for 2 weeks, then they can cut off the part from the elbow up and she has to wear the shorter cast for 2 more weeks.

One thing I will say - from the moment the cast went on she had not once complained about pain.

From the minute I walked out of my house to the minute I walked back in was a bit over 2 hours. Not bad for what was essentially an ER visit on Sunday afternoon.

Adventure and Mis-Adventure Vilnius: Posh (or not)

As mentioned previously, the Stikliai is a fancy hotel. Beautiful. When Secretary of State Clinton came to Vilnius, she stayed here. When my friend mentioned to a friend of hers we were staying there, the friend mused we must be posh. Ha!

I guess we joked about being "not-posh" too much. The night before we checked out, as we were on our way out to dinner the lady behind the desk asked when we would leave the next day to get a sense of our checking out needs. I mentioned we had to go early. She then said to me with a "particular" tone of voice, Queen Latifah head roll and much eye blinking "Well, how were you planning to pay?"

W. T. F.???????

I restrained myself from strangling her right there and simply said I had assumed there would be someone at reception at 7am to process our checkout.

Does this hotel really have a history of deadbeats? What was it about us that made her question our intention or ability to cover our hotel bill?

Every single other member of that hotel's staff treated us professionally, graciously, and kindly. They all smiled at the kids when we walked through the lobby. I hate that one damn fool had to mar such a special experience.

The kicker is that while we were out that night the airline called us to say the flight was cancelled and we were re-booked on the earlier flight (6:00am). We decided we really should do the checkout that night when we returned as there may not be someone available to process us at 4:30am. Terry went down and spoke with a different woman. She assured him that she herself would be at the desk at 4:30 and would happily process us then and we could call to have our bags picked up when we were ready (it did in fact take the bellboy all of 5 minutes to get to our apartment after we called).  This makes the first woman's comment and attitude all the more WTF?

Uzupis

My friends live in this neighborhood of Vilnius called Uzupis. Well, it may be a neighborhood. It may also be a neighboring country, as Uzupis announced its secession from Lithuania on April 1, 1997.  The region celebrates its independence day on April 1 and has its 41 point constitution posted in several different languages along a brick wall. Provisions include the serious: "Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof." and the less serious: "A cat is not obliged to love its master, but it must help him in difficult times." The full Constitution is here.  Here I am reading it:

The most famous monument is the Angel of Uzupis...

Like in Russia, the custom of married couples locking a padlock on the wrought iron of one of the bridges is alive and well. We even saw one that was particularly special to us.

After our sightseeing, we stopped at a random cafe (Uzupio Picerija) for a snack. Who knew? We each got what were essentially blini and they were fabulously delicious. Thus fortified, we headed over to Tibet Square, a little park right by the bridge out of Uzupis that has Tibetan prayer flags all about as well as some sweet wooden swings hanging from several trees.

Adventure and Mis-adventure Vilnius: Prologue

We wanted to check out Vilnius and visit friends there. We booked a flight. We spent more time than we should have researching apartments to rent, going back and forth with our friend who lives there about locations and other issues.  We finally booked a place with Apartments Inn (www.apartmentsinn.eu). We paid our deposit.

Fast forward to 7 days prior to travel. I'm tidying up loose ends and realize I never wrote back to the place letting them know what time we're arriving, so I send a quick message. The reply:  Oops. We never booked the place for you, someone else is in it right now and won't leave before you get here.

Panic.

They added that they do have another apartment available, but it's on the other side of town and had other inconveniences. We're pretty much up the creek so we say OK I guess we have to take it, but it would be nice to get some compensation for the trouble.  They offer a measly 5 Euro per night discount on an apartment that is more expensive than the one we were going to stay in AND didn't meet our needs as well as the first one.

We spend all the free time we have for 2 days trying to find something else. We realize if this is the service we're receiving from this place before even arriving, what can we expect when we get there. We cancel and request our deposit back.  We book at the Stikliai, which has apartments as part of its hotel. We realize we're going to pay more than twice what we had planned to pay for our housing.

What we didn't realize yet was that it would be totally worth it! Here are some photos of the place:

The courtyard outside our apartment

The living room and kitchen. Why yes, that is granite on the counters.And a whole bunch of pretty glass tchotchkas along the top of the cabinets that were once within easy range of little fingers.

Our bedroom had pillars. Need I say more?

Adventure and Mis-Adventure Vilnius: Zoltan

Part I:
On Saturday we filled the Sequoia and headed to Trakai, famous for its castle on a lake, its Turkish Jewish history, and its meat pies (kibinas). Other than the oppressive heat, everyone was pretty happy. The kids picked dandelions, the adults took photos of the castle and the kids.

We took refuge in the shade of trees just on the waterline. Zoltan had been gathering rocks and throwing them into the lake.

He had two fistfuls and started to run headlong toward the water. Before anyone could stop him, the land stopped but he didn't. I was doing something else and suddenly was met with the view of a hysterical screaming Zoltan being carried by Terry and clearly dripping wet from the armpits down. Still clutching two fistfuls of rocks, that he continued to hold onto throughout the next steps.

We quickly undress him and get his sweatshirt on (we had just finally convinced him to take it off moments beforehand ...) As Terry was putting a new diaper on, our friend was in quiet conversation with her youngest, who's the same age as Alex. She had worn a dress with leggings that day, and the leggings were quickly stripped off and Zoltan had his new outfit. You can see that he did recover from his trauma to enjoy the rest of the day.

He did finally drop the rocks, too.

Part II:
The next morning we were heading out. The kids had been arguing whether we should take the elevator or stairs. Zoltan seems to have no love for the elevator - he always asks to hold someone's hand whenever we're in it. BUT he does love to press those buttons. In the end the decision was made to take the stairs so Terry and I head off to the right, while the kids are still by the elevator to the left. We hear screaming. This is not as unusual as one would hope so we just yell over our shoulder to Alex "Why is Zoltan crying?" as she is usually the cause. Alex appears by our side. We realize Zoltan is still screaming. *#&^(@*&^  He pushed the button, got into the elevator, then the door closed. He was alone and trapped.

Luckily it's a small hotel and nobody had called the elevator in the 10 seconds it took to get there and press the button to "call" it and thus open the doors. Obviously, we took the stairs that morning.

Tallinn Airport

Since having children, most factors involved in travel have taken on a whole new rating scale. If it makes my life easier - super! Historical or esthetic value have taken a back seat to comfort, convenience and most of all: keeping the kids happy and quiet.

Tallinn airport, oh how I love thee!  You are so adorably small and yet in our collective 10 hours within your walls we had to turn on Dora for all of 45 minutes.

These are some of the reasons why:

Cadets on the move

Something you don't see every day in the metro: a group of what looked like cadets or new recruits, anyway they all looked 12, all wearing the uniforms and coats of something military and each with a duffel bag at his feet. They were standing in formation, 4 deep and maybe 10 across? Waiting for the metro. It's been a long time since I wished I had my camera on me. Using my phone didn't even occur to me as there was no way Terry would have let me post a photo of the anticipated poor quality it would have been. So I leave it to your imagination.

Take Your Child to Work Day

The official date of Take Your Children to Work Day for 2012 is April 26. To coincide with spring break, however, I organized the Consulate's first ever TYCTWD on April 11.

It all started like this: one of the FSOs sent me a message saying "Hey, are you planning anything for TYCTWD"? It was 2 weeks prior to what eventually became the date for the event. I hadn't even thought of it. I thought there would be no interest at all - maybe some parents would be interested to bring their kids but none of the staff who would need to help me pull it off would want to take the time out of their busy schedules. We're a very small post - not just in size of personnel but in terms of physical size. No lunchroom. No "grounds". No Marines (most of the fun stuff happens with Marines).

All the other CLOs were talking about it on our listserv as many embassies and the State Department in general take the event very seriously. So I browsed some ideas, talked with some of the staff (ones who have kids of their own were the first as they also had a vested interest in keeping them entertained during the week off) and in 24 hours had put together a small program and sent out the dual-language invitation to all staff to register their children for the event.

I was pretty sure I couldn't handle more than about a dozen kids. In the end I took 14 and we had a wait list half as long. So much for no interest!

There were, as always, a couple of hiccups as I had not communicated clearly what I wanted from everyone. I don't think the kids noticed. One interesting observation - we had 2 main parts of the program: getting fingerprinted with RSO and having a visa interview with Consular. We had split the kids into 2 groups to make it easier to manage and to lessen the downtime for them. In each group, I noted the employees involved in the event were much more "showman-y" with the 2nd time. More relaxed/communicative/did more stuff with them. I think the adults had initially underestimated how interested the kids would be in their jobs.

Heck, I won't even be doing this job next year, but I am already planning how to make next year's event even better (and able to accommodate all the kids who want to come).

Having a visa interview

Getting fingerprinted

Fashion Week

So this post won't do much for dispelling the rumors of our high-falutin' fancy pants diplomatic lives.

It was Aurora Fashion Week in Piter, and the Consulate was able to score some tickets. Some friends and I went. It should go without saying this was my first fashion show, and I had no idea what to expect.

An American, Thom Browne, was the headliner and the main show. At 11:00pm. So Russian! We went a bit early to check out the place and other shows but TB was our main purpose. The first show we went to went like this: The show was to start at 9:00pm. Around 9:00pm we wandered over to the crowd of people massed together like Indians at the train station and started weaving our way towards the front. We got as close as we could then waited, crushed alongside the other 100 or so people like Japanese getting into the subway. When the bouncers finally started letting people, the 4 of us who'd gone together got a bit separated but only for moments and eventually we all squeezed through. We even found seating for 3 of us, which was fine as only 3 of us were in heels.

The show itself ... first 4 men in shorts and T shirts, then 4 women in similar gym attire (with super high heels). Sweatshirts .... nothing interesting. Nothing very pretty. One of my friends couldn't get over how unappealing the models were. In sum, maybe worth it to have the experience but certainly not worth our time. We had thought initially that when we got into the show we'd just stay put so we could keep our seats for the next show, but everyone had to clear the room between shows.

We decided to skip the 10:00pm show and save our energies for Thom so we went to get a drink and while milling about we found some more people we knew, including the guy who got us the tickets who was in the VIP section. He did eventually come slumming and hang out with us for a while, and when it came time to line up for TB he invited one of my friends to go with him. Good thing for her as she's the only one of us who saw anything. We got back into the scrum, which at first seemed smaller and calmer than the previous one but after 30-40 minutes of jostling we decided we didn't care that much and our feet hurt so went to get another drink and sit down.

About 15 minutes after we'd settled down - and been checking the progress of the show on the video monitors 20 feet from where we sat - a crowd began to fill into the area where we sat. I recognized some of the people who'd been standing near us; most of the crowd never got in to see the show. We should have quit earlier but at least we got some comfy seating from bailing as early as we did. At least we could watch the show on the video monitors when our conversation didn't take our attention away.

We decided to skip the after-party, figuring it would involve as much standing, waiting and being crushed as the shows had and after one aborted attempt (turns out some bars actually close for Easter. This place isn't as heathen as some might think!) we settled in for some food and beer at the Telegraph. Good wife that I am, I noted they carry 2 Scotches T likes although we could buy a bottle through PJs for the price of a glass.

I got home at 2:30am, which I never do as wake-up time is wake-up time no matter what bedtime was. The kids miraculously slept til 8:00am. I guess daddy being away affected them more than I had thought - which means he's never allowed to travel without us again!

Chaos

It's funny that this month's Blog Roundup topic is "Chaos." Terry's been away this week so I have been single mom, plus I had 2 events at work, 2 IWC-related events and 3 Russian classes - each one of which required preparation, organization, and stress until the thing concluded successfully. And it's Passover so my food choices and severely limited. To top things off, for some reason the cloth diapers decided this was the week to start repelling liquids.

I knew the kids would be acting up more, feeling cutoff from daddy's attention and being unable to articulate their worries (will he ever come back?) In the morning I was able to "zen" my way through it even though Z was waking at 6:30am. At the end of the day my patience was not in such sharp focus and the kids got put to bed more abruptly than usual on more than one night, and paid me back for it by not settling down until 9:00pm (an hour after being put down). I drank more liquor and ate more ice cream this week than I usually do, even breaking into the Maker's Mark that T asks me not to use as I dilute it with ginger ale anyway.

I'm lucky the nannies do laundry and the house cleaner comes on Thursdays or things would have been really, really dire around here.

T came back yesterday and I went out last night. The kids were silent before 8:30pm and woke this morning at 8:00am. I guess with daddy home they were more relaxed and able to sleep better?

Shoot, was I supposed to say something productive?