Two shoe boxes full of my diaries have been stashed in a secure place for months.

For months I have had no time to get back to the contents of the box, glimpse through the diaries, see once meaningful little things from friends and lovers, finally go through the piles of the paper, pictures and cards and see what's all that was about. I anticipated some feeling of nostalgia of the kind of girl I used to be, I thought the memoirs of the days, of all the problems I had would be "cute and sweet", and how I would feel disappointment - yet again - for wasting time in my adolescence and childhood, and not being able to stand up for myself. And then - since past is not going anywhere anyway, there're no rush in getting my hands on the archive, right?


Expectation vs Reality.


I could not make my way through 3 note pads of diaries. Some of those events would come back to me other than from my diaries, but in hindsight - it was one big endless groundhog day, which I'm trying to dilute with escaping to books and my own world as much as possible. There were occasional trips to very nice places, but they still left me feeling like inside of a fish tank: you're in a wonderful place, but fully dependent on family's agenda, mood swings and perception of comme il faut behavior. Except, perhaps, two trips to summer camp where if I saw an opportunity within hand reach - I could actually grab it.
 Hundreds of pages - probably -  talking in very details, although never directly,  about dead ends, solitude, sickness, sadness, rejection, lack of support, lack of direction in life.

Needless to say that brought up no nostalgia and no sweet feelings of younger self. It definitely raised some immediate anger, frustration and intention to push forward harder now, to use all the resources I have and to make sure I do not waste a day. Since I have already lost so many of them in first 16 years of my life, and you never know, in what... Afganistan I could be born in my next life :)

Old diaries.

I have 2 shoe boxes worth of old poor quality paper note pads, soaked in ink of a dozen colours. Old photos, Birthday cards, tiny items on a chain - things I did not know I had: a thin pebble with a hole, a silver heart, a razor...
An older box was dated 31.12.2003 and was covered by a sheet of paper with a warning against opening the archive. I closed the archive :) Quite a character I was half a life ago..

I was planning to pick up both boxes, but only if I left a good portion of my clothes here for another year or two. Now it looks like I will not need any of my stuff here in a year of two. But I will still take all of my diaries even if that means throwing away half of my stuff...

Making a packing list for 3 week trip for each member of the family is a no-bullshit skill.

Especially when 2 lists are for super-active toddlers, when your views on husband's wardrobe for those 3 weeks typically differs from his view, and when there's a wedding to attend in the middle of the trip.

Other no-bullshit skills include buying all the necessary stuff for the trip some time in tiny time slots between work and picking up Chill Sr from Kindergarten  and while running other errands on weekend. That includes picking presents for the hosts.

Packing the entire family, with all those 4 sheets of paper put side by side, while kids are running around trying to do their own packing and replace neatly packed clothes and shoes with toys in every suitcase - is a must-learn know how if you ever want to have more than 1 kids and to sacrifice your lifestyle in progress :)

Nevertheless: for all the airfare worth, we now have:
 3 full size suitcases, fully packed (20kg +), with vaccum packing bags used for kids warm clothes (jackets, vests and sweaters) wrapped around a large tequila bottle and kids shoes (including rain boots),
1 sports backpack for toys and change of clothes for boys, diapers and wipes + a laptop and ipad;
1 sports backpack for electronics and misc. things for the trip (meds, travel pillows), + professional camera+ laptop+ipad + printouts with itineraries, copies of passports etc.
1 large kids backpack for snacks (gets lighter as we eat :)  )
1 toddler mini-backpack for WIPES: heavy duty, kids, facial - wipes.
5 mice by the name of Squirrel were strategically diffused between suitcases and backpacks.


On a side note - the durability of my suitcase is amazing. There're scratches, holes at the bottom, the small "legs" fell off a while ago, however it never felt apart and the zippers still do not jam. Only the names of the places it has been taken to, written inside with nail polish - peel, as does Oscar Wilde's quote in the middle :)  It will celebrate its 15 year birthday this summer - never lost, never stolen.

Having spent the day in rushing to daycare to drop off Chill Sr, rushing through traffic to Lakewood to work, spending 8 hours in "between worlds" physically and mentally in tax preparation, rushing through traffic to a grocery store with a list of groceries to buy to daycare for our snack days, rushing to daycare to pick up Chill Sr and drop off bags of food, rushing back home through traffic while talking to Chill (okay, talking to my kids is actually the best part of the day), preparing fish and veggies to load to the oven while having both Chills hanging on me demanding attention, going for a walk with 2 Chills and 2 of their bikes (for which the younger one needs assistance all the time) , coming home to a tantrum of 2 hungry kids refusing to wash hands before they are fed, serving the dinner and going through the dinner helping Chills with their food and jumping up every now and then for a glass of water or a tissue, while trying to grasp the idea of and contribute to the conversation of Von Zobel's work and clients, cleaning up after the dinner, preparing milk for Chills, getting them off to bed after a couple of short bedtime stories/ kids' poems, rushing to gym to hold on to my 5K progress, rushing back home to slay a couple more tax returns before making it to bed after 1am -

 -  I feel like politely replying to every "Happy 8th of March" I receive today by suggesting to shove it up...

October.

For a few weeks now I end up sitting in the same Light rail car as a big man in large headphones, humming and talking to himself. His humming is so loud, long  and deep-in-the chest, it keeps all the passengers who have not heard it before confused by  the sound ' s origin, and when I first heard it myself I thought the train car was going off the rails.


Today's the coldest day of this semester, with drizzling rain and gusty winds developing as I am already waiting for my train at the stop. sitting in the car I catch myself thinking my shoes are two light and thin for such weather. This thought flows into trying to remember the last time I was wearing weather-incompatible shoes. Must be when working at La Reserve - I did have to take train and walk to and from train stations. Good times!.. Where did I keep my work shoes then? Must be my locker - yes, I did have a locker in the staff changing room. Was it also where I would keep my German study book for the times I arrived to work too early in the morning? Must be.


It's amazing how such details escape conscious mind for so many years - not that I needed to refer to them daily, and because I needed to constantly keep my mind clean for other... thoughts. But they've been somewhere deep down my memory all along. As I pass downtown, I take a different route to the building my class is at, and when glancing in the window of a hotel I walk by I see a team of waiters circled around a Maitre-d'  and realize they're going through their instructions, and their shift is about to begin, and it's going to be a pretty busy evening with such nasty weather outside.

One call home - and within a second an emptiness grows deep inside.

The person who taught me to play chess, told the plot of the whole Le Comte de Monte-Cristo before I read the novel and the plot of Gaidai's comedies before I watched them, who was doing math lessons with me, told me jokes about his work when I was a kid and shared the memories of his service in the army and bomb testing after, who came up with the name for my sister and could have been a successful scientist had he been born in a different country - died. 

And now deep inside there's nothing but emptiness, sorrow and worry about Dad and Grandma. They're coping ok now, but what about when the shock and stress fade?

Now I only have Grannies left. 

I'm only happy he feels good now and does not suffer anymore, and that he had seen his both great grandsons.

Once upon a time in music school, right before our chorus rehersal

a few friends of mine and myself started having a chitchat about starting our own band. The chorus classes were neither very informative nor very useful or particularly enjoyed by any of us, the teacher was late, and since we all were about year 4 in school, we were eager to push our music boundaries :)

The recruit dialog went like this:

- So, are you in? 

-Of course I'm in!

- And you?

-Sure!

- Oh, let's invite her too! Hey, we're thinking about having our own band - wanna join?

- Sure!

- Now, let's see who we have... So, we're... five pianists and a dombra player?! Erm... ok....

Looking at these 4 guys yesterday made me think we might have given up too fast :) 

Of course, carrying 5 electric pianos with us on world tours would've been a challenge, but that would've also made us one of a kind! :)

The first hours of the new year

poor Dr. Chill with some nasty infection. Literally, what we had to deal with a few years down 2015 were the consequences of this bug. Thank God, this little guy is a fighter...

A couple of days later, just as Dr Chill got better, the infection got to Von Zobel & myself.
I was on a semi-knocked out mode for a day with breaks for drinking and watching the X-files with one eye. I honestly can't remember when was the last time when I could just spend a day in bed recovering: lying like a log and not doing a-ny-thing at all, but watching something that easy and entertaining. Phoenix, 7 years ago probably...

Actually, the reason I remembered about the X-files series at all was because I stumbled across an old... erm... FBI ID I found among my old child's stuff I was going through to find something interesting for Dr Chill to play with. My school best friend, when she got a PC at home AND access to internet - which was incredibly cool back then, - downloaded and made us both FBI badges.
Which stated each of us was a SPASIAL AGENT.
And which we wore for our class's school duty week on top of our official class badges, because class badges were boring.
And which we, at the sight of our class teacher at the horizon, would hide behind the Geometry books, or by turning around, or by putting right hand on heat and starting to sing: "Take my heaaart! Take my souuuul! I'm so lonely at this hour, I wish for deaaaath!". Apart from the class teacher's raised eyebrows and a command to stop singing rock songs when on duty - that kept us out of trouble.
Spasial time indeed.

As for the actual series, they're still entertaining and fun, and still a slideshow of beautiful-beautiful picture of the US it is a pleasure just to look at. Some 15 years ago though, all the UFOs, abductions, special powers and paranormal activities looked rather creepy if watched after 10pm. The only way to fight off the chills was to convince yourself that all the scary abnormal stuff is only happening THERE - across the Atlantics and far far away from here :)

DOOM

As Von Zobel was watching me taking a 10 minute stress management break, chasing monsters with a shotgun, I remember a little anecdote I had to tell him.

DOOM-II was quite a popular game when I was about 8; I played it on my uncle's computer when I access to it was granted to me :) and I knew a few more kids who played it too. However, we all were in groups learning English as the second language, we were of course interested in understanding the name of the game - but we could not.
Because none of the dictionaries we could get our hands on had the word.
I can't remember what the deal was with the English-speaking adults around, the teachers of English or IT in school, but the fact was - we could not dig up the word anywhere.
So then we decided, that the word "DOOM" must be made up specifically for this game (yep, because if something is not in a dictionary for school-aged kids it simply does not exist!), and - that it is a combination of the words DOor and roOM (because you have to move through corridors between all sorts of rooms with monsters, and open all sorts of doors!).
Makes perfect sense, right?

...It was in a couple of years when either my best friend got a computer WITH internet connection, or I inherited a huge Oxford English dictionary from ex-owners of our new apartment, or we got one of our computers in computer lab hooked up to Internet at school... that we did at some point look up the word.
The meaning was definite, but somewhat disappointing.

Frescoes depicting my old life

 are fading, cracking, chipping and from time to time pieces of plaster are falling down.

5 minutes ago I felt a sudden urge to check what became of my old Swiss number. I wonder why this never occurred to me before. I dialed it to discover it now belongs to a British woman.

It's past midnight

and I am watching a video in Thai on Youtube on how to use TI BA II Plus to calculate MIRR.

.... Just For my information  - years later - on how I got to such a life...

Lipetsk saw me in

with abundant greenery, heavy heat and gloomy faces. From time to time it is less and less like the town I knew and grew up in.

Every time I come there I feel like the place got more crowded and stuffy. People in the streets in mid-Summer heat: pressed down. Humid, sticky heat. Heavy air.  Few teens and kids: are they all in summer camps? Are they not let out in the heat?

 More cars on the road, more trafic jams,  but few parking spaces. The first floors of houses are made into grocery and clothes stores, hair salons, notaries, watch and shoe repair... Shops are everywhere. You'd think everyone's in retail and sales.

Ads painted right on the pavement - "Eat Sushi at Home" and - a phone number. Men and women handing around in parks at night. Beer in bottle. Laughter, music, kids, dogs. The contrast between women 35 and under and over 35 - is too obvious, but I could not describe or explain it if I had to. Maybe it's all about self-perception and expectations and perspecives for the remainder of your life based on achievements and social status? And looks?..

It's amazing how many clothes stores are now in Lipetsk. Good style, good quality, higher prices - that I got used to in...   the past years.

In my Maternal Granmother's courtyard the pavement is ruined, big wholes in the asphalt and no benches to sit on. Iron entrance doors with codes. The Chestnut tree outside Granny's window grew huge; a shield against summer sun.

Sokol - looks and feels like Costa-Rica: incredibly green, hot and casual. The park became jungles... Houses are well painter from front sides with paint cracking and chipping off at the back side.
Paternal Ganny and Grandpa's courtyard is filled with cats and pigeons. Holes in pavement and slabs are crushing. Granny and Grandpa's birch grew tall and... branchy. Older women occupy the benches outside and just like 1.5 decade ago look at me with curiosity. Granny never had time to sit outside with them, neither does she have time now. Grandpa has not been outside in months.

"Stolpovskiy is a goat" read garages nearby. Ha! Someone got angry with Uncle but is feeling powerless ? Politics :)  He is starting up a new project - Sokol district got a new, clean, well equipped and professionally staffed medical center. With the remaining space around building wisely made into parking spaces :)

What does it mean when you meet people you have not seen in years, some for just a couple years, and some - in about 7 years - and they do not ask you questions, and do not tell you anything about their lives? And behave so naturally as if you just left yesterday?

Doctors and clinics - make me feel like a cripple who won't live past 40. Because:  *fill in with a long list of symptoms * . Oh, this long-forgotten feeling.

Dogs barking at night. I am so knocked out by day's marathons in the heat I sleep right through.

The river is monopolized by motorboats. Loud and stinky. You have to pick the swimming area just right - so you are far enough from the shore with silt, shells and roots of the water plants and not too close to the middle of the river where a drunk or careless driver of a motorboat can run you over.

Did not make it to Rechnoe garden. Maybe it's best to keep it in my memory as it used to be?

Dad's worried and offering help. He and Angelina never slow down. They have a whole garden with greenhouses. Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers for breakfast every day. Some special cheesecake bars from Voronezh :)

Prices kill me. Economical natural selection in action...

The shelves in the office in Dad;s house are full of books. And foreign language study books and tapes. Dad is hooked up on cosy, good feel comedies. I feel him.

Watermelons are sold right from big trucks parked along the freeways. Friends are giggling: "Only on August 2 you can't buy a watermelon. No, you just try to explain to somebody from abroad why on August 2nd you can't buy a watermelon anywhere in Russia! Who can figure that out?!"
A somewhat  sadistic joke. Hmm.

Never made it to the forest. I wonder what it looks like now. Will preserve this for my next trip and conserve this piece of the past together with my other souvenirs...

Done.

Was able to put all Jons and Michaels into the right place, got the history and the civics right... 6 in a row answers were correct, did not have to go up to 10 :)

Thoughts of the day:  If a simple sentence "When is Thanksgiving" suffices for language proficiency, -  my work emails are definitely quite impressive.

And - following their method of placing the position in front of the name, I should ask to be addressed at work as Consultant Rita =)

My winter weekends of 2012