If you told me ten years ago that I would be celebrating my forty-eighth birthday in Moscow, I would have thought you were crazy and needed something. Perhaps a therapist. I'd just finished my Master's, was working critical care in San Francisco, and was looking for my first NP job. Good times.
On my birthday this year, the day started out as always. Coffee first, then breakfast with the kids. Work got a little frazzled and then Dina met me with some friends to go to Cafe Pushkin (thank you Tamara for taking Dina there when we first arrived). It was fabulous! Entering the cafe, the servers are dressed in 19th century attire. As they were pushing the champagne cart towards us, I eyeballed a very expensive menu and tried to come up with a polite way to ask for the "business lunch" menu. Dina said, "Ask them for the business lunch menu!" They were happy to oblige us and told us to go downstairs to the main floor. But we had a chance to glimpse at the fine decor of volumes of bookcases and ionic columns with sconces and barreled ceilings.
Downstairs, we were seated at a round table with elegant settings. The ceiling had baroque paintings with ornate molding. The business lunch menu was brought out: a choice of salad, soup, and entre. I chose the herring with boiled potatoes (thought of my papa and how we used to eat that for lunch when I was in kindergarden). The soup was borshch with smoked goose and for the main dish I had sea bass which I expected to be a steak like Chilean bass at home, but it was more like a trout pan seared and served on a bed of dill sprigs with rolled peppers and baby potatoes drizzled with a lemon sauce.
After lunch, we walked to an old grocery store that reminded me of Troia's Market with italian nougats, fruit shaped marzipan, jellies, chocolates, and display cases of hams and cheeses. Only the interior was different with decorated high ceilings and art nouveau chandeliers.
From there we walked back to our apartment past a farmer's market that had mushrooms, flowers and handmade wooden toys then the church where Pushkin was married. A visual walking tour of Moscow.
Stefan and I played games while Dina prepared a cheese and fruit plates with french baguettes for dinner. The kids helped Dina bake a chocolate orange cake and they decorated it with the marzipan fruits and candles that refuse to go out. Ha ha! We toasted with Russian champagne. I thought of long dead relatives I love and miss. I thought of home, which I miss. So glad for internet and all my friends and family.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 
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