twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?"

Author: place2place

  • hot wheels

    9652154-640

    After living here for a year, we decided to get our Land Cruiser running again. It served us so well in Africa. When we got here the battery was dead. I spent many hours trying to figure out where and how to get a new one and get the car insured and registered. It requires tons of paperwork. "Bureaucracy demands it!" Then there's the issue of insane Moscow traffic with gridlock and confusing road signs and roads. Occasionally a friend who has a car would take us to the bigger super markets or Ikea. Otherwise, walking and the metro suited us just fine. Especially when it's -7 degrees Celcius and there is hazardous ice and snow on the ground.

    But there are some occasions where a car would be great to have. The battery ("accumulator") took 4 days to get. First it took 20 questions with 20 phone calls: dimensions in metric, how many Am's, plates, cold cranks, filter sizes, fluid volumes in ml… Then they search for parts. How to get it? I ended up paying them 200 rubles ($6) to deliver. And finally! Instant start after a year in hibernation!

    But now there is still the issue of insurance and registration. The car needs to be inspected which means driving it to a mechanic. To do this though, you are driving it without a registration. You cannot insure the vehicle here until you have registration – so you're driving it without both registration and insurance. It must be perfectly washed inside and out for the inspection and it has to have a fire extinguisher and road side orange triangle and flares. These can only be bought at certain store locations which require someone with a car to take you there or a very long metro ride with multiple line changes. 

    On Wednesday I have an appointment for my inspection. Our friends had trouble because their tinted windows were "too dark" and they were told on inspection that they would need to replace all the windows. But a few extra rubles took care of that. Another friend had a blown engine replaced in another country before arriving here and the VIN# didn't match the engine block. It will be interesting to see how the Land Cruiser fares. 

  • r&r quiz

    How many jars of Trader Joe's peanut butter did I buy?

    Will I really use this much Stevia, ever?

    Why not try to pack a blanket, a set of sheets and a pillow?

    We have now bought three (3) camera chargers. Can I find a single one?

    Wine with a screw top won't explode in the luggage like wine with a cork?

    Is the other shoe packed already, or is it lost?

    Was the honey mustard/musical intrument/cleaning product really a good idea?

  • i’ve gained at least 100 lbs

    Timberland_boots When I wear these with my Levi's, they really help me embrace the northern-California-white-trash aspects of my personality and there is no doubt I really like Lynerd Skynard. They are Timberland for god's sake. What convinced me to buy these was that the sales woman was wearing them, and she wore them all over super-snowy Portland last year and they looked fabulous and they are suade. The more worn out, the better they look. I can't wait until mine all are distressed by the the snow, ice and salt of Moscow. Really resisting buying them in black too.

    BambooSofter than expensive sheets from France, than any 600 thread count thingie I've ever tried or wanted to try. Bamboo jersey sheets from Target. Oh my god. Unnnhhhnnng. For $50. Unbelieveable.

    Wimpy  "Can you please stop reading to me?!" I find myself saying to Stefan. I'm probably the last person to get on this band-wagon, and I don't appreciate the smart alec aspect, but whatever it takes: Stefan is reading fiction non-stop.

    Other things I bought two of: Erath Vinyards Pinot Noir from Oregon. I'm hoping the high-end screw cap makes it home in the luggage without exploding like a corked bottle would. Orbit gum, sweet mint flavor, just mentioning it makes me have to go find some right now, it's addicting.

  • 07-08-09 pdx

    I don't know if gets any better than today.

    Woke up on Reed College Place, in the house we woke up in for four years. You can go home again, but it's really wierd: you won't remember where any of the light switches are.

    Then I watched Stefan roll down the steep driveway on a skateboard, the whole time he wore a ski mask.

    My mom called me and we talked on the phone for an hour, she gushed about David Cook, "He's talking about his dog!" she tells me. He was on the teevee twice today, he should be on tv twice everyday. In fact, he should just take over tv. He so wants to.

    Then Camille, Stefan-still wearing the ski mask–and I hit the best Goodwill in the world, the one on Grand Ave. Stefan was hoping to find Pokemon cards, and indeed, found an entire collection of them. The partial reinforcement schedule dopamine hit he got from that find assures me that he is now a thrift store shopper for LIFE. Goodwill is my happy place, or one of them anyway, and today I was in there poking through the books while talking to Peter-in-Moscow-loopy-with-jet-lag. We discussed his length–of pants! Bought piles of books, cool clothes an old postcard of Crater Lake and Bauer bowl.

    In Oregon cherries are such a bumper crop this year they are literally giving them away; they are glorious.

    Peet's coffee for tea, Imelda's on Hawthorne for new boots. *swoon*

    Then out to dinner with Peter's nephew Peter with his documentary-film-maker sweetheart. So how boring was it to discuss the creative process over pizza and wine? Yeah, right. 

    Now back at 6225 RCP, wandering around the house, drinking wine, eating cherries, listening to crickets, incredible moon outside one of my favorite windows ever, looking for light switches.

    Cast

  • he likes hummers

    This story has a better ending than the Lake Tahoe baby bat we found impaled on our car antennae. In Davis, Philippe and Stefan were playing basketball and after making five or ten baskets, discovered that the thing clinging for its tiny dear life in the net was a baby hummingbird. Mike and Tanya spent half the day driving the bird to a rescue center where they fed it with the teeniest eye-dropper imaginable and workers there said they thought the hummingbird would be fine.

    Baby_humingbird_stefan

    Baby_humingbird

  • cartwheels

    IMG_0697 Beach

    limontour beach

  • a saab story

    2001_Saab_9_5_Black_277

    Everytime we come home to the States, we end up renting a car, usually for a month. And everytime we do, we say we should buy a car and it will pay for itself. In fact, we wish we still had our old Saab. So I researched it and found one that looked great on craigslist. Dina and I drove down to the bay area and test drove it. It ran great and it looked ultra-clean. The seller was a Saab lover and and the price was right so we were sold. 

    Given the heavy traffic, we decided to stay in SF and go to Cha Cha Cha's for dinner (one of our favorite Caribean food restaurants).  The check engine light came on but the car was running great without loss of power, temperature, or oil pressure. We drove it to Davis and had Mike's mechanic looked at it. He diagnosed an ignition sensor, cleaned it and told us it should be fine. Said otherwise the car looked fine.

    We drove north to  Mt. Shasta, confident that the car ran fine. The engine light did come back on as before without other problems. We were so happy to be driving a Saab again. Then, after climbing a steep grade into Shasta, we took the exit to my sister's when all of a sudden, a very loud noise developed like a disel engine. All dashboard lights came on; the engine light flashed, an oil can appeared, and a red exclamation mark lit up! We drove it another 300 yards to my sister's house. No smoke. No loss of power. Just a very bad internal noise.

    The following two days were filled with love, family, and friends who gathered to remember my father who recently passed away. There was Russian vodka and black caviar, homemade pickles, grilled lamb and delicious salads. We drank and remembered. My father would have been very happy.

    The car was towed to a mechanic who diagnosed that we had blown the engine. It was a big blow, maybe more to us than the car. We felt violated in some way. But the car did get us to where we needed to be and all engine trouble aside, the car is in excellent condition. So we decided to bite the bullet and put in a used engine with low miles and warranty that will hopefully have a lot of life left in it.

  • no longer 7/11

    Cami BD

    IMG_0550

  • tears

    Sf1

    Sf2 Peter and I drove into San Francisco over the Bay Bridge, Steven Stills sang Southern Cross on KFOG and I couldn't help but cry, it was all so sweet.

  • we all recall a 4th of July not so long ago

    "I remember the 1976, Bicenntenial 4th of July as particulary poignant; when mama brought a cake out to the patio for desert, someone (Vera Postovsky? Alex Jadan?) spontaneously started singing "Happy Birthday" and everyone joined in. By the time they got to "Happy Birthday dear America", this group of immigrants, each with their own story, there wasn't a dry eye among any of us (of course, the vodka probably helped)"  - my sister Ludmilla 


    "I think it was Marcel Sedletzky who started the singing. The cake was covered with whipped cream, blueberries and strawberries spelling out "US". He sang, and all joined in, "Happy birthday to us, Happy birthday to us, Happy birthday dear America, Happy birthday to us." Almost everyone there was an immigrant.

    I also remember the sunny morning of that Bicentennial 4th of July. Mama and I were up first, washing dishes from the anniversary celebration of the night before (their 27th), inexplicably joyful and singing every corny patriotic song we could think of (including "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from "Oklahoma!"). Drinking instant coffee."
     - my sister Nina

    All my siblings remember that joyous 4th with other added details! Climbing up on the roof to "spy" on those tipsy Russkies and later watch the fireworks in the bay from up there. Everyone was happy. Even Chewpee the dog got a hot-dog he stole off the grill.