Long Time, No Blog

Hello one and all- I'm finally checking back in after a long delay in updates. This holiday season so far has been pretty intense... time to fill everyone in.

At the time of my last blog, Jonathan was back in the States for work. As usual when he's away, I descended into a total bachelorette state, completely shirking all domestic duties. At least until the day before our weekly mail call, when I remembered that all our Christmas cards and presents had to be shipped out the next day if they had any chance of arriving in time. Fortunately, another typical part of temporary bachelorhood is that I never go to bed before two, so staying up to package and address everything wasn't so bad.

The next week, as I frantically cleaned up for his return, I got a phone call from Jonathan. His flight had been cancelled. :( Sigh, another night alone. I finally went to bed and then early the next morning received another call- during his 20-hour delay, he'd got food poisoning. I proceeded to be worried sick about his being sick and what would happen with his flight. Finally something like 30 hours later than originally planned he was back home. Sallow-skinned and exhusted, but home. Yay!

After he returned mostly to normal, we looked forward to decorating a Christmas tree... until we were struck by the Grinchiest of all possible dastardly deeds. Each year our office here goes and cuts down some Christmas trees for all its employees. You can request the size that you'd like, and they are then tagged with everyone's names and put in the courtyard. They were ready to pick up on Thursday; Friday after work, Jonathan went to get ours, and couldn't find it. ?? We asked the person in charge of the trees. He knew it HAD been there- he'd personally tagged it and it was sitting in the front of the pile. What on earth? We searched again. Nope, no tree. We started asking around, and it seems that a certain employee, who had recently been fired (but hadn't yet stopped working) for chronic lying (among other things), had been asking around to see if anyone had ordered an extra tree because he'd forgotten to order one. Sooo... it seems that since no extra trees were readily apparent, he'd decided to take OURS. GRRRR.

We vowed we would not let this Bah Humbug moment ruin our Christmas. We drove out to the big grocery store on the edge of town, where I'd seen some trees in a lot. We got there and it turns out the trees were all $150 or MORE. And these aren't bushy 9-footers or anything. These are short, scrawny trees, the kind that are raised in polluted soiling and breathing diesel. I couldn't face spending that much. Also, for some reason, all Christmas trees sold here come potted. Um, why? Am I supposed to cut off the roots myself? Am I going to plant it IN my apartment? And it's not like I, or most Russians, have a yard. Who knows. Sigh. Dejected, we returned home.

In a last-ditch effort, we made a few calls. Did anyone actually order any extras? Turns out someone had. We talked to the guy who had been marvelously foresighted and he said his extra was still in the courtyard. We ran over and there it was, one last unclaimed scraggly tree. Hooray! Much, much thanks to P & T for saving our Christmas.

Like all Russian trees, it's on the Charlie Brown side, but All It Needed was A Little Love.



After that was set up, and all our presents were bought and wrapped, it was time to plan for Christmas dinner. We'd invited our friend M to come over, since he was alone here for the holidays, so we had to plan a big meal.

As I started looking through our usual recipes, I began to realize that I couldn't get half the ingredients I needed around here. I dug deeper and deeper into our cook books. I scoured the internet for ideas. I started shopping and would discover that an ingredient was impossible to come by, and then I'd either have to start over or come up with a substitute. Thank heaven for websites that tell you that you can substitue for corn starch with twice as much flour. Or that honey is an acceptible substitute for corn syrup. I guess they don't like corn products around here? Also much thanks to my friends for the advice of putting regular sugar in a blender to make confectioner's sugar. I'd have been up a creek without that advice.

I fail to understand grocery stores here. The average one sells about 700 kinds of cookies, but not most of the ingredients you need to make them. They have hundreds of kinds of ice cream, but only 3 kinds of cheese. I made some stuffed pears that were supposed to have ricotta in them, but good luck finding that. At the farmer's market I stumbled upon some "farmer cheese" that was a decent soft and sweet substitute.

Another mystery at grocery stores is that there are almost no shortcuts. Things are either in their most basic possible form, or already completely cooked. For example, you can get a whole raw chicken, or a whole cooked rotisserie chicken, but getting just breasts is a challenge; also almost impossible was finding chicken broth. What the heck? Do people here boil whole raw chickens so often that they have their own supply of broth laying around? Why even kill the chicken for your customers first? Why not just have them running around in the store and you have to grab one? Don't make it easy for anyone or anything...

Peas almost completely threw us for a loop. We planned to make creamed peas and onions. I was worried about finding pearl onions, but they were easy to find, in jars along with the other 978 types of obscure vegetables that Russians love to pickle. Peas, however... since when are peas a rarity? We checked three different grocery stores and then the farmer's market. No one had them fresh. One place had them canned, which I bought in desperation. Finally at the farmer's market we found them frozen. A city of 5 million people, and I have to go to 4 different shops to find frozen peas?

Frozen foods- actually there's an interesting little side note- frozen fruits and vegetables, and some frozen pastas (such as little pierogi type things, or frozen stuffed blini) are most commonly sold in bulk. In the frozen section there will be a whole row of bins full of frozen stuff. Mushrooms, strawberries, broccoli... and you get a big scoop and chip away at it and fill up a bag, which you then weigh and label yourself. (Unless you're at the farmer's market, which is a little more old-fashioned, so they scoop and weigh for you.) That was where we finally found peas, at the farmer's market in their bulk tubs-o-veggies. And later, since the over-filled veggie tubs sometimes flow together, we found some bonus carrots and zucchini in our peas. Mm!

Things that I thought would be hard to find, but weren't: olive oil, fresh parsley, fresh ginger, dates. Things I thought that would be easy to find, but weren't: applesauce, plain vanilla ice cream, nutmeg, sage (and we could only find dried), rum. Things I COULD NOT find: Pecans. This still baffles me. They are TOTALLY impossible to find. You can get walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios, even macadamia nuts for cripe's sake, but NO PECANS. ??? Some people we asked didn't even know what they were.

Oh, and last but not least, getting a ham was, well, interesting. We wanted a pre-cooked ham to glaze; you know, those big like 5-pound things that are scored and sometimes spiral cut and nice and salty. People here eat a lot of ham, so I didn't think it would be hard to find, but it was. I suppose if we'd gone to a butcher we could have gotten one raw, but, well, ew. Everything in grocery stores was pre-sliced or the wrong cut or in small chunks. In the end we got 4 small pieces and clumped them together to form: Frankenham.



After being studded with cloves and glazed, it turned out to be pretty tasty. And easy to carve.

After finally getting all our ingredients together, we were met with ANOTHER setback: the gas to our building was shut off. Which meant no cooking, no heating, no hot water. It was supposed to be off for like 5 hours, but it ended up being off for over 2 days. It wasn't too cold in our place, but we had to go to the gym to shower. On Christmas Eve, it still wasn't on. We started to wonder what on earth we'd do if we couldn't cook the next day. We called and asked M if he would horribly mind going out for sushi on Christmas. By evening of the 24th, still no gas. We ordered a pizza and watched A Christmas Story. (Which might be our new Christmas tradition. Christmas Pizza! Mm!)

Finally at like 9:00 PM on Christmas Eve, the gas came back on. YAAAY! All our shopping was not in vain. Here's our Christmas dinner, salad and cake still to come:



Dinner and opening presents was wonderful and uneventful, although I'm disappointed that in RUSSIA of all places, we did not have a White Christmas. Try telling me that global warming isn't happenening when there's no snow in RUSSIA in late December.

Our New Year's plans aren't too intense- just going to a friend's place and watching some fireworks- so things are starting to calm down. And as a bonus, since Christmas in Russia is actually celebrated on the 7th, between that and New Year's, we're off work all next week! Yay!

Hope everyone had a great whatever-it-is-you-do-this-time-of-year, and best to all in the New Year.

R.I.P., Kassie

Hi. My name is Erin, and I am a dog lover.

If most people who knew me had heard me say that 10 years ago, they would have thought I was joking.

I never liked dogs as a kid. I never wanted a dog. I hated them. I think this had a lot to do with my dad always griping about the neighbor's dog, who never stopped barking, as well as an incident when I was a little kid where I almost wet my pants at a party because a big dog wouldn't get out of the way of the bathroom door.

Nearly every dog I encountered did nothing but bark, jump all over me, and smell. Once in a while I'd see a dog that was over-the-top spoiled, getting its hair done all the time and being talked to in baby voices. Dogs were, to me, either beastly or surrogate children for crazy, desperate people.

When Jonathan and I started dating, he was waxing poetic about his family dog one day. "I can't wait to get a dog of my own someday!" he said.

"Um, before this relationship goes any further, I should warn you that I can't stand dogs," I said.

Stunned silence. Which was a pretty common reaction. Most people didn't understand why I hated dogs; I didn't understand why they loved them.

Jonathan slowly came to terms with the idea of never having a dog again. Then one day, during my senior year of college, my mom nonchalantly sent me an email. "It's been snowing a lot lately! We got a dog last week. How are your classes going?"

"You WHAT? Got a dog? WHY?"

I was informed that they wanted a guard dog for the farm they'd just bought. I was appalled. I could always count on my parent's house to be dog-free. Now one there too? Was there no escape?

But, as I would soon find out, Kassie was a different kind of dog. My parents adopted her from a family when she was about 4. The family ran a day care and claim Kassie nipped at a child. I simply can't imagine Kassie doing that. She was the sweetest dog I've ever know.

The first time I went out to the farm to meet her, I gingerly opened the car door, figuring she'd pounce all over me. Instead, she gave my leg a sniff, and then just wagged her tail. I gave her head a scratch. She didn't immediately slobber all over my hand or try to initiate a tug-of-war. She was just calm and happy.

Turns out Kassie wasn't much of a guard dog. She was too nice. I think in the time my parents had her, I only heard her bark once or twice. The UPS man would merely make her wag her tail. She would happily allow anyone on the property.

So my parents got a second dog- a hyper mutt named Rascal. Unlike Kassie, Rascal would play and run and jump. (And chase away strangers.) Jonathan was thrilled. He could wrestle with Rascal. Kassie would barely even play fetch.

Kassie slowed down more and more as she got older. Turns out she had arthritis. She also seemed content to let Rascal have the spotlight. She became like "yellow dog" from "Funny Farm," always just sort of lying around in the sunniest spot she could find. I felt a kinship with her for not wanting to be in the limelight. Sometimes it's nice to just let the world go by instead of always putting on a show. So while Jonathan would run and play fetch with Rascal, I would sit down with Kassie. I'd comb her, scratch her head, kiss her ears. Something about her relaxed me. I could have spent days just sitting with her, her head on my lap.

I slowly began to pay more attention to dogs. When we moved to San Francisco, suddenly everywhere I looked there were happy, well-behaved dogs on leashes. They would proudly strut with their owners down the street, and calmly wait as their owner sat at a sidewalk cafe to have a coffee. They never barked. They were all clean. I began to realize that the dogs of my childhood were an unfair assessment of the world's dogs. I started smiling at dogs. I would sit in the park near our apartment with a coffee and dogs would come over to me, and I would pet them and laugh at them and ask their owners what kind they were. Eventually I found myself just grinning the second I saw practically any dog.

When Jonathan and I got married on the farm, Kassie accidentally became a member of the wedding party. How does a dog accidentally end up in a wedding, you ask? Our outdoor wedding was nearly rained out. As the ceremony was about to begin, huge storm clouds rolled overhead and deep thunder rumbled across the plains. Kassie HATED thunder. She was terrified. My dad tried to put her in the barn, but she wouldn't have it. She refused to leave his side, and so, she walked down the aisle with us.



Notice how she even carefully avoided stepping on my train...



and kept my nephew (the ring bearer) company during the ceremony.



At the time I was annoyed- I'd always rolled my eyes at people who put dogs in their wedding. Also, something about being a bride makes it impossible to stand the idea of anyone else outshining you. Within a couple days, though, as the stress of the wedding started to wear off, I was able to look back and smile. And now, of course, I am so thankful for that silly thunderstorm and for her being a part of such an important day and for making it so memorable; I can't fathom how I was ever upset about it.

Last May, when we went to visit my family, I knew somehow that it was the last time I'd see her. It was a sunny day, so hot that even Kassie preferred to be out of the sun, and she'd tucked herself under a hay rack for shade. I went looking for her and called her name and heard the familiar "thump thump thump" of her tail hitting the grass coming from under the trailer. I sat down and she edged herself forward just a bit so I could pet her. I sat with her for a long time, just gently stroking her head. She even managed to crawl out and get one last picture with me.



About a week ago Kassie stopped eating. My parents took her to the vet, who figured she had cancer. He said at her age (almost 11) and with her chronic arthritis, it wasn't really worth trying to operate. He gave her some pain meds and sent her home. She died Friday morning, lying on the grass in her favorite sunny spot.

Never in all my life would I have thought I could be so upset about "just a dog." I've never been one to cry at funerals. I usually prefer sarcasm over genuine emotion. But there's something so intrinsically genuine about dogs that it can't help rubbing off on you eventually. I know it's been said a million times before, but if only humans could be as loving and giving and devoted as dogs, the world would be a better place.

I wish so much that I could have been with Kassie when she died. But I think she knew how much I loved her. She probably didn't know, however, how much she changed me, and how much love she gave me in return.