The Crab Chronicles

Oh The Places I'd Go

I was thinking the other day about all the places I'd like to go if I had the money and the time. Not being able to afford a vacation can cause serious daydreaming, unfortunately.

First up of course would be Edisto Beach, for a week or so of just being lazy and doing nothing. If there was nothing available there I'd opt for Hilton Head, mainly because I've been there so many times I know where everything is, and there are some excellent restaurants.I prefer the quiet of Edisto, though.

After my last trip abroad, to get Michael in May 2007, I vowed I'd never travel internationally again, and I may not. However, I can fantasize.

The countries I've daydreamed about seeing are Italy, Ireland, and New Zealand.I've never been to those countries. The countries I've spent the most time in are Kazakhstan, Russia, England, and Germany.

Dad went to Italy in the early 50's.

He went back with Mom in the late 1980's, and one of Mom's favorite photos is of the two of them at an outdoor table in Venice, at St. Mark's Square. I don't have it scanned in, unfortunately.

Ireland will be a must-see destination when I get the money, too.I am part Irish on my mother's side of the family.I feel a pull towards that country every time I see a movie that was made there, starting years ago with the classic The Quiet Man.

I would love to visit New Zealand, since I've long been a fan of movies filmed there, like The Piano and the Lord of the Rings movies.

Wow, I'm starting to sense a pattern here. I see a movie and think wow, I must go there. I bet there's a name for that somewhere in the psychology books...

All this travel thinking got me to reminiscing about the one time I went to Europe, years ago.

In 1988 I went to Europe one summer on a monthlong "holiday" as our British cousins would say. I took two weeks of vacation and two weeks unpaid leave. I studied Drama in England for three weeks with a group from the University of Tennessee, where I was in grad school, and spent a week with my brother and his wife, who were living in Germany.

I took a brand new 35 mm camera with me, and made a ton of photos, some of which weren't too awful, but looking at the quality now, I am sort of amused. Photos now are SO much better than they were in 1988.

In Germany, my brother took his dog Ben everywhere. Germans are/were very dog friendly. Ben was very well behaved, too. Here they are in a riverbank in Wurzburg, I think.

This is a photo I am rather proud of, considering the weather, film, and my limited skills. It was taken from the castle in Edinburgh. Note in the foreground is a doggie graveyard, which impressed me. We spent a lot of time walking up and down the Royal Mile leading to the castle, shopping, but not a whole lot of time in the castle. I was with my friend Aurelia, and we went to Edinburgh for a long weekend, apart from the rest of the group. Everyone sort of scattered that weekend, which was fine. I loved Edinburgh, despite the fact it was July and it was cold and rainy. We bought jackets, sweatshirts and wool sweaters that trip, because all us Americans were not used to the 55 degree summer days there./ Below, me and Ree at Hampton Court [home of Henry VIII].

The two weeks the group was in London were a lot of fun. We were free to sightsee during the day and at night we went to plays.

I loved England, not just because I knew the language, either. All the English people I encountered were friendly and nice. The cultural differences were amusing, not scary. I had a strong sense of deja vu, which must have come from my my DNA, since many of my ancestors hailed from the British Isles. It was just a lovely country.

The only thing that was tricky was the weather. We quickly learned that we could start off in the morning for a day of sightseeing and it would be bright and sunny, then there would be a downpour, then it would be sunny again. We carried umbrellas everywhere.

We also saw a lot of wonderful plays. The first week, we were in Stratford, so we saw about 6 Shakespeare plays. In looking back over my collection of play programs years later I noticed Ralph Fiennes was in a production of King John I saw in Stratford. Little did I know he would be come famous years later as Voldemort.

I was about as thin as I've ever been in my life in 1988. I was a poor student and I walked everywhere and ate a lot of baked potatoes and canned soup. Well, in England I ate a lot of Chinese food. I quickly realized I wasn't fond of English food. I ordered a ploughman's lunch once at a pub and they brought me a piece of stale bread, a whole onion, and a hunk of cheese. Um, not tasty.

I also wasn't crazy about baked beans, which they eat for breakfast over there. Now I love baked beans, but when you're a bit hungover and they are staring up at you from a steam table, hmmm.... We stayed at the University of London in dorms and had to be up early if we wanted to eat breakfast there.

I've always love seeing plays, but England spoiled me. The theatre there is such a living, vital institution, and the acting is so wonderful. America just doesn't quite measure up.

Once you've seen a Shakespeare play in England, you just never enjoy American productions, not unless they have an exceptionally amazing cast or the play is on Broadway. I saw a local production of the Tempest later, in about 1994, and was horrified. I almost left, it was so awful.

The production of The Tempest I saw in England starred John Wood, a marvelous actor. I just looked him up in IMDB and realized he died about a month ago. What a shame. His Prospero was electrifying.

Lettice and Lovage was my favorite of all the plays I saw that summer. It starred Dame Maggie Smith and she was fantastic. I never laughed so hard in my life. My face and sides hurt from laughing. It's a shame I've never seen a movie version of the play.

Well, I better wrap this up and go make dinner. If I get the energy I may scan in some more photos later, but don't hold your breath...

Gardening, Cooking, Writing

There are three things I really enjoy in life [gardening, cooking, and writing], and I got to do them all today, which made it a good day, even though there was some sadness, too. That's just life, right? The bitter and the sweet.

Early this morning, I watered everything in the gardens and was delighted to note how well my flowering plants are doing in the front yard. After Michael planted my new little rose bushes for me I was afraid they wouldn't make it, but I fertilized them and I am still watering daily, and they are coming back. The yellow one even has some small blooms on it. I have some blossoms on my side garden tomato plants and that is thrilling to me. I hope I can harvest enough tomatoes to make some marinara sauce and freeze it this summer. The one yard thing I hate to do is pull weeds. I decided a few weeks ago I would pull a few weeds each day and not try to do them all at once in any one particular area. It workes better that way and it's easier on my back.

After Mother finished breakfast and Alesia got the kitchen cleaned up, I made my pound cake and put that in the oven, in three loaf pans, then I made Ina's curried chicken salad recipe. Now, I don't much like chicken salad, but that is GOOD. I used dried cranberries instead of raisins. Mother helped me a bit and said even she liked it, and she really doesn't care for curried stuff. The revelation to me was that the fat bone-in skin-on chicken breasts I got at Publix turned out so delicious. All I did was rub them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake them on 350 for about 40 minutes. They were moist and delicious. I had to have a couple of bites that didn't make it into the salad, I have to admit. So, so good.

When it's so easy to make something so tasty, why don't more people cook?! I will never understand that.

Two of the three pound cake loaves came out really well. The third one, the bottom got a tiny bit too done, so I saved that for us to eat. I am taking the good loaves to church tomorrow afternoon for the High Tea.

I spent part of the afternoon composing the cover blurb for my new book, The Warrior's Box. That was an interesting exercise. Trying to condense the story into a few sentences wasn't easy. I enjoy even mundane writing tasks like that, though. It's like solving a puzzle.

Not everything today was pleasant, unfortunately.

I had to turn down a job interview today, for a website writer. I didn't realize when I sent off a resume what sort of website it really was - it's for an infertility clinic. I looked through the entire website after I was sent an email today and I thought, this is awful. Nowhere on the site was adoption mentioned as an option for infertile couples. Lots of photos of parents with cute babies. No photos of heartbroken people unable to conceive and scared to adopt. I've never dealt with infertility, but I know a lot of couples who have gone through that heartbreak, including my own brother and his wife. Urging people to pour thousands and thousands of dollars into treatments that have only 5-10% chance of success makes me angry. There are SO MANY babies and toddlers in foster homes and orphanages around the world who need parents. All the infertile couples I know who turned to adoption were happy with their outcomes. A child is a child, and every child needs love and care, and when you're looking into the eyes of your child, biology just really does not matter, even if that child has brown eyes and you have blue ones.

I am trying to help my friend Alla at Adoption Ark find an adoptive family for a 6 year old boy in Bulgaria who is missing both hands, a congenital limb difference. Most people won't even consider the boy, but let me tell you something - with decent prosthetics and some physical therapy I am sure he can lead a totally normal, productive life. Doesn't he deserve a loving mama and daddy?

As most of you know that read this blog, even casually, my daughter Alesia was adopted from Khabarovsk, Russia, in 2004. One of my fellow single moms in my Yahoo group for Russian adoptive moms shared a link about her recent visit back to Russia with her now teenaged daughter, to find the child's birthplace. I read the entire account of the visit, In Search of Krivuha, and wanted to cry. I could envision making a similar journey with Alesia one day. The little village looks a lot like the village Alesia is from, and it even resembles the poorer section of Khabarovsk. The houses look to be 100 years old, and there are huge potholes and garbage everywhere. This is not Moscow or St. Petersburg. Krivuha bears a much closer resemblance to the real Russia, the non-tourist places. The poverty is impossible to imagine if you haven't been there.

There's also great beauty though. Russia is a land of harsh contrasts.

This is Alesia the day I took her out of the orphanage, on the banks of the Amur River.

Italy 1951

During his army leaves my dad traveled a lot around Italy, and here's photographic proof. Somewhere in the garage, in an old trunk, are handwritten letters to his mother, but I recall reading them some years ago and they weren't too enlightening. They said things like "Italy was hot. We ate a lot of spaghetti." A man of few words.

So, some of these are a mystery to me, but a few are obvious. Even I, who have never been to Italy, recognized the Roman Colosseum.

This one is a mystery but I think it might be Florence...?

The shot below is a statue of David but it's in Florence. I debated about whether or not to publish it here, but it looks like his, uh, package, is covered up somewhat, so I said to heck with it. It looks like poor David has some sort of fungi or mold growing there though...

 

I like the shot above, because it's the Riviera, [and yes, I know it's France, but whatever] a place I love to look at in photos, but if I'm going to the beach to relax, that won't be the place. The wide sandy beaches of Georgia and South Carolina suit me just fine.

I would love for someone to tell me where the shot below was taken. Took me a while to figure out the pointy thing is called an obelisk, but after looking at 500 photos of them on Google images and not finding this one I said stick a fork in me, I'm done. Hopefully somebody who knows Italy can enlighten me about this place.

I was very happy after looking at relatively few images on the web to find out that the shot below was made at the Piazza Navona in Rome. That link gives you a better shot than the one below and it's fun reading.

[above, shots of Dad during his travels] Below is a shot of my uncle Lewis Thompson, Dad's older brother, who was a wonderful artist and taught at Hollins College in Virginia for more than 35 years. I wish he was still alive because he lived in Italy several times over the years, on sabbatical, and knew it well.

A few years later, Dad met Mama and the rest is history...

More Europe Photos

I thought I'd post some more of my dad's photos from Europe, circa 1952. Some of them the quality isn't so hot, but I fear the slides may have deteriorated in the fifty odd years since they were taken.You mainly see it in the sky, black blotches.

I have no idea where this is, but my guess is probably Italy. Maybe Rome?

The shot below looks like Venice.

Not sure where this is...

Photos from the 1950's, 60's

I love old photos, particularly of people in my family and/or folks I know. I was going through a box in my closet and found a bunch of old color slides my dad had made in the 1950's. I took them to Wolf Camera and had them scanned onto a CD-Rom. Some of them would only be of interest to my extended family, but some are just cool photos on their own merit.

Dad was like me - he loved to take photos but they often didn't come out so great.

It's been a really laid back day and I have nothing really to report, so I thought I'd share some of these.

This is the only shot with me in it and I'm just a little blur...

Ironic that only about 44 years later he was leading troops in Iraq...

Below, my mother holding Bruce as a baby, with my aunt Myrtle holding my cousin Robert. The little girl is my cousin Raye, who is now a grandmother. This was about 1960. Raye and I look rather alike, both blondes.

This is my dad, sometime in the 1950's. I first thought this was Ft. Sumter but now I am thinking it was perhaps Europe. The flag is unfamiliar... Dad was a huge history buff.

This is my dad [middle] and a couple of his buddies. He was stationed in Germany in 1951 and spent all his free time sightseeing all over Europe. I think this is the French Riviera, but I'm not sure.

I've got a bunch of shots of places in Europe, particularly, Italy, and I need some help identifying the places. I am going to do a post of those shots and see if some of y'all can help me out.

Below is my mom sometime in the late 1950's, I think. I think what she's holding is a swim cap. Remember those?!

Stay warm...

5 Examples of Great Scottish Cuisine

I visited Scotland in 1988 and loved it - awesome people, wonderful sights, and a lot of tasty food. Also, lots of my ancestors hail from there - MacMillans, Hendersons, etc. I'm tickled to bring you this guest post. - Dee

This guest post was contributed by Boisdale.

 If you are planning a visit to the bonnie isle of Scotland you will need to be sure and bring an appetite. Scottish cuisine is not for the light eater but instead is filled with solid hearty foods that stick to the ribs and give you all the energy you might need for a long and tiring day on the moors. This article will talk a bit about five examples of traditional Scottish cuisine.

1 Haggis

There is absolutely no way a discussion of the food of Scotland can possibly omit haggis. Haggis is a sort of sausage dish made up of sheep. Basically to make haggis you would take the leftover bits of a sheep including heart, liver and lungs and chop them up and mix in some onions, stock, oatmeal, salt and pepper and suet and toss it all into a sheep’s stomach then boil it for a few hours. It might not sound very good but it tastes fantastic!

2 Cullen Skink

No, Cullen skink is not some weird type of lizard it is a hearty stick to the ribs traditional Scottish soup and is often served as a first course at formal Scottish dinners. Cullen skink is a delicious mixture of smoked Finnan haddie, onions, and potatoes.


3 Cabbie Claw

 

Scotland is surrounded by water as well as filled with it. Lochs, rivers and sea, fishing and fish play an important role in the traditional dishes of Scotland.

Cabbie claw is a traditional dish from the north of Scotland and is made using fish such as cod, whiting, or haddock with parsley, mashed potatoes, and horseradish with a sauce made up of flour, hard-boiled eggs, butter, and spices.

4 Puddings: black, white and red

In America, a pudding is a sweet creamy confection made with milk in Scotland however a pudding is a sausage.

Black pudding or blood pudding is a sausage that is made by cooking blood with filler such as meat, onions, oatmeal, or potatoes until it thickens enough to congeal when it is cool.

Red pudding is often served at chip shops and is made from a mixture of bacon, pork, spices, beef, beef fat, beef stock and suet and is then battered and fried.

White pudding is similar to black pudding but without the blood. It is made from pork, suet oatmeal, onions, spices and bread.

5 Shortbread

Scots love their sweets. And one favourite traditional sweet is the shortbread. Shortbread is basically an unleavened cookie that is made with 1 part sugar, 3 parts oatmeal flour and two parts butter.
Scottish cuisine much like the Scottish people is hale and hearty and definitely not 100% healthy for all day dining but great for the occasional meal.

 

Places to Go, People to See

If not for the excruciatingly long plane ride, I would be dreaming of visiting New Zealand right now, after reading Elizabeth's latest posts on her blog, Gifts of the Journey. I remember wanting to see New Zealand after seeing the movie The Piano. I felt a little New Zealand travel itch after watching the Lord of the Rings movies, which were filmed there, but my main preoccupation while watching those films was trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

Then there was the whole fascination with the hobbit's feet, which look like mine... but I digress...

After my last excruciatingly long plane ride a few years ago when I brought Michael home, I vowed I would NEVER get on a plane again. I doubt I will be able to keep that vow, but I'm trying. Since I currently have no job and thus almost no extra money, not flying is pretty easy at the moment.

Flying itself is not the issue. Once I get on the plane I am fine. It's dealing with the wait and the airport hassles that are the nightmare.

The last time I flew, which was from Frankfurt to Atlanta, I had just finished Michael's adoption and we were headed home from outprocessing in Almaty. The flight from Almaty to Frankfurt was fine. But the flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta was a nightmare. I was traveling on Delta buddy passes, to save money, which meant I was flying standby. So once we got to Frankfurt, I had to retrieve our luggage from Lufthansa. Michael was traveling on a Kazakh passport and had no entry visa for Germany, and the baggage claim are was considered German territory, so they wouldn't let him go over there. The customs folks were quite nasty about it. So there I was in a huge airport with a tiny little boy [he was 10 but looked 6] who spoke almost no English, just Russian, and I had to find someplace to leave him so I could run around getting our luggage and getting checked in at the Delta counter. After some panic and a lot of prayer, I was told to go to the Lufthansa office for folks who are elderly or handicapped. A kind German lady there helped me by letting my leave Michael there, safely, for over an hour while I ran around the airport.

The Frankfurt airport is huge, and I had to take a train to get from one end to the other. Then there were the Delta people who didn't want to give me a boarding pass for Michael since he wasn't with me, and then the security people who wanded us and gave us grief several times before we even got to the Delta gate where the plane was waiting. By the time I got on the plane I was one sweaty, semi-incoherent mess. Michael slept almost the entire way home. I had to wake him up to eat. We got home, here to Atlanta, and I was still a walking mess after the 8 hour flight in business class because I hadn't been able to sleep and had been awake for over 24 hours, but I so wanted to kiss the ground.

I love my kids and I'd do anything for them, but please God no more flying. They will need to live within an 8 hour drive of me as long as I live.

I think in the future people like me who don't want to travel can simply watch many episodes of Rick Steves Europe. I like Rick Steves. I watch him on PBS when I can remember it. (If you want to vicariously "travel" anywhere else besides Europe you will have to find someone else to take you.)

Anyway, Elizabeth's blog entry talked about things she planned to do before she died - she is now only 50, so she has time. [Yes, I hear some of you gasping but hey, when you get to be 48 years old, you will think 50 is a youngster, too. So hush.] I'm trying to remember if I have something like a "bucket list." Hmm... Not something I ponder too often. I did manage to come up with a few things, so here goes:

Places I'd like to see [if I can travel without flying, hahahaha] before I die: Ireland, Italy, San Francisco, Maine, the Canadian Rockies, Hawaii, Paris France [not Paris Tennessee - BTDT].

People I'd like to meet: [not dead people, I'm trying to keep this semi-realistic] Robin Williams, Ina Garten, Craig Ferguson [the comedian], the Dalai Llama, Bill Gates, Michael Scott [writer], Dustin Hoffman, a number of "cyber" friends I've made in recent years - Cindy B, Cindy L, Judy, and Elizabeth.

Things I'd like to do: take a cruise, swim with dolphins, spend two weeks at the beach without having to do anything but watch movies and eat, learn how to take excellent photos with a terrific camera, visit with my childhood friend Joanne [we rarely get to see each other], finish one of the books I started writing recently, see my daughter finish high school and start college.

And now, just so this isn't too soft and sentimental, here's a lagniappe -

People I Want Desperately to Slap: Nancy Pelosi, Zach Galifianakis, Lindsey Lohan, Kathy Lee Gifford, 

[I will stop here with the Slap List because it would take too long to list everyone - and some of them are members of my extended family... ;-)... ]

What's on your bucket list, if you have one?

Running Day

I feel like I have been running a marathon all day.

Mike had an orthodontist appointment at 9:15. He keeps breaking his brackets. Every time he has an adjustment, within a week he has a broken bracket. They are going to start charging me $40 every time - in addition to the thousands I am paying for the braces! yikes. I told him next time there's an adjustment, he will only be allowed to eat SOFT foods for a couple of days.

Michael is taking Spanish in middle school. I fought hard to get him in the class last year. They told me he didn't qualify. Then he aced his ESL tests and I suppose that did the trick. He already knows a lot of Spanish words, just from being in ESL with hispanic kids, some of whom are his buddies. I told him as long as he memorizes his vocabulary every day, and doesn't get behind, he will be fine. Alesia is in Spanish 3 this year. I want both my kids to speak Spanish. I see job ads all the time asking for people who are bilingual. My kids have an advantage over American kids, when it comes to Spanish.

They learned English as a second language. For both, Spanish is language #4. Alesia was learning German in Russia, and Mike was learning Kazakh in Kazakhstan.

I had a job interview this morning, for a government agency. I don't want to say which one - they might send people to bump me off. Seriously. I was sitting in the lobby and there was a big sign on one of the doors to the inner office and it said DO NOT KNOCK ON THIS DOOR AND DO NOT ANSWER IT! There was a circle with a little cartoon drawing of a body on the floor and a line through it. I had to assume they were going to kill me or knock me unconscious if I tried to go through the door.

I thought the interview went well, but I always think that. I run my mouth too much, always, and I become Chatty Cathy. The lawyers I spoke with were surprisingly affable and nice, given that they were sitting there in suits and ties. Apparently the entire world has gone business casual EXCEPT the government. I've already decided if they offer me the job I will have to ask if pantyhose will be required. I can't go there.

 

PASHA Remember I wrote about my friend Pasha, from Russia, visiting us back in March? He is a wonderful guy. I love him like a brother. He is coming back to the USA in September. I keep trying to remember that's next month. He is staying in San Francisco from September 7-10, and will be in Los Angeles from the 10-13. I am trying to find folks for him to meet in those cities, just to get to know them. I am also looking for recommendations on places to stay that aren't too expensive. If you can help me out, let me know and I'll pass along the info. to Pasha.

Vacation Photos

Here are some shots of the lovely vacation...

This is the living room of the condo, when we first got there and it was still neat...

 

Mike in front of the kitchen wearing his best look - combined Walmart sale cap and highway patrol glasses...

 

Here are the kids on the balcony. Every year I try to take one of them on the balcony. I need to do a photo essay of just those photos...
   

The thing with TWO HEADS! Run for your lives!
 

One day we rented bikes. This is the best shot I could get. Hilton Head has tons of bike paths. The kids had a blast.

   

Here's the condo and some beach shots...
 

   

This is a dead jellyfish. Mike wanted to poke it with a stick. I nixed that idea.
   

This is the pool, where Mike spent a lot of time. This is the Where's Waldo shot. Can you find Mike's head?!

 

We didn't eat out much but here's a shot at a great place, Steamers. You can eat great seafood and watch tennis...

   

Here's Mike in front of Palmetto Bay, a lovely place to have lunch.

   

Here are the kids in The Black Marlin, looking hostile despite having eaten a terrific lunch...
 

Final shot was taken yesterday just after sunrise. The tiny grey blip there is a fishing boat.

 

A Saved Man

I am not usually awake at 7:12 a.m. on a Sunday morning, much less typing a blog post, but today is an unusual day. Pasha is leaving this morning. Right now he is getting in the shower.

Yesterday, like so many recent days, was a whirlwind of activity for us.

Pasha and the kids and I went to Frys to shop for computers in the morning. Pasha bought a new laptop. I bought new CPU's for me and the kids. I know it sounds extravagant, with me out of work, but the computers haven't worked well for months and my computer tech guy says that he simply cannot fix them. Pasha echoed that same opinion, so after the "second opinion" I had to face facts. Frys had excellent deals. I have an income tax refund to fall back on. So I took the plunge.

After that, I dropped off Pasha and Alesia at the mall. Michael had a tennis match, which he faced without me, to my regret - the first time ever, but I felt like I had to be here for the computer switchover. I spent the afternoon switching everything to a portable hard drive.

Last night my friend Gary, a UGA professor of languages and a dear friend since college, and my cousin and friend Lesleigh, went to dinner with us. Gary and Les are two of the smartest, most personable people I know, and they were delighted to meet Pasha. We sat at Blue Ribbon Grill and talked and laughed, and it was truly like we are all family.

Pasha's visit has been a huge turning point in his life. It has also been a turning point in mine, too. I was so glad to be able to repay some of the kindness he showed to me. When I was adopting Alesia and dealing with a very cold-hearted, uncaring agency, Pasha was there to help me cope. He translated between me and Alesia. He offered his friendship. He was a university student then, bright and funny.

Spending time with Pasha now, I feel almost parental. He has matured a lot in the past 5 1/2 years, and he has become a really admirable young man. He hates violence and won't watch violent movies. He takes great care to try and eat healthy. He doesn't drink alcohol and won't even drink caffeine. He shows amazing patience and kindness to everyone. I asked him if he wanted to come to America one day, to live, and he said no, he wanted to stay in Khabarovsk, and contribute to his community and the people there. I know he likes America a lot, but he has allegiance to his mother country.

One of the choir members asked me last weekend if Pasha had been "saved." I was taken aback. I said he believes in God, so to me, he is saved. She wasn't happy with that answer. She wanted to hear he had accepted Jesus into his heart. Those are weighty words. I wasn't going to say them, though, because I was uncomfortable speaking for Pasha and his feelings. Today, however, if someone asked me that same question about him, I would say yes, without hesitation. He hasn't ever told me he had some great conversion experience. However, he prays before every meal, with us. He told me he believes in the teachings of God, in all different forms. He has read the bible. Most importantly, to me, he has quietly but firmly shown me that he has a strong sense of right and wrong, and while he may not quote the bible much, he lives it. He LIVES the teachings of Jesus. Isn't that what Jesus wanted from us?!

On his last nights here, Pasha didn't go out to a disco, which he had said he thought would be fun. He helped me with the computer, and spent time with the children. That's just one small example of his goodness.

My kids can bicker and snap like nobody's business, but Pasha has never fussed about it, to them or to me. He kept Alesia with him all afternoon yesterday, which freed me up to do what I needed to do. She has been really grumpy lately and gets on my nerves easily.

He told us at dinner last night that he is never in a hurry, because he wants to savor each experience, and enjoy it. He will not be rushed. He doesn't eat fast. He carefully considers the lilies of the field, was my thought when he said that. How many people do you know who live life with such deliberation and care?

He has enriched our lives in ways he doesn't even realize.

Here is a remark from him that I consider so uniquely Pasha, and it shows his beautiful heart. We were in the car one day and it was raining. I asked him if he wanted an umbrella. He explained that he doesn't use umbrellas. "I had a girlfriend once who liked to walk in the rain. So to make her happy, I learned to like walking in the rain. Now I never use umbrella."

I am crying as I type this because I am going to miss Pasha so much. When he is back in Khabarovsk, a piece of my heart will be on the other side of the world.