Sadness

David's father, D.R., died on Thanksgiving morning in Jackson, Mississippi.  We knew it was coming, as he had been seriously ill for some time.  But when it finally came, it was very very hard to get our minds around it.  He was such the patriarch ... a true father ... devoted husband ... strong Christian.  I loved how, when he said grace, he still said "thee" and "thou".  There were times when I could have wrung his neck, but in the next instant I loved him again.  He said he knew that I was the one for David, when we were at the beach one time, and I was patiently waiting for David to get all his stuff together.  No one was ever that patient with David, who D.R. nicknamed Uncle Harrison.  Apparently when D.R. was farming, he had a hired hand named Uncle Harrison who never did anything quickly.  David is the same way.  And I guess I had the right stuff to put up with that. 

Boy did D.R. love his grandchildren.  But he and Colin had a special bond.  We lived in Jackson for the first 8 years we were married.  When Colin was in preschool, Granddaddy used to pick him up and the two of them would go to Burger King.  Colin could get Granddaddy back on course if he took a wrong turn in the car.  One time when David wouldn't let Colin have something, Colin picked up the phone to call Granddaddy because Granddaddy would let him have it.  The other kids didn't know Granddaddy that well, because we moved away (and Granddaddy never forgave us!) but they all loved him nonetheless.  Even Melanie started singing right in the middle of the funeral (when everything was quiet, and the preacher was praying) but David said that was music to Granddaddy's ears. 

We can only rejoice that he is no longer suffering.  His blind eyes can see again, he no longer has to "stick" (his term for taking his blood sugar level) or take 10,000 pills with breakfast.  He can sit in the Big Recliner in the sky and watch his grandchildren play.  His golf swing is perfect, and the ball never slices or hooks.  The wind is perfect and the greens are smooth.  He can have grits and bacon every morning, and he won't have to eat broccoli any more.  No more "ambrosia" for dessert ... he can have the pound cake.  And he won't have to miss us any more ... he is with us all the time. 

 

Kazakh Dinner Party

Last night we had Mona & Jerry over, together with Dave & Jeannie, who adopted "Damir", a little boy from Melanie's group in Taldy-Korgan, and a baby boy, Mikhael.  Dave was on David's 2005 playground trip (the one Quentin went on).  Last summer Dave & Jeannie adopted twin girls from Schuchinsk, and Debi and I had a quick visit with them when we were there on our trip.  (See my trip journal - June 2006)  They were passing through town on their way to the coast, and I decided to do some Kazakh cooking.  I made "plov" ... Kazakh rice dish with carrots, garlic and beef.  David cooked lamb "shashlik" on the grill, and Mona brought an authentic Kazakh salad with carrots and daikon radish.  It was a Korean salad, which I remember getting at the Big Market in Uralsk.  The only thing missing was some "Baltika" beers, though we did have some Russian vodka.  It was great to see everyone again, and to meet the little girls (they didn't yet have custody when we saw them in Kokshetau).  (Note: they stayed in Kokshetau when adopting the girls, and drove every day to Schuchinsk, which is very small and there aren't any hotels there).

Here are some pictures of the fun.

Five Years Ago ...

...we were in Uralsk, Kazakhstan.  It had snowed that day, for the first time on our trip, and a fresh white coat had covered up all the mud and the dirt that had been so pervasive up until that point.  We looked at the snow as a good omen (although our travel partner, Donna, who was from Buffalo, thought otherwise).  We went to court, slipping and sliding along the sidewalks in the nose nipping cold.  The court proceedings started off, only to be cut short by the sound of a bulldozer right outside the window.  The judge moved us all into his chambers, where I stood and made a statement about why we wanted to adopt Lisa.  David gets all emotional when he talks, so I was nominated.  The judge saw that we had visited her for 14 days in the Baby House, and the Baby House Director testified that Lisa (then Asel) had bonded with us and that she recommended that he approve the adoption.  He did.

The afternoon was a flurry of buying flowers, assembling gifts for the Baby House staff and rushing around signing documents at various official looking places.  We finally came to the Baby House with Asel's "going home" outfit, which we turned over to her caregivers.  It was a sort of tradition that the ladies who had cared for her the first 3 years of her life would dress her for the last time, and to say their good byes.  Again, I was chosen to give a little speech to all the ladies of the Baby House.  I'm not emotional, but let me tell ya, I blubbered like a little baby.  I told them I would never let Lisa forget her first mothers.  Or her birth country.

We took Lisa back to the apartment, where we gave her a bath, washed her hair, and dressed her in her flowered nightgown.  We had a dinner of meat dumplings and fruit.  She slept with me the first night, as we had no crib, and poor David slept on the bed of nails ... er, I mean couch.  Not long after we fell asleep, I was awakened by the very loud sound of her sucking her middle two fingers.

Time flies.

Tonight we celebrated with a dinner at her favorite "dress up" restaurant, 131 Main.  Everyone was in a great mood, and a fine time was had by all.  Even her brothers were nice to her ... a small miracle.

 

Cheesy Smile

Classic bad school picture ... I should be able to bribe her good with this when she's a teenager.

 

Pictures ... Maybe?

Attempting my new picture loading process with our new camera.  Wish me luck!

AHA!  I did it!!! 

Colin and Melanie are out of school today and I have a chiro. visit.  Other than that I might tackle the 100's of piles of laundry around the house. 

Short post!

Sure Happy It's Thursday

Wow, these weeks fly by.  Monday sucks, Tuesday's not so bad, Wednesday is super, (because the kids have no homework) Thursday's even better (getting close to the weekend!) and, well, we all know that Friday rocks.

We're still having remodeling people trickle in the door.  Yesterday the (beautiful) hood cabinet was installed, but that meant that some of the crown molding had to come down, and it's still down.  Two steps forward, one step back.  Some of the baseboards were installed, but no shoe molding.  We still don't have a threshold between the wood floor and the back sliding door.  The cabinet for the end of the refrigerator won't arrive until after Thanksgiving.  And of course the last coat of finish won't go on the floor until after that.  We did order chairs for the island ... I really like them ... but they won't arrive until next week.  Sheesh ... what an exercise in patience. 

I would LOVE to show pictures of the hood, but we just got a new camera and the memory card is not like the one we had before, and doesn't fit into the computer.  I know it must be something easy and "duh" but I can't figure it out.  Perhaps I should read the instructions, ya think?

Melanie has had a cold/sniffles/cough for a couple of weeks now.  I figured it would go away on its own, but yesterday I took her to the ped. and she has a full-blown ear infection.  What a putz of a mom I am!  But you know, if you take them in too early, the dr. thinks you're an overprotective mom, "What were you thinking bringing her in with just a cold?!?" and if you wait too long you get the, "What were you thinking not bringing her in sooner?" routine.  Sheesh, you can't win.  After just one dose of antibiotic she seemed better, as we didn't have the usual crying and carrying on at breakfast this morning.  She kept saying "My mouth hurts" so maybe she was confusing that sensation with her ear hurting.  40 lashes for me.

We have a mole in our back yard.  It's so hard for me not to think of a mole as wearing a morning coat and wearing wire rimmed glasses, a la "Wind In the Willows".  I always thought they were big animals (well, he was big in the book!) but come to findout they're as small as a mouse.  But man can they do some damage to a yard!  We have a whole habitrail going on out there!  Boudreaux is earning his keep as his breed was meant to do ... digging after the mole.  But that also makes for one muddy-bearded dog (we're talking clumps of mud imbedded in his beard).  I don't think he's caught it yet.  And perhaps there isn't just one .. there's aunt moles and uncle moles and granddaddy moles.  I know they're just feasting on our smorgasboard of grubs (who will disappear when it turns cold .. if ever; it will be 78 tomorrow!) but we can't put out grub poison without killing the dog!  Oh brother, I can't go on.

I can't discuss the elections because David and I have a mixed marriage.  We just don't talk about it.  Suffice it to say that it's amazing that we even got married, as polar opposite as we are politically.  If the Democratic party calls and David answers, watch out.  If the Republican party calls and I answer, watch out.  It's a delicate balance we keep here.  The kids have decided that they are "Republicrats" ... as a result of their parents' affiliations.  We haven't tried to sway them either way, they are just making up their own minds.  As it should be, I guess.

But since this is my blog, I will put in a small "woo hoo!".

One More About Kazakhstan and Then I'll Shut Up

My 'Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'

By Gauhar Abdygaliyeva

Wednesday, November 8, 2006; Page A27

I'm a Muslim Kazakh woman who arrived in the United States two months ago to work on my master's in public administration. Almost every time I meet people and tell them where I come from, they ask me about the "Kazakh journalist" Borat, "the sixth most famous man" in Kazakhstan. I answer that Borat is a satirical fictional character who has nothing in common with Kazakhstan or its people.

Many of my new American friends find Borat's adventures in "US and A" hilarious and his remarks about my country amusing. Unsurprisingly, not many of the people of Kazakhstan are equally amused. So I want to tell you the inside story about Kazakhstan. And, to steal a line from Borat, please read my article, or I will be execute.

Kazakhstan is the world's ninth-largest country in land area. It is in Central Asia along the famous Silk Road, which once stretched from Venice to Beijing. We "walk on oil," but that's not the only thing we were blessed with. Our social and economic achievements in the past decade have been remarkable.

But I would rather speak of my people. I am in my mid-20s and am myself a good example of what today's Kazakhstan is about. I was the first of three children born to an average Soviet family in the year of the Moscow Olympic Games and the Oscar-winning movie "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears." My dad worked at the Space Research Institute of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, while my mom taught computer science at the National Technical University. The tradition of education in my family, which led me to degrees in international law and business administration and now has brought me to this country, is strong in Kazakhstan. That is why its people are among the most educated in the world and have a 98 percent literacy rate.

Borat says women can now ride "inside of bus" in Kazakhstan. Actually, men and women enjoy equal opportunity, and our women are more likely to be driving the bus. Before arriving in the United States, I worked for the best local law firm and then a U.N. field mission, and I had a car and an apartment in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.

People in Kazakhstan take pride in their ancestors, the nomadic Turkic tribes that managed to unite and retain a territory the size of Western Europe for centuries, despite their vulnerable location between the Chinese and Russian empires. For many years the mostly Sunni Muslim Kazakhs, first as part of the Russian empire and then the Soviet Union, welcomed Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Koreans, Jews, Chechens and Uighurs to their land regardless of their religious beliefs. Those people either chose to come or were deported to Kazakhstan by the communists for various reasons. At different periods my country has been affected by wars, famine and repression.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the economic turmoil brought hardship. Many of my Russian, German, Korean and Jewish friends left for their historical homelands, but many others chose to stay and build a modern, thriving Kazakhstan together. Today those troubles are a thing of the past, and our people look to the future with great optimism.

The Kazakh flag Borat uses in the movie, with an eagle soaring in the blue sky under the sun, is our symbol of independence and pride. If your eyes have ever welled up when you saw the Stars and Stripes, you will understand how we feel about it.

The "moviefilm" by Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," is playing well in American theaters. One can only applaud the humorist's talent, but the movie is entertaining only because the world is so unfamiliar with reality.

Perhaps that will change. The movie has already created unprecedented interest in Kazakhstan. Not only has Borat promoted our name and flag, he has also indirectly fueled a great wave of patriotism among my fellow citizens.

Please take an opportunity to visit us one day and hear our real language, not Borat's:

"Kazakhstanga kosh keliniz!" -- "Welcome to Kazakhstan!"

The writer is a student from Kazakhstan doing graduate work at George Washington University.