Stormy Day

Mike sdis. 3:50 PM.

I'm slightly under the influence of a little more than my usual daily ceremonial shot of vodka (which is also usually later in the evening). Linda and the kids are sleeping mercifully. It's thundering outside, and I can hear the rain washing the air clean of poplar seeds.

Have we mentioned the poplars? They are ubiquitous here, and they bloom this time of hear, turning white with spores that float in the air, filling the air, your nose, your eyes, your clothes, and the street full of what looks snow.

Oh, and by-the-way the power just went out with the last thunderclap -- which means I only have about 20 stinkin' minutes on this laptop.

It's been a tough day so far (and it's not over). it started off with Linda not feeling too well. She's dealing with a bit of an upper respiratory cold (I have a sneaking suspicion it's related to the darned poplar fluff).

My late morning, after letting Linda doze several times, we went for a walk to try and meet up with the Tall family, who are leaving today with their two new children, Nina and Nikola. We didn't catch them at the park as expected, but walked over to the hotel and met them in the process of checking out. We had them stow their luggage at the desk until it was time for them to catch their plane.

In the meantime, we decided to walk to the park anyway to let the kids play. Nina and Bacha are special friends -- so much so that Tucker complains about "being all alone" when they're together. We did that, and got hungry.

We tried in vain to find something to eat. The restaurant at the park was crowded, and the Shashlyk man hadn't fired up his grill yet. So we walked back to the hotel, but the restaurant at the hotel...

(woo hoo!... power just came back on... one less thing to worry about...)

... but the restaurant at the hotel wasn't set up to take customers. It's Sunday, you see, and the entire restaurant was busy with some sort of religious event. So Linda and I said our goodbyes and headed home, as it was almost time for them to catch their plane anyway.

Since we only had about 500 Tenge and a $100 bill on us (and I failed to find a place to change money while we were at the park), we were limited in our luncheon options. We were also exhausted, and it was already past nap time and the kids were cranky. Oh my god, it was ugly trying to get Tucker to climb the stairs (four flights, remember). You'd have thought that I turned off "Dora the Explorer" or something...

Wait!... this just in... I just got a call from the Louca family, who's stranded under a tent between the movie cinema and a bar, near the main park -- in the pouring down rain. OK, so they have beer, but this was still not an ideal situation with two kids. Nobody's cell phones are working (because of the storm, apparently), so they used the private phone at the cinema to call me, to see if I could call one of the interpreters to call a driver or cab to come rescue them. Of course, the numbers he gave me are cell phone numbers (which aren't working well...), and I don't know why he just didn't call them directly from the cinema instead of me (probably because the cell phones aren't local calls?) ... anyway, I got in touch with one of the interpreters and they're on the way to the rescue. And now, back our our regularly scheduled program...

... So anyway, for lunch we ate every bit of leftovers in the house: a little bit of tomato paste (meant to get tomato "sauce" but it got lost in the translation -- I think they refer to "tomato sauce" as "ketchup" here... still a mystery), some meat balls (smushed up and cooked with some olive oil and mixed with the tomato paste to make a meat sauce), several raviolis (large ones), one stuffed cabbage, and some spaghetti. Ah, that's Italian!

Tried to give the kids milk, from yesterday, incidentally, but it had turned to butter. It was in the 'fridge, and still turned. This was milk, though, that I bought by bringing my own plastic bottle and having the lady fill it by ladling it from a milk can (no really -- the metal kind you see on farms) through a funnel. So anyway, it was great, fresh milk -- yesterday. No preservatives, no shelf time.

After a testy lunch, during which Bacha had several meltdowns because she insisted that the snot in her nose and the coins on the floor were both tastier than my cooking, Linda and the kids retreated to the bedroom.

Update: just got a call from the Louca family. They're home safe. Sasha, one of the interpreters, came to the rescue. She's a very pretty young woman and apparently this little adventure interrupted some social event of hers because I'm told she and her driver came swooping up to the Loucas as they started to walk off, all huddled under one umbrella. The door of the car swung open before the car even came to a stop, and there was Sasha, all dressed to kill in a glittery dress, evening makeup, the works. Shey Louca said that she looked like something out of "The Avengers" (anybody else old enough to remember that show?).

So now I have to go shopping for something to eat tonight and tomorrow. It's raining, but not too hard. I think I'll try and do this while the rest of the gang sleeps, and before my vodka completely wears off. If figure it's better to let everyone sleep late, since we're probably all fighting off whatever bug Linda has.

6:13 PM

Everyone woke up about a half hour ago. Bacha was her usual cheery self. Linda says she's feeling better. Tucker was inconsolable for quite some time. He gets in these moods when he won't speak, but he's just miserable. Usually we set him aside and tell him that when he snaps out of it enough to talk to us, we'll help. But this time I got tired of that routine and finally just wouldn't put up with his being so miserable -- heh, the way Linda treats me sometimes. I dressed him and carried him into the kitchen to offer him whatever vittles we could scrounge up for tonight. Not much, until we can shop again tomorrow. He was OK again once he had a piece of bread and cheese in his hand. He'll be even better if we crank up a DVD once I get off this machine.

Only a couple hours left in this day. I can do this.

Oh -- Linda and I just realized we have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world today. We haven't eve bothered going on line to find out... That'll be tonight's treat.