Love and Politics

Life as an expat has treated us pretty well. We step out of our comfort zone almost on a daily basis, but with it comes come great perks. For me, I see it mostly in the people that we meet. I'm not a huge fan of meeting people, but here it's the number one key to survival. Whether its learning where to go for your most cherished groceries, where the best burger in town in, how to maneuver on public transportation, google tries but it always comes in second to personal accounts and story-swapping. So, I've kind of seen it as my job to make those connections and get out to meet people. And although I'm pretty content with just the basics, like where the heck is the cheddar cheese is this city, we have been blown away by the cool things we've been hooked up with through casual conversations and connections. This year's election night was one of those things.

We received an invitation to the Spaso House, our ambassador's home here in Moscow for election coverage/cocktail hour. How busy and important does that make us look, right? So we were pretty stoked to go, if anything so that we could say that we were entertained at the Ambassador's home. And because we still pay US taxes and yet we can't shop at the embassy commissary, which has Pillsbury cookie dough and other items we're dying for. The least our tax dollars can give us is a night of free food and booze.

We arrive, flash our passports to the marines on guard for impostors to the VIP party and we waltz in. It didn't take very long to realize that we were horrifyingly underdressed for the occasion. Nowhere on the invitation was "business casual" mentioned, but maybe we got a different invite than everyone else. Or maybe thats just common knowledge to show up to the Ambassador's home looking nice. In hindsite, I think its probably the latter.

There was no other choice then to go in, avoid contact and start drinking our taxpayer wine, which, to be honest is the way I like to see our dollars at work. I dove right into piling my plate with food, too, because Hubs has way more pride than I do and I knew he would want to leave soon. No sir, not till I have my fill.

By glass number three of vino, we were feeling better. It helped that we were seeing more people who were also casually dressed. Albeit, they were the hippie photographers, but we'll take it. If we ran into any of our well dressed friends in town, we had a plan to immediately comment on the media dress code, or lack thereof. "Pffffftt… take a bath hippie, am I right? Another glass of red, please?"

Luckily, we didn't see anyone we knew until the very end, after I felt I had properly gotten the most out of my tax dollars for one night (which happens to equal three plates of food and six glasses of wine…). By then, the hippie photographers were gone, so we had no one to turn our nose up to. But by then, lets be honest, we had the upper hand as the most comfortable couple in the place. Boom.

When we left, we walked past all the drivers and their heavily tinted windows, waiting for the way more important people inside. We walked past the expensive apartments, the fancy restaurants. Past the pubs and drunks stumbling outside and into our little metro stop. We laughed the entire way home at the situations we find ourselves in, and how significantly unprepared we usually are. I mean really, who wears jeggings to an Embassy sponsored event at their ambassador's home?

We do. And we do it fantastically.

And eventually, we find ourselves not alone and so comfortable. And with a great story. We got to watch the polls close with a plate of gourmet food and wine, with a pretty cool international backdrop and lots of secret glances and giggles.

Cheers to those glances and giggles that take the story from mortifying to memorable in no time at all.

Love and Hurried Waiting

Let's try this again...

Hello. My husband and I refuse to quit honeymooning. These are our stories. 

You'll never guess where I am right now. Starbucks. I know I should be going local, I'm a huge advocate for local businesses, but Starbucks will always be the exception because if there's one thing I've learned in our travels thus far, its that this coffee shop will always have English-speaking baristas. That, my friends is gold. Solid gold.

But today is my first day at this Starbucks "office". Because I'm in Alaska. Yep. Alaska. This transition was a pretty wild road, starting with a lot of waiting followed by a week or two of flurried (read: exhausting) activity and now finishing up with more waiting. 

We were actually back home in Texas, waiting on our visas to get us back to Russia for our last few months of Hubs' assignment and planning one last sweet European Christmas. One month turned into two, which then turned into three, and suddenly we're reading our friend's posts on Facebook about snow in Moscow and falling temperatures. Where had the time gone? Anxiety was starting to set in because we were on a deadline ourselves and couldn't extend our time in Russia, but Hubs had certain obligations to finish with his program and it wasn't looking good. I have to admit that my anxieties got the best of me, yet again. Planning, timelines and to do lists became an obsession and none of it was working. 

In the back of my mind (way, way far back of my mind…) I knew everything would work out. Life happens and it keeps going. And I knew no matter how difficult it was, we would be ok because we're just like that. I had no idea it would work out as intricately as this… 

It came in an offhanded comment from one of Hubs' bosses in the Texas office that they were looking for people in the Alaska branch. Hubs, about as excitable as a puppy dog thought it sounded pretty cool so he got in touch with the hiring manager. Which led to a visit a week later, which led to a job offer two days later, which led to an official transfer approval three days later, which ended with a pack up your things, we're moving to Alaska in four days. At this point, realize we've both been waiting for our visas back to Russia for almost exactly four months. Suddenly, our well-rehearsed speech about how long we would be in town changed overnight to, "yeah, we're leaving for Alaska on Monday!" Most of our friends were shocked at first, but then remembered who they were talking to. This is kind of what we do. I swear we're not trying to one-up ourselves, it just happens naturally. 

So here we are. Alaska. "The final frontier" and they are not joking. It's been a real shock, my emails to friends who had lived here did nothing to prepare me for this strange land of personalized license plates, chattiness, military discounts, fleece and mountains. But we jump in nonetheless and adapt as best we can. Together, with lots of laughs, lots of plans, lots of dreams. It's our official tried and true method. 

As crazy as it sounds, this move did more for my peace of mind than it probably should have. My anxieties about our timeline and transition after Moscow are laid to rest. Rest assured, they've been replaced by others, but at least I have hope that no matter what the anxiety, my prayers are heard by a God who is extra creative in putting them to rest. And part of that is having a handsome, silly, fearless partner by my side. 

And so the honeymoon continues.

Cheers to the things and people that make us fearless.

Love and Themes

Here's a story my mother shouldn't read. But she will. And I'll be expecting a call very soon full of helpful advice like, "don't go to Siberian prison..."

If that isn't an attention grabber, I don't know what is. You'll never believe where our adventures took us back in early November.

So, I love theme parties. Love them. I loved them before Pinterest made them cool, if you can wrap your mind around that. So when some friends of ours asked if we were willing to co-host a party, I didn't need details, I was all in. The idea was simple. Get some people together who live relatively close and hop around from apartment to apartment and have a good, old fashioned wild time without spending a thousand dollars on over-priced drinks at a dingy Russian club. (Not to knock Russian clubs. They are second to none in the nightlife experience. Just really, really expensive.) To top it off, it was a Halloween party, so we were all dressing up. Fantastic.

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween. We didn't really celebrate it growing up, which was fine with me. In my family, we spent Halloween night staying up playing cards and eating junk food until I crashed. Then Dad, in an effort to avoid dealing with me being the only kid without a stash of Halloween candy, and also to replenish his secret candy stash, would go to the grocery store and buy up all the bags of candy at a discount. When I did dress up, it was for a church harvest party and I was Raggedy Anne for ten years straight. Not sure how that worked, since I probably grew three feet in those ten years, but I didn't ask questions back then.

I know I'm always complaining about it, but Moscow is expensive. Halloween costumes are no exception, so I was kind of dreading coming up with a costume for both Hubs and I. Part of why I kept a closet full of clothes that I barely ever wore was for last-minute costumes, and now, since I've cleaned out my closet and live on the bare essentials, I was at a loss. But, come to find out, anyone can come up with a pirate costume out of an ordinary closet. (open your closet and try it...) So, we were going to be pirates.

Which then made it very easy to have a theme...a Pirate's Lair!!! Yaaaarrr, Matey!!! From there, we (seriously, Hubs did just as much helpful planning, he's the pirate expert in the family after all) We decided to serve meatballs as "cannonballs" gherkins on those min-plastic swords, goldfish, black olives as "black pearls" and buffalo chicken dip as "chum". (That last one was a stretch, but I REALLY wanted buffalo chicken dip...)

Having time to plan, I inevitably changed my mind on everything at least a couple times. It's just what I do. And when you see bright blue feather eyelashes, you just can't pass them up. But pirates don't wear bright blue feather eyelashes, you say? Well, their PARROT does!!! Costume change, now I'm a parrot to Hubs' pirate. Which also allowed me to buy a blue tutu thing. That thing alone will pay for itself, I can't wait to see how many excuses I can find to wear that thing around town.

So the night came and I was so excited. It was about meeting new people, hosting a party with themed foods again, which is one of my favorite things to do and having a fun night out.

We got to our place around midnight after two stops. We had lost some of our crew, but pushed ahead with the stragglers still hangin on. This was my moment of glory. A chance to prove my theme party skills and wow the masses.

But ten minutes in, our neighbors were not wowed. And they did not appreciate that we were throwing a party downstairs.

Quick side note: Our upstairs neighbors have somewhere between two and two hundred small, wild children/monkey-elephants living upstairs. Their favorite activities are pushing things across the floor and jumping off of them, bouncing 20 pound medicine balls on the ground and playing synchronized hopscotch at all hours of the day and night. But apparently, since it stops around 11pm and doesn't pick back up until 6am, they feel that they can get really mad at us and bang on the floor to get us to be quiet.

Pffffttt... Whatevs.

What I wasn't expecting was for our doorbell to ring after two good stomps from upstairs. But Hubs went to handle it (in costume, mind you, and heavy on the eye makeup), coming back only to ask for a translator, which a friend quickly volunteered for and actually thought to get "out of costume" by throwing off his hipster magenta scarf. The rest of us all sat and ate in the kitchen, blissfully unaware of the shit show that would soon be unveiled.

Hubs and our new friend ran quickly to the bathroom to talk, leaving the front door open. Me, being the helpful housewife, went to close it and caught my first glimpse of the Russian police officers at the door. Oh. My. God.

So I run to the bathroom conference to check and see what solutions were being discussed and how we were going to laugh and be done with it in no time flat. What I wasn't expecting was to hear that they weren't backing down. That the Russian police officers, who are known around the world for taking bribes, are suddenly rule followers and insisting that they take Hubs to the station.

This is the point in which a good friend, convincingly dressed as Nikki Minaj, complete with stuffed booty shorts and a bright pink wig decides to get involved. Probably the most surreal moment in Russia to date was having Nikki Minaj arguing with a Russian police officer hell-bent on taking your husband, the pirate to the police station. While Nikki's uber-tourist boyfriend throws his two cents in and I'm having a conversation on what the US Embassy actually can do for us. (nothing.)

So, Hubs excuses himself to wash the makeup off (that's a funny statement) and leaves with the police and two of our friends, one has become our translator, the other just wants to go and see what happens. They pile into the small police/clown car and drive down the block.

Have you ever been in a situation where you are so overwhelmed by panic, but you're surrounded by people who are telling you not to panic, so you just don't? So, we all pile outside to get some air/plot how we are going to extract revenge on our awful neighbors.

Once outside, Hubs and our two friends round the corner and are back! My first reaction was to laugh. We had worried for nothing, all was fine and right in the world. And Hubs would not be breaking large rocks into little rocks in Siberia for the next 20 years.

And the story finishes like this...
Hubs, our friend/translator, our other friend who likes excitement and a police officer pile into the back of a tiny, tiny police car. They drive a couple blocks before the radio starts going off and the police officer pulls over quickly. The officers jump out of the car and start frantically putting on their bullet-proof vests and other protective gear and our Russian translator is staring wild-eyed at them. To which Hubs starts to get a bit panicked (Firing squad? For a lousy noise complaint?!) and asks whats going on. Apparently, there was a shooting down the road, so they had to run there and told them to leave the money in the backseat of the car. Funny how, despite their hurried demeanor, they still had time to haggle a bit over the cost of the "fine".

So, an hour and 2,000 rubles (roughly $60) later, they were home, safe, sound and ready to celebrate their brush with Siberian prison. Hubs and I made it for one celebratory drink at the club before we snuck out to the safety of our now quiet apartment.

It's terrifying to think about the worse case scenarios of expat life. Particularly for us in Russia, where we're not completely certain of rules, not certain at all of the language (minus the bad words, which probably shouldn't be used when talking to police in any country...) and not certain of our rights. We joke about it now, but it was also a good reminder to be mindful of where we are and where we do not want to end up. Also, to be mindful of how much eye makeup we put on.

Our night ended in a tearful hug (tears = me) telling Hubs to not ever go to Siberian prison because it would break my heart. He promised he'd try his best.

Cheers to the near-misses, the obscure second-chances and not going to Siberian prison.

Love and Resolutions

I would say that its unbelievable I haven't posted a new blog in two months, but really, it's not. You should see my journals. They start and pick up every couple of years like its totally normal. But, that's what happens when you like journals more than actual journaling.

But, New Year's Day and New Year's REDO have come and gone, which means I have no excuses not to start on that list of goals for 2013, one of which for me is to make a point of writing every day. (unless I happen to get stuck under a very large rock, which according to my favorite movie, "When Harry Met Sally" is the only logical reason anyone could be kept from anything.) I refuse to fall into the same cycle of my youth. I'm 30 now (yeah, missed that blog entry, too...) so it's time to shape up and get with it. Plus, its for my health. I've noticed a definite change in my mood after a day of writing and I'm finding that in the dead of winter I'm in desperate need of some extra endorphins.

So, I'll kick this off with New Year's REDO, the official start to 2013. To give a little background, we've been celebrating New Year's REDO back home in Texas since we rang in 2010 on January 7th. The idea is simple. We all think New Year's Eve is going to be awesome, but it's always a letdown. The best New Year's Eve before this one in Moscow was spent with my best friend from high school in a Bennigans because we got lost trying to find an imaginary location in Ft Worth that we thought would be picture perfect, like the green hill where they watch movies outside in "The Wedding Planner". And that certainly didn't go according to plan. The only reason it was the best to date was the level of ridiculousness we had reached jumping into a Bennigans, for goodness sake.

So, ringing in 2010 was a letdown for all of us in our circle of friends, we hadn't started our resolutions and had no desire to, seeing as how we didn't feel like the year had really started. So we took matters into our own hands, got some awesome party favors at half the price, dressed up nice and fancy, had a countdown to midnight and proceeded to waltz around our sleepy town yelling "HAPPY NEW YEAR" and blowing noisemakers into stranger's ears. It was a hit.

So after many years of success, our empire grew and the thought of leaving this timeless tradition back home was too much to bear. And although we had the absolute best, most surreal, awesome, storybook New Year's Eve this year, we couldn't pass up the chance to carry on the tradition. We took the franchise global.

If you'd like to try this at home next year, believe me, you will be a hit as well. You can't mess this up. It's a perfect formula.

In fact, I will give you the formula right now. And it works for all parties, but we will use New Year's REDO as our example. A. So you get the story and B. So that you, too, can make your own perfect party.

First, the food. Back home, New Year's REDO involves dinner at a nice restaurant before the festivities. Here in Moscow it's too expensive, so we do snacks. I hate cooking, but I love preparing snacks. And since there was no theme, I was free to use snack ideas I had found on pinterest that started with the words "easy" and "impossible to screw up". If "delicious" made it in there somehow, it was an added bonus. This time, thanks to some good friends who had gone home for Christmas, we had tons of Rotel and velveeta, so I was able to introduce them to the magic of cheese dip. Did you know that there are people in America, even (!!!), that don't know what Rotel is? It compels me to start a non-profit to distribute the magical, canned goodness to all our country men and women. Even those whose unfortunate circumstances leave them too far to the north.

Next, booze. Party hosting in Russia is a breeze, because if you tell people to bring booze, they bring it. Enough for everyone. It's so awesome. No chance of party moochers in this town. Plus cheap champagne in Moscow is even cheaper than cheap champagne in America, believe it or not! AND it's pronounced "champagnski" which I think is way more fun to say.

Party people, the most important part. It's nice to have a group of people that are not easily embarrassed, like to meet new people, eat cheese, and tell good stories. It's an elite group that we make up and not for the faint of heart. We've hosted a few parties now and every time, I've had a moment where I just take it all in and appreciate the fact that we have managed to find the coolest people in this city. Of course we miss our circle back home, but we couldn't ask for better subs. They came in off the bench ready to play, for sure! (But enough sentiment. Gotta save some for my closing statement...)

Neighbors can be tricky. Our neighbors especially. I'll spare you the story here, because I've already started that blog, so read on to "Love and Themes" and you'll understand the background. Bottom line? They don't like noise. So, in order to keep them happy, I wrote a note, copied it to Google Translate, where it magically turned into Russian words and had a few friends look at it. Once the note was approved, I walked upstairs with my new Russian note and a box of chocolates hoping beyond hope that they would accept my peace offering and be a bit more neighborly. And even though the chocolates and note were received without smile and/or neighborliness, it did work in the long run, considering my only goal for the whole thing was to not go to Siberian prison.

(As a side note, if you're ever in Russia, chocolates seem to fix everything. I'm going to start keeping boxes of chocolates in my bag for when someone yells at me on the Metro or I need directions. It stands to reason that people will be nicer if you give them things, and at the top of that list seems to be chocolate.)

Party favors are important because how else is anyone going to take you seriously at a redo party? Luckily, I found a party store close to my apartment and after only an hour of getting lost trying to find it, I DID find it! And it was totally worth it. Hats, noisemakers AND those tube things that you twist and confetti flies out were all there...IN BULK!! I can't wait to go back, although I'm not sure that I'll ever find it again.

We were going to head to Red Square to ring in 2013 at midnight, but at the end of the night the only people who wanted to brave the cold and the metro were myself and two of my Russian seestras, so we opted to go to the club a block away instead. And it was there, outside the club that we counted down and officially rang in the new year, surrounded by all the people who, for one reason or another we were not able to celebrate on New Year's Eve proper. Confetti, hugs, loud noises...it was perfect.

Unfortunately, it wasn't completely perfect since Hubs was out in Siberia freezing his sweet hiney off. Which only means one thing... New Year's REDO REDOOO!!!

Cheers to all the party people near and far. And how easy it is to find them when you have the right formula.