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.