Dividing My Time

Спасибо, Steve!

I’ve written before about the importance of getting thank you notes off promptly. “Don’t let the sun go down, thrice” I nag Velvet.

It seems, however, that I’ve been remiss about writing the thank you note I owe Steve Jobs, who died yesterday.  I picked up the news about it on the latest of my Apple gadgets, my long-lusted for and now irreplaceable iPad, which, yes, turns out to be a tool as well as a toy.   I was saddened, as so many were, by a brilliant life cut short.   Trawling through the news, the testimonials and the reflections from all over the world this morning in my iMac as I drank my coffee, I thought I might as well write the thank you note anyway and add my thoughts to the many out there.

So, thank you Steve, for creating products that made my life as an expat at once easier and richer.  The iPod helped me connect to the 2008 Presidential election through the miracle of podcasts, which are now an ingrained part of my daily routine.   In a city with limited access to English language books, the iPod makes it possible for me to download and listen to everything from the memoirs of Winston Churchill to the last summer’s epic slog through all five of George R.R. Martin’s “The Song of Fire and Ice,” books.  When my daughter Velvet was having trouble with reading and the printed word, iTunes helped her discover Anne of Green Gables, Harry Potter, and Princess Mia of Genovia.    I always have a book going: when I cook, when I drive, when I fly, when I exercise, or just when I’m paying bills or cleaning the house.  They still seem like a miracle to me.  When I was about 8, I saw a TV adaptation of “The Martian Chronicles.”  In the opening scene, a Martian sat on a rock and the narrator said, “The Martian was listening to his book.”  I remember thinking, “Wow, listening to a book…that would be something else.”  And, as soon as I finish writing and editing this, I’ll turn on my book while I load this post up on to the software.  I still find it miraculous.  Thank you, Steve, for knocking down barriers of distance, customs, and political borders and bringing Slate and Rachel Maddow, Melvyn Bragg and Garrison Keillor, Jane Austen and George R.R. Martin to me in Russia.

When I finally plucked up the courage to leave the formal economy and take a stab at being a writer, I made the symbolic shift from a PC to a Mac Book and just seeing it made me think – “yeah, I’m in the creative biz now.”    I do what I love and it doesn’t matter if I have a work permit or my visa runs out – I just open my Mac Book and do it.    I can edit photos, publish articles, work on my book, start a new blog, or redesign an existing one.   Thanks, Steve for helping me do what I love.

My parents are finishing up a trip to the Low Countries.  We gave them an iPad before they left and thanks to it, they’ve looked up information, found restaurants, consulted maps, checked their e-mails, and sent us almost daily updates about what they’ve been doing, seeing, and how they are enjoying their trip.   “Nothing short of miraculous,” says my mother.   Thanks for that, Steve.

When the subject of Apple versus PC comes up, my stock comment is, “I am everything Steve Jobs would have me be:  got sucked in with the iPod, migrated to the Mac Book, lusted for the iPhone and iPad, infected my family of origin and my nuclear family…”  I hope I was everything he would have had me be, because he certainly made my life richer, my horizons wider, and my possibilities ever expanding.

Спасибо, Steve!

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Sad day, isn't it Readers?  What are your memories of Apple products?  Hit the comment button below to leave your thoughts on Jobs and his life and work.

Day of the Workers of the Federal Migration Service/День работников миграционной службы: Lambs to the Slaughter

Do you have any specialized skills, training or experience related to firearms and explosives, or to nuclear, biological or chemical activities?  If <Yes>, please explain.

~ Question # 32 on the visa application for US Citizens to the Russian Federation.

Here is another holiday, Like Day of the HR Managers, where I do not see us breaking out the Veuve Cliquot and the cobalt blue champagne flutes with the Imperial Seal.   Today is Workers of the Federal Migration Service Day. See, I can’t even work up enthusiasm for my customary exclamation mark.  

This is the crowd, as I have written before, who are making us run around Moscow trying to find a certified Latin- Russian translator, so we can have our college diplomas translated and apostiled, and have us combing the post-Armageddon landscape of southern Moscow to find the one rump-sprung clinic that is still testing for leprosy.  These are the clowns who change the rules about where and how to register your visa (once you actually get one and successfully enter the country) every single solitary time.   And, I have to assume that these are the Sadists who came up with that PDF version of the visa application, which is quite simply impossible to fill out on the computer. Go ahead, try to do it…click here and try and fill in one line without having to move your mouse and click on every single box.   See?

These people drive me to drink...and I can crawl there on my own, thank you very much.

People are always offering me back doors to Russian citizenship, and I just decline politely on behalf of myself and Velvet.  For one thing, Russia doesn’t have a dual citizenship agreement with America, or a number of other desirable first world locales like the EU...and all those Russians who think they are so clever (a number of HRH’s female relatives fall in to this category) in keeping their red passports once they get the new blue or burgundy ones should, I believe, be made to choose one and not the other, in tense circumstances by someone as unpleasant as Officer Noble, after a 26-hour flight.   Citizenship, Comrades, is not a travel document.   You can’t have a propiska (a residency permit) in a Moscow apartment, and vote for Barack Obama.  One or the other.  Not both.  Apart from anything else, you are depriving the poor Workers of the Federal Migration Service income, and driving the price of a one-year, multi-entry visa (for which you could get an entire new outfit at Eileen Fisher) for the rest of us!

The Federal Migration Workers are in charge of surveillance of labor migration, which is everyone from the Head of Proctor & Gamble in Russia to the Tadzhik street sweepers, and I always smile at the Tadzhiks and say “Good Day” politely since I feel we are essentially in the same boat.  It seems the Russians also think so, because the Moscow Times had a hysterical report on Friday about a little volume being created by Moscow City Hall.   This quite over-shadowed the other news of the day which I must just mention:  about the 65 meter penis painted on the underside of one of Saint Petersburg’s drawbridges on the eve of the Petersburg Economic Forum.   When raised, the drawbridge faced the Saint Petersburg HQ of the FSB, and that, to me, is genius on a scale you rarely see these days.

But to get back to the other story:  it seems the authorities at City Hall are coming up with an etiquette book for foreign workers visiting the capital.  This is A Bit Much, if you ask me, from a crowd who clear their nostrils of phlegm by pinching one side and blowing out the contents of the other.  Like on the main street, in broad daylight.

Is this woman getting ready to slaughter a lamb?

 

Is this man wearing his national costume on Tverskaya Street? 

The latter-day Emily Posts at City Hall, if you ask me (and no one ever ever does) could spend a little more time on re-working traffic patterns to ease the gridlock than telling me how to behave, but there they are, putting out this silly thing and issuing press releases about it all over the place.   The volume gets specific about some taboo behavior including wearing one’s national costume in public, which rules out jeans I guess, and LL Bean boots, as well as my North Face parka.  We are also supposed to refrain from slaughtering sheep in the courtyard, which wasn’t high up on my to-do list, but then my blood ran cold when I saw that we were also forbidden to barbecue on our balconies.

Oh Dear…

Congratulations to all of the Workers of the Federal Migration Service.

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This post is part of The Stunt

Photos by the author.  All Rights Reserved

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Dear Reader:

Have you ever applied for a visa to Russia?  Did you have to be medicated after you completed the application?  Did you try that PDF, and if so, do you agree it was created by a modern day Torquemada?   Do you know why I am so concerned about the barbecue rule???  (HINT: you’ll find the answer in one of the posts listed below!) Leave me a message of support below, or stick around and enjoy a few more posts like this one.  

More Blessed to Give, Than to Receive

Human Resource Department Day/День кадровика: 69 Pieces of Paper And Your Blood

Vivant et repulica…et qui illam regit!

Vanilla Love vs. Alfred A. Knopf: A Blogger's Dilemma

 A guy at a thing asks me what I do.

“I write,” I say, punching the “T” for emphasis.

“Oh really?” he says, mildly interested, “Publish anything?”

“Oh yes,” I say, “I write a monthly humor column, and I’m working on a book about Russia, and,” I pause for effect, “I have a blog, which is about the funny side of life in Russia.” 

“Do you like, make any money from the blog thing?” he asks.

God, how mercantile, I think.

“Do I monetize, you mean?” I query, tilting my head to one side and using the singsong, quizzical, and annoyingly gravelly voice well-educated women five to seven years younger than myself seem to these days.  “Put ads on it you mean?”   I note with satisfaction: my jargon has momentarily trumped his condescension.  He nods.  “Oh no,” I say, shaking my head gravely, as if he has offered me something toxic like cigarettes or a ride on a Harley without a helmet, “No, I don’t do that.”

“What’s the point, then?” he asks genuinely perplexed.

I dial up the gravel several notches, and babble about keeping the space pure, creating trust with my readership (all six of them including Aunt Debbie), and drop in some other sound bytes I read in “Typepad for Dummies” about monetizing.  His eyes begin to wander about the room, and pretty soon, he knocks back the rest of his glass in a gulp and mutters something about getting more to drink and beats a hasty retreat.

Cards on the table:  I can’t monetize, because, if I did, my blog would be immediately and irrevocably overrun with semi-pornographic ads for Russian and Ukrainian women looking for Western husbands. Sites called creepily racist things like “Vanilla Love,” would establish permanent resident alien status on the extreme right hand side of my blog, flashing garish neon blue messages:  “Hot Ukrainian girls are waiting for you!” or “Russian babes want you!”  

This isn’t the message I’m trying to convey.  I spend a lot of time researching various things for a part of the blog which covers all of Russia’s professional and public holidays, and doesn’t matter what I Google or Bing:  “Siberian dumplings,” or “Baltic Fleet,” or “Peter the Great,” there, alongside the search results is a column of scantily-clad live blond Barbie dolls called things like “Snezhena,” which I’m pretty sure isn’t even a name.   Surely, I won’t be taken seriously as a blogger or a writer if I allow this kind of cyber hoi polloi onto my “platform.”  

And yet…  If I were, hypothetically, willing to go down the monetization route, it occurs to me that I could make a fortune, although I cannot believe this Russian bride industry is still going strong twenty-five years after perestroika.  Are there still Western men of sub-human intelligence who are stupid enough to be taken in by: “Hello, my name is Masha and I have not found my soul mate yet,” or “I’m Nadia, I’m 19 and I’m a student.”   I thought they all cycled through the system a decade ago: 60-something expat men making asses of themselves by marrying the first 20-something guided missile they meet at work; or oil rig employees too cheap or lazy to get on a plane themselves, sending off for 19-year old Nadia, and then astonished when 37-year old Lena plods down the jet way, with her 72 year-old mother, Svetlana and 11-year old son Ruslan in tow; and, on a somewhat later flight, 51 year-old Vlad. 

Googling “Russian meteorologists” today, there was so much resulting “Vanilla Love” that I started to seriously re-examine my whole approach.  Should I face facts, give up the high road, and turn the blog into a “portal” rather than a “platform?” If I’m honest, most of the traffic I get is from people looking to save a failed Beef Stroganoff, which would be great if I were a food blogger. But I’m not. Could I offer advice to these silly men?  Could I sell them my unique, patented insight into the personality of a Russian woman based on her first name?  “Olga,” for example: very scary.  Could I blow the lid off the “Snezhena hoax?  Should I de-gravel my voice and start making some real cash?  $14.99 a month, I could charge, or 12 months for only $99.99.  I could get a PayPal button!  

Or would I just get people looking for cheap vanilla extract?

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Author's Note:  This article first appeared on "Powder Room Graffiti"

Firefighters' Day/ День пожарной охраны: A Profession That Still Makes House Calls

Today is Firefighters’ Day – or День пожарной охраны.  Firefighters in Russia are a part of an organization that wins a closely run “Most Complicated Name of a Russian Ministry” competition:  The Ministry of The Russian Federation for Civil Defense, Emergencies, and Elimination of the Consequences of Natural Disasters, abbreviated as EMERCOM in English and MCHS in Russian.

If you watch Russian TV, you know: these are the guys with the best parkas hands down, no contest.  According to EMERCOM’s very user friendly web site (except the HTML code they provided to put their logo into my blog doesn’t work, but I am sure they have more important things to worry about, so we will just leave that aside…) there are 220,000 firefighters who will be celebrating today, so my advice is to check that you’ve unplugged the toaster and dumped all those cigarette ashes down the loo since these guys will be celebrating all day long.  Joining them will be the 210,000 volunteer firefighters, so it is set to be a big party.

I wondered if there would be many women at the party, and extensive Internet searches for “Female Firefighters in Russia” did not reveal much that I could publish on this blog without having to add an “Adult Only” rider, though I did find a PG-Rated online dating service for single firefighters and, as a public service message, I link it here.   If any readers know the answer, I hope you will get back to us with some statistics!!

This year will be the 361st anniversary of the founding of Russia’s Firefighting force on April 17, 1649 by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, whom you won’t have heard of, the father of Peter The Great, whom you will have. 

“Wait a minute,” I hear you cry.  “Today is the 30th of April.”  

Exactly right.  Because Russia was 13 days behind the rest of the world, languishing in the calendar system created by Julius Caesar in 45 BC or BCE until 1917 when Vladimir Lenin pulled the world’s largest country onto the slick, new and improved Gregorian Calendar of 1582 .  I wrote about this in a column on Russian Public Holidays, which a lot of people, most of them called Olga, didn’t think was funny.  They were wrong.

But, to get back to the Russian Firefighters: who doesn’t love a fireman?  What’s not to adore?  As regular readers know, I’m not the President of the Russian Uniformed Militia/Civil Servant Fan Club, but I do have a great fireman story (are there any bad fireman stories?) and it is this:

Back in my miss-spent youth, or, as my daughter Velvet says, “before there was e- mail," I worked as a tour guide in post-perestroika Russia which, in those days, was uphill – talking steep incline -- work.  Not only was there no e-mail, there were practically no phones, no yellow pages, and lots of stuff that was off limits.   American tourists, however, didn’t think the “off limits” part applied to them, and they were always after me to find impossible-to-find things like dog shelters (this was also before Barbara Spier  got busy creating these), their long-lost third cousin Masha, last heard from in Karaganda in 1941 (as I touched on a recent post on the Stalin Era Terror, cousins called Masha who lived in places like Karaganda from 1936-1953 are very hard to find indeed), pedicures on the Trans-Siberian railway (seriously), condoms, The Seventh Day Adventist Church, and lots of other Holy Grail-type things.   I’d stand there at JFK at Gate # 10 waiting to meet them and wonder what the next 7 days would have in store for me.

One March, a group of three men arrived to check in with me – all tall, moderately good-looking, fit, and very wholesome looking.  I can’t recall where they were from, but it was considerably west of JFK.  They announced to me before we boarded the plane that they were firemen and said they really really really wanted to visit a fire station in Russia. 

“Absolutely,” I said, which was what I always said standing at Gate # 10, and then promptly forgot about it.   It was a long and complicated itinerary and our days were packed.  They reminded me a few times during the first day, and so I asked our Intourist guide, Tanya, if she thought we could make time for a stop at a firehouse.

Tanya assumed the maddeningly non-committal air Intourist guides were trained assume even before they were taught to use a microphone, and said we’d have to see.  I knew what that translated into: I would have to sort out this problem myself.

I asked the firemen exactly why they wanted to see a firestation, and they said it wasn’t so much that they wanted to see the firestation, but they wanted to meet their Russian counterparts.  It turns out that firemen are an international brotherhood, and the great thing to do is to take a little banner from your firestation and trade it with some other guys little banner from his firestation, and the firestation with the most little banners is the coolest.  It is also quite the fashion to be photographed on the other guys’ truck.  And the firestation who has the most exotic collection of photos is the coolest.  Like, for example, if you had a banner from North Korea, you would be the coolest firestation of all.  Nowadays, they have online forums, but then it was just this thing they did – no one organized it – it just happened.  Like, as my mother is always pointing out, Halloween.

In 1989, I wasn’t entirely sure that the Russian firemen, closed off from all but Warsaw Pact firemen for 3 generations were going to be at all excited about Americans walking in and claiming international brotherly rights.  I had reservations about there being an adequate stock of little banners, if indeed there were little banners at all.

“I’m not sure we have time for it,” said Tanya in Vladimir and Suzdal.

As we reached the end of our journey, in Kiev, my least favorite city of them all, the firemen were giving me petulant looks, and I finally decided to take my chances with the bus driver, Volodiya.   I handed him four packs of Marlboro cigarettes (a veritable fortune in those days) and explained the problem.  He swept the packs into some concealed part of the driver’s seat, flashed me a tobacco-stained smile and told me to leave it to him.   Later that afternoon, Volodiya took me and the firemen to a leafy suburb and pulled up in front of a real Russian firestation.

“Did you tell them we were coming?” I asked Volodiya.

He looked dumbstruck, and began to protest violently that this had not been part of the agreement.  I sighed deeply.   It's moments like this that keep Russia out of the WTO. I pointed out that merely locating the firehouse was a one pack deal, taking us there and back was also a one pack deal, but that for an entire FOUR I had hoped he’d lay some groundwork.  He shook his head.

There was nothing for it.  We hopped off the bus and strode purposely towards the firestation.   Inside, there were five sleepy men seated around table playing cards.

“We are American firemen,” I said tentatively.  They gave me a curious look, then clocked the three men flanking me, relaxed, nodded, and then stood up and, in what was clearly a well-rehersed production taught to them in Firefighter school, shook hands and began to give a completely unedited tour of the facilities including the pole, the sleeping quarters, the uniforms, the helmets…the whole enchilada.  My guys climbed up on the stations sole fire engine made the same year as the Sputnik, and I snapped pictures of them grinning from ear to ear, arms around their Russian counterparts.   

I was holding my breath, but, sure enough, little banners were produced, and exchanged.  More photos.  Then, the inevitable:  numerous bottles of vodka and some salami.  

“This is very cool,” I commented to my American fireman.

“Oh yeah,” he said calmly, “We always do this.”

 Toasts were proposed to American Firemen and Russian Firemen and firemen in general, international friendship, and I raised a silent toast to myself…another Holy Grail run to ground.

We’d have been there all night, were it not for Volodiya, who pointed out that staying past 9 pm was going to cost another half a carton.   So we took three incredibly drunk firemen back to the fleabag hotel, clutching their little banners, 100% satisfied.

Which is why Russian firefighters have remained very dear to my heart!  Happy Firefighters Day!

All men are created equal, then a few become firemen.  ~Author Unknown

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Dear Reader:

Thank you very much for stopping by and reading today's Stunt.  It means a lot to me, as does your feedback, which I'd love for you to leave by locating the "COMMENT" button below and telling me what you think about Firefighters' Day.  Do you know if there are women firefighters in Russia?  Are you a firefighter yourself, and if so, have you got a lot of little banners?

This post is a part of The Stunt.  For more information, click here.

Leave me a comment and we'll discuss!

Добро пожаловать! Welcome BlogTrotters!

Today I’m the featured blogger on Blogtrotting!  This is very exciting and it is my pleasure to welcome you to my blog and the country where I spend a lot of my time: The Russian Federation.   This post will give you a little bit of the skinny on me and Russia, as well as Me & Russia: a long-term, somewhat choppy relationship, which for better or worse, and richer or poorer, is set to last a lifetime.  I've left a few breadcrumbs to follow to some classic posts via links, and I hope you'll stay a while and browse.   

I’m an American who fell in love with Russian language, history, and culture when I was a bored 13 year-old and read Robert Massie's “Nicholas and Alexandra.”   After The Wall came down, I majored in 19th Century Russian Studies, graduated, and set sail for Russia just in time for the main act of perestroika.  To my extreme shock and horror, Russia in 1989 looked nothing like “Nicholas and Alexandra."  You could have knocked me over with a feather.   I almost left, but it was all too compelling to give up.  So, here I am, 17 years later.

In 1992, I settled down in Moscow with the man who would become HRH (which, in addition to meaning “His Royal Highness” can also mean, depending on my mood, “Horrible” or “Handsome” Russian Husband.”) After a suitable interval, we were joined by our daughter, Velvet, who, at the age of six months made it abundantly clear to us that her life would be dedicated spending as much time with horses as possible.   To better facilitate this, we’ve sent her to school in rural Massachusetts and we now divide our time between Northampton, MA and Moscow, and when people ask me what I do, I tell them, I'm a Pony Mom.  We have many frequent flyer miles, but not enough to fly through volcanic ash.

We are an eclectic extended household, which includes some stock characters such as HRH’s parents about whom he says:  “They’re trying,” to which I respond, “and that’s not all they are…” our housekeeper, and our long-suffering driver. If that seems like a lot of staff, well, Russia is a human resources rich country.

“How do you like living here?” Russians ask me all the time.  “It’s never dull,” I tell them, and it isn’t.   Everything you try to do takes strategic planning, on-the-ground know-how, and sheer guts.    What for example, would you do if confronted with this situation? 

Or this one?

 Or indeed, this one?

Though I am pretty sure you would know what to do in this situation...

 

 “What has been the best thing about living in Russia for seventeen years?” asked an American lawyer.  

“Smoked salmon,” I replied promptly.  

“What can’t you get in Russia?” people often ask. The answer used to be everything from A-Z, so much so that I would play that game “I packed my grandmother’s trunk…” when I couldn’t fall asleep.  Today, it’s just zip lock bags and Eileen Fisher.  Yes, I’ve seen a lot of changes.

My blog is about finding the funnier side of life in Russia, which isn’t always easy, but incredibly satisfying when you do. Even the Russian TV Guide is funny.   I found a guy so desperate to find a girlfriend that he dressed up in absurd clothing and was photographed in a truly tacky 18th century palace.   You don’t see that every day, but you can see him here.  

I have a thing about the Uniformed in Russia.  I also am on a mission to chart all of Russia’s professional holidays, which include everything from the Day of the Cosmonauts to Customs’ Workers Day (and how I am going to find anything nice to say about them, I don’t know...stay tuned!).

Moscow is a huge sprawling city that has very beautiful parts of it, like the Moscow Kremlin, and some really awful parts of it, like the raw open wounds of chaotic construction all over the city.   It’s a brusque, businesslike place, where traffic is often gridlocked and the weather is often grey.   Moscow doesn’t welcome you with open arms, but you can find a lot of interesting things if you are willing to look.  I take a lot of pictures in Moscow of the things I see – mainly the things that stand out at me as very ironic, very funny, very sad, or very typical of the Russian approach to life, which is often a combination of all of the above.  I hope you enjoy having a look around.

I love to cook, and living in Russia, oddly enough made me a good one.  I prefer to shop at the Farmers' Markets, which isn't for the faint of heart, but the best place to get fresh produce, meat and fish.

 

 
  
 

  

It is hard being a photographer in Russia, because very few people want to have their pictures taken, especially people in uniform, which is why I really treasure these shots:

 
Moscow cityscapes:

 
 
 

 
 
 

 The women who made Hitler cry...

 
 
 A man who helped...

 And the most enduring image of them all...with the ubiquitous crane...

Author's Notes:

Photos by Jennifer Eremeeva, with sincere thanks to the administration of Dorogomilovskaya Market for allowing me to take pictures of the farmer's market.

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Dear Reader:  I close my posts by thanking readers for stopping by, and telling them how much I value their feedback about Dividing My Time. If you would like to leave a comment, please feel free to click the comment button below.  This is especially true today, when I look forward to welcoming new readers!  I would also like to thank Blogtrotting for their interest in featuring this post:  Большое вам спасибо: Russian for Thank you very much!

 

But enough about me...

Dear Readers:

In honor of the new look I spent all afternoon fiddling with, and because this is a nice round number post, I thought I’d note a few significant milestones at Dividing My Time, but more importantly, thank you for spending time on this blog, encouraging me with your comments, and welcoming me into the blogger universe.  It’s a great place to be!

In April, traffic rose to over 50 hits a day, and over 3600 unique visits from 39 countries!  You are logging in from the far-flung countries of Oman, New Zealand, China, Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia, Thailand (thanks Mike!) the UAE, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, and Australia!  Closer to Russia (which accounts for at least 25% of my visitors) you are visiting me from Ukraine, Croatia, Romania, Finland, Norway, and the Czech Republic.   Down in the Caspian, I’ve been especially delighted to meet some really wonderful bloggers in Turkey (particular nod to the ladies at expat+HAREM – a wonderful blogging community) Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Armenia.  Be sure to check them out on my blogroll!  Over in Europe, my loyal fans in the UK are driving lots of traffic to the site – thank you to my other adopted country – and it is fantastic to see readers from Ireland, Germany, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, Luxembourg (thanks to the Beet Who Moved On), Belgium, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, and Greece!

To all the readers in Russia – bolshoye vam spasibo, and thanks very much to the Moscow bloggers who have taken me to their hearts.  Do check out their blogs on the blogroll: 

In the US, you are coming at me from all kinds of different states and time zones, and I appreciate all the comments and support – even though I told Mom that I would prefer not to get comments that begin: “Hi Jennifer!  This is an old friend of your Mom’s and she asked me to leave a comment, so here is one.”   

Thanks to the readers from Argentina, and last, but certainly never least, my very loyal fan in Canada…who is always the first to tell me she loves what I’m doing!  Thank you Debbie!  

If you pass this way again, please leave a calling card in the form of a comment with some information about you, and if you have a blog, leave me a link!

Coming up in May, having tackled blog design, I’m going to wade into the wonderful world of podcasts…once “Podcasts for Dummies” arrives.   I will be celebrating more Russian professional holidays (firemen coming right up), HRH will be attending a horse show, we'll see if they put those Stalin banners up in Red Square.  Then it will be time for me to get packing my TUMI bag again to head back to Russia.  You'll get some sneak previews of The Book.   I hope to make some more friends here in Northampton, and I'll be battling some more snarky service providers.  So stay tuned!

So, here, and here, we are: inaugural post

I have always wanted to “divide my time.”   

I wanted to divide it geographically between Moscow and…somewhere other than Moscow.  I would like to divide my time wisely, as I attempt to write a book about my life as an American expatriate living in Russia, married to HRH (my “Horrible Russian Husband”) and bringing up Velvet, my horse-obsessed daughter, while actually living that life.  

I would like to divide my writing time evenly: between the book and my monthly columns in Russia Now! and my other interests such as reading contemporary fiction, my weekly podcast line-up, European Royalty from 1837 – 1918, cooking, hunting for antiques, photography, and my next big travel adventure.    I spent too many years procrastinating by scrutinizing book jackets, all of which seemed to feature tasteful black and white photos of smooth-haired successful women authors, all of whom seemed to “divide their time,” between two enviable locations:  Oxford and Sydney, London and New York, Berkley and Paris.   

So, now I’m dividing my time between Moscow, Russia: a massive, magnificent and messy city of 12 million which I’ve called home for 17 years, and Northampton, Massachusetts, a small, beautiful, artsy New England college town, which I’ve also called home for 7 months.  This doesn’t exactly fit the chic author prototype, but nevertheless, there -- and there, HRH, Velvet and I are – some of the time all together, and a lot of the time one of us in one country and the other two in another: this blog is dedicated mainly to writing about our crazy “trans-cultural” life in Russia and Northampton, but also making time to explore all my favorite things and write about them, instead of just looking at book jackets.  

I hope you enjoy!