Even though Greg started work in Moscow the first part of November, I only arrived the first part of January, so officially, I’ve been here 5 months exactly before having to leave again.  Gearing up to move to a totally foreign country, arriving and then having to leave before we’ve gotten our bearings in the city has been disorienting and, frankly, a bit irritating.  People have asked me how I feel about all this and I really haven’t been able to describe the state of emotion in a clear and concise manner.   I’m really the type to marinate on things before coming to an organized opinion, so I’m sure a firm conclusion is sure to materialize at some point or other, however, I want to set down some generalizations while thinking about them.

Relief: Russia didn’t nearly live up to the dastardly reputation we had acquired of it sometime during the cold war and we were relieved to be fairly ignored as we navigated our way about life.  We didn’t stand out too much, and once people realized we were foreigners, they either tried to find a way to communicate with us (in Russian with an occasional English word) or begged off.  We weren’t liked nor disliked, but more accepted as another bump in the road of their daily life.  Of course, it hasn’t been easy trying to exist in a city that almost nobody speaks English in and ordering a cup of coffee, complaining that your order was wrong or even identifying whether what you’re buying is baking soda or flour are only a few of the daily obstacles we faced.  I’ve learned enough Russian to barely communicate, but not enough to barely converse.  It’s going to be WONDERFUL to go back home where I can read signs, talk to people, identify groceries, order familiar food and simply sail through my day with minimal effort.

Regret:  Greg and I fought transfers for a few years before coming to Russia and once it was even suggested that we go to Scotland for a bit.  My cats, the thought of putting them through a quarantine and the fact that I was wildly happy where we were at stayed any thoughts of moving and we passed on persuing the idea.  Now we can see we made a big mistake and I’ve learned an important lesson, which is comfort where you are at does not predict discomfort everywhere else.  Simply said, we can be happy no matter where we are at and I daresay even happier with new opportunities, new experiences and new people to make friends with and the paychecks weren’t too bad either!  We’ve met some really wonderful people here, both Russian and from other countries and feel like we’ve made some true friends for life.  It’s not going to be easy leaving our new friends before we’ve truly gotten to know each other well, but with the internet so available, we shouldn’t have any problems staying in touch.

Dread: I hate to move because I recognize that I’m a homebody and am happiest at home in my familiar environment in my normal routine puttering about in my house and garden.  The move to Moscow was stressful, but it wasn’t a FULL move because we just packed up what we needed and left everything else.  Well, since we can’t go back to Victoria, I’m facing a full move, complete with closet cleaning, junk clearing, room painting and house staging.  All the stuff I’ve put off (that extra coat of varnish on the front doors, woodwork that needs painting, etc) is waiting for me at home.  I hope to make this experience a lesson in minimalism and I’m going to adhere to a self-imposed rule: for every one thing I keep, I must get rid of one thing. Wish me luck!

Lastly, WHEW!  I’ve always felt this niggling uneasiness while here, a sense of impending doom if you’d like, and every time I survived a plane trip, made it through customs or passed by a car wreck, the relief would be palpable, but temporary.  I don’t know why, but I’ve just not felt completely comfortable while here.  Yesterday we got this bulletin from the American Embassy:

“Warden Message – Security Caution in Market Areas

Russian law enforcement authorities and the U.S. Embassy are in receipt
of potential threat information targeting those market areas in Moscow
frequented by Central Asian and Caucasian immigrants.  The information
is purported to originate from a Russian nationalist group and
specifically identifies the Cherkizovskiy Market, adjacent to
Izamailovsky Park, as a potential target.  The validity of the
information is being assessed at this time.

While the assessment process is ongoing, we caution U.S. citizens to
avoid travel to the market areas for the near future.”

As you can imagine, there will be a HUGE sigh of relief when we step off the plane and are hit with that hot wet blanket we call good ol’ Houston humidity.

In the metro:  I’m remarkably pleased with myself for not only voluntarily using the metro (we do have access to a car) but also not getting lost very often.  Here is the metro map for the entire city of Moscow:http://engl.mosmetro.ru/flash/scheme01.html  For reference, we live at the Aeroport metro line (dark green line #2, north from center) and most of the action (friends, restaurants, entertainment) happens in the middle, happily on the green line.  We have also made a trail to Partizanskaya stop (dark blue line #3) where Ismailovo flea market resides.   The hardest part about the metro is being underground and not knowing which direction you’re going.  There is a hint, given to us by our friend Jason, and that is the announcements (spoken in Russian) are made by a male voice when you’re going toward the center and a woman’s voice going out of the center.  That’s a handy tip and I wonder what my fellow metro passengers think when the lady next/across from them starts in surprise when the announcement is made, hot foots it out at the next stop and hurries across to the opposite train.  Another hard thing about the metro is not talking (English speaking in close quarters attracts attention) and also not making expressions (official expression in the Moscow metro is “cold fish”) or looking anybody in the eye directly and especially not smiling (so few Russians smile).   Lastly, I try not to look at the floor, although sometimes I forget and see where someone was bleeding (??) someone puked up their dinner(???) and strange puddles seeming to come from no source (???!). Having said that, I now know there is a point to the Russian floor phobia.

Floor Phobias: I, coming from relatively clean country life in Texas, have not had a floor phobia and actually abide by the 5 second rule, which is if something drops on the floor and you pick it up within 5 seconds, it never touched the floor.  Actually, I think the official rule is 3 seconds, but I’m getting older and slower, so I gave myself the extra 2 seconds to respond.    Arrival in Russia in the winter and we noticed that EVERYBODY takes off their shoes the second they enter the door of any home.  I thought it was because of the snow and slush, but the custom continues with the streets dry.  I also started noticing a lot of money (change) laying about the streets.  Lest you think Moscow streets are paved with gold, let me tell you it’s mostly kopecks and occasional 1 ruble coins.  It takes 100 kopecks to make a ruble and a ruble is worth 31 cents.   Well, I don’t know about anybody else, but I would stop to pick up a quarter in the US any day.  However in Moscow the money has touched the ground and therefore rendered too filthy to pick up by anybody but homeless people and beggars and being neither, I’m afraid I would attract a lot of attention picking up coins constantly.   Once, while getting change at Ismailovo, a 100 ruble note dropped to the ground.  Dismayed and flustered, Tanya clucked, (Russian clucking sounds like “oye”) apologised and gave me a DIFFERENT (clean) 100 ruble note and gingerly picked up the soiled note and put it in a bag (to be washed for later??).   People don’t put their bags on the ground to tie their shoes, they don’t let their children play on the ground and even some places of business provide plastic shoe covers for people to put over their shoes. Once I encountered a plastic-bootie applying machine that automatically put the bootie on your foot. I stood to the side, observing how other people were operating the machine, but couldn’t make myself put my foot in what looked like jaws, lined with metal teeth opening and closing about people’s feet because I was sure I’d put it in the wrong place and get my foot squished or chopped off as the machine was trying to do it’s job.  As I stood by suspicously watching the machine in action, I noticed that occasionally the machine malfunctioned and some of the booties produced during the malfunction were discarded in the trash next to the machine while the patient Russians reinserted their feet to try again.  I dug a pair out of the trash and manually put them on, thank-you-very-much.  I’m sure I’m the object of stares and ridicule on a daily basis, but I’m fairly immune to that these days.

We’ve enjoyed so many cultural and historal sights and events so I cringe a little to honestly confess that what we’re going to miss the most is Ismailovo flea market.  We’re there every weekend and I even have made a couple of friends, especially the hat guy who is SO HAPPY to see me every time I pass his booth.  Greg was taking a picture of me trying on a hat and the guy (in true photo bomber fashion) snuggled up close and gave Greg his best rakish smirk.  I don’t know his name and we just call him the hat guy, but Greg better watch out because he might have competition for my affections!

My other Boyfriend

Kremlin Tower

I’ve decided to try doing a few things differently in the blog, mostly because I’m losing interest (becoming bored with myself) and I also want to share more of Greg’s pictures.   Today is May 4th, which means that we will be leaving  Russia in one month, June 4th.  I might as also tell you that I will most likely be stopping the blog because our lives aren’t all that interesting back home in Texas and I honestly don’t think continuing the blog will be worth anybody’s time.   So, unless we get another expat job, Frozen Texans will be signing off soon. 

Tsarina's Cathedral/ Red Square

 These pictures were taken when we took a tour inside the Kremlin grounds.  We usually don’t like to take tours because they feel so…well, touristy; however, we were glad that we hired a guide for this trip because she was so informative and told us things that we would have never known about otherwise.  One thing I’ve found about Russians is that they’re so well informed about Russian history and also the history of the city they live in.  Every trip with a Russian friend is filled with their pointing out interesting landmarks, complete with a snippet of historical information about whatever we’re looking at. 

Church Door/ Kremlin

Believe it or not, we’ve actually become used to the fantastic architecture the city has to offer and we sail past gilded onion domes and ruins of thousand year old battlements with nary a second glance.  I supposed our hyper-stimulated American mindset has already experienced The Russia theme park and is ready for something else to capture our shortened attention span for a while.   Sad, I know, but honest!

Czar's Palace/Hermitage St. Petersburg

As we’re looking at our last 4 weeks in Russia, we’ve had many intense conversations as to how we can squeeze in as much Russia as we can in such a short amount of time…and show up for work on a regular basis, also.  The main issue hampering our plans is from April 15 to May 15 we are not to travel outside of Moscow while Greg’s company renews our work visas for the year we’re not going to be here.  I wondered why they bother, but apparently a current work visa is required to move out of Russia.  So, we’ve kept our May 25th packing day and can concentrate on cramming in as much fun into our remaining time as possible.  

The array of sights and activities to do here are varied, exotic and endless; willing and fun friends to participate with you are legion and when faced with a limited time window, we’re panicking and stuffing as much into every available moment as we can.  Having said that, we’ve found ourselves with a FREE DAY (Friday — the May Day holiday).   If you’ve seen the crowds in Moscow, you’d know that an international holiday in a large crowded city is probably not going to be something you’re going to experience alone.   I’ve gotten past my American need for personal space and we jostle and get jostled by the best on a daily basis.  Plans for this upcoming weekend are: Friday- who knows?  Saturday: Ismailovo Open Air market to pick up the 2 paintings we bought last week and shop till we drop, and Sunday: take a winding church tour ending up at the Moscow river where we will board a boat and have a picnic on the boat.   I’ve made a batch of Russian refrigerator pickles in anticipation of snacking on the boat Sunday. 

We took a 3-day weekend to visit St. Petersburg a few weeks ago and I’m just now finding time to share the trip with you.  It was only an hour-and-a-half plane trip and we stayed at the Petro Palace hotel, recommended by our friend, Tim “The Oracle” Adams who has lived and traveled in Russia for so long that he always knows the answer to every question you put to him.  The name of the hotel didn’t really inspire anticipation of a really nice hotel, so we were pleasantly surprised by the clean, well decorated, spacious room (complete with mini bar and fridge), king-sized bed and convenient location to all the major sights we wanted to see…all at a really reasonable price.   Once there we visited The Winter Palace, now home of the Hermitage museum, and walked to the banks of the Neva River where we saw one of Rostral Columns of St. Petersburg.  We had to make it a point to visit The Church of the Spilt Blood just so we could tell our Moscow friends which was better…that or St. Basil’s Cathedral because there are feelings of competition between residents of the two cities as to which is more beautiful.  On the way to Stroganoff’s Restaurant we walked past The Admirality and on the way back to the hotel from the restaurant, realized that St. Isaac’s Cathedral was right at the end of our block!  So with good restaurants right within walking distance (and THE BEST Bakery/coffee shop across the street!) and great shopping, the hotel couldn’t have been in a more perfect location.  I wish we could put all the pictures on here, but it looks as if I’m just going to have to break down and set up an account on Picasa and just share all the pictures there.  I’ll let you know when we get that together.   My one regret was that we didn’t spend a week in St. Petersburg and spend the entire week combing The Hermitage.  It was absolutely mind boggling with so many priceless treasures, paintings and antiquities that we just couldn’t do a quick pass, but had to stop and soak up every single thing; which, of course, got us through maybe 1/10 of the entire museum!  We left the buffet of beauty unfulfilled and wanting for more.

Just as a peek, we LOVED St. Petersburg and would recommend it to anyone who wants a concentrated picture of Russia in a short period of time.  I’ll elaborate when Greg processes the pictures (you know he’s been busy when he hasn’t had a chance to do THAT!).   In the meantime I want to also say that sometime in the flurry of the past 2 weeks, Greg got offered a completely new job than what he’s used to and a promotion.  When we decided to put our hat in the ring for expat work, the entire reason was to do something different, see different places and expose Greg to new job experiences that would hopefully help his career in the future.  We thought in a few years something might materialize that would justify our gamble.  To say the least, we never thought it would happen this quickly!  Of course, we aren’t so naive as not to realize that the world recession had a part in this also.  The recession has hit Russia, the ruble fell almost 40 percent from last year and the oil producers aren’t getting what they need to get to be profitable.   In short, companies employing expats overseas are rethinking their strategies and if they can find a national to do the job, then they can save quite a lot moving an expat home.  So, we’re going back to the U.S. – Sugar Land, Texas to be exact – sometime the first part of June.

This has been very sudden for us and we really had mixed feelings for a while.  We really wanted to spend at least one summer in Moscow, if for no other reason than to gloat to our friends in Texas who have been gloating to us about the fabulous weather they’ve been having all winter.  I had my script prepared and everything, “What’s the temperature there? 100?!  Is it humid, too (knowing full well the humidity is horrible)?  Oh, it’s been 71 all week and sunny.  We love eating dinner outside at the restaurants, but I have to bring a light SWEATER for the evenings. “     All this imagined revenge has just whipped around and gotten me because it looks as if we came to Moscow in the worst part of the winter, and will be leaving just as it’s getting nice and getting back to Texas just in time to experience the hot-humid full-time.

Of course, we’re grateful for what has turned out to be a 6 month paid vacation in Russia, but it would have helped — for planning purposes — if we had known ahead of time that Moscow would only be a short stint.  Certainly I wouldn’t have gone through as much stress before leaving, but I also wouldn’t have cleaned out as many closets, either!    I was forced to do a huge overhaul on my life, which was sorely needed and I can say that my addiction to Abyssinian kittens is lessened, thanks to the Kremlin Abyssinian Addiction rehab program and I hope to stay Showhall-Free for life, with the help of friends who can feed me regular doses of unpleasant cat fancy gossip to steel my resolve never to engage in that dysfunctional world again.  

As to our remaining time in Russia, we’re going to try hard to experience as much as possible in the 6 weeks we have left.  Of course, we’re going to have to deal with ANOTHER move and major relocation, the sale of our house and perhaps a 3rd move in 12 months;but most of the basics have been organized and moved here, so we can simply move the necessities from this apartment to our new apartment in Sugar Land.   My days of closet cleaning will REALLY begin in June when I tackle the job of organizing 28 years of antique collecting into a compact and manageable space so we can sell our house in Victoria.    Yes, Greg’s master plan has worked and it’s oh so logical to sell, sell, sell!  I’ll miss the place, but it makes no sense at all to live in an apartment in Sugar Land during the week only to commute to Victoria on the weekends to mow, clean and basically do all the upkeep required on a huge house like that.   It will get old very quickly, I’m sure.  We’re going to take our time organizing and hopefully during that time the economy will recover and/or some of my real-estate leads will come along with the perfect buyer BEFORE we have to put it on the market.  So, my summer is going to be spent on ebay moving out the stuff I haven’t been able to resist buying for the past 2 decades!

In the meantime, people have been asking about the apartment.  Greg took a couple of pictures of the main living area, so I’ll share them with you now. 

Dining Room After

Dining Room before

(kn

Art imitating life

A few people have asked me if Greg took the last picture of the black and white cat with the colored eyes.  Yes, he did and yes, that’s Wrigley.  In case you didn’t know, Greg has an artist’s soul and has become quite a wonderful photographer.

I’ve kicked myself a few times when I’ve forgotten my little cheap-o camera that I carry around in my purse and miss photo opportunities, like the time I saw Cruella DeVille.  YES! Cruella DeVille (or at least her twin sister) walking down Old Arbat street.  I pointed her out to my friend and then literally jumped up and down in frustration at not being able to take her picture and prove to all that Cruella lives and she lives in Moscow!  She was straight out of Central Casting, her black and white spotted coat (looking a bit aged) the moth-eaten fur collar, skinny ankles tottering about on pointy pumps and the wild long witchy white hair.  It was amazing and only 2 people were there to witness and appreciate the moment.  I still mourn that lost opportunity.

Greg almost never has missed opportunities because when we go places, he lugs out the huge camera backpack, digs around for the perfect assortment of lenses and drags it all around everywhere we go.  “Dinner at friends? Let me get the camera.  A sleigh ride? MUST have the camera!  Dinner at a restaurant with a belly dancer? Let me get the –  why not?!?”  Yes, I get impatient when we’re late and he’s assembling his photo gear and no, I don’t like it when one of our carry-on allowances is nothing more than camera and accouterments, but I have to admit, he is really taking some great pictures which makes it worth the effort and inconvenience. 

This picture was taken one night walking down Old Arbat street (a shopping street with no cars or parking on it) to our car from a friend’s house.  This girl had assembled her entertainment area, complete with her tip box in front, leather shirt and lit lamps.  She proceeded to dance around whirling her lanterns and amazing us all that she was wearing only jeans, gloves and a leather shirt in 15 degree weather.  She put on a nice show, Greg got some good pictures and tipped her well for the opportunity.  That’s the great thing about Moscow, there is always something interesting and amazing to see around the next corner.   

We’re trying our hardest never to miss opportunities to get out and see the sights and travel when we can because we know that no matter how long we’re here, we’ll never see it all and we don’t want to feel like we didn’t take advantage of our time here.  This coming weekend we’re going to St. Petersburg so we’ll choose the best picture and experience and share it with you.

Eyes

People have been asking me how Wrigley has been doing with the move and my silence on cat matters has, I’m sure, been strange, coming from someone who has immersed herself in everything cats for the past 23 years.  Part of my silence has a lot to do with the fact that I was still getting over the sadness of parting with cats that I thought would be with me for the rest of their lives and I was reluctant to talk too much about anything that had to do with the worry and upset of the past months.

The worst part was placing my adult cats because I know that many people don’t feel the same bond with an adult cat as they do with cats they’ve gotten as kittens. Even though I’ve placed countless kittens in my 23 years as a breeder, worked in Abyssinian rescue for several years now and consider myself fairly competent at interviewing and ferreting out excellent homes for cats, I still worried about whether I was misjudging anybody.  People, as we all know, are capable of some pretty inconsistant behavior and I’ve regretted trusting people in the past.  Placing a cat with the wrong person and moving to Moscow leaves me with no possible way to help the situation or even get my cat back.   Well, a few months and a lot of worry has passed and I’m becoming more comfortable with my decisions and also more comfortable with being a one-cat person.

As many of you know, we had to pay $4,500 deposit per EACH CAT to allow them to stay in our apartment here in Moscow and were limited to 2 cats.  We paid our fee and concentrated on finding good homes for the healthiest and most resilient of our group.  The two we kept were Tempest, in the last stages of breast cancer and Kobiyashi Maru (or Wrigley per Dr. Zeplin) who we bottle raised as a kitten and was extremely attached to us as a result.   We placed all our cats and getting closer to our departure date, we began to realize that Tempest was losing ground at an alarming rate and would not be able to make the move to Russia.  This left Wrigley as the only Aby.

If you had asked me before the move if my cats were happy and if they had a good life, I wouldn’t have hesitated in telling you, “Absolutely!”  They all have been provided with the highest quality food, fresh water daily, clean litterboxes, a clean environment, daily attention, lots of toys, were rarely caged (only for fighting or sickness) and were divided in small groups so they wouldn’t have to deal with the politics and pecking orders of a multicat household.   Greg’s allergies and tendency to wake up at the slightest sound or movement prevented us for being able to allow the cats to sleep in our bed at night, but all in all, I would have said that they have had a good life.   Wrigley lived in our main living area with Tempest and T.S. (now Coco) and everyone seemed content.

Wrigley made the trip to Moscow with nary a peep or trauma (thus not being mentioned in the blog earlier) and moved into the apartment with no problem at all.  Then after we all recovered from the time change and jet lag, something changed: Wrigley blossomed.  Soon our quiet, well-mannered little cat was zooming around the apartment like her tail was on fire.  Walls have become Nascar embankments to be, literally, ran on.  Sleeping with us is a fabulous treat to be savored and soon she mastered the “tap on the head and ask for the covers to be lifted” move and divides her time happily sleeping next to or on one of us.  She’s taught us how to launch the coveted red sparkle ball so she can play fetch and has invented the “Hide, pounce, run, hide and ambush” game and now she and I are madly running around the apartment (me giggling, her trilling) trying to find new hiding spaces so we can surprise the other during the ambush.   She knows which cabinet the treats are kept and asks for (and receives) her freeze-dried meat treats many times a day.   When the door bell rings, she runs to the door, gets up on the chair next to the door and looks at the TV screen to see who is here to visit.  Wrigley has mastered Moscow!

I can now see that providing good physical care for my cats isn’t the only thing they really needed.  What they really craved was 24 hour a day, 100% access to interact with the people that they love.  To think that I was so misguided to think that providing for the physical needs of  the little souls I was in charge was enough for them is embarassing for someone who thinks they know a lot about cats.   Of course, I realize that I am just following what is probably a common human condition, taking for granted.   All I can say is that I’m grateful that I’ve been taught a lesson and can employ this lesson to the important living beings in my life for many years to come.

Friends sans Makeup

My friend, Sandi Mierop called me last night and we talked for 2 hours, compliments of Vonage (love sticking it to The Man!) and she LOVED being mentioned in the blog (the friend in Alaska), so I thought I would give her an extra thrill, add to her 5 minutes of fame and mention her again and then take away the thrill and put her picture WITHOUT MAKEUP in here, too.  Of course, I don’t have makeup on, either, but I hardly wear the stuff anyway. 

Sandi and I met back in 1986 or 1987 when they came to get their first Abyssinian, Nike.  We became friends and since then they’ve owned 6 of my cats, Sandi has been my boss, both in court reporting and when she bought a vintage house to be renovated and I was part of the slave-labor force.  We’ve spent countless hours on the phone and even went on vacation to Kauai last year (damn, that was fun) together and we all got along like peas and carrots.  Maybe not after this picture!!

Sandi told me that for revenge, Alaska was going to cut itself in half so that Texas would only be the THIRD largest state.  LOL! Good one!

Corn on the Cob?

Okay, I hate to continue talking about food so much, but the honest fact is that food — as we know it — is no longer something that we can take for granted as something easily attainable.  Of course, there are large supermarkets and about 50% of the bigger ones are filled with food products but not in the same proportions, certainly not the same products the same way we’re used to seeing them.

Take something simple and as common as corn on the cob. Yes, it is in Russia, however, it’s in a JAR and there are 4 jars on the shelf.  I can’t make up my mind whether there are 4 jars on the shelf because people are buying them up or if those 4 jars have been sitting there since the beginning of time.  If people are buying these, they obviously have never had the opportunity to put cobs of fresh sweet corn in a pot of boiling water and cook it until it’s cooked, but still a bit crisp, cover it with real butter, salt and pepper and make a big mess on your face eating it.  I feel kind of sorry for them, but maybe I’m mourning something I really shouldn’t be having in the first place (exhibit 1, my big butt!).

Speaking of mourning something you shouldn’t be having in the first place, there are almost NO FAST FOOD restaurants here and the ones that have made it just aren’t the same.   There are 4 fast-food restaurants that I’ve identified in Moscow: McDonalds (of course), Kentucky Fried Chicken (who would have guessed KFC AND they serve BEER at their restaurants!), Subway and Texas Chicken (which I’m pretty sure is Church’s Chicken).  These restaurants aren’t handily available around every corner in order to trigger the idea that you might be getting hungry within the next 2 hours so you’d better stop NOW, but they’re set up like regular restaurants downtown (no drive-thru windows) and in the malls.   So, if you get a hankering for McDonald’s, you walk 10 minutes to the nearest Metro, take the train downtown (25 minutes), where you’re expelled underground.  You walk until you eventually surface, get your bearings and then navigate your way to the McDonalds you think you remember was on whatchamacallit street.    15 minutes later, you enter what looks like a McDonalds, but all the menus are in Russian and all the kids taking your order speak Russian.  You point to what you hope is a McMuffin and true to McDonald’s lore, instant gratification is delivered within 60 seconds…or so you think until you peel your McMuffin and are presented with some sausage-like meat product, lettuce, tomato and lots of mayo on an English muffin.   Instant, yes.  Gratification, no way. FYI, the chicken is equally disappointing and I suspect that The Colonel, in order to avoid the rampant copying that goes on in this country, left out a major ingredient in his secret recipe to keep the Russians from copying and distributing Siberian Fried Chicken or some such.  If you don’t tell anyone, I’ll tell you the ingredient: SALT!  I can’t make up my mind if I need to make good on my threat to keep a salt shaker in my purse so that I can taste my food or if my American taste buds are so saturated with salt that it’s just going to take a while to lose my taste for it and start tasting food and not salt-flavored whatever it’s on.

You’d think with the lack of fast-food restaurants, the expense of the real restaurants with their the mostly disappointing offerings and the fact that we can’t get the same grocery products here as we can at home, that I would have lost some weight, which I haven’t.  I guess the good news is that I haven’t gained any weight, which is amazing to me because Greg announced this week that he’s gained 20 lbs!   I can’t see it on him, but I guess the scales don’t lie.  I honestly don’t get it because we eat the same thing but you’re not going to hear me complaining!