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Same Old, Same Old |
Okay,
I know I’m going to regret admitting this in about 2 weeks when I am hot
and complaining about mosquitoes but here it is. I’m cold. All the time. The weather remains in the 30s and
40s. In perfect central planning
fashion, the government kept the heat pumping during the weeks of 80 degree
weather, ensuring everyone was too hot. But come May 1, never minding the fact
that there was snow on the ground and the temperature was 20 degrees, off went
the heat. Which is also too bad
because I had a built in clothes dryer with the hot water pumping through the
pipe system. Now it takes days for anything to dry.
And
of course, I packed when it was in the 80s here and as you may remember, I went
pretty heavy on the Capri pants. No
coat. Oh, and only one pair of long
socks (I brought lots of footies.) And on the socks note, today for the
first time, I noticed that the one pair of socks I brought is, um, mismatched.
Completely different patterns! Poor Annabelle is definitely not Vogue bound
with a screwy mom like me.
Speaking
of Annabelle, our visit was similar to yesterday. We had about half an hour of fun
before she started being whiny because no bottle. Something has changed at the hospital -
maybe just different caregivers - because they used to bring her bottle in
between 10:30 and 11:00 everyday.
Lately they’ve been bringing them in about 11:45. She gets so
upset
and then as I
try and calm her down, she falls asleep.
And
just as she’s fallen asleep, they bring in the bottle. Argh! But after
she eats (I didn’t fool around with the avent
bottle today, she was way too out of sorts) she’s great. Happy, active and sweet as can be.
After
the visit, the Brookes’ and I visited the Tsum
store, the Kokshetau equivalent of the Mall of
America. It’s probably about
the size of an old fashioned department store, but inside is a bunch of
independent, individual kiosks. You
go into one store for kitchen goods, another for jewelry and yet another for
stationary and school supplies. I bought blank CDs today so I can make some
CD’s for Oleg and the translators from my iTunes.
They love American music but have a hard time getting it here so I thought some
CD’s would be a nice gift.
Speaking
of music, today I’ve been listening a lot to a group called “For
Squirrels”. It was a favorite band of Margaret’s and when she
introduced me to their music she told me the sad story of the band. They named
the band For Squirrels because they loved playing music so much that they said
they would always be able to play “for squirrels” even if no one
else would listen. They were just
at the beginning of their careers, all young, in their 20s and had just
released their first CD. They were touring down south somewhere and their van
crashed and I think 3 of the 4 band members were killed, as was their
manager. Margaret loved their
music. The fact that she knew all
the information about them was so typical of her. She never just heard music,
but she really, really listened and she learned all she could about bands that
she liked. I like to think
she’s jamming with them now.
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