Coffee and Conversation with the Young Lovers

Weekend-End of Day 22

Vitals:  Bill made it back here on Saturday.  We talked it over with the kids and decided to stay here the whole time, which means we'll all be here until around Thanksgiving.  With Ruslan's court date next Friday, we now have a good idea of a time table. There is a ten day wait after the court before we can take him out of the orphanage and then there is another one to two weeks while we wait for his passport. We still have no court date for Roman, so it is not likely that the ten day breaks will over lap very much.  We could have all gone home in late October, but that would mean Bill or I coming back here alone and living here with the two handicapped boys for at least a week while the US processed their passports.  It would be nearly impossible to get around, shop for food or do anything besides sit in the apartment.  With all of us here, one of us can stay home while the other shops or carries stuff, and the kids can entertain the boys.  All the kids were either fine or thrilled except for Matt, who is dying and just wants to go home.  Please pray for him!

Not so vital:  It was so great to get Bill back!!  Nothing was right with him so far away.  Plus, now I can go grocery shopping without lugging all four of the kids along and, if anything goes wrong, I can blame him. Besides himself, Bill brought a whole ton of stuff for us: peanut butter, mayonnaise, a whisk, a coffee press and Colombian coffee beans (Thank you God, for my coffee), a bunch of books and movies for the kids, long underwear for everyone, tea, and cans of real tomato paste.


Unfortunately, he refused to bring any Italian herbs so we could make spaghetti sauce, or the baking soda or baking powder so we could make pancakes.  I tried to talk him into it (we were talking on Skype--video-phone), but he held the dried herbs (shredded basil, oregano, parsley) in front of the screen and declared that it looked like hash. Then he held up the baking powder and soda and insisted they would be mistaken for cocaine.  Forget the fact that they neither tasted nor smelled like any contraband.  The man is the son of an FBI agent.  He expects to be questioned about everything. I couldn't talk him into taking it.

Bill slept most of Saturday and this morning he was still wiped out.  It was raining and everyone wanted to stay home and vegetate.  This was fine with me.  I worked a little bit on the kids school and we went grocery shopping about 3:00.  Since we are staying so long, I finally got the elusive stew pot and an extra dish towel, some containers for leftovers and I took a stab at locating baking powder and soda and I THINK I found them.  We'll know tomorrow when I try to make pancakes. So, all that we are missing is Italian seasoning/herbs.

I decided not to complain (much) about the herbs and just be grateful for what we had.  And, bless Bill, he did bring my coffee.  I really like good coffee.  They mostly drink Nescafe here and I hate the stuff.  I did buy some grounds,  but we have no coffee maker and they are more expensive than stew pots. So I ended up slicing a soda bottle in half and using the top as a funnel.  It usually worked, but my funnel opening was so big, it didn't have a chance to brew very long and it was usually weak.

So, I made my first cup of really good coffee this afternoon with the coffee press and went in our little sun room off the kitchen to enjoy it.  We have an incredible view.  It's really amazing.  The streets here all radiate from the center of Kiev (more or less) and the buildings don't necessarily parallel the streets.  So they all sit at the oddest angles.  It's like some giant just tossed a bunch of building blocks all over the city and where they landed, they stayed.  Plus, it's really congested.  The city is something like 3 million.  From where we are, we can see quite a bit of it. If you want to feel insignificant, take a few minutes to watch 3 million people march by and live their lives with out giving you a second glance.

Bill came to stand next to me while I was looking out the window. I told him what I was thinking and finished with, "Every time I look at that view I get the feeling it's telling me 'You are really, really small.'"  Bill was quiet for a second.  Then he rocked a little on his feet, gave my shoulder a quick squeeze and said, "Well, it's telling me, 'You in the WRONG place.'"  Then he walked off to loose himself in a video game.

Just as I was finishing my coffee/view break, and thinking how very grateful I was for that coffee press, I came back into the kitchen and saw Reilly (my ten year old) sitting on the counter with all the pieces of the coffee press spread out around her.  There are quite a few pieces for such a simple machine: two plastic support disks, a springy thing, two filters, two washers, a long metal pole and some nuts and bolts to attach the two lids and the filter.  She had taken it apart and couldn't figure out how to put it back together. 

That was pretty much my day.