Today was a really crappy day. Actually, it was more than that. It was a really shitty day. Oh my gosh – I can hear someone gasp. Did she really say that? Can a missionary say “shitty?” Only if she really, really means it. (see
The Air Up There movie for further reference and approval).
It started out ok. We got rain. Deep, dark gray clouds that burst in a huge downpour that quenched the hot dry earth. It was wonderful. It was needed. The rain was a blessing.
And then – the rest of the day happened.
Mel went to Ovir with Irina to try and finish getting us registered here in the city. They told him I needed to come in as well (first time for that), and that he needed to get our insurance card translated into Ukrainian (and the translators wanted a real copy of it, not the Xeroxed copy – huh???) and another letter of invitation for me by name individually. Plus they wanted Sergei N. to come in as he is the one who signed the letter of invitation. So, Mel called me and told me to be ready (dress up nice, he instructed) to leave by 2:30 to be there at the KGB building by 3pm for our meeting with the Ovir officials. I said ok. He then took off with Irina to get all the additional stuff done in a very short amount of time (amazing what money can accomplish).
I thought to myself – great, I have almost 3 and a half hours before I have to be ready to leave. I’ll clean the toilet – it needs it. Into the toilet room I went. The toilet “shelf” only had a tiny bit of water on it – not a good sign. I pulled the plunger – nothing happened. I turned and looked out at the clock on the livingroom wall – 11:45am and no water – not a good sign. Sigh. Sure enough – the water never came back on until late this evening.
I decided to tat awhile – the one bright spot in my day. I actually made something – I made a circle of 7 rings, all joined together – and I did it right for the first time! I’ll frame it! No, actually, I plan to sew it onto the pillow patchwork quilt thing I’m making in the craft class so I can look at it and beam with pleasure. Or maybe I’ll hide it so I won’t have to remember this day. Decisions, decisions.
I finished my ring and proudly laid it on the table. I came into the office room and got on the internet. Well – I tried to get on the internet. I fought with the internet connection. I tried the cable six ways until Sunday (is that a phrase?) and then I finally went to dial-up. I downloaded an email from our team administrator wanting to know why we are over budget for the year at this point. I got out all of the financial records and started going over them.
I finally called someone and asked a question about something and got into an argument and hung up on the person. I was livid. I was steaming. Mel and Sergei had arrived and Mel was fixing lunch. I was walking around the livingroom yelling – quietly yelling. If Sergei had not been there, I would have been in tears and really yelling. As it was, I later apologized to him for exploding as I did in front of him and he said don’t worry about it – he understood completely. Well, I finally sat here at the desk while Mel and Sergei ate some lunch, going over the financial reports and writing an email back. Hopefully it’s ok – it’s the facts and nothing but the facts, ma’am. (And no, it was not the financial administrator of our team I got into an argument with!)
Then Mel called a taxi and we headed downstairs. At the bottom of our steps we met two people coming in (they will remain nameless). They had come for the church board meeting. But there was no board meeting because only three of the guys are in town right now – everyone else is at camp or in St. Petersburg, Russia. One of them got into a major argument with Sergei. Our neighbors sat on the bench outside and listened. The taxi arrived and we got Sergei away from the person yelling (quietly, but yelling) at him and we took off for Ovir.
We met Irina at Ovir and went inside. Into a not-wide hallway with about a dozen people lined up, crowded together, all waiting to get into one of two tiny, little, itty-bitty rooms when it came their turn. Irina claimed her spot next in line and came over and sat down with us around a corner. When the person in front of her was next, she got up and went and took her place in front of all the other people who had arrived after us (no “take a number, please” here – more of a “save my place in line, will you?”). We sat and sat. And finally we were called into the first itty-bitty office with 3 desks, 4 officials, two of us and Irina and Sergei. To put it very mildly – it was a little crowded. And a little hot. Three computers, a couple or three printers, shelves of notebooks labeled in Ukrainian with all sorts of official words, like Propiscus and Protikol and Studyenti and many, many more. Notebooks of forms to fill out for every occasion.
I was given one of the two empty chairs, Irina the other. Mel and Sergei stood in the tiny space between the door into the office and the door into the second teeny office. They moved around a lot as people passed them. Now both Mel and Sergei are not what you would call “small men.” The room got hotter and hotter. I sat and watched. I sat and listened. I sat and watched the hands on the clock move from 3:30 to 3:45 to 4:00. I understood about absolutely nothing that was said – I’m not sure if it was in Russian or Ukrainian actually, but I think it was mostly in Russian, but spoken very quietly.
Sergei had to give his passport. They took it away and made copies. They put all of Mel’s papers together and finally told him to come back on Tuesday and get his passport – he was registered. They told him to leave (go sit down on the soft chairs, was their order) They played with my passport. They played with my papers. They looked at the fronts, they looked at the backs, they read every word of everything – kind of. They decided that I was definitely in trouble. I needed to be punished. I needed to go to court tomorrow (which is actually today now) and see the judge and find out whether the judge thinks I’m so bad that I need to be kicked out of the country and have my visa revoked (I am 5 days overdue on my registration after all!), or maybe I’ll have to pay a fine instead. (We are all betting on the fine.) The official looked at Irina and said, “In the East women are viewed as second class citizens and if their husband is registered, they do not have to be. But Ukraine is a
civilized country, so wives must be registered here as well.” She laughed rather sarcastically, and I wondered why since for all I could tell, he may have been going over the periodic table of the elements with her. She wouldn’t translate it until we had left the building. So, one young man copied out everything needed from my papers onto another paper, by hand, in ink. Then he did the same for Sergei. Two sides, 4 pages each total. Then Sergei and I signed our individual papers. I have no idea what I signed – but Irina read it, she signed her part as my translator and told me to sign where the marks were at. I signed.
And then I thought – oh no! I signed one place with my first and last name, I signed the other two with my first name, middle initial and last name!!! This is grounds for having the papers thrown out on a whim and having to start all over from the very beginning IF someone decided they want to prove they are in charge of their part of that paper – my signature. We will see. Tomorrow I will find out – when I go to court and face the judge and receive my sentence.
We left the KGB building. Mel’s phone rang and it was the person who had been arguing with Sergei in our stairwell. That person wanted to talk to Sergei again. Mel handed the phone to Sergei as we left the building. The person on the other line started in, yelling again. Irina and I walked off, Mel rolled his eyes, followed, with Sergei trying to calm the other person down as we walked around the corner to Pan Pizza. We needed a snack to get our strength back. Irina and I shared a pizza, Mel had coffee and Sergei ordered an omelette (his stomach is still bothering him from the food poisoning/virus he had over the weekend). Sergei’s food arrived, but he decided he really didn’t want to eat the spider that was cooked in the side of the omelette, so we called the waitress back over. After examining the spider and seeing that several of it’s legs really were cooked IN the egg mixture, she took it back inside to the kitchen. He still got his meal before Irina and I finally got our pizza.
Mel and I came home in a taxi because at that point I did NOT want to walk. I just wanted to go home and cry and release some emotional pressure (and get over a hot flash I was having). Mel got into the taxi, reached up and out the open window, grabbed the plastic doohickey thing around the window and pulled the door shut. And broke the plastic doohickey thing – yep, broke it right it two. We got home and the driver got out and came around to Mel’s side. I walked up to the stairwell door and opened it, turned around and just watched. Both of their backs toward me and the neighbors sitting on the bench watching what was going on. Mel and taxi guy conferred. Taxi guy took the broken parts out of the window. Mel got out his wallet. They talked some more. The neighbors leaned forward, trying to get a better look and hear what was going on. Mel opened his wallet, the taxi guy looked into Mel’s wallet – several times. Mel gave him the fare and something more. He turned and walked over to me, and we came upstairs. The plastic doohickey thing cost us 100 griven, or about $20 because, as it was explained to Mel, the driver was going to have to replace them all since they are sold in sets, not individually.
I checked email again. I’ve been trying to find out some info on our insurance and why we haven’t been reimbursed for meds this whole year. Now, I would have realized this was happening a LOT sooner if we had been getting our mail on a regular basis. But, just last week we finally got 4 envelopes, the oldest one was stamped June 13 (we still have not received all of July’s mail to say nothing of August). I had eagerly opened them to look at the EOB’s (Explanation of Benefits) and found absolutely none inside. I had tried to get into the internet site where we can look up all sorts of important stuff that we need but don’t know that we need until after we needed it already and it’s too late. Hear my frustration? Well, I’d spent over an hour earlier trying to get info and could not stay on-line either by cable or by dial-up. Finally, tonight, I made it. Emails back and forth to our mission headquarters started flying and I got mad. Really, really mad. Crying mad. Panicked mad. Shouting mad (except it was then midnight and I didn’t want to wake our neighbors so I didn’t). I wrote a frustrated, very frustrated at the system (not the person) email and went to bed. I don’t know if the problem can be fixed – and if not, we will be paying a lot of money because I did not catch a problem with our insurance until just today. A lot of money out of pocket that we should never have had to pay. So, we actually pay it twice – once in insurance premiums and second at the counter when we did not pay the right amount.
It is after 3 am. I have to be in court in 7 hours and I am wide awake. This day is not getting any better. But I feel better now. I cried. I told Mel all about it (poor man!) through tears and runny nose. I tossed and turned. I finally got up and wrote it all down. It’s been a shitty day. But maybe I can go to sleep now. (I still will have to apologize to the person I hung up on. But – “I’ll think about it tomorrow” – I’m in Scarlett O’Hara mode again…..)
Is this thing on?
I chose to wash the banister, all you can see in this photo, plus the part I'm leaning against to take the photo - there is another section this long still going up farther. Hmmmm - that doesn't look right - is there another "n" in there? It also doesn't sound right. Is the whole kit-n-caboodle called a 'bannister'? (Two 'n's don't look right either.) Or is it called a railing. Or is it called 'the thing that keeps little kids and me from falling one, two or three floors down off the stairs on to the basement floor'? Well, whatever the thing is called (my mind is fried), I cleaned a bunch of it today. And believe me - it needed it! 
I was going to take some photos and I completely spaced it. Sigh. Oh well. Imagine photos here of people dusting the ceiling (yes, they did), cleaning chairs, dusting walls, washing windows and window and door frames, and sorting out this and that, moving this upstairs into storage and taking that downstairs into other storage, and unloading 40 new chairs that the church bought from the church in Nikolaev, and me, standing there on the stairs the whole time with a little blue sponge, washing away dust, grime and plaster that didn't belong there. Well, every two, or at the most 3, series of double grape leaves, I went back down to the basement and washed out the sponge in the sink. 
"You can't clean something with a dirty rag/sponge and/or dirty water." My mother's voice spoke loudly in my head. Since I did not have a little bucket of clean water, I made lots of trips up and down the stairs. Actually, that is good, because standing in one place for very long makes my back hurt. Here are some photos of the grapes and leaves, taken several weeks ago. Believe it or not, they had been cleaned after these photos were taken, but they were almost this bad again today. It truly is from the continuing construction inside. 
(Did you say "DOGS"? Well, of course it would be stinky with dogs!!)
"I'm still cold. Think I'll go drape myself over mom's shoulder while she writes on her blog."
