We're here

The 10-hour Moscow-Washington flight was uneventful, except for the puking incident on the way to the airport, and the two diaper blow-outs on the plane (the latter, apparently, being the beginning of a stomach bug that hit us all pretty hard for our first few days in the States - awesome). We were prepared for both scenarios, though, so it wasn't disastrous.

Checking in at Domodedovo:

Fun on the flight:

In America!

The culture shock has included three trips to Target in four days (yay!), and the somewhat disheartening revelation that a show called "Storage Wars" is popular enough to merit a marathon on cable (what??).

163

Is how many boxes the movers hauled out of here this afternoon.

Clean-Out-The-Fridge Cuisine

As I've discussed before, I hate wasting food.  I hate wasting it at any time of year, regardless of the circumstances, and pack-out time is no exception.  We're getting down to the dregs now, so for tonight's dinner, I came up with this (all I had to buy to complete this meal was the cheese):

I don't know why this looks kind of gross.  I blame my poor camera skills.  It's hard to photograph pizza.

Flatbread Roasted Pumpkin and Cauliflower Pizza with Sorrel-Mint Pesto and Caramelized Onions
(hint: if you use words like "roasted" and "caramelized" in your recipe titles, they always sound better).
Serves two adults and two toddlers

Ingredients:
Three 12-inch flour tortillas (I had to pick through the bag to find a few that weren't stale)
8 oz cubed pumpkin (mine was frozen)
8 oz cauliflower florets (again, frozen)
1 onion, sliced
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

For pesto:
1 cup sorrel leaves
2 cup mint leaves
1/4 cup olive oil (or in my case, grapeseed, because that was what we had left)
2 cloves garlic
leftover salt from a package of Super Pretzels (or, you know, regular salt)
pepper

Preheat oven to 450F.  Put your veggies on a baking sheet with some salt and roast for 30 minutes.  Throw the onions into a pan with some olive oil and allow to cook on medium-low for 30 minutes.  Put first four pesto ingredients in a blender/food processor/Magic Bullet and process.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  When everything is done, spread pesto on tortillas.  Top with onions, pumpkin and cauliflower, then cheese.  Put back into the 450-degree oven for about 4 minutes, or until cheese is melted to your liking.  Enjoy.

(This actually was pretty tasty.  I might make it again).

Transition

When I was 12 years old, my family moved to Tel Aviv from northern Virginia.  My friends and I wrote each other long letters in balloony handwriting where the "i"s were dotted with hearts or stars or bubbles, analyzing for pages whether that it meant anything that the crush of the week had dropped his pencil in front of our lockers.  Though the letters took at least a month to arrive, at first I had so many pen-pals that I was getting at least one per week.  I kept them in a cardboard box under the sink in my bathroom until the day the pipes burst.  My second box did not fill up as quickly.  By the end of the three-year tour, I only had one pen-pal left.

*************************

Today on the playground, when talking about the transfer season and my impending pack-out, someone commented "well, you're a professional."  She was referring to the fact that I've been doing this - moving - since I was a year old.  And she was assuming that I was "good" at it by now. 


This is my 18th move.  If I were going to get "good" at it, I would have done it by now.  And in some ways, maybe I have.  I know that I want the house to be somewhat organized when the movers arrive.  I know that I don't want them carefully wrapping empty CD cases in endless layers of packing paper - so I prepack the house, as much as I can, before packing day.  And I know that I am not the type of person who can just blow through the house in 24 hours and take care of everything.  So I start a month in advance, an hour or so a day.  It's manageable.

When it comes to maintaining friendships, though, I have learned that it is not entirely under my control.  I email.  I call.  I start out with five pen-pals.  I end up, if I'm lucky, with one.  I know that, in most cases, it is nothing personal.  It's just how things are.

But it never gets easier.  The week or two before a move, I find myself withdrawing.  Even right now, on this gorgeous 75-degree day, I am holed up in my sewing room which, as you saw in the last post, is piled high with boxes.  I think that's because it's easier to be here, among the things that I will have with me in the future, than outside with the things I am leaving behind.  I know, it's really weird.

I've enjoyed my time here so much that it almost feels easier to say goodbye to Moscow and my friends now, before I've even left, so that the actual leaving is less difficult.  Our nanny, who has become family, told me that she would come the morning of our flight to see us off.  I am not going to tell her no, but I am honestly dreading this.  Those types of goodbye are too stark, too final, too real.  I prefer to just see you one day, and not see you the next.  I don't want to cry on the plane.  I want to look forward, not backward.

So, no, I'm not good at it.  But I have built a coping mechanism.

What's yours?

12:33 a.m.

And I am awake.  Tossing and turning in bed because, well, we are moving our entire lives in days that you can count on less than two hands.

And because I fully recognize how ridiculous it is that I spent three hours today sewing a blouse, when I should have been packing a suitcase.

And because I've started thinking about making plans with Stateside friends and have realized that the months of time that I thought I had, isn't, on second thought, exactly long enough to see everybody and do everything and buy everything that I need/want to see and do and buy.

And because I nursed a caffeinated frappe (thanks, Magic Bullet that also needs to go back into its box) until nearly 3 p.m.  Someday this caffeine hypersensitivity has to go away, right?

Anyway, I ended up getting out of bed with the intent of boxing up the sewing machine, seductive mechanical temptress that she is.

And I did.  She cried a little on the way in, but I held firm.  And kept going.  And now the sewing room/guest room/office/crap room looks like this:

And it occurs to me that my moves always seem to start and end like this: in a desperately-trying-to-be-organized-and-yet-still-vaguely-messy-and-pathetic stack of way more bins than I thought we needed full of the many things that we want/need to be happy.  And the lighting is always terrible.  And it's always the middle of the night.