place2place

when the provider has a phobia

As some of you know, I have a needle phobia. How embarassing is that? "Neener neener neener! The shot-giver can give it but he can't take it!" I have a history of getting overly anxious and passing out. I blame it all on my childhood dentist who was a shoemaker from Romania. He really did not change his profession very much. I have passed out numerous times since, gone to the light, and they tell me it isn't my time yet and I wake up (usually on the floor) feeling nauseous, sweating, and then throwing up with a splitting headache. "Sorry" always comes out between heaves. And there was that one time when I woke up with my pants down around my ankles with the needle still in my butt and the doctor's voice boomed out towards the nurses desk on the other side of the waiting room, "Nurse! He just fainted!" So much for patient confidentiality and the HIPAA laws.

Honestly, I am not afraid of the needle so it's not a true needle phobia. And I'm usually not afraid of the shot-giver although there have been a few impatient nurses with a zero-tolerance policy that seemed determined to call me a "panty ass" without quite saying so. What I'm really scared of is loosing consciousness again. Once I reach that point where I'm panicked and the ringing in the ears starts, there is no stopping me. I don't even have time to warn anybody.

But there is a redeeming quality to this. I am often told by patients that I am one of the best shot givers ever. I know all the tricks to minimize pain, distract, and reduce anxiety. Other phobics seek me out!

Personally, I let my own history be known to my practitioner and somewhere along the line I was introduced to Valium. Let's just say it was a sympathetic dentist who believed me when I warned him of the inevitable and he gave me the medicine to keep me calm before, during, and after the procedure. Now I dose myself an hour before based on the anticipated anxiety and viola! Dina leads me in there grinning and kind of points me in the right direction. I sit there drooling a bit like a dog staring at the anatomical charts on the wall as if they were pictures of steaks. I usually get a bit giddy at first, then emotional like,"No one has ever been this nice to me before," and then it's done and I'm grateful that I didn't swan dive or rag-doll off the exam table. Success!

Today was such a day. I got updated on my vaccinations. I've never had such a great team in the health unit before. Thanks guys!

welcome to panic attack

For years, my dream was to live overseas. I was obsessed, it was all I wanted to do. Live outside the US. "I don't care where. Anywhere!" When we were in Portland and Peter got in with the State Department or should I say, when they snatched him up, we were told we would get a direct assignment. That means, we would be assigned a place they couldn't coerce anyone currently employed to go to, some garden spot. I was pleasantly surprised when we were given a short list to choose from rather than just handed an assignment. That list: Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, some Ickystan I honestly can't remember the name of now and Niger. "I don't want to go to any of those places!" I moaned.

Our bid list last time was pretty darn sweet. It was easy to come up with six places we wanted to go after Niger. The list this time is ten times longer than our first-ever list--although not really if you take Baghdad, Islamabad and Kabul off the list--and I'm having the same reaction I had back in Portland. There is no Sofia, Bulgaria, no Budapest, no Romania, no Poland, let alone London or Vienna or even Prague. No Tokyo or Bangkok. No Tunisia or Morocco. And now I have to consider that this is where Camille will go high school in the fall of 2011. So a potentially sweet little post like Moldova isn't an option. As usual, there are tons of African posts, I mean, Ghana! Harare! Madagascar. I love Africa but it is so. far. away.

Peter is trying to talk me down out of my tree, "You loved Niger!" My head is swimming. Okay. Breathe. Kyiv is good. How about Kathmandu?

Oy. Suddenly I love Moscow so much, I'm hugging it hard.

now that it's almost winter...

Pictures from summer:

Pops memorial reunion

Mono Lake

Lundy Canyon

Bodie

suffering under soviet dictatorship, not allowed to post pictures

Can I blame the beautiful weather on the Secretary of State's visit? They seed the clouds here with cement dust--that's heathy right?--and the clouds are dispersed for important events. Monday it rained sideways non-stop. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, the two days she was here, were gorgeous. 

At the Ambassador's residence, my friends and I sat in the second row at the Secretary of State's Meet and Greet. Then we were told she would be shaking hands with the people in the front row, so we moved up, right next the seats that said "reserved." Out the beautifully arched doorway we saw her car pull up and she got out right at the door. At the podium, the Ambassador is a good warm up act. Then Madame Secretary gave a lovely and appreciative speech about how the Embassy community is an example of Russians and Americans working together, a very nice message. Don't you love it when she plays acoustic?

A minute into her speech, the lens cap of my camera dropped to the hardwood floor and rolled in the largest circuit a lens cap has ever made through a state dining room. Time stood still as it noisily wheeled past the podium inches from Hillary Clinton's black suede heels. She could have stopped it by stepping on it, but she ignored it with a professional focus. The official photographer watched it, horrified that might be his. I pointed at myself, and mouthed to him, "It's mine." It's still rolling mind you. It rolled so long, my friend had time to lean in and say, "It's going to roll back to you." And it did. Someone told me, secret service drew their guns, but held fire.

My friends and I were a little thrown because after her speech we were the first she greeted. I got to shake her hand and I think it was brilliant, clever and original what I said to her. I said, "Hello." She's so gracious she didn't mention the lens cap.

health unit blood drive

Peter's Med Unit had a blood drive and was on Russian TV. But the lead man was on the road! Peter totally would have been a star if he'd been in town for an interview--intead of waiting around  to accompany the Secretary of State in her motorcade in Kazan. I was part of the media frenzy and cracked up when they poked the Ambassador in the arm and he said, "I think this is what they call the money shot."

The Med Unit enjoys two of its 15 mintues of fame.

who me?

My blogger friend Amanda the Expatress in the news. Please don't make me want a Kindle. I need to buy plane tickets for Chirstmas in California and um, more scarves it looks like. http://moscownews.ru/business/20091012/55390163.html

Isn't it enough that we got to go to a screening of a movie and got to meet two Academy award-nominated film-makers yesterday? And that Peter is riding--flags flying--in the motorcade in Kazan this week? Tomorrow Madame Secretary is having a Meet and Greet. "I really like your music," I guess I'll tell her? Oh wait, wrong Meet and Greet.

moscow honeyfest

This is my article I wrote for the Embassy newsletter about the honey festival.

Sore throat? Stomach problem? Blood problems? You must not be eating enough of the right kind of honey. The honey sellers at the 22nd Annual All-Russia Honey Festival have suggestions for just about every ailment that you may have. They believe that certain types of honey, depending on what type of pollen the bees gathered, have properties to treat just about every condition.

For ages honey has been used in Russia as a form of homeopathy-- the nutrients of wild herbs and flowers rub off on bees, and eventually find their way into the honey.  Powerful medicine taken in a cup of tea, or preferably right off the spoon, as heat may interfere with some of honey’s medicinal benefits. Which is another reason to buy honey fresh from the farm, not commercially pasteurized and packaged.

At the fair, hundreds of sellers from across Russia offer every kind of honey and honey product that may or may not cure your problems. More than one seller told us that if it doesn’t taste good to you, it’s not the homeopathic remedy your body needs. Sunflower, raspberry flower, clover, buckwheat, acacia, linden, you can taste it all for free and decide which is the most therapeutic for you. Many of the honeys are labeled with their healing properties.

Where to start? There are so many sellers. The incredible range of just the colors of honey is amazing. Which appeals to you? The clearest, the whitest, the blackest the most golden, the seller with the best smile or most hilarious apron? Many stands boast awards, and the honey at this fair has been inspected for purity. Cheery and talkative bee-keepers overwhelm with thousands of honeys, honey comb, bee pollen, and beeswax candles--every sort of honey product is available. (Crushed dead bees, anyone?)

Most stands are decorated with pictures of the farm and the acres of wild flowers where the honey was harvested by the small-scale artisan bee-keepers themselves. One woman we spoke with had driven 24 hours from Central Russia with her truck full of honey. Father and son bee-keepers were eager to learn the names of the flowers in English, and explain the quality of their honeys using their newly-acquired words.

One big fan of honey is Moscow Mayor Lushkov, who himself is bee-keeper, he may be the only mayor in the world who holds a patent for a cold-climate beehive. The festival venue has been changed from its place of years past, Kolomenskoye to Tsaritsino, another of the mayor’s projects. The festival flourishes in part because of his support.

The festival is held by the Russian Union of Apiarists, whose main goal is to increase the number of small-scale beekeepers. Honey production has doubled in Russia in the last twenty years, but the bee-keepers aren’t keeping up with demand. Before 1917, bee-keepers had enough honey to export, but now supply falls short. Another goal of the Union is to teach the beekeepers business know-how. The Union hopes that by teaching business skills like marketing, increased distribution will lead to increased production.

None of the stands were Sue-Bee-Burt’s Bees-commercial in any way. From the bee-keeper with a mouth full of gold teeth to the apiarist who boasted her two degrees in psychology, “but I’m still wearing this silly hat,” each bee-keeper was eager to talk shop about his or her farm, bees and honey, quoting the latest studies from “Bee Plus” magazine.

The Russian cultural connection to the power of honey is evident in the warmth and enthusiasm of these bee-keepers. Part folk medicine and herbal remedy, part science, honey has proven antibacterial and antiseptic properties. Single flower honeys—whether from nettle, orange blossom or sunflower--have much more nutrition and character than the processed blended honey found on the grocery store shelves. Time spent walking around talking to friendly Russians representing the country from China to Siberia has it’s own therapeutic affects as well.

tsaritsino

The metro stop shares a name with the Tsaritsino Palace, Catherine the Great's never-finished-left-to-decay-famously-vandalized dacha. Catherine was never happy with the palace-away-from-the-palace and dismissed her architect before the place was ever finished. Tsaritsino has been a romantic ruin since 1775. The structures on which alpinists used to practice rock climbing have been restored, or rather finished to the specifications of Moscow's current Mayor. 150 rubles, ($3.50) lets you wander the halls, which I have to do next time I'm there. I just saw the building on our way to the honey festival, which was on the grounds. Thanks for letting use your yard, Catherine.

and so it begins

"Today is the first day I need my cold killer," says Stefan. It hailed and he means his coat.