Getting Into the Halloween Spirit

We just got back from a wonderful vacation in Austria and Czech Republic, and as with any long and wonderful vacation, there are lots of pictures, so it will probably be a bit until I can get that post ready.  In the meantime, life goes on back here in Moscow. 

We came back from lovely fall weather in Europe to something akin to what we would expect in late November in the U.S. - temperatures in the 40's and lots of clouds and rain. Fortunately, preparations for the holiday season, starting with Halloween are keeping our minds off the dreary weather. 

We decorated Aiden's rooms with window and wall stickers, including a glow-in-the dark skeleton, of which I haven't been able to get a great photo so far.  

We've done some similar work in our living/dining room.

In New York last year, we didn't really have any decorations, so it's nice to give Aiden a better idea of Halloween this year.  We do have a costume for him, but it's top secret until the time comes for him to wear it. 

At work, I've been busy making the transition from adjudicating Immigrant Visas to Non-Immigrant Visas, which is a huge shift.  Instead of in-depth interviews with about 15 people per day, I'll be expected to interview between 75 and 100 people per day and to make decisions after just a few minutes at most. It's a bit daunting, but the change will keep things fresh.  Of course, getting the news that I was promoted while we were away on vacation also helped to put an extra spring in my step as I go back to the office. It's my first competitive promotion since joining the Foreign Service and it isn't all that common to be both tenured and promoted at the first opportunity, so I'm feeling pretty good about it. The major downside of the switch is that I start earlier now and don't get to see Aiden in the morning anymore, which stinks. And no, I don't get out earlier, but hey, that's the job.

I still don't have any clearer idea on how my bids for my next job are going.  Since I already speak Russian, I'm able to bid on jobs now, even though it isn't technically my turn, because I don't need the language training that's built into the schedule. But I've learned that bidding is something of a one-way street, where we feed a lot of information about ourselves to the decision-makers (a process called lobbying), and they don't tell us much about what they're thinking.  I know it varies depending on the job and who's doing the decision making, but my experience has been fairly opaque. Of course, it isn't the end of the world if it doesn't work out because I'll still get to bid on the regular cycle next year.  It could be very exciting to see what's available next time around, but then again, it would be nice to know where we're going next now and not have to go through this rather stressful process again.

Aiden got sick just as we were returning from our trip and had a fever for several days after we got home.  He was doing better by this weekend, but we still thought it best to keep him indoors for a full recovery.  It was probably good for us to get a bit of rest too, but of course we still needed to restock the fridge, etc... So I volunteered to go to the store, which is always a bit hectic and tiresome, so that Steph could stay home and relax. 

Everything was going fine until I went to the scale to weigh my produce.  Here in Russia, we have to bag the fruit, weigh it, and select the appropriate type of produce so that the scale can print a sticker for scanning at the check-out counter. I happened to be buying some locally grown apples because they are delicious and less than half the price of the imported kinds, but couldn't find the button for Russian apples on the machine (that was because it wasn't there).  As I was looking for it, though, a rude older man behind me, who assumed that I was an ignorant foreigner, grabbed the apples from my hand and slammed them down on the scale. 

To his surprise (and mine a bit too, I'll admit) I turned around and snapped at him in Russian that I know how to weigh the fruit but that I was buying local apples and they weren't shown on the screen and I didn't feel like paying twice as much for my fruit.  I told him that if he could find them for me, I'd be happy to finish up and let him have a turn.  I gave him enough time to recover so he could apologize and then found a store clerk who helped me get the right price sticker. I felt pretty good about that too.

Today I went to the bazaar to go pumpkin hunting.  It's a neat time of year to go with a lot of different types of produce being recently harvested. It's too bad they don't allow pictures inside because between the stacks of produce, piles of fish, and huge butcher's area, it's a fantastic place.  After getting some fresh bacon, sausage, nuts, and raisins, I snagged a cup of seabuckthorn berries (which turned out to be quite bitter and will need to be incorporated into a smoothie), I went back to a guy outside who had some pumpkin. 

He tried to sell me a 17 pound monster, but after some nudging, he went inside and found a perfectly nice 10 pound pumpkin with a decent shape and good color.  As you can see below, Aiden was quite taken with it, and came surprisingly close to picking it up. 

Unlike at home, there are no varieties here grown just for jack-o-lanterns, so these are good to eat. I think it will make a great jack-o-lantern, and probably will have enough meat that I can scrape some out for pie.