Virgil

1. Today we completed the official bonding period. This past Friday we signed a bunch of papers essentially requesting from the Baby House Matthew for adoption. I’m not even sure what I signed. I remember one document was a statement that we would not hold the Physicians and the Baby House liable for anything--even out here they are litigation sensitive—and we signed the log book for each day’s appearance during the bonding period. Pussnboots signed the book while holding Matthew in her arms, “multitasking” as she claimed. Today we signed Court Applications and Power of Attorney forms. One has to have faith that our translator is translating correctly. Hopefully the court date will be within ten days or so.

2. Saturday night at eight thirty we got a knock on the door and the landlord showed up with a couple of repairmen. They came to look at the water heater and the air conditioner we had been complaining about. I tried to tell them I thought the thermostat was broken on the water heater but they didn’t speak any English, and so they didn’t understand me. The heater would bring the water temperature to hot for about ten seconds and then stop heating. They played around with the control knobs and futzed with something underneath and got it to work. Temporarily anyway. It failed to hold temperature later that night. It seems to be erratic; sometimes it holds temperature sometimes it doesn’t. I guess it’s an improvement. What’s funny is that it seems to hold temperature when I take a shower and not for Pussnboots…lol. “I’m jinxed,” she said this morning after coming out.


3. More importantly, though, they fixed the air conditioner. It took them two hours and they had to take it apart to find the bushing where it was leaking, replace that, and put the thing back together, and recharge the system. I was shocked at how the repairman went to the outdoor half of the unit. Unlike the window units we have back in the States, this air conditioner here is in two halves, an indoor half that blows the air and an outdoor half that actually cools the air, sending it to the indoor blower through a hose that goes through the wall. The air conditioner is in the living room and the living room window has metal bars welded on and so you can’t get to the outdoor half from the living room. The reason there are bars on the window is that we are on the second floor and just below the window is a canopy for an entrance below that someone can stand. In order to get to the canopy, the workman had to do a spiderman--climb out the bedroom window, walk along a two inch pipe that runs along the building about half a body height below the window, walk along the pipe for about three meters with his face against the wall, and then climb up onto the canopy. Whoa. You would never get a repairman to do that back home. He did that three times back and forth, and, come to think of it, it must have been even more risky on the return. But we are grateful and just in time. We got back to back 100F (38C) degree days.

4. What a blessing to have an English speaking waitress. It makes all the difference. Pussnboots was able to finally order a chicken dish, two large thighs in some sort of sauce. She said it was delicious. That was better than randomly pointing to the menu and praying.

5. Per my request, our driver and translator took us to both a Russian Orthodox Church and a Mosque last week. Both were very beautiful. I was impressed with both. The Russian Church was actually stunning, with all the icons and gold crosses and gilding. Here is a picture of the inside of the Church. I thought it was magnificent. What you won’t see are pews. I was shocked to learn that everyone stands for the entire mass. There is no sitting.




6. It so happens that our driver is Muslim, and that made it comfortable for me to go into the Mosque. I would not have ventured without someone of the faith. She had a shawl handy and put it over her head and we entered. (Shymkent is supposed to be three quarters Muslim and very few women wear head covering out and about. I’ve seen more women with hijabs in NYC than I have out here.) We asked the person in charge whether I could take pictures and he was incredibly accommodating, signally to help myself with the camera. The Mosque had a simple beauty inside (you can see the grand outside of the Mosque in the pictures I included in my blog of a few weeks ago titled, “A Walk Through Shymkent”) and I include a photo here. I assume that wall frame at the far end of the picture is the direction of Mecca and the direction of prayer, but it didn’t occur to me to ask at the time and I know so little of Islam.





7. I bought two things at the Russian Church. One was a silver crucifix pendent of a Russian St. Olga cross. I don’t like to wear jewelry but I do wear a wedding ring in respect to my marriage and I’m seriously thinking of wearing a chain with this pendent in respect to my child. Not sure yet, but I’ll see if I can tolerate regularly wearing a chain. The second thing I bought was a candle to light as a blessing for Matthew. Votive candles here are long and skinny as opposed to the short stubbing kind we have back home. I was afraid the candle would topple over and burn the church down. I took a picture of the candle and following is a picture of the pendent. May Matthew have as blessed a life as I have.






8. I’m nearly done reading The Brothers Karamazov, and what a wonderful novel. It was part of my Russian literature books I took with me as I headed out to a Russian speaking country. But remarkably on Father’s Day I reached the closing argument of the defense attorney’s speech in which he points to how terrible a father Fyodor was, Dostoyevsky signally to the reader how the crux of all the events can be traced to the self centered nature of the father. “But, gentleman of the jury, one must treat words honestly, and I shall allow myself to name a thing by the proper word, the proper appellation: such a father as the murdered old Karamazov cannot and does not deserve to be called a father. Love for a father that is not justified by the father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be created out of nothing: only God creates out of nothing. ‘Fathers provoke not your children,’ writes the apostle, from a heart aflame with love.” These are words I must always keep in mind if I want to be a good father. I was blessed with a good father, despite his flaws, and all the blessings in the world will be useless to Matthew if I don’t put his well being first and foremost.

9. Well, I had my first Father’s day and I want to thank all those who sent me well wishes, especially my mother-in-law, who is always so conscientious to family matters. Mothers and grandmothers hold families together.

10. And how about another picture of Matthew. He is the star, but I’ll include daddy too since it was Father’s Day.