This first picture is totally unrelated to Latvia's 90th birthday, except that it happened that day. It is too cute not to share. We started the day at the studio because KB had to be there for a photo shoot, and here is godson A with his dad, learning the tricks of the trade.
This was the first sunny 18th of November I have experienced in Latvia! It was like a big birthday present for us. The night before it had snowed enough that everything was just white and bright that morning. The wind was brisk, which made it a crisp day, but the blue skies made all the difference.
So we started our celebration by laying flowers at the freedom monument.
Then we met AD, IG and Mr. and Mrs. P. for a quick cup of tea to warm up before the military parade. Here we are all bundled and patriotic trying to scope out the best spot to stand for the parade. (2pm in the afternoon, you'll notice the sun is already on it's way down.)
I swear the parade keeps getting shorter and shorter every year (or I'm already just familiar with everything I will see). Regardless, the best part is always the helicopter carrying Latvia's flag. This year we decided to stand on the bridge, which is the best view of the helicopter as it goes right overhead. I felt a bit teary about it all this year (I think especially after having seen the movie Rigas Sargi) as we were standing on the very bridge where people had risked their own lives fighting for their vision of independence for Latvia excatly 90 years ago.
After the parade we were not quick enough to get to a restaurant before they were all full, so the six of us came back to the treehouse, made our own pizzas and watched some of the concerts on TV. Then we headed over to the P residence, where they have access to a 15th floor balcony, and watched the fireworks from afar. Considering this was a Tuesday, waking up for work on Wednesday morning was tough enough, but well worth it.
Today, I hibernate. I really should go the grocery store, most importantly because we are totally out of dish soap, second most importantly because the food Mims has left in her bowl is all the cat food we have in the house, but I think it will wait until tomorrow. Snow has been blowing from the sky all day (not falling, but fiercely blowing), our slanted windows are fully covered with icy white crystals, and I can't bring myself to get off this snuggly couch. I can't even say I've been productive about my hibernation. I wrote a lovely to-do list this morning, which did not include playing computer games, yet that is how I've spent the day. I have homework to do, newsletters to write, Xmas presents to knit, a book to read, naps to take, movies to watch, but I can't stop the addiction of trying to beat my own high score on pathwords and staries.
I realize I've been delinquent about blogging lately. Work has been a bear (and not in the hibernation sense of the word). We had a four day weekend for Latvia's 90th birthday on November 18th - two days of which were filled with interesting stuff and one day of which was totally wasted recovering from the interesting stuff, but those posts will have to wait because I don't have the pictures in order yet. Hopefully that will get done before December.
The good news is that the mega doses of Vitamin D my dad researched and recommended are seriously helping with the mood this year. That doesn't mean I don't long for a bit of sunshine, but I'm not experiencing the same sense of doom I have in the past. Additionally, as my body was kind enough to dream me a Ben and Jerry's experience, it has also allowed me to dream of the beach and sunshine several nights, where I literally feel the warmth and glow of the sun on my skin, and that seems to be enough.
Homework or newsletter next? Ok, one more computer game, and then I'll decide....
Full moons make Mims completely mental.
It was a very bright full moon last night and as the treehouse (aka: our apartment) is on the top floor of the building with slanted ceilings and therefore slanted windows, we have no curtains. Mims has been sleeping in the bed lately since it has gotten colder (usually creeps her way directly between us and make a little hotdog of herself during the night), but all of a sudden at 3am last night, she had to start running laps around the treehouse. Then she got into the potpourri in the bathroom, which meant she was batting dried flowers around the bedroom. I kicked her out and closed the door. Somehow she broke in about two seconds later. I kicked her out again, moved the potpourri to the kitchen counter (at 3am it made sense that this would stop her craziness), closed both doors leading to our bedroom, and continued my nyquil induced sleep until the morning. (Yeah, you know she was being a serious maniac, when she roused me from nyquil sleep.) In the morning, there were bits of dried flowers in every corner of the treehouse and the potpourri bowl was totally empty, so she had been dancing on the kitchen counters as well. KB had been so kind to bring me home a pack of cough drops which he had left on the kitchen table - I still saw them there at 3am, but at 6am they were missing and nowhere to be found. Still haven't found them. Maybe she ate them and that's what made her so cuckoo. Who knows, but clearly I'm not the only one affected by the full moon in our house.....
If you go to see a Russian play which is called a comedy, it might not really have a funny ending. In fact, it might have a pretty morbid ending. Like the main character kills himself and then the play ends.
We had a lovely evening at the theater last night. As KB does some work in a music studio which is in the building of Dailes Theater, he has the chance to get tickets for 2 Ls (as opposed to 12-20 Ls) a couple of hours before the show, depending on what's still available. We haven't taken too much advantage of this yet (preferring up until now to instead go the route of creeping on shows from backstage while sipping wine and snacking on food from the cafe), but this winter we decided one cure against the blahblahs would be to do something cultural now and again. We had some friends join us for the show last night and had ourselves a pretty nice evening.
Except it was just a learning experience about the cultural norms of what is a comedy. Don't get me wrong, there were some funny parts (in an absurd, psychotic sort of way)... I just understand now that comedy doesn't mean the same thing everywhere around the world.
And for the record, it was a Russian play translated to Latvian (I have not yet learned Russian).
Come November, and I'm working much, much more, not less. There seems to be no end in sight to this maddness of working until 6 or 7 pm on the average evening and still bringing home work on the weekend. I seriously find myself wishing most nights that I could just put on my pajamas and stay at school over night. Not because I would rather be at school than at home, but the thought of bundling up in winter gear just to go out into the dark to have a thirty to fifty minute walking and trolley bussing commute home (complete with elbowing, pushing and shoving) only to eat dinner, fall asleep and get up at 5:30am to exercise and come right back to school again in the morning is exhausting. Next week is accreditation week, meaning a team of ten people will be spending the week at our school, coming in to observe at our classrooms any time, free to ask me or my students questions about anything at any time. Just a bit stressful. Ok, at least that is followed by the a four day weekend thanks to Latvia's 90th birthday! I'd like to say that after that things will calm down, but by then we are gearing up for the madness that is the winter festival. So I'm already counting down the days until December 19th, the first day of our winter vacation. It cannot come quickly enough.
Luckily, the good news is that my students are still stellar! I have started aerobics on Thursday nights at school, which happily gives me more energy that evening to do a bit of homework when I get home. (I just started an online class about teaching children with dyslexia to help out one of my students this year.) Also, we have a field trip planned to Lacu Maiznica to see how bread is made and make our own cookies as well. For those of you who have been there, or had the chance to eat their bread, cookies or grauzdini, you know what a treat this is to look forward to!
So sorry for not having more exciting things to write about lately, but the extent of my existance is truly eat, sleep, school. It's a good thing I like what I do.
Oh, and knitting season has started again, so during the five minutes I can keep my eyes open at night, some lovely Xmas presents are being created. :)
This was the first sunny 18th of November I have experienced in Latvia! It was like a big birthday present for us. The night before it had snowed enough that everything was just white and bright that morning. The wind was brisk, which made it a crisp day, but the blue skies made all the difference.
Then we met AD, IG and Mr. and Mrs. P. for a quick cup of tea to warm up before the military parade. Here we are all bundled and patriotic trying to scope out the best spot to stand for the parade. (2pm in the afternoon, you'll notice the sun is already on it's way down.)
I swear the parade keeps getting shorter and shorter every year (or I'm already just familiar with everything I will see). Regardless, the best part is always the helicopter carrying Latvia's flag. This year we decided to stand on the bridge, which is the best view of the helicopter as it goes right overhead. I felt a bit teary about it all this year (I think especially after having seen the movie Rigas Sargi) as we were standing on the very bridge where people had risked their own lives fighting for their vision of independence for Latvia excatly 90 years ago.
After the parade we were not quick enough to get to a restaurant before they were all full, so the six of us came back to the treehouse, made our own pizzas and watched some of the concerts on TV. Then we headed over to the P residence, where they have access to a 15th floor balcony, and watched the fireworks from afar. Considering this was a Tuesday, waking up for work on Wednesday morning was tough enough, but well worth it.
