Sweatin' & Gassin' With Mr. O
It’s a stunningly beautiful Saturday in Almaty, and Milena (our social worker and friend) and her colleague, Louise, are in from New York, so I think we will spare you guys the endless text. But, fear not, the endless photos continue.
We must be getting better at photographing Otis, because you can see his fab smile, and would never guess that today was a gassy, snuffly, sweaty - hence, crabby - day. (David – who loathes heat – was appalled to be handed the little guy – on a sunny, 75 degree day – in a cotton onesie, with a stem to stern cotton flannel set of PJs over it. Needless to say, he was sopping from the armpits down.)
OK, a moment of the proud (boring) parent before the pics. Today, Otis figured how to make the squeaky hammer work, a couple of times in tandem with the teething rattle (which kind of looks like a tambourine). (Do we have a future percussionist?) It was incredibly fun to watch him recognize the hammer from yesterday, shake it, “it’s not doing anything,” study it, shake it again, “hey, it works!”…….DJ: The other great moment was when, after an hour and a half of gassy crankiness interspersed with his irrepressible curiosity and some, for today, rare smiles, Otis fell asleep in my arms, yes, another Kodak moment.
We are off for some pivos with Milena & Louise, and the famous Green Bazaar tomorrow. Expect more Almaty pics, especially of large pieces of meat, fabulous veggies, weird musical instruments, etc. tomorrow, if only because tomorrow is most of the orphanage staff’s day off, so no Otis for us.
Postscript by DJ: Just returned from a nice evening with Milena & Louise, snaps below, on the lawn at Mad Murphy’s Irish Pub, owned by Dutchmen, staffed by Kazakhs, go figure. We were entertained by Almaty’s foremost Rolling Stones tribute band, Jumping Jack Flash. Over barely drinkable Georgian wine served in thimble sized glasses (a blessing in disguise), we had a good talk about some of the difficulties we’ve encountered with the program, M&L were quite receptive and encouraged us to be more assertive, go figure. Evening ended with dessert and coffees around the corner at Café Delia.
We must be getting better at photographing Otis, because you can see his fab smile, and would never guess that today was a gassy, snuffly, sweaty - hence, crabby - day. (David – who loathes heat – was appalled to be handed the little guy – on a sunny, 75 degree day – in a cotton onesie, with a stem to stern cotton flannel set of PJs over it. Needless to say, he was sopping from the armpits down.)
OK, a moment of the proud (boring) parent before the pics. Today, Otis figured how to make the squeaky hammer work, a couple of times in tandem with the teething rattle (which kind of looks like a tambourine). (Do we have a future percussionist?) It was incredibly fun to watch him recognize the hammer from yesterday, shake it, “it’s not doing anything,” study it, shake it again, “hey, it works!”…….DJ: The other great moment was when, after an hour and a half of gassy crankiness interspersed with his irrepressible curiosity and some, for today, rare smiles, Otis fell asleep in my arms, yes, another Kodak moment.
We are off for some pivos with Milena & Louise, and the famous Green Bazaar tomorrow. Expect more Almaty pics, especially of large pieces of meat, fabulous veggies, weird musical instruments, etc. tomorrow, if only because tomorrow is most of the orphanage staff’s day off, so no Otis for us.
Postscript by DJ: Just returned from a nice evening with Milena & Louise, snaps below, on the lawn at Mad Murphy’s Irish Pub, owned by Dutchmen, staffed by Kazakhs, go figure. We were entertained by Almaty’s foremost Rolling Stones tribute band, Jumping Jack Flash. Over barely drinkable Georgian wine served in thimble sized glasses (a blessing in disguise), we had a good talk about some of the difficulties we’ve encountered with the program, M&L were quite receptive and encouraged us to be more assertive, go figure. Evening ended with dessert and coffees around the corner at Café Delia.
posted by Candace and David at 6/25/2005 02:27:00 PM
1 Comments:
Dear Otis
Welcome to the family. Your M and D have been sending us pictures of you—we look forward to seeing you in the flesh. It’s funny but some of those pictures of you remind me of your mom at that age—particularly those that show you looking wide-eyed at the surrounding world—strange place that surrounding world isn’t it? We’ve been talking about our relationship to you. I think we’ll go Swedish. I’ll be Morfar (mother’s father) and June will be Mormor; Toby will be Farfar and it’s very sad that there isn’t a Farmor-- I know she would have liked you. If you want to call us GD and GM it’ll be OK.
Much love, your Morfar, Dwight
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