May 26, Part Jen

May 26th

This is a sign for a gas station that we pass every day. For the past month I have been looking at the logo. Today I realized the logo looks like the profile of a guy with a black face and a white eye, wearing a turban with his arms reached out as if to hug someone. Rob said I am crazy and that it’s a natural gas and/or drop of oil. Does anyone else see the guy? Or have I gone around the bend?

Our cable modem, and cable TV, were out the past day, and now we are back in action. We had to resort to TALKING last night with no internet, and no cable TV. It was like the stone ages. We fell asleep about 2 or 3 hours earlier than normal last night....out of boredom, and nothing else!

Today was a good visit with junior. Rob walked him around outside for an hour, blowing bubbles is no longer entertaining, then as he walked he had to touch every surface we saw: crumbling bricks, aluminum siding, plastic slides, marble steps, old rusty bus, etc. It makes for an entertaining walk. Rob also walks a bit faster than I do, so junior looked like he was on a galloping horse, but he did have smiles the whole time. When we sat down at the picnic able to play, he got a bit fidgety. We are not allowed to put him on the ground outside, and he really wanted to crawl and sitting on our lap was not going to cut it. So after 15 minutes of struggling and teething, we snuck some Orajel and he calmed down so we went inside.

Once inside, we stripped him of all his clothes except his shirt and let him crawl around. They usually have pants on him, with footies, so junior was like a new baby crawling with bare knees. He was instant energy and no crying. We decided it was a good day to spend in the inflatable jump-a-roo (or maybe it was jump-o-leene). It’s an inflatable thing that looks like a mini pool, about 4 feet across and with walls about 2 feet high. He would jump around in there, and chase balls, roll over and giggle. Then we decided we would make him fly and have him jump up and down which he really liked. Junior would jump and bounce all over, take a 5 second rest, then start all over. At one point we thought he was taking a little nap so we pulled him across the jump-o-leen on his belly, then he crawled back to the other side, and we pulled him again. That last for about 10 minutes of laughing. This was quite a work out, and probably something my chirpractor should not know about. After an hour of that we were all sweaty and ready for a nap. Rob does a good job of calming him down and getting him ready for shut down mode; Junior takes a nap after our visits.

After our visit we came home to start cleaning out the fridge in preparation for Rob leaving next week. We had the interesting combo of cabbage pasta thingies, French fries, Heinz Ketchup, assorted cookies and apple juice.

We are still trying to straighten out Rob's departure tickets. We booked the flight through united, which is a partner with Lufthansa. Unfortunately Lufthansa can not make the changes without first talking to United, and apparently no one from united has been working this week so we can't get an answer. We thought we would take matters into our own hands and call united directly, but our calling card can not be used to make a toll free call, and we can't gt the 800 number to work from here. So I called AT&T and asked if I can't use m calling card, then how can I complete the call. She said to apply for another calling card and in 10 to 14 business days I should have the card mailed ot my home in the US. She did not seem to graps the fact that I needed to call TODAY to make the changes for a flight to the US, where I would then pick up my calling card at home. Perhaps I needed to email her a diagram of the situation, but she finally said "you can't call here from there". Argh. So we're on to plan B, once we figure out what plan B is. Worst case is that Rob returns on June 5th, his original return date, instead of a week earlier. Rob has really been craving a hoagie from America, so if anyone can take a photo of one and post it in the comments, or perhaps just have a long description of a hoagie they ate today, that should get him over his food cravings.

The other night at dinner our Co-ordinator was paying for his dinner ( we all get seperate checks) with his Visa. It was colorful so I asked to see it. Then Rob showed him our WaWa Visa Card. Our co-ordinator speaks pretty good English, but he does not know as much English as our translator. He looked quite perflexed at the Visa card, chuckled and slowly said "WahhhhWahhhhh, what is this I am not familiar with it". We tried to explain it, but even to us it sounded rather weird. I don't think he'll try to work WaWa into any converations any time soon.

Speaking of WaWa, our little Kazak 7-Eleven across the court yard which used to be open 24 hours, recently took down their 24 sign, and is now a 9-TwentyOne store. They still have good deals on tissues , travel packs for about 9 cents, but our demand has gone down now that we are immune to Kazak germs. But they still are useful for the toilet-seat and toiletpaperless restrooms here. Even the uber fancy Astana airport has removed the toilet seats. If anyone removed the toilet seats from our house before we return, i will be quite unhappy.

My Dad and Liz left for vacation today, so the job of blogger comment rests solely on the shoulder of Megan. Get off your blog-stalking mouse and post some comments or Rob will threaten another BlogCott.....but if you have read Rob's posts that might not be a bad thing.