May 29 - June 1, Return of The Blog

June 1

We took a few days off of blogging after court to complete Project Robbie Deportation. At 2:00am Astana Time we delivered him to the airport, saw him through security and the little glass booths, and he was on his way back to the kittie cats, and neighbor John, and Zane, and Lauren.

Court on Monday, May 29th, went well. Rob did all of the talking and it was my job to sit like a quiet docile wife. It was a stretch for me, but I was able to do it. I only stood to hand the judge the pictures, and then promptly sat down when my translator barked SIT in my ear. Towards the end I did stand for 1 or 2 questions like "Do you promise to raise this natural resource of Kazakhstan thoughtfully?" and "Will you educate the child?". Rob was relieved they were YES/NO questions and that I would not ramble on and on like this blog. After 30 minutes of the judge reading and Rob answering questions the judge left the room to make her decision or more likely get a drink and take a potty break. During the break the prosecutor, a young nerdy man, chatting gallantly with our translator, a very young, attractive and bubbly young woman in a stylish outfit. It was like freshman year watching the computer nerd talk to the nice sorority girl who wasn't mean enough to dismiss him. After 15 minutes of good effort, the Ministry Of Education lady told the prosecutor our translator was married with a son. The wind must have really blown out of his sails because he blew out of there PDQ. I would have posted all that earlier, but Rob wanted the picture post to remain on top of the blog for a couple days. Since he was leaving I let him have his way.

The next visit to the orphanage on Tuesday May 30, Junior, now Andrew Ishim (AI for short in the blog), christened Rob with fatherhood with another load of carrot barf. You'd think we'd learn not to toss him in the air after a full lunch. Then we spent more time on the phone with United, thanks to Kath for getting us the toll number we can call with the calling card, to get my flights straightened out, or at least get a seat book for when I think my paperwork will be done. There were not a lot of options given the World Cup in Germany, where I transfer planes in Frankfurt, so I will be flying home with AI with an addition leg through Washington Dulles. What better way to enter America! Over the next couple weeks I'll keep trying United to find someone who pities me and allows me to flow home from Almaty, instead of Astana, where I'll have more choices of flights. When I booked the tickets they said I could change the city where I fly out of. But apparently the rules have changed in the last month and I can't do that anymore without paying $6000. So rather than spending all of the college education money we have saved, I may opt to stay a couple days longer.

The day after court one of the new buildings in Astana had a pretty big fire which was on CNN. In case you are wondering, we were no where near the building. Ironically, the building is called the "cigarette lighter" building because of its shape. Luckily no one was hurt. The building is the transportation and communications building….I'll leave the joke for you to fill in about the inability to communicate information about the fire.

That takes us up to Wednesday, May 31. The Voltage Gods, who earlier had added our laptop USB ports to their list of "Things Destroyed in Kazakhstan", have now claimed the entire laptop. Wednesday morning Rob tried to reboot the laptop and got some grub reboot error, meaning not only will Windows not be able to access the internet, but we can't even turn the thing on. I think we may have also angered Bill Gates by using Linux (blecht) instead of Windows. He cast this power all the way to Kazakhstan to blow out the Linux machine. Rob will be attempting to salvage the hard drive upon his return because that is where 99% of the photos and movies are stored. I had started uploading the AI photos to shutter fly but only got up to May 6th (not very far). So keep your fingers crossed.

When we packed Rob's bag, we threw in the laptop since it would not be of any use to me here…..one less thing to take home at the end of June. Without the laptop that means no pictures, until I bring all the camera USB stuff to the internet café and try upload from there. It also may mean no more iPod since the only charger I have is for a USB connection. Hopefully the machines at the internet café will not have issues with my USH stuff. At this point the internet café is my only home, because the only movies I have are on the iPod. If that doesn't work then I will have to resort to my last form of entertainment after naps and random walks through parks: my Project Management Professional Study Guide.

Today, June 1st, is Children's Day. It's kind of like Mother's or Father's Day, but it's for kids. Ironically, we could not visit the orphanage today. The rides at the amusement park across the river were free, so there was a river of kids along the river and over the bridge eating as much chocolate and sugar as they could. Earlier this week the orphanage was getting spruced up for the occasion with planting flowers, painting curbs, installing a new carpet up the stairs from the outside and they also got about 20 new tricycle and strollers. It looked really nice. They wrapped the tricycle seats and handles bars in tissue paper woth bows.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning the apartment and doing laundry….what a way to celebrate my own apartment. Since I was laptopless I went to the internet cafe, where the internet was down, then I went the the 2nd of 3 internat cafes and that was down too. Luckily the 3rd cafe was up and running, and packed, so I would catch up on the blog for those blog-addicts like Megan and Lauren. This internet cafe also has internet phones where they have earphones and a microphone head set. Apparently the users don't realize they are using the internet for voice communicaiotns instead of a tin can and string, and are screaming many foreign languages at the top of their lungs. And they said Amerikans are the load obnoxious ones.

I am off to do some shopping now that Robbie has left town!