Moscow

Kate told me shawarma was delicious and I just tried it. Oh yes it is. 

In 1990 I was in Moscow. They didn't have enough food that year. Even tourists had limited food options. A Roma child grabbed onto my leg and clung to it while I walked. Someone stole my sweatshirt because American clothes were in big demand. We had pear juice to drink. I went to a mall and heard Tracy Chapman playing in one of the stores. A blond boy in a market ran after me and gave me an embossed velvet bag as a gift, from him and his family. The skies were cloudy all day and our guide enthusiastically chirped, "Oh good, you have nice weather for pictures!" A college-age man very proudly bought us all ice cream, in October, and we let him, because it is important to let people feel pride. No one on the streets smiled or wore color. We went to a ballet, The Man of La Mancha, and I loved it, and someone who knew more about ballet laughed because you could hear the dancer as she landed. We saw the Moscow Circus IN MOSCOW. A scared man gave me a letter to mail for him when we got back to the US. There was a line outside Lenin's tomb that went on forever. There were military men with guns everywhere, always looking angry. The very first McDonalds had opened up and they had to ship in foodstuffs from outside the country because they couldn't buy decent food inside it. They had two lines, a long one for ruble paying customers and a short one for dollar paying customers. The people who worked there cared so much about their jobs and cleanliness that supposedly they would catch food while it was falling from your mouth, before it hit the table. The onion domes were magnificent. There were canons everywhere, with ridiculously sized cannon balls that couldn't be fit into them. 

Twenty years later I had a young co-worker who grew up in Moscow and absolutely nothing about my experience in Moscow resonated with her. It was like I was describing fiction. 

I thought it would be fascinating to see Moscow again and note the changes. 

I've been pleased at how hard people have been working to keep the anger on Putin and not on the Russian people. I don't know how long it can continue, but I'm glad we've been trying. 

There is a company in Ukraine that used to make chain mail, helmet, and armor for fun and shows. Now they make hedgehogs and spikes to block Russian tanks from invading. 

The US thinks it found one of Putin's yachts. 

We had a class at work on civility and respect. 
- There was a video about oxycontin. You do something nice for someone, you get oxytocin. The person you do it for, gets oxytocin. Someone sees you do something nice, they get oxytocin. If you are filled with oxytocin, you are likely to be more generous, creating a spiral. 
- We discussed empathy as an action word. 


We made it to Friday! Hooray for all of us.