HA-HA

     Another early morning. 

     I have a lot of heavy misgivings on my mind. Most of them are in regards to my Weight Management Program. My doctor wrote to me that, because I keep getting gout attacks, he thinks, I should transition out of the program. What does it mean? The rest of the people are going to transition to adding real food to bars and shakes that we've been using for nutrition, anyway! Are they trying to get rid of some of us, just as the crucial information is about to be shared? Now is the time to absorb new ways of living: eating and exercising the way that will ensure that, the money, pain, effort and our hopes were not misplaced in following this Program, and that we can keep the lost weight off. 

     I need your prayers and good thoughts! Part of me wants to quit: that's not new, I'm an accomplished quitter. Part of me wants to see, if I can make a new person out of myself. Part of me is laughing at that possibility even as I write about it!

     

PAST TWO DAYS

What we did these past two days:

     Went to celebrate Mother's Day in Sushi Boat restaurant with Taka, Lera, Sonny and Roberta. Taka behaved like he would rather be somewhere else and waived us off to have a picture without him.

Phooie, we had nice food and didn't mind him.

Everyone slept when we came home. 

At night, Lera and I opened a box of See's Candy given to me by Roberta and had just a couple of them each. You can see Lera here sporting a pink rubber ribbon with a beautiful flower that used to be on the box.

Today I took Roberta to Physical Therapy. I love the building in which it's office is located. It's surrounded by silver birches, Russian favorite trees.

We shopped (Beauty Supply store, a pharmacy to buy hair coloring, ladies' clothing store).

On the way home we went to a new cafe in Hayward. 

We sat at the table, drunk our coffees and gabbed. 

Good time - all around!

Came home and slept. Chickie showed us the best method and an attitude for it!

Sylvie was his best contender.

A TWIST IN THE STORY!

     Just as I posted the last blog, Lera came out of her room, where she was taking an afternoon nap. She said something about Sonny, that caught my attention. 
     "Wait", - I said - "It was his idea to go buy flowers?"
     "Yes, I just asked to go with him to get something for you too!"
I feel bad now. I misjudged him and Hanah, who also sent me a Mother's Day greeting. 

PAIN AND ROSES

     I know, I haven't been writing, I'm sorry! With Lera here, it's not easy to find time when either she is not on the computer, or doesn't want me to do something else. 
     Besides that, I've been a little bit down. Gout keeps flaring up. I finish the regiment of the prednisone, have a few good, pain free days when I try to do as much as possible; then I begin to feel the insistent burning and intense ache in my foot joints again. 

     Last time, four days ago, I couldn't take the thought of being useless, stuck sitting on the couch and having a hard time to even make it to the bathroom on time because I can't walk quickly anymore. I broke down crying, - me, who didn't cry for years! Taka came home right at that moment, so he found me sobbing. His response was quite predictable: "You don't do anything to get better, right? Did you do this? Did you do that?" The tone and volume of his voice were abrasive enough for me to stop crying and start getting upset. If I was well, I would've walked out of the house and gone for a drive with Lera. As it was, I gave him a scathing look and focused on Lera, and Roberta, who were also there and trying to comfort me. Soon, I was smiling and watching TV with them. My poor husband was, obviously, raised by the wolves or the bears, who didn't impart on him the basic humane attitudes toward people closest to him!
     Despite my infirmity, things still need to be done. We got rid of the old couch (although Lera talked me into keeping two sections of it, the least scratched by the cats, to put in other rooms). For two

days we combed our area for a new couch, me leaning heavily on the cane but forgetting pain in the heat of the hunt. 
     We found a large, greenish-brown couch in Big Lots. There was no doubt: it was the best buy for the best price. In a few days it was delivered to our house. Then I realized that, I should've measured it before buying! It's not too big, but - too big! I mean that, it'll take time for me to get used to this new addition to our decor!

   

     Today is Mother's Day. Even though we planned the trip to a restaurant in the evening, I haven't heard "Happy Mother's Day!" from either Taka, Sonny or Hanah. I am used to it, this is how they prefer things to be. I wonder, how would they (especially, the kids, who are used to being spoiled and pampered on their birthdays and Christmas) react, if I just ignore them on those special days?!
     Fortunately, Lera is here. In the middle of the day, she grabbed Sonny and dragged him out. I suspected, what they were about to do, but that was my one chance to get to the laptop and write a blog, so I didn't dwell much on them.
     An hour or so later, they showed up with three bouquets! Tulips - for me from Lera,

a dozen of red roses - for me from Sonny (and Taka, I guess),

and a dozen of yellow roses for Roberta from all of us.

I already gave her a Mother's Day card with a cute cat on it. 

Roberta is sporting a big green bow from a present
that her grand-daughter sent her.

     After all the aahs and oohs and hugs were dispensed, we put flowers around the house. It's nice to see God's beauty as my present. It would be even nicer if the thought of giving it to me came from my husband or Sonny. I'm not even talking about Hanah, who failed to do the simplest of gestures of niceness toward me again!





































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WHO IS IN CHARGE?

     Life goes on. I thought that it would be difficult to divide my time between Lera and Roberta, and it's not easy. Plus to the complicated feelings on all our parts, I got tendinitis again! 
     I was OK for about a week. Almost no pain in my foot stricken by gout. Then, one morning, I woke up, and my other foot hurt a lot. I am walking (you can hardly call it that, with me limping painfully with every step) with a cane, try every kind of painkiller that we have at home and still feel like, someone out there really doesn't like me! 
     We pulled all the things from Hanah's room in preparation of laying new floors there. I sorted them out, and now a lot of them are still filling every corner, nook and cranny in the living room. Lera took charge of the situation and made me work further on getting rid of the mess. Little by little, it's getting cleaner, but my "clean" is normal people's chaos, I think! 
     Yesterday, we went to a few furniture stores to look for a new couch. How I made it through the aisles and aisles of sofas, I don't know. To tell the truth, my foot began to feel better after a while. We found a nice, big couch in Big Lots. It's a discount store, and the couch there was much cheaper than items comparable to it in other places. 
     Before that, though, I had to take Lera to the Immigration Department Application Support Center to extend her Green Card (or, an Alien Resident's Card). As we walked into the doors, a poster greeted us. It said: "USCIS [United States Citizenship and Immigration Service] - we are America!". They are America?! I felt the stirring of annoyance and said to a Security Guard, who was looking at us at that moment: "You are America? I thought, I was America!" 
     I have seen too many members of various "Services", who would've liked us all to think that they are the ultimate authority. The KGB reps's narrowed despising eyes and the stolid, narrow-minded cruelty of the American Immigration Service taught me to keep my own mind about whom I consider to be in charge and why I am in this country. "We are America!" Pshaw! 

IT'S NOT ABOUT CATS

     It's early morning. I got out of the bed to be the first one to the laptop. 
     The garden is fresh and green behind the living room's glass sliding door. Quiet too. My cat, Chicken Bone, lies in front of it, his front paws f

Lazy Chickie

olded under his chest, watching a flock of tiny birds outside. They found something on the cement of the patio and keep darting from the air to the ground and up again, unimaginably quick and light. Chickie is old, he's been 'an inside cat' for more than a decade, but his hunter instincts are still alive. His mouth seems to get pried open without his volition, and strange chatter emits from his throat. It sounds, kind of, like a bird too! 
   

Sylvie followed me here from the back of the house. She is a very odd cat. In addition to the usual catty personality, she seems to possess some of the menopausal woman's character traits! One can't walk close to her without hearing her quiet but disturbing yowl. She loves me, but is very changeable

with everybody else. Even if she looks happy when you scratch and pet her, she can turn on  you in a moment! She often sits and stares at me, as if to say: "Do you really want me?!" That makes me remember my mother: she had the same piercing green eyes and the same look of aggression and anguish.

   
     





     We talked with Mr. P. about her (my mother) at our last session. I hope that you had a chance to read my story Rimka, written last year in May. It's about my parents' upbringing and lives. I have no doubt that my mother loved me. She suffered from the feelings of abandonment and insecurity her whole life span and, finally, affected her own family in very negative ways because of that baggage.  It's so sad, how we hurt those that we love the most and wish to care for the most! I came to realize that, it is from the skewed relationship with mom I got my defiance for rules and the very fundamentals of successful life. What will my kids carry into their futures from living with me and their father? Oh, the sins of the fathers... and mothers...

My mother and little Hanah.

 

FIRST REPORTS OF LERA

     It's late. We had a long. trying day. From the back of the house, from Lera's, my sister's room, come loud sounds.

     Lera is a very talented snorer. There aren't any messy, gurgling noises or ugliness. Just predictable, kind of, like the wood being sawn, snores. She goes to sleep almost immediately after her head hits the pillow, and it's nice to realize that she is able to  rest comfortably in my house.

     Do we have problems? Sure! The first morning after she came from Denmark, I got up about 6, to be able to write in my blog and do some other computer stuff. As I reached the living room, though, I was startled to find her there, already trying to Skype to all her friends and husband in Denmark! She didn't bring her own laptop, apparently, so I am obliged to allow her use mine for as long as she needs it. We also don't watch the same TV programs, and she can't understand a lot of the English. That means that, I keep trying to find something that she'd like to see, but she is picky! Then, even if she is satisfied with what we watch, Lera starts falling asleep in her chair! Since I, most of the time, just go along with her taste in programming, I spend long evenings staring at the things that I am not remotely interested in. 

     When I, finally, get to the computer, Lera, without being able to put her own fingers on the keyboard,  gets very antsy. She starts to unmercifully nudge and spur me to hurry and go out shopping with her, for example. My mental exercise routine (online Scrabble, crosswords, Facebook surfing) is shot to smithereens!

Chickie is partaking of what's left of Lera's McDonald's Sundae

     I love having her here, though! She and I are about the same size, although, I prefer to think that, by now, I am thinner. I lent her one of my cool house dresses for the hot weather(same color and style), and we enjoy seeing a scared look on my husband's face, as he spots us reclining in front of the TV in our double glory!

     She spoils the cats (Chickie thinks that she is his new best friend and Sylvie already had a chance to attack her for the temerity to talk to someone while petting her!

     She says that, she laughs more than ever since she came here. 

     

Funny hat.