Chapter 12

datcha nights

Had a very fufilling saturday. I woke up at a reasonable time, did some laundry and washed up my place a bit. Afterwards I was motivated enough to head to the gym. What really motivated to go was that I finally uploaded the new albums I've gotten onto my ipod shuffle so I wanted to work out and listen to all those killer tracks. And yes the band the Killers is on my Ipod. They remind me of Pulp for some reason.

After the workout, i rememberd that nick invited me to spend some time at his datcha (country house) to spend time with his family. I've met his wife a few times and she's pretty cool, but I've never met his two kids. I drove all the way through traffic to the Moscow country club and had a really relaxing evening.

Nick and I chatted for a while while his wife got dinner ready. He asked me for my picks on college football and baseball...gambling again...All of a sudden the nanny came home with the kids and it was little Kira time. Kira is his 2 year old daughter....the apple of his eye. He turns to putty when she's around. Every other day or so, nicks wife would take digital pictures of her at home, doing cute things and send them to nick at work. Nick would open up these emails at work with glee and sit there quietly and stare at his little baby girl. He'd grin and show the pictures to me. "Thats my little girl....best thing I ever did". I've seen tons of photos of her but never met her before.

She learned a new word recently..."Somalyot" which is russian for airplane. She loves airplanes and wants people to draw them for her. She gets all excited when you draw her or make her an airplane. I played around with Kira for a while. My airplane had a really complicated engine system. I drew in elevators flaps and 4 engines on the wing. Her parents were amused with my attention to detail on some parts of the picture but my unrealistic scaling of the actual airplane body.

This reminded me of when I lived with my sister and her little kids. You know some people get all hung up with the whole birth thing and the whole diaper/crying issues having kids, but they are little people and they can really amaze you. No, I'm not saying i'm yearning for fatherhood, but it would be something i could see myself becoming if life permits.

We has a nice relaxing meal in the outskirts of moscow, in nicks log cabin datcha. We than put on some mushy romantic comedys (the one where J.lo is a dog walker, and the one with ashton kitcher and the photographer). It got late so I was invited to spend the night in the country at pete's datcha (next door) and sleep. I woke up the next morning with the smell of rain and forrest permiating the room. Not the smell of smog and industry...but of nature. Went out for a nice walk through the forrest with pete, had breakfast with nick family again....drew another somalyot and made my drive back to my russian metropolis. Its nice to have a break and be with nature. It may be colder, but nothing can be more soothing than the outdoor air and time in a warm home recharging for the week ahead.

posted by RU ETL @ 5:58 PM