T - two weeks and counting ...

Well, we leave two weeks from this past Saturday, and the semblance of a calm is beginning to settle over me -- the calm before the storm? Our visas are expected to arrive today, and the bank called last Friday to tell me they have at least some of my new bills in. I'm going to head over to one of those stores
where Big Foot and Sasquatch buy their survival gear and get some clothes for Fred, Bella and myself. Folks tell me to expect a sub-arctic clime outside in the region we're heading, but that all the buildings have heat set to "burning fires of hell" with no way to adjust it or even open windows, so I'm thinking layers. I suppose if we'll be going back and forth between ice and snow outdoors and sweltering temps indoors, we'll all either become violently ill or we'll lose a bunch of weight. Maybe both. Hey, it beats the torturous rigors of a personal trainer (Lori!).

The latest I've heard is a bit distressing, actually. We've been told all along that Borya would be transferred to an orphanage down in Ust Kamenogorsk, which is where he was when we met him five years ago, So we booked some fancy digs in the swank Shiny River, and were feeling pretty full of ourselves b/c we know the lay of the land a bit there. Well, I've just heard from my friend Dee (who is over there right now adopting two brothers from the same orphanage as Borya)that the boys will not be transferred to Ust after all, but will stay up at their orphanage in the mountains, a hop skip and a jump from the Russian border. From what I hear, Ridder is about a 3 - 4 hour car ride from Ust, over a crater-filled, so-called "road". So Dee was given the option of staying in Ust and travelling each day to Ridder and then back again, or staying in god-forsaken Ridder. I'm sorry, but is there an option C? Because quite frankly, both option A and option B suck! And I feel I've been though quite enough so far with this adoption, and I want to be presented with an option that doesn't SUCK! Excuse my French, but I haven't yet learned how to say that in Russian. But I can say, "Skujheetsi, phajhalsta, gdyeh Pushkinska Ulitser?" That means, "Tell me please, where is Pushkin Street?" That will help me a lot b/c I honestly have no idea where Pushkin Street is.