I Met Sam Today and He Gave Me a Kiss!

Today, I was introduced to Sam.  He's quite a popular guy at the internat.  He would be quite a popular guy at our house, too.  Everyone would be trying to have him for dinner.  Sam is a cute black and white hamster or rat, I'm not sure which.  He seems to be a little big for a hamster, but what do I know.  Yarek apparently thought I would be squeamish.  He was a little surprised that I would just pick Sam up out of his hands and let him crawl all over me.  Didn't take dear Sam two minutes to climb up to my mouth and give me a kiss.  Apparently I didn't taste like dinner because he climbed right back down and proceeded to explore the rest of my sweater.  I told the boys that Tigger and Goofy especially would really like to meet Sam.  Tiggy would stare at his cage and dream of ways to get inside.  Goofy would just knock it over and eat him; after a good chase, of course.

Yarek is feeling better today.  He had a bit of a fever yesterday.  I told him he needs to wear a jacket when he goes outside.  But, he's fourteen and he knows everything, right?  Good thing it seems to be a one day bug that he caught.  I was able to ask him if he had any aspirin and told him to eat some chicken soup.  He told me they had already given him an aspirin and he had some soup for lunch.  Today, I felt his forehead right away and absolutely no fever.  Maybe it was just the stress of the adoption.

Someone asked a question in comments about why Bill didn't have to come to court.  It is not a common occurence.  We had to get permission from the SDA when we submitted our paperwork, it has nothing to do with which region we adopted from.  Basically, they need to know before you get here that only one parent is coming and they need a pretty good reason (ie:  unable to travel for medical reasons, etc).

After I got back to the hotel last night, I realized in my novel that I posted yesterday I did not give any of Yarek's reaction!  Yes, the judge did ask him all the usual questions, name, date of birth, etc; and she also asked him how he met us and how did he feel about being adopted.  Yarek said he was full of joy to be there and that he really wanted to be adopted by us.  That was pretty much it.  No one asked him questions about how he came to be at the internat (at least during court) or anything about his biological parents.  I figure that he will tell us when he knows enough English and when he is good and ready to tell us.

Yesterday I got quite the walk in before I went to visit Yarek.  Since I was so tired Friday night, I went to bed three hours early.  Hence, I got up three hours early, too.  With all that extra time to kill before visiting the internat, I decided to take a walk up to the big outdoor market across the street from the courthouse to see what they had to sell.  The answer is EVERYTHING.  There was a Home Cheapo style stall right next to a Victoria's Secret style stall.  You could buy every kind of food imaginable, and more variety than was in the grocery store at the other end of town.  There were housewares and shoes and clothes of all varieties.  Books, newspapers, make-up and the most precious thing of all - a pair of tweezers!  I had forgotten mine (among the half million other things that I had packed) and I had started to look like Ugga the Barbarian Woman.  And they only cost me 75 cents, or there abouts.  The exchange rate has gone back down to around 8.25 grivna per dollar, so maybe the economy over here is stabilizing somewhat.

After walking around the market for about fifteen minutes (it was very crowded, but at least now I know where I can get Yarek another pair of jeans, shoes and a jacket), I decided to walk back a different way than I had come.  I wished I had brought my camera because there was a very interesting peachish orange stucco building about two blocks down that I could see from the corner.  I walked down that way, figuring that eventually I would run into a road that led back to the hotel.  About twenty minutes later, I found out I was correct.  I also found the second stoplight in town.  When I got back near the hotel, I looked at my watch and realized I had another two hours before the taxi would come to pick me up.  So, I decided to walk down to the circle and check out the smaller outdoor market near the apartment and internet cafe.  It was pretty much the same, and now I know where to go buy my candy in bulk.  After that I walked back to the hotel to shower.  I had been out maybe five minutes shy of a full two hours.  I figure I did about 7 miles of walking.  One quarter of a marathon.

Today I finally got a picture of the sculpture in the circle.  Tomorrow I am going to try and take more pictures of interesting statues, parks and buildings that are within walking distance of the hotel.  They love their statues here.

On Friday night there was a wedding at the restaurant/disco and another one again last night.  Poor brides had to stand in the door of the car to get their pictures taken by the park.  I don't blame them.  There is no way I would have messed up my wedding dress by standing in the messy half melted muck that stands on most sidewalks right now.  At least the sun tried to peek out again today.  The clouds have thinned out, too, so maybe some sunshine is in the future.

Gotta go read my email and lurk in blogland.

Natalie

TX