Wallpaper and Fruit Preserves, August 3, 2006
My host mother served me up some fresh black currant jam today, right off the stove. It is by far the best preserves I have ever tasted—still just the slightest bit warm from the gas range. This, I would consider, a high point for me during a rather rainy day in Novgorod.
The morning started little late as I tried to catch up on a lack of sleep since… last Thursday. In preparation of Lori, Laura, Michael, and Omar’s departure yesterday we had stayed out partying in some form every night, Thursday through Tuesday. While the marathon of bar hopping, story swapping, snapshot stealing, move busting, and 4 AM taxi taking had been fun, it took its toll on daytime functionality. Working at the orphanage every day from 9 to 5 requires a massive amount of energy; and while the kids may believe you are supermen, enjoying shoulder rides around the premises and endless games of chase, Brad and I have been breaking down this week.
After making my lunch and jumping into the shower last minute, I gathered up my things for a jog out to the bus stop as the time approached 8:30 AM. Turning the corner, past the dentist office, I saw my desired transporter—Bus 16—pulling away from my bus stop about 5 minutes sooner than it had yesterday. Shoulders slumped and head hanging low, I finished walking over to the bus stop and placed my book bag (rukzak) on one of the blue benches under the shelter to open the zipper of the largest pocket and retrieve my map of the city. I studied the various stops and which buses go there to plan out alternative routes and curb some of my potential lateness to work. After a few minutes of planning, I figured I could just take any bus that led to Bolshaya Moskovskaya or Bolshaya Sankt-Peterburgskaya streets and transfer in the appropriate direction. With the new strategy playing out in my mind, I squinted into the distance as the next bus turned onto Kochetova and approached my stop… it was a 16. By divine inspiration and little bit of good ol’ ridiculousness, I received the same bus less than 10 minutes after its doppelganger left me stranded.
Enjoying—or at least trying to enjoy—my twenty-five minute trip from behind my apartment building straight to the corner near the orphanage, I wondered about how work would go this morning as Brad and I would be leaving the world of kids and games for the menial task of stripping wallpaper in one of the sleeping rooms on the second floor. Deciding it would behoove us to start on it before we met up with the kids and had to explain why they couldn’t spend the morning beating us up, we reported to the woman seemingly in charge of the repair operation. After some hellos and let’s gos, she handed us two pairs of gloves and four breathing masks and led us up to the room.
Now, neither of us had ever worked with wallpaper before. My initial reaction to the idea was to make the romantic connection to the film Amelie, in which one of the protagonist’s father’s favorite things is removing wallpaper in long, single strips. Working under our master’s pantomimic directions, we removed the curtains and mattresses and then pushed a bed away from our starting section of wall. Gloves on, masks in place, we searched for places to start the peeling, quickly realizing that this was going to be a very difficult task without any sort of scraping to tools to separate paper and plaster. So Brad headed downstairs to see if we could get some scrapers, while I waited in the room unsure why I am going to be working on home repair when I distinctly remember only enumerating my great counselor qualities in the application essay for this internship. He returned with two knifes that I’m fairly certain were butter knives in better days. Nevertheless, we attacked the wall, tools in hand.
After about twenty minutes of hacking, I started to get frustrated. Trying to peel large pieces, trying to even distinguish wall from putty glue and paper, trying to maintain interest and motivation were all failing enterprises. I switched to another place to see if it would be easier. But by the time I had finished the one strip I started, Brad had finished three. I really hated the work. I would rather plead the kids with a string of “nyet” than strain my arms and my patience with this devilish wallpaper. Blair, do not expect me to endorse wallpaper as a good idea, ever.
My reward for this work though, after three hours and quick explanation to the woman in charge that tomorrow only Brad will be slaving on the wallpaper because I needed to work on the website, was going to Brad’s host family’s apartment and enjoying a very filling lunch of vegetable soup and potato “vareniki” (what Americans would call pierogies according to Mrs. T, while Russian “piroshki” are actually larger folded pies). Thanking his host grandmother and her sister for wonderful food, we headed back to the orphanage to meet the kids at 2 PM and see where this roller coaster of a day might go next (And yes, I realize the amusement park ride is a bit over the top under these circumstances, but I still have a lot of sleep to catch up on).
Fortunately for us, there was only a bit of insanity with the kids. In fact, we spent most of our time assembling puzzles, which makes me want to do more puzzles when I get home—perhaps a few frameable puzzles comprising thousands of pieces or finally complete the ancient Egypt one I received some 8 Christmases ago. I definitely appreciated this denouement in my day and I look forward to starting tomorrow morning with even more rest and a better task ahead of me as I employ my recently earned Information Technology degree to the repair of the orphanage’s web site… oh yeah, and eat more black currant jam.
The morning started little late as I tried to catch up on a lack of sleep since… last Thursday. In preparation of Lori, Laura, Michael, and Omar’s departure yesterday we had stayed out partying in some form every night, Thursday through Tuesday. While the marathon of bar hopping, story swapping, snapshot stealing, move busting, and 4 AM taxi taking had been fun, it took its toll on daytime functionality. Working at the orphanage every day from 9 to 5 requires a massive amount of energy; and while the kids may believe you are supermen, enjoying shoulder rides around the premises and endless games of chase, Brad and I have been breaking down this week.
After making my lunch and jumping into the shower last minute, I gathered up my things for a jog out to the bus stop as the time approached 8:30 AM. Turning the corner, past the dentist office, I saw my desired transporter—Bus 16—pulling away from my bus stop about 5 minutes sooner than it had yesterday. Shoulders slumped and head hanging low, I finished walking over to the bus stop and placed my book bag (rukzak) on one of the blue benches under the shelter to open the zipper of the largest pocket and retrieve my map of the city. I studied the various stops and which buses go there to plan out alternative routes and curb some of my potential lateness to work. After a few minutes of planning, I figured I could just take any bus that led to Bolshaya Moskovskaya or Bolshaya Sankt-Peterburgskaya streets and transfer in the appropriate direction. With the new strategy playing out in my mind, I squinted into the distance as the next bus turned onto Kochetova and approached my stop… it was a 16. By divine inspiration and little bit of good ol’ ridiculousness, I received the same bus less than 10 minutes after its doppelganger left me stranded.
Enjoying—or at least trying to enjoy—my twenty-five minute trip from behind my apartment building straight to the corner near the orphanage, I wondered about how work would go this morning as Brad and I would be leaving the world of kids and games for the menial task of stripping wallpaper in one of the sleeping rooms on the second floor. Deciding it would behoove us to start on it before we met up with the kids and had to explain why they couldn’t spend the morning beating us up, we reported to the woman seemingly in charge of the repair operation. After some hellos and let’s gos, she handed us two pairs of gloves and four breathing masks and led us up to the room.
Now, neither of us had ever worked with wallpaper before. My initial reaction to the idea was to make the romantic connection to the film Amelie, in which one of the protagonist’s father’s favorite things is removing wallpaper in long, single strips. Working under our master’s pantomimic directions, we removed the curtains and mattresses and then pushed a bed away from our starting section of wall. Gloves on, masks in place, we searched for places to start the peeling, quickly realizing that this was going to be a very difficult task without any sort of scraping to tools to separate paper and plaster. So Brad headed downstairs to see if we could get some scrapers, while I waited in the room unsure why I am going to be working on home repair when I distinctly remember only enumerating my great counselor qualities in the application essay for this internship. He returned with two knifes that I’m fairly certain were butter knives in better days. Nevertheless, we attacked the wall, tools in hand.
After about twenty minutes of hacking, I started to get frustrated. Trying to peel large pieces, trying to even distinguish wall from putty glue and paper, trying to maintain interest and motivation were all failing enterprises. I switched to another place to see if it would be easier. But by the time I had finished the one strip I started, Brad had finished three. I really hated the work. I would rather plead the kids with a string of “nyet” than strain my arms and my patience with this devilish wallpaper. Blair, do not expect me to endorse wallpaper as a good idea, ever.
My reward for this work though, after three hours and quick explanation to the woman in charge that tomorrow only Brad will be slaving on the wallpaper because I needed to work on the website, was going to Brad’s host family’s apartment and enjoying a very filling lunch of vegetable soup and potato “vareniki” (what Americans would call pierogies according to Mrs. T, while Russian “piroshki” are actually larger folded pies). Thanking his host grandmother and her sister for wonderful food, we headed back to the orphanage to meet the kids at 2 PM and see where this roller coaster of a day might go next (And yes, I realize the amusement park ride is a bit over the top under these circumstances, but I still have a lot of sleep to catch up on).
Fortunately for us, there was only a bit of insanity with the kids. In fact, we spent most of our time assembling puzzles, which makes me want to do more puzzles when I get home—perhaps a few frameable puzzles comprising thousands of pieces or finally complete the ancient Egypt one I received some 8 Christmases ago. I definitely appreciated this denouement in my day and I look forward to starting tomorrow morning with even more rest and a better task ahead of me as I employ my recently earned Information Technology degree to the repair of the orphanage’s web site… oh yeah, and eat more black currant jam.
posted by Erhardt at 8:07 PM
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