Be, me Monchies and me spent countless hours and countful Rubels riding on Metro, Yellow Такси and Lada to get around in this 15-million-people city up until August 12 when we finally got what we CRaVed for. Very little of those countless hours and countful Rubels were for sightseeing, if any. We hopped in, hopped out, jumped on and jumped off those public transport mainly running errands.
Not having our own vehicle was probably my main excuse reason to why the household had gone broomless for the longest time in Enida’s history! I didn’t have the heart to stuff a broom or a mop between myself and the Monchies in the back seat of a cute lil old Lada. Nor did I have the heart to ride a Metro with a broom between my legs. I would be at risk of disclosing my secret bourne identity – so far only Sofia the backdoor-neighbor’s daughter knows. Oh yeah, I do have a cauldron in my pantry. (Witch is for me to blog another day about.)
Granted all the papers required to be legal in this bitter-chocolate-bitter-cold country, we then spent countless hours and countful Rubels trying to purchase a vehicle. Looking back at it now, I did not mind the countable Kopecks. But I counted the uncountable hours – waiting for everything. And guess what took the longest? Paying. Yes, paying! For a country that loves money, it sure took us a long time to buy than to shop. I assume your definition of buying and shopping is similar to mine:
buying
-paying and taking the purchased item home
shopping
-looking, contemplating, choosing, trying, making my mind up, changing my mind, looking some more, contemplating some more, choosing some more, trying some more, making excuses to not make my mind up, changing my excuses, repeating the whole process until the right time comes for ME to do the buying
Anyway, it’s all done now and whatever lessons waiting to be learned have been learned. Including a lesson I learned about balloons, right on the doorstep of the car dealer’s showroom. Yes, balloons. I am not kidding you, nor am I concocting any baloney on you.
Those countless hours at the showroom were the farthest cry from what you would label action-packed. But hoy! Were they ever lesson-packed! I learned that no matter how komenes these Russians would want us to see them as, and no matter how they want you to think they can skin your head… they love children. They would offer anything they have and anything they can to kids that come in close propinquity with them. Candies, chocolates, lollies, cookies, sooshka, little toys, balloons… you name it. You’ll end up with a list longer than the TranSiberian rail tracks.
So when Miss Svetlana Mikhailovna Dostoevsky took all the trouble of filling two balloons with helium and handed them to Kitreena and Edrick… I was touched. Not overly surprised. Touched, more than anything. And I caught her smiling watching me Monchies playing with the balloons happily in between Jazz, Mugen, Accord and Pilot show models. She even made a loop on the ribbon tying the balloon to each Monchie’s wrist. Very thoughtful indeed.
When the dealing was done and it was time to go home wait for a taxi outside, the kids learned that the loop was absolutely more than necessary. But of course, the one lesson I know so well about kids… they always persist on pushing the boundaries. They don’t believe what safe is until they know what risky means. And my boy insisted on taking the risk by taking his wrist out of the loop. I must have warned him about the risk of losing the balloon 15 times within the first 2 minutes of saying ‘no’. It was, for Lenin’s sake, a windy afternoon!
I don’t think it takes a Russian intelligence to guess what the next lesson was and learned by whom, kharasyo? Sure enough, the red balloon fled Edrick’s hand in approximately 2 minutes and 15 seconds after he took it off from his wrist! I tried to grab it but to no success. Edrick cried the saddest cry I had ever seen that windy afternoon! He knew he lost it – the balloon, the fun, the chance. It was then that I came to my senses as to why I never liked balloons! They pop, they fly away. They never stay! I learned that I have probably lost many chances in my life just because I had been so afraid of losing!
The balloon, I had to tell Edrick, had gone to the balloons’ heaven, where all balloons eventually go. And that was after my unsuccessful attempt of telling him that the balloon had flown to the moon. Edrick, the little einstein rascal demanded I got him a rocket!
Just when I thought there was enough learned for one day, another lesson came knocking on my Sense & Sensibility Door, introducing herself as Miss Second Chance. She came just a few hours earlier as Lady Kindness, wearing Miss Svetlana Mikhailovna Dostoevsky’s face. It was a no-wonder that she looked delightfully familiar. Here she was, with another balloon, same color, same loop, same smile.
And so Edrick got his second chance, his second balloon, from the same lady! She must have been watching me Monchies from inside (or above, or somewhere!) I was just about ready to jump on her to give her the biggest Russian hug an Asian can ever give, but I knew it was a bit too much. I thanked her with a million spasibas profusedly, nonetheless, as I was boarding the taxi.
Two kilometers down the road, Edrick’s second balloon popped!
Questa è Enida 
Kesiannn Edrick.. Dia nangis tak after the 2nd balloon popped??
If I were in the same taxi, sure jatuh jantung bila belon tu meletup.. huiyoooo.. cannot imagine!
He didn’t cry. I did! Because he quickly tried to pick up all the pieces and asked me to put it back together again. I was so worried at first sebab memang I had the tiat that it was going to pop. And when it did, I was angry sebab terkejut. Lepas tu I was sad to see that he could not understand the ‘unluckiness’ he had to endure all in one afternoon.
The taxi driver ‘jumped’ terkejut bila the balloon popped right next to his ear. I dah agak se’sangat. In fact, in all morbidity, sebelum balloon tu meletup… I actually imagined the taxi driver was going to lose control of the steering wheel and we were going to end up in the ditch! Well, what d’ya know. I lived to tell the tale!