One Year Later

So, it's October 31st, and I'm in my office behind my closed door, scrambling to get an entire curriculum edited in time for a deadline tomorrow. I'm in a tight battle with my computer, my editor and time, and suddenly someone starts banging on the doors.

I wince. I know it can only be Denyse or Paul. Only they know they can get away with such behavior. :)

I don't even have the time to grind out a "come in" before a man in period dress enters. I'm not sure. It's some sort of colonial garb, with a white wig, hat, tall boots, ruffle collar and of course, the ubiquitous sword.

I look at him. I recognize him. I stare at his face. But I can't figure out who he is. I stare. I stare and stare.

"MAN!" he moans and walks out. I hear him jokingly complaining that New Yorkers are so jaded, they don't respond to costumes any more.

I ponder his identity. And then I realize it's Paul. Whom I work with day after day, and have for the past 3.5 years.

He's shaved his beard.

It makes such a difference.

To think, had he kept his beard, I would have commented (or even noticed!!) that he was dressed out of another century. But without his beard, I could only fixate on his eyes and his stubble and wonder who the hell he was!

And so another Halloween passes with my ignorance. Not unlike the last time. :)

Oh, Paul, on the phone:

Another Culinary Disaster

On the Dessert Richter Scale, or perhaps it's time we ceded to reality and named it the Ruther Scale, the tally is bleak.

Despite being able to finnagle good key lime pie, tiramisu, chocolate cheesecake, pecan bundles and even chocolate truffles, I am bedeviled by such infamous culinary faux pas as sweet gunk, chocolate frittata crunch, cheese fluff crater and my first effort at chocolate truffles. (Okay, my first several efforts at chocolate truffles.)

And now we can add chocolate cake to the list of my failures.

When Erin came home yesterday, she eyed the cake. She couldn't believe that chocolate cake could be ruined by any chef, regardless of their credentials in botching desserts. *slow smile*

But that was before she tasted my chocolate cake. She assured me, as she carved herself a piece, that it could not possibly be bad. And then she took a bite and chewed. She looked up at me.

And she began to laugh.

She took another bite, and hadn't swallowed before she started giggling again. She simply couldn't say an affirmative, positive word.

Finally, after many attempts to say something before busting out in laughter, she assured me that although it did not taste like chocolate cake, with a different name it might not seem bad. I forget what she came up with.

And so we have another renamed dessert, thanks to my ability to create astounding culinary failures in the field of baking.

It's just so sad, because I come from such good baking stock! My mom's a BRILLIANT baker, and a fantastic cook, period.

Oh well. This apple fell far from the apple pie.

When a Colleague Tells You He Has a Brain Tumor...

So, a really fun colleague of mine recently informed the staff that he had a brain tumor and would be in hospital the following week to have it removed.

Now, he's the kind of guy who's always up for a laugh. ALWAYS. And always looks at the positive. He's actually had cancer before and survived, and I think that his strength comes from his positive outlook and his insistence on living life with a laugh.

When he told the staff, there was a deep silence. No-one really knew what to say, and I think all of us were in shock and praying he would be fine. You don't expect the person most full of life to die first, but that's a very real possibility.

Being me, I broke the silence with a quip: "Honestly, I can't believe the depths you'll go to to get time off work!"

***

Before he went in for surgery, he had time to play one more prank on me.

On the Day of Rest

I was working on Saturday, and as some of you may know, I work in a Jewish organization. There was therefore doubly no godly reason for me to pick up the phone when it rang, but I did.

I didn't recognize the voice on the other end of the line. The man introduced himself as a representative from a Jewish organization in a certain city in the US. I cursed myself for picking up the phone, and affected good cheer as I asked him how I could help. Well, he tells me, he is interested in us doing research and training in his city. "Oh, how wonderful!" I remark, mentally bashing my head on my desk. Yes, he answers, and says in fact he's in town and was wondering if we have any staff in Brooklyn with whom he could talk to more about it. I'm shocked at his audacity. Not only is he calling on Shabbat--which is forbidden officially--but now he's wanting to work, which is actually the real thing God is supposed to have forbidden on Shabbat, and he's wanting one of our staff to take off time from their weekend to work with him!! I respond with alacrity and invite him to our offices in Manhattan, again cursing that I ever picked up the phone since I clearly will not be accomplishing any of the work I actually planned to blow my weekend on. But..he pauses..the thing is, he informs me, is that he's in Brooklyn and doesn't feel comfortable driving on Shabbat.

I almost die. I am flabbergasted. This is a man who heads a Jewish institution, who is calling another one on Shabbat, and who is wanting to work on Shabbat, but who won't drive on Shabbat??? My jaw drops. I literally can't articulate a word. Now, in this job I've often thought to myself that Jews are crazy, but now I know it for a fact.

I'm still hearing his words repeat in my head when he speaks again. I don't hear it. He repeats, "and can we have the first consultation in the nude?"

And then the light cracks. "RICHARD!!!!! You #$%**^@!!!!!!" I holler. And then I check, more professionally--"richard?" Yes indeed, I have been fooled. And I vowed to get him back. :)

**
He returned on Thursday, looking none the worse for wear, which is incredible. He was quite himself.

On Wednesday, my friend and colleague Denyse and I had gotten a little prank into our heads. With a pleasure that is possibly inappropriate to feel while in one's workplace, we got our butts into gear to launch:

Project Troll

Now it so happened that Denyse had recently gotten a new keychain. Several years back, you see, she had accidentally dropped her keys down the elevator shaft. (Stop smirking--you know you've worried about doing that, too!)

As a result, she insists on buying the hugest, lumpiest, least discreet objects to connect to her keys. Recently, I swear to you, it was a long, squiggly soft monkey thing that, had it been structured to stand upright, would reach up to her thighs. Yeah.

Anyway, her last squidgy toy apparently kept falling off, so she'd bought a little troll doll.

And that's when the evil plot gelled. I looked at the troll, it looked at me. It was...instant.


And so Denyse and I began posing this little troll doll in the office, and I began snapping shots of it like some sort of Vogue photographer on crack. We got the shots developed, and then the hard part...making sure Richard didn't enter his office while I was still in it...preparing.

I grabbed another colleague and implored her to keep him out--I don't care what you do, I said, you can tell him sobbingly that you're considering a sex change, you can tell him you're thinking of quitting, anything...just keep him out while I'm in there!

And then we hastily replaced all of his family photographs--and he has a good seven beautiful shots of his two kids--with pictures of this purple-haired troll. *snicker* And added one on the cabinet in a new magnetic frame.

I can't tell you the pleasure it gave us. :)

And we exchanged each and every single one, so he literally kept finding them all day :) I don't know if he's found the cabinet one yet... :)


--> to see more pictures of him (and as soon as I can post it, also a picture of Richard's desk with our "little" changes), go to the "My Online Photo Album" link on the right, under the link to Kasia's blog :) That brings you to my photo sets; you can click on "Office Prank" to see the photos of this particular exploit :)

Apparently the secret international sign of “quitting” is to pantomime mooning someone.

More details as they emerge.

Picture Woes

So, I've shot what may be one of my favourite photos. Yet for some reason it prints awfully. Are digitals supposed to develop badly, or is there a technological snafu to blame? Does anyone know?

Down the Drain

What killed Politkovskaya?

Viktor Erofeyev International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2006-->Published: October 11, 2006

MOSCOW The contract killing of Anna Politkovskaya, the 48- year-old independent Russian journalist known above all for her articles on the war in Chechyna, can already now be accorded the status of a historic killing. It will enter the history of the Russian state as a monstrous but sadly logical event.

The killing comes at a moment of Russian history when those in power, having done so much over the past seven years to limit criticism of the authorities, are finally enjoying tangible triumph: Anna Politkovskaya, a specialist in investigating political crimes in Russia, had been an endangered species.

The ranks of dauntless journalists ready to speak fearlessly of those in power is thinning. Some have begun sidling up to the authorities, others have taken up less dangerous topics. In these circumstances, Anna Politkovskaya had become a unique phenomenon - and an exposed target. If there were hundreds of such journalists in Russia, her killing would have made no sense.

I am convinced that her killer was, first and foremost, the paucity of freedoms in Russia. The lack of freedom killed freedom - this is where the sad logic of her killing comes from, no matter who is behind it.

Lack of freedom spawns lawlessness: Russia has fostered numerous vindictive, unpunished people indignant that someone dares to point a finger at them and to say that their actions are criminal. At the same time, authoritarian power always fragments into clans, and the accusations of an independent journalist can be a priceless weapon in the battle of clans or for the liquidation of political rivals.

Anna was killed by the impenetrable fog of secrecy of Russian rule. This was a killing with several levels, in which the executioner, who negligently left his image in a baseball cap on the security camera, played the least role.

Anna was buried at Moscow's Troekurov cemetery, a sort of branch of the famous Novodevichy cemetery where the big bosses lie. This has its historic paradox, a mixing of the styles of different eras. Stalin, after eliminating yet another of his comrades, liked to give them magnificent funerals.

No living leaders were spotted at this funeral. There were, to be sure, former leaders from the time of Yeltsin; the shards of Russian democracy. I felt as if I had returned to the Soviet Union. Hundreds of people who came to say farewell to Anna looked not only crushed, but also helpless. The mourners were shown their real place, as people without rights, who will be told only what the authorities want them to know.

They shot at Anna, they hit Russia. They shot at a courageous woman, the mother of two children; they killed many of the hopes for the future of the country.

The killing undermined the international reputation of Russia. Actually this worries Russia less and less. What remains is only the semblance of concern. Russia seeks justification more and more within itself, passing its backwardness and lack of competitiveness off as its unique nature.
In principle, Politkovskaya's role amounted to finding ways to modernize Russia and adapting them to moral norms. Everything else she exposed as savagery, corruption or simply incompetence. Her voice became ever more strident not because she was enraged, but because the problems of the country, whether the plight of the Army, or the war in Chechnya, or the rise of one-man rule, or the growth of nationalism, were becoming ever more complicated, even insoluble. The knot of these problems, that's what killed Politkovskaya.

Her death coincided with Vladimir Putin's birthday and the official eruption of anti-Georgia sentiment, which cannot but frighten ethnic minorities in Russia. Putin, whose policies Politkovskaya openly disliked, was right when he said after her death that her impact on Russian politics was minimal. If we take into account that Politkovskaya represented an unrealizable idea of Russian civil society, then Putin's comment verges on hopelessness.

Russia wants to see itself as big and beautiful. And it resents those who, even out of sober love for the country, prevent it from giving in to illusions.

Viktor Erofeyev is a Russian writer. This article was translated from the Russian by the IHT.

Awful Continuation of a Nasty Trend...

October 6, 2006
Moscow Police Seek Georgian Kids' Names
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:50 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- Moscow police have asked schools to provide lists of children with Georgian surnames, education officials said Monday. Police denied making the request, which brought a new and chilling reminder of growing xenophobia amid Russia's escalating campaign against neighboring Georgia.

Russia also deported 132 Georgian citizens on a plane from Moscow after detaining them as illegal migrants, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said. His ministry, which is flying Russians out of Georgia, was charged with organizing the deportation flight.
The two countries have been locked in a bitter dispute since the arrest last week of four Russian officers on charges of spying. Despite their release, Moscow has imposed a range of punitive sanctions on its small southern neighbor as well as launching a crackdown on Georgian migrants and businesses in Russia.

Alexander Gavrilov, a spokesman for the Moscow City hall's education department, told The Associated Press that some of the capital's schools had received the request for children with Georgian names. He criticized the police action, saying that all children, irrespective of nationality or religion, had an equal right to education.

''If the law enforcement bodies carry out work searching for illegal migrants, it's their business and there is no way schools must be involved in this process,'' the official said.

Nina Zubareva, an official from school No. 1289 in northern Moscow, told the AP that on Thursday, the local police station telephoned and demanded a list of pupils with Georgian surnames.

''There are very few pupils with Georgian surnames in our school and we have honored the police request. I must say that our pupils are Russian citizens and have Moscow registration. Their families have been living in Moscow for years,'' she said.

Moscow police denied it had told schools to list their pupils of Georgian origin.

''We did not issue any such instructions, nor do we plan to,'' police spokesman Valery Gribakin told Ekho Mosvky radio, despite the educators' accounts.

But the Kommersant newspaper quoted a high-ranking police official who confirmed the measures.

The official was quoted as saying that checking for illegal migrants ''is easiest to do through children, who study at school irrespective of whether their parents are registered in Moscow or pay taxes.''

Meanwhile, several dozen Georgians crowded in front of their country's consulate in central Moscow, many seeking help in returning home after Russia on Tuesday severed all air, sea, road, rail and postal links with its southern neighbor. Others complained that their friends and relatives had been detained and harassed by police.

On Thursday, Russia said it would abolish quotas allowing a certain number of Georgians each year to obtain residency and work permits. Several Georgian-run casinos and restaurants in Moscow have been raided and closed for alleged regulatory violations.

Inna Bashkirova said her brother was detained outside the consulate on suspicion of lacking a valid residence permit, although he is married to a Russian and has his documents in order. Nevertheless, police accused him of faking the documents, took him to a police station and were filling out a deportation form.

''They're crushing people, they're destroying families. They used to persecute Jews like this. Now it's the Georgians' turn,'' she said.

According to some estimates, around 1 million Georgians -- more than a fifth of Georgia's population -- work in Russia, and their families rely on the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual remittances sent home. Russian authorities say that more than half of Georgians in Russia are working illegally.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko said Georgia had to end its ''anti-Russian'' behavior if it wanted the dispute to calm down.

''Russia does not want to be provoked, Russia wants to be respected. Russia wants the anti-Russian campaign to stop,'' he said.

Bilateral relations have grown progressively worse since pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in Georgia after the 2003 Rose Revolution and vowed to move his country out of Russia's sphere of influence and join NATO and the European Union.

On Friday, the Russian parliament's lower house ratified an agreement on the withdrawal of Russia's two remaining military bases in Georgia. The agreement also must be endorsed by the upper house. Russia agreed last year to close the bases in Akhalkalaki and Batumi by the end of 2008.