I've just talked to my Inessa, who's now at home studying. She proposed that we see a Charlie Chaplin film while munching takeaway pizza. We have so little time now, we resort to stealing snatches of it instead of making it. We've been having a bit of difficulty adjusting to each other's schedule, mainly due as I see it to a sense of overambition or optimism on our parts to squeeze as much as we can into a 24-hour day. For the meantime, we have reached a modus vivendi. Tonight, at least, I've agreed to go to her flat so that we can spend a bit of time together side by side. Admittedly this is not the kind of quality time I have in mind whenever the idea of being together pops into my workaholic mind. For the moment there's little else to do but to carry on, or as Americans say, get over it. (Maybe I should just read up a bit on Kazan, where I plan to spend our second long weekend in the coming fortnight.)
Anyway, today was marked by at least a couple of things. The first was the logical conclusion to my report yesterday about the first snow falling and a freeze settling over the city. Still it took me by surprise in the morning, when I peered out to the backyard from my kitchen window: masses of the white fluffy stuff falling from the heavens. It didn't stop until way past lunch hour. From my oversized wooden-framed Soviet-style windows at work I glanced occasionally at the seemingly interminable descent of snow, snow and more snow.
"It's beautiful," remarked my boss' teenage son, now back on a weeklong furlough from final year lyceé in Sophia Antipolis, a technopark founded in the 1970s between Nice and Cannes on the French Riviera. "Especially when the snow's freshly laid, before it gets covered with footprints," said Fidel, sounding almost wistful - suprising for a young man his age who normally eschews putting on overt displays of sentimentality. "But don't you think it's also lovely when there are solitary prints leading out the gate?" I countered, pointing at the visitors' entrance. "Yeah, Darius'", he retorted, somewhat recovering his bluster in referring to the house Yorkshire terrier (named after the first and most accomplished in a line of Persian kings, added to their family after my boss' previous posting in Tehran). Pronounced properly of course in Farsi as "Dâriûsh".
By late afternoon, snow had turned into sleet and by early evening, rain. Even though I found my car covered with snow, it was easy to slide it off Balios as the drizzle had made the snow water-logged and heavy. On our sidelane puddles formed in the depressions between the pavement and the road itself, making it inconvenient and uncomfortable for pedestrians.
The second event was choir practice. As I may have mentioned, I attended chorale rehearsals last week for the first time in five weeks. There I met Anne and Ian, two Scots newly arrived in Moscow. Apart from Andrew, there weren't any tenors around so it was rather difficult to conceal myself in that rather sparse gathering from Sasha's increasingly shrill expressions of displeasure. This time, even though I had to hurry home to feed Mishinka first and to get my music notes before going to the Gymnasium No 14 along Novinsky Bulvar, I still managed to arrive at rehearsals at 19:15 - quite an accomplishment all considered. In fact the choir was still doing the usual warmup vocalizations, which I never really caught last season because we were perennially at least a half-hour late for practice.
What pleased me a lot was seeing Nicole and - yes - Jennifer back. Nicole, of course, has always been here, working now for the British Embassy. But she hadn't been to rehearsal herself for two weeks. As for Jennifer, it was a surprise to see her visiting from Kiev, where she moved to in July. Apart from them, Andrew was there, as well as new members from France, Finland and Norway. Tom, our American baritone, was so surprised to see so many tenors at one time. I hadn't seen Stéphane for a while as well. It was just like in the early part of the year, when I first joined. Quite a warm feeling it gives you.
Anyway, today was marked by at least a couple of things. The first was the logical conclusion to my report yesterday about the first snow falling and a freeze settling over the city. Still it took me by surprise in the morning, when I peered out to the backyard from my kitchen window: masses of the white fluffy stuff falling from the heavens. It didn't stop until way past lunch hour. From my oversized wooden-framed Soviet-style windows at work I glanced occasionally at the seemingly interminable descent of snow, snow and more snow."It's beautiful," remarked my boss' teenage son, now back on a weeklong furlough from final year lyceé in Sophia Antipolis, a technopark founded in the 1970s between Nice and Cannes on the French Riviera. "Especially when the snow's freshly laid, before it gets covered with footprints," said Fidel, sounding almost wistful - suprising for a young man his age who normally eschews putting on overt displays of sentimentality. "But don't you think it's also lovely when there are solitary prints leading out the gate?" I countered, pointing at the visitors' entrance. "Yeah, Darius'", he retorted, somewhat recovering his bluster in referring to the house Yorkshire terrier (named after the first and most accomplished in a line of Persian kings, added to their family after my boss' previous posting in Tehran). Pronounced properly of course in Farsi as "Dâriûsh".
By late afternoon, snow had turned into sleet and by early evening, rain. Even though I found my car covered with snow, it was easy to slide it off Balios as the drizzle had made the snow water-logged and heavy. On our sidelane puddles formed in the depressions between the pavement and the road itself, making it inconvenient and uncomfortable for pedestrians.
The second event was choir practice. As I may have mentioned, I attended chorale rehearsals last week for the first time in five weeks. There I met Anne and Ian, two Scots newly arrived in Moscow. Apart from Andrew, there weren't any tenors around so it was rather difficult to conceal myself in that rather sparse gathering from Sasha's increasingly shrill expressions of displeasure. This time, even though I had to hurry home to feed Mishinka first and to get my music notes before going to the Gymnasium No 14 along Novinsky Bulvar, I still managed to arrive at rehearsals at 19:15 - quite an accomplishment all considered. In fact the choir was still doing the usual warmup vocalizations, which I never really caught last season because we were perennially at least a half-hour late for practice.
What pleased me a lot was seeing Nicole and - yes - Jennifer back. Nicole, of course, has always been here, working now for the British Embassy. But she hadn't been to rehearsal herself for two weeks. As for Jennifer, it was a surprise to see her visiting from Kiev, where she moved to in July. Apart from them, Andrew was there, as well as new members from France, Finland and Norway. Tom, our American baritone, was so surprised to see so many tenors at one time. I hadn't seen Stéphane for a while as well. It was just like in the early part of the year, when I first joined. Quite a warm feeling it gives you.
