On our last day in Novokuznetsk, I lost my eyeglasses (not shades, real glasses) somewhere between the baby house and the hotel. After looking thru everything about 10 times I finally accepted they were simply not there. I figured they could be somewhere in the van (taxi) we had been using and will check first thing when it came to take us to the airport in the morning. The temperature had been hovering 1 degree and 4 degrees Celsius, and the roads and streets were messy and slushy, and... our van got stuck somewhere so he had to get us a different vehicle. So much for my last hope. I told Natasha, our coordinator, gave her the case and a $20 bill, and she said she'd let me know as soon as she found it. It's even hard for our agency here in the states to get information from Siberia, so I wasn't very hopeful of that, but she promised she'd mail it.
After waiting about 2 weeks, I decided to make an appointment right after Easter to get new glasses. We had gone home (to Baker) for the Easter holidays, and when we got back, there was a box for me from someone named M. Goldstein from Boca Raton, Florida. Very curiously, I opened it and .... you guessed it, it was the case, my glasses AND the $20 inside, along with a letter.
Michelle Goldstein was there right after us, same baby house to meet a little girl. Natasha told her about the glasses and the unreliable Russian mail system, and she offered to take them home and UPS them from Florida. And now we are in contact, keeping each other updated on our adoptions!
An interesting aside: my parents were in Florida at the time she mailed them, in Fort Lauderdale, which is 1/2 hour south from Boca Raton.
No comments:
Post a Comment