check!

Today our school, which backs onto the naval academy, has to be emptied by 3:20 p.m. because there was a chance President Medvedev would visit. That worked for me! Today was the day I had to meet with my (lovely, lovely) Russian sw to hand in my paperwork.

I went it, paperwork in bag, a block over to meet with E. I found the building AND the door and went inside. Smiling broadly, I politely greeted the receptionist, "Hello. I speak Russian very badly. My name is Kate C." "Aah. You want E." "Yes! Thank you."

We found her, she had the form ready for me to fill in (and even had a typed copy of what I needed to write). I did, we reviewed my "many papers", and she gave me a document about my ppr's. (I told her I understand. You come to my house. You watch the girl. You say, "Excellent girl!" Documents and papers... She laughed and agreed.) Then came the part that you'll be so proud of me for pulling off smoothly. I gave her a bottle of wine!

See, I've been asking friends at school how to do the "mandatory gifting". I don't know how to do that. I don't even tip well. But, what I've learned is that you simply bring out the gift at the end after everything is finished and say "with a bright, open face" This is for you! I did vary from the script and simply said (with a bright, open face) Thank you so much!

(I did a little practice run by buying a duplicate bottle of the wine for my friend M who helps me SO much and won't let me do anything for her. I gave it to her and asked her to just taste it since I don't drink wine. I told her I didn't want to give the sw a bad bottle of wine. Ha! Even she was impressed with my gifting.)

We had a little chit-chat about d2b (gender, age, and it's a good thing) and then I left. On the way out, I saw a bucket outside her door with some carnations in it. I think wine trumps carnations.

Remember she said that this review would take it while? She said to call her next Tuesday.

I love Russian bureaucracy. I seem to navigate it much more smoothly.