On Thursday, 19th of July, my sister and her husband had their first baby, a boy. They haven't decided on a name yet. The baby was delivered by C-section. My sister was 2 weeks past due, and the labor was nowhere on the horizon: she wasn't dilated at all. The doctor said it was time to get the baby out. My sister hoped to have her labor induced, ( Read more... )

Yesterday I got an email from a Lithuanian guy. I don't know him, nor does he know me. The reason he emailed me was: he found my photos on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/elzes/), noticed that their author was a Lithuanian expat and a programmer living in the US; thought it was ( Read more... )

Anyway, my sister's wedding gave me an opportunity to see a Russian Orthodox church service for the first time. I noticed some curious differences between Russian Orthodox wedding rites and a "generic" church wedding ceremony. (Disclaimer: my impression of a "generic" wedding was derived from a small, biased and unrepresentative sample of weddings ( Read more... )

My sister got married yesterday. The wedding took place at the least expected location. Well, actually, I've known about it for quite a while -- it's just that I was surprised when she first told me her plans. She got married in a Russian Orthodox church, even though she is neither. :-) Her choice would seem pretty odd to most people, given that ( Read more... )

Mom and sister are continuing to be very stressed. Or have been until 11:30 pm tonight -- the eve of the wedding -- when they finally picked up their dresses from the seamstress. There were errands to be run last minute and no time to run them. Some of them, I think, will remain un-run, and the wedding will proceed regardless and no one will be the ( Read more... )

On Sunday my sister, her boyfriend, Steve and I went for dim sum to Tea House. For Marta and Pasha this was the first time they had dim sum. They liked the food very much, but Pasha (my sister's boyfriend) wondered why isn't it served buffet-style, instead of waiters rolling the carts with dishes from table to table. I said a buffet would be more ( Read more... )

On Friday night my sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner. Steve cooked tofu curry for them, and just to make sure they got their full dose of phyto-estrogens, I sprang a tofu pie upon the unsuspecting guests. My sister deemed it to be "light and doesn't taste like tofu", the two main virtues of a tofu pie. (Well, she also said it was tasty ( Read more... )

My sister Marta and her boyfriend Pasha are currently in the US on vacation, and they are spending a few days in Austin. Then they will be heading to California where Pasha has an older friend (of my parents' generation, AFAIK) who he met when he studied in the US a few years ago, IIRC. (I have to substitute lots of acronyms for my crappy memory ( Read more... )