Day 109 of my 47th year

The morning started with the commotion of getting Sonya ready for camp. I made oatmeal for the girls for breakfast; as usual, Leia ate everything, Sonya did not. At 11:30 we drove to Izmailovo to drop Sonya off at the BKC language camp for the fall session. Sonya was very happy; she was in unit 5. Leia wanted to go to camp too =) On the way back we stopped at a market, where I bought melon, fruit, and vegetables while Masha and Leia stayed in the car.

After camp, I went to my office on Baumanskaya, which we were moving out of that day. The landlord decided to terminate the lease early, but that actually worked in my favor — how long can you keep paying rent for nothing? I have to admit that I was basically using the office as a storage space for unnecessary things, and both the office and the unnecessary things are no longer needed. I met up with Sasha S.; he had come with a friend, and while waiting for the landlady we went to Mu-Mu for a snack. I sinned with fried dumplings and cranberry tea.

My packing mostly consisted of reviewing documents dating back to 2012 and destroying them. The only things left were my space-age Herman Miller Mirra chair (which Maksik had his eye on) and some IKEA odds and ends that I am not planning to leave behind. I removed the hard drive from the old computer and left the computer itself to be thrown away. I have many different emotions tied to that office, mostly positive ones. The packing dragged on a bit, and Masha had an appointment for treatments, so we agreed she would bring Leia to me. Leia was the only one of the kids who had never been to my office. In the end, on the last day, she finally visited, stepping through the little door just like Misha, Nastya, and Sonya once did. Very touching. Then the nanny Katya came and took Leia, and Masha came to help me. Together we carried the rest of the things to the car. I said goodbye to the office.

Back home we unloaded everything and were about to go to the pool, but first we went to look at sofas. The previous Sunday’s scenario repeated itself, except that this time we made it to the store and only started arguing on the way out. The two of us probably need some kind of relaxation course. Things have piled up and we take our anger out on each other. In the end we more or less made peace and went to test sofas with our butts. I really liked one of them — very high-tech, large, and moderately soft. The one Masha liked, I liked too; it was veeeery soft. There was another one Masha liked that I was not too impressed with, but it was extremely expensive and incredibly large. So we need to think about it. After the store, Masha took the subway home and I drove to Atlant to swim. I lazily did 1,100 meters freestyle; my back hurt a lot. Unfortunately the sauna had shut off, so I warmed up afterward in the cooling warm room. On the way home I chatted with Misha and GN. They were at Animal Kingdom. GN was very happy; it was nice to see her surrounded by grandchildren in a beautiful park.

In the evening we had dinner at home, I cleaned up the kitchen, put Leia to bed, and we started watching The Two Popes. It was excellent, but we did not finish it — we fell asleep halfway through.