The Russians are coming and they want to FEED you and FIX everything!

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, but instead of landing a submarine off the coast of Massachusetts (or getting it stuck in the mud) they are flying in via New York’s JFK to Chicago’s ORD. And instead of the locals fearing an invasion we sent out a greeting party. In fact my live in Russian RB, drove to meet me in Milwaukee and we drove down to Chicago the next day to pick up her folks from the airport. It was around $500 cheaper per person to have them fly in there and we had to rent a car anyway, why not in Milwaukee. The first time I met the soon to be in-laws it was at after they had spent 2 days traveling to get to the states. Then they got to live the exciting drive from Chicago to Minneapolis. Welcome to America now we are going to drive 7 hours home!

The drive wasn’t that bad, I was lucky enough to be upgraded to a Chrysler 300c with all the options. Leather, sunroof, satellite radio, power everything, and a navigation system. So that was a bonus play. Traffic wasn’t bad and we made decent time, though I only understood ¼ of the conversation. Along the way we stopped at an Olive Garden and had some dinner. They liked it but were not that impressed. However it was a very long drive after 2 and ½ long weeks of work so I was exhausted by the end. In fact I think the father in law was a little worried that I would fall asleep at the wheel. Once we got home everyone pretty much crashed right away.

The fun began right away the next morning. I dropped RB off at work early, went to the gym and ran some errands. When I got back I tried to communicate with RB’s mom NB and I think we did a pretty good job of it. She was amazed that I went the morning without eating much and would not let me do this again while I was home on the weekend. In fact she loves to cook, 3, 4, 5 meals a day and for as many people that come over. You can’t complain the food is amazing and fresh. In fact the first thing we did when RB was done working was go to the grocery store. We filled a cart with more fresh vegetables, fruit, and butchered meat than I think I have bought in my trips to the store in the last year combined.

Most meals are built with three main components; fresh cut and cooked meat, fresh vegetables, and cooked potatoes, with some bread. Always good though, she boils things I would expect fried, fries things I expect baked, and bakes things I expect boiled so that all the meats have a different flavor than I am used to from the way I would normally prepare them. But she does cook a lot, and always thinks you should eat more! Every meal she tries to give me seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, I can’t eat enough to make her happy. So I assume that we won’t see many restaurants or go out much this month but that is ok. Come on over I bet she would love to feed you too!

More amazingly is RB’s dad’s attitude. SB wants to work on the house. He enjoys tinkering with everything so he wants projects to do. Actually he finds them on his own. The first thing he wanted to take care of was the squeaky doors. All of the doors in my house have the old style hinges with a pin used as a pivot for a piece of rolled metal on the door frame and the door. He went around and oiled all of the pins so the doors stopped squeaking. Next he wanted the screen door in the porch to close properly. So within two days of his arrival we cut a whole in the front porch’s floor to replace some rotten boards that kept the door from closing. He has also cleaned many of the floors and windows in the house. Now he wants the supplies to repaint the floor and wall in the front porch. The first task in this would be to sand down all of the old paint! I find it really amusing that this is what he finds to occupy his time!

So I have had many conversations, mostly through RB, with my soon to be in-laws and they are very nice and fun to hang out with. It is just interesting that instead of wanting to go out they want to do more domestic activities. What a vacation cooking, cleaning, and fixing up the house. I very much appreciate it but hope we can get them out and about for some more fun activities.