Leaving for Belarus and Baby Name

In which I practice being a sober Russian.

So its 1 AM or so, and we're leaving for the airport at 4. I dont see the point of going to bed, so after I post this, I am going to pick up crap around the house so I dont have come home to it. I might drink some coffee after that. I've already colored my har, so no one will know I have more grey hair than before. Gifts are purchased, bags are packed, and we're just putzing around waiting for the appointed hour. We're flying to New York, then rechecking our bags with Aeroflot and flying to Moscow, and then Minsk on Belavia. I dont like Belavia. I'm always on a flight with someone who looks like they are in the Russian mafia and that makes me nervous. I'm pretty sure I wont have happy things to say about Aeroflot, either. But maybe I'll be surpised.

I'll be reading Homer's Oddysey again, and The Idiot by Dostoevsky. I like to read a Russian novel in Eastern Europe. I like to see some of the books minor details in a new light. Last time I read Anna Karenina and was actually on a train when I read the end of the book, and the time before that, Crime and Punishment, which was a huge psychological mistake. I assumed everyone I met was out to get me after reading that. It was pretty intense. People already assume I'm an idiot, so I should be safe hopefully.

I dont know if I'll post pictures. I'll have my fancy pants camera, and I'll be taking pictures of obscure soviet proganda art I secretly admire, and of course our favorite people, some of whom cannot appear on this blog. But the kiddies will for sure, and my sister in law. And of course if I should have the opportunity to meet the illustrious leader of the last regime in Europe, I guess I'll post that. I'm always on the lookout for him....I saw his motorcade last time, which was an adventure in itself.

Baby Business-the middle name conundrum.
We named the baby. He'll be called Lev Alexeivich Starchenko. We're going to give him a middle name as well, so his name can represent both his American and Russian heritage. Some people like to pick a name that has deep signifcance, but really, we both liked Lev when we found it in a baby name book. But there is not any deep significance to it. In Hebrew it means joined to or appointed to, so one could argue that Lev is being joined to us by God, but thats a little ambitious in my mind. We liked the name, we both agreed it was a good strong sounding name and we settled on it.

But we havent decided on a middle name. We have a sort of list right now:

Adam - family name. We kind of like this.
Charles- not in favor of this.
William- I cant remember now why we picked this. Alex thinks its ok, I am not sold on it.
Alyward- after Gladys Alyward the missionary. Alex has nixed this completely.
Tobias- not popular with Alex.
Thaddeus- also not popular with A.

We might end up with no American middle name. It's all very speculative right now and we have 3 months or so to figure it out.

Now I'm just plotting how to get an ultrasound picture of him....