I am starting a mini-series of sorts. Every once in awhile, I’m going to be posting about some unique, out-of-the-ordinary museums that we have come across, whether at home, or in our travels. I’m sure that there are some near where you live, and in this economy, many families are opting for stay-cations, keeping close to home for any time off. Check out the treasures that are in your community. If it’s particularly germane, I will mention the exact museum location and name.

You see, I spent part of my early childhood in a very remote northern territory. There were birch trees, and bears, and lots of snow. People skated and went ice fishing. In early spring, we saw maple trees on tap with wooden buckets hanging to collect the delightful syrup. In the summer, residents went to small holiday homes to swim in freezing lakes. There was not a whole lot to do beyond these basics.

Occasionally, our family resorted to a small eatery offering chicken-in-a-basket. Now, this was a treat. (Only those of a certain era will identify with this unique culinary presentation featuring either a wicker or plastic basket and semi-waxed paper, upon which fried chicken and french fries were placed. For children before the time of fast food, it was heaven.)

Anyways, attached to this eatery, for a nominal Entrance Fee, was a Museum of Local Artifacts, prominently featuring a real “Shrunken Head!!!” Because of the gruesomeness of said item, children had to be over a certain age to glimpse its utter goriness. Unfortunately, I was never old enough, which I regret and disturbs me to this day….

I have always been interested in museums, whether whimsical and wacky, or straightforward and scientific. I remember visiting one museum in Calcutta where the bird droppings inside were so thick, it was difficult to see into certain glass cases. The upright ones more than made up for the soiled ones, as we examined the belly contents found in the Eastern Indian saltwater crocodile growing to sizes longer than 15 feet long and holding bracelets, anklets, and other jewelry and paraphernalia gobbled with its victims. Alright, it was a local holiday (Guru Nanak Day) and there was nothing else to do….

Most of these serendipitous “finds” have been discovered while trying to fill time—whether for myself, or for our children. There’s that strange pause, when you think you should be “doing” or “experiencing” something in your city or another, and yet, if you’re anything like me, you don’t want to join the masses at the usual, overcrowded sites. And hence, we find ourselves stepping into unique experiences that would not normally be on our Top Ten To Do lists.

This past week, I took the kids to a local archaeological museum. It was all of one room, and turned out to be more educational and informational than many museums boasting budgets in the millions. An elderly volunteer greeted us, while university interns worked on computers. We were taken through the steps of research, site evaluation and preparation, stratigraphy, tools, sifting of earth, collecting artifacts according to site squares, rinsing back at the lab, reconstruction of anything broken, photographing and publishing the findings.

On the drive there, we had one of the most lively discussions ever, with the children enjoying the idea of finding “treasure” hidden beneath the earth and what it could tell us about previous inhabitants.

“What would an archaeologist be looking for in a dig?” I challenge them.

“Deenozah’beree!” Sashenka shouts out, not yet having mastered the raise-your-hand and wait-to-be-called-on process.

“Dinosaurs? Good, but that’s more for a paleontologist, rather than an archaeologist….”

“Bones!” Pasha chimes in.

“Possibly, but again, an anthropologist might be the one interested in actual bones…. After someone dies, or if a home burns down, or a war is fought, what would inhabitants leave behind that would tell us something of their lives?” I suggest.

“Jewels!” Petya enthuses, always aiming high in life.

That’s my boy. He was obviously referring to my demise.

Once at the museum, they were a bit dismayed to learn that older privies (outhouses) were ideal dumping grounds for cast-off pottery, tools, and even weapons that were no longer in use. The four spent time at a favorite table, collecting plate pieces that had been smashed specifically so that children could try their hand at putting them back together again, like a real archaeologist would do.

We talked about the items that might typify our culture and again, they blossomed and came up with many insights. Usually, thinking creatively in a free-form fashion, stumped them. This time, I sensed real progress being made in a fun environment.

It took all of an hour in the museum itself. Several of the staff came to meet us, discussing the old handwriting found on a letter from long ago. They had me read it aloud to my four children, never imagining that mine were once orphans. It was from a son who was too young to run off to war, but had, anyway, against his father’s wishes. He begged for forgiveness and talked about how, should he survive the battles he faced, he would always value his family and respect his father. “If God lets me get home safe again, I will try to behave and mind my parents better than I have….”

Everyone grew a little misty-eyed. We were home in time for lunch, greatly benefited in more ways than one by visiting this diminutive display of a museum.

“Ah, the honeymoon phase…” other adoptive parents would smile benignly when they heard we had nary a problem with our first son from Russia. “Just wait.”

This common adoption legend persists to the present day: that children arrive after court, fresh-faced and angelic, and then a week later, or several months later, descend into the depths of whirling-dervish demon possession when the honeymoon phase is over.

Tell that to any adoptive parent whose child is screaming bloody murder in a hotel room all night long the first night, or wailing and kicking before stepping into a car for the first time, or heading out on an airplane, bound for who-knows-where with atomic diaper blow-outs. Those parents are still waiting for the honeymoon phase.

In our case with Petya, brought home at 7.5 years old, the honeymoon never ended. He was delightful and helpful, enthusiastic and energetic from Day 1. Our first morning home, he fed me the blueberries out of his yogurt, “Mama, taste this, it’s amazing!” and picked me wildflowers from our garden. I loved him unreservedly and unconditionally.

Our second son was adopted four years later at 11.75 years old, followed by our daughters arriving a year later at 8.5 and 11 years old. None of them believed in happily-ever-after honeymoons by the looks of things. Or, if this was their idea of a honeymoon, God help their future mates-!

No, they came to us pouty and problematic, and in Pasha’s and Sashenka’s cases, pretty pukey, as well. Anytime we were in a moving conveyence, the projectiles would hurl forth, which for a jet-setting family, was most of the time. There’s nothing like setting off for a new life in a new land while changing your daughter’s soaked and stinky clothes on the side of the highway in a freezing drizzle and then washing her matted hair in the airport sink… sans soap and sans paper towels.

So maybe the “honeymoon” was doomed from the start, lol. I learned to carry plastic bags in my purse at all times. With prayer, they overcame the motion-sickness, slowly but surely, along with the other pukey behaviors.

If it wasn’t coming out one end, then we had problems on the other. Some honeymoon. I broached the subject with Pasha, reported to be a bedwetter.

“Privyet, welcome to the family,” came my rehearsed speech. “Maybe you’ve never heard of it, but some children wet the bed at night. There is special underwear to put on so that the bed stays dry. Would you like some?” I asked as we entered our hotel suite.

“Nyet, spaseebah,” he replied, as though politely refusing another bit of caviar on toast points.

“Umm-hmm…” I didn’t give in so easily, for his sake, as well as mine. For some reason, I had been nominated to share the bed with him. “Maybe we should wear these ‘troosee’ at least for the first night…”

But he was adamant.

Fine. Far be it from me to embarrass the guy and treat him like a baby.

And thus, he awoke with a start in the early-morning hours as his urine saturated both himself and the hotel bedsheets.

Stripping them off immediately, I washed the sheets in the bathtub and miracle of miracles, they dried before any maids arrived.

These were the bumps in the road, the little surprises that surfaced after we were already committed for life. Benedetto and I had walked the aisle and said “I do” for these children before a Russian judge. For us, we had massive amounts of time, and money, and documents invested in these kids, whereas for them, it was a whim, another disconnected, disjointed event in their life that might turn into yet another detour. These were not kids on their “honeymoon”, on their best behavior for a week or so and headed for a specific destination in life. Instead, they continued their chaotic past into their present, letting it all hang out from the very first moment.

“Sashenka! What’s all this trash?!” I gasped in horror as I entered our Russian apartment’s living room. She had gathered water bottles, juice bottles, and assorted debris, playing with them, and then tossing them helter-skelter on the floor, rather than placing them in the trash bin. It looked like an alcoholic’s den.

Bingo.

“Here, let me help you put these in the trash. Do you know where the trash can is?” we walked together to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, we were ready to go out on some official appointment. My eyeballs nearly popped out at the elder sister’s getup.

“Mashenka! Stop rolling down your pants. I don’t care to see your popa…. And what’s on your face? You’re so pretty you don’t need makeup,” I say for the hundredth time in Moscow within days of taking custody. I have adopted a floozy, intent on having her front and back side hanging out of her clothes, as well as wearing heavy, cruddy old makeup no doubt retrieved from some garbage bin.

“No, Mama, they’re not rolled down, I swear it,” she says so innocently with the face of a liar. “Cosmetics? What cosmetics?”

We could only go up from here.

For these last three children, our love grew over time, more of an arranged marriage, getting-to-know-you phase, instead of any happy-go-lucky, swept-away honeymoon. We saw them trying to please, trying to fit in, trying to adapt to a new family… on the even days of odd-numbered months whenever the moon was not waxing nor waning. The good times gave us hope for the grueling times.

I’ve heard that a number of married couples take no honeymoon, preferring to wait until later for any celebratory travel. In our lifestyle, we travel, and we generally celebrate every step forward, great or small. So, I guess, in essence, every day is a honeymoon at our house.

Whether sooner or later, take time for a honeymoon. Enjoy what’s right about life and what’s cause for celebration. Make the honeymoon more than a passing phase, make it a way of life for the whole family. Bon voyage!

We give a lot of repeat business to the rental car companies whether at home or abroad. Problem is, we can rarely figure out how to classify the cars, as well as how to drive them.

“Why do you keep washing the windshield?” I asked Benedetto just a minute ago.

“I’m not trying to!” he informs me as we speed down the highway. “I’m looking for cruise control.”

It happens another five or six times as we laugh and have one of the cleanest, most bug-free windows possible on a hot, cloudless day.

They like to confuse the customers in foreign countries. It’s hard enough to figure out that 140 kilometers per hour is equal to something like 25 miles per hour, but I have had the good fortune of not knowing how to roll down the window. Try getting out of a parking garage by paying at the toll booth… and the window won’t roll down. I finally get other foreign office mates to come and inspect the car. Several men can’t figure it out, which makes me feel good. We look at the door panel, the dash board, everywhere and anywhere that a window could be activated. Nothing. At last, I take it back to one of the car rental offices and ask them. They think Alexandra is an idiot, since it’s so simple: right there on the center column between the two front seats, BEHIND THE GEAR SHIFT. Anyone sitting in the back seat can easily lower the window, but my arm does not extend back that far. Makes for an interesting week….

These are the minor glitches that come with most rental cars. It all begins when making the reservation. In many countries, the cars are classified by Sub-Compact, Compact, Economy, Mid-Size, Full-Size, Luxury or Premium, Mid-Size SUV, Full-Size SUV, and Mini-Van. Most of these are designed for Little People of the anorexic persuasion, if not smallish children over seven and under ten years of age who do not need bulky booster seats, and who are not yet full-sized. Should doggies Misha and Grisha take up driving, they might be able to stretch out their legs in a rental car. We, however, cannot.

There are six of us, two dogs, assorted school rucksacks, and a couple of small suitcases presently squished into the minivan of the day. My purse, alone, can barely fit into the front passenger-side seat with me. (What, you thought I’m writing this from the driver’s side?) And yet, under my feet is placed another tote bag full of books, CD-player, sewing kit, file folders, and other travel necessities. It’s my overflow bag of sorts, and it’s overflowing, for sure, all around my feet.

“If I’m not able to stand up after this drive,” I say to the kids, “somebody pry me outta here….”

They were only too willing to volunteer sacrificing their schoolwork to be left behind.

“Thank you, we’re not taking volunteers today,” I squeeze their arms, and thus, by unvolunteering their legroom, I volunteer my own legs to be cramped.

In Italy, we always had excellent outcomes with rental cars.

“Alfa Romeo?” Benedetto would smile upon first glimpse of a car. “Bellissima,” he murmured as we roared off on the autostrada.

He was not smiling whenever he paid out for liter upon liter of liquid gold benzine. We were convinced that liters suddenly held the same amount as a small soupcan…..

Israel was also fine in terms of rental cars, until we started growing our family. Prior to that time, they constantly upgraded me. I liked “the smaller the better” there, good for parking in urban, postage stamp-sized spaces. Standard shift helped on the many serpentine and mountainous streets stretching to Jerusalem.

Instead, the rental clerks handed me keys to automatic mid-size sedans, which were nice until I got to the gas station and liters again shrank to the size of small shot glasses. The shekels were flowing like the sands of time.

Benedetto, Petya and I once landed in Tel Aviv, needing a car for a few days. We heard that a snowstorm would be heading into the capital soon. We planned for a car with heft, something heavy enough to keep us on the road, and big enough to hold a couple of suitcases and three travel-weary bodies.

They gave us a compact car. Not to be mistaken with a sub-compact, unless you had to ride in it. We walked several miles, it seemed, to the car pick-up and here we are greeted by a sardine-mobile. Even the suitcases wouldn’t fit in the trunk. Back we hike to the airport reservations counter.

“That is the class car that you reserved,” the young lady at the counter insisted. Fresh from the army, she didn’t take any flak.

“How could it be? We didn’t reserve a sub-compact. We need a car that will fit three people and two suitcases. I mean, you guys are always upgrading me when I’m here by myself,” I explained. “The one time I need more space, you can’t help me? You don’t have anything bigger?”

“You already have a big upgrade,” she told me in Hebrew.

“I do? It couldn’t be. Have you seen that car?” I pressed.

“Here is our chart of cars,” she pulled out a laminated sheet. “You have G-class. G-class, do you understand?!” her voice starts to rise and I did not like her tone.

“You can call it G-class or Z-class. If it doesn’t work for us, we need another car.”

“Lady, you already have six levels above our most basic car. You don’t know what G-class means? A, B, C, D, E, F, G…” she ticks off for me as I grow more ticked-off.

“Thank you, I’m familiar with the English alphabet,” I say to her.

Turning to Benedetto I ask, “Should we go with another company?”

“No,” he replies, “we just need a decent car.”

“Let me speak with your manager,” I turn back to the clerk. Mentally, I am calculating how in the world this car could be anything but the most basic. What were “extras” these days? A radio? Power windows? Airconditioning? Paint? Wheels? A glove compartment?

The manager emerges and she’s just as hot under the collar, reciting the alphabet. I don’t bother revealing how many foreign alphabets I can recite, too, but eventually, I wear her down, pulling out story after story.

“Were you around when your company first started?” I ask. “I remember the tiny one-room office with a sink next to the King David Hotel, the determination to hustle and grow the company, the commitment to the customers’ satisfaction….”

I went on…and on… and on….

“I remember the time we had just rented a car from your company and were going up and down the hills of Jerusalem. The car was losing more and more power. Finally, we made it up to the top of Har El and coasted to a stop at the shopping mall.

“Har El!” I exclaimed. “The Mount of God! How can you lose power on the Mount of God? So we waited a couple of hours and eventually one of your guys came and rescued us….”

Long story longer, we finally got our car that day. I wore her down. The three of us drove to Jerusalem where we were snowed in for three straight days. All shops, restaurants, museums, and places of business closed, the snow was so deep.

I got extra trash bags from our Russian maid, doubling as boots attached with rubberbands so the guys could go out to photograph and play. I had work I needed to accomplish… which we didn’t. One slippery night we ventured out with the car, slip-sliding all the way to visit friends on Mount Scopus.

Several days later, we returned the car, virtually unused. I refrained from reciting alphabets, times tables, or the Periodic Chart.

Once upon a time, another rental car there received a boot, which in Israel they call a “sandal”, appropriate for the Middle East. It was our last foray into the city, Benedetto and I had a lovely dinner and were heading back to pack and head to the airport.

The car was clamped on the wheel, unable to be moved.

We walked up and down the street, checking and rechecking the street signs. On the remote end of the block was a sign that appeared to indicate that it was forbidden to park here during the exact time we were there. Great. The ticket on the car was written in teeny-tiny Hebrew and said we could present ourselves at a certain location to pay the fine and they would then issue the truck to come and release your car. It wasn’t my car. It was a rental car. I thought briefly about just leaving it, but knew that they had my credit card on file.

“San’daleh!” a woman exclaims as she walks past. “Do you need any help?”

She joins our pity party as I pour out our tale of woe. She helps us mentally locate the office of their boot headquarters, which is in an underground parking garage, of all places. I complain that we’re trying to get to the airport and she confirms that it might take them an hour or two to release our car.

“Listen, I can come with you to your hotel and help you pack,” she offers. “It will be no trouble at all–.”

We decline her offer, but are warmed by her friendliness freely given in a time of need. Somehow, the car is released and we are able to make it to Ben Gurion Airport in time.

Such fond memories of rental cars…as we zip down the road today in yet another squish-mobile. Bigger car, but much bigger family.

“Mama, our legs hurt,” the kids moan.

“Be thankful we have a car. Did Papa ever tell you how he went to work by camel in the desert…?” They stop complaining lest I regal them with another long adventure story.

Just then, the wipers squirt and swish for the hundredth time.

“Benedetto!!!”

It might be a cake flavor, an ice cream, a sauce to top berries. It could be any other question or choice on the face of the earth. Fact is, our kids were raised in an atmosphere where there were no choices, no freedom, no decision-making skills needed.

“Chocolate or vanilla?” I repeat.

Like teaching a toddler to walk, we’ve had many opportunities to teach our older children adopted from Russia.

A simple question such as “Would you like chocolate or vanilla?” stumps some of them beyond a normal several seconds, and can take several minutes of prompting on our part.

Petya has long since gotten over any choice-o-phobia, having been adopted long before the others.

“Chocolate,” he declares swiftly. Then we go into the pregnant pondering pause for the three other children, followed by the path of least resistance in rapid-fire succession… when they finally get around to it.

“Chocolate.”

“Chocolate.”

“Chocolate.”

In China, they would probably all be wearing Mao jackets, rather than the multitude of knock-off designer fashions so readily available. They were born too late to don the red kerchief of the Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, but they continue to march in step and tow the party-line mentality of sameness. For a post-institutionalized child, sameness often equalled security.

With many of our internationally-adopted children, we and other adoptive parents learned that making choices was frequently scary for our kids. No one had ever asked them an everyday question in the dyetsky dom (orphanage), much less their opinion or preference.

“How old are you?” a businessman at breakfast asked Petya during our first days together. He took great delight in making his way around the hotel dining room, shaking hands with the men assembled, a budding entrepreneur who instinctively knew his colleagues-to-be.

“Menyeh shest s’poloveenoy” (I’m six-and-a-half), he said.

“Shest? Syehm s’poloveenoy” (seven-and-a-half), I informed him, the businessman gazing at him quizzically, the boy who did not know his own age.

It was then that the light bulb went off about nobody asking them everyday life questions.

Nobody had cared.

In the orphanage, they all knew how old he was, no need to ask. And so it was at mealtime, when getting dressed, when scheduling the day’s activities: naturally, the children were not consulted, nor given the opportunity for any input.

In their early days of coming home, we dared not ask Petya or Pasha, Mashenka or Sashenka, their preferences about anything.

“Mama,” the girls would ask, “What should we wear tomorrow?”

“Well, we don’t have a lot planned. How about you choose something for once?” I suggested. By now, they knew that orange didn’t go with purple, and winter woolens were best left for … winter.

At the very thought of venturing into a decision of their own making, the girls froze. Deer in headlights.

“Mama, maybe you decide…” they finally hedged.

It was the same in school. Anything to avoid thinking. They preferred rote repetition to reading comprehension.

“How do you feel the story will end?” they read with a shudder at the sight of such a question. “Which character do you identify with most? Could the protagonist have reacted in a different manner?”

“Yah nee znahyoo,” (I don’t know) they shook their heads, giving up before they ever began.

If left unchecked, I did not relish the idea of them moving any further into their teen years with others deciding their destiny: “Cocaine or heroin? Party with me, or with my friend?”

“I don’t know. Whatever.”

That was NOT going to happen on my watch. We started our daily desensitization drills, armed with the understanding that some of our kids would prefer avoiding making any decisions from here to eternity. Follow the Leader did not work after the age of five or six.

I guess the birthmothers in Russia did not have the same kind of fireside chats with their kids that we routinely received growing up: “If everyone else jumped off of a cliff, would you jump off the cliff, too?”

“Do you like yellow or red?” I asked Petya at lunch.

“Red!” he immediately exclaimed between bits of borsch and black bread.

“Blue or green?” I quizzed Pasha.

Choking on his bread slightly and buying some time, he finally croaked, “Red,” repeating Petya’s selection.

“There is no red,” I sighed.

Another pause.

“Uh, vhat vas qvestion?” he puzzled.

And so it went in the car, on the plane, in the park. We refrained from carrying out these exercises in the supermarket, or any store for that matter, where they liked anything and everything indiscriminately. No problem with choices there.

“I vant dat, and dat, and dat!” the newer ones enthused, perfectly suited to Capitalism.

“Yeah, me, too. Keep moving,” I herded them along.

We definitely did not desire to create overbearing, over-opinionated children. Right now, they were blank slates, for all intents and purposes. Our prayer was that they would come to discover within themselves their own unique desires and designs, and choose to make the decisions necessary to take them in that direction.

“Chocolate or vanilla?” I asked, trying to keep the questions simple and straightforward. Tutti-frutti would have to wait for later.

The tea party started out harmlessly enough. Disguised as an effort to appease my daughters, it was also designed to keep me from going nuts.

I had been scheduled as a keynote speaker at a large Ladies’ Tea. Somehow my girls got the idea that they would be accompanying me.

No can do.

All things being equal, that might be a possibility. Since very few things in life were equal, it was not.

I had to break the news to them.

“Listen, girls, you don’t want to sit there for hours, and have to behave yourselves, and chew with your mouths closed, and not reach over top of each other to grab more food, and make pleasant conversation, and sit up straight, and not shout, and smile at the other ladies while you sip your chai…. Did I mention you’d have to behave for hours on end?”

For them, that sounded strangely reminiscent of every meal of the day at our house…. But here was the selling point.

“Anyway, how about we have a tea party of our own? Just the three of us Little Ladies?” I raised my eyebrows to Mashenka and Sashenka and they giggled with glee. They knew that I always made good on my promises, usually over-delivering and the two quickly acquiesced. Anything that had them as the center of attention had to be good.

I found myself inbetween two major deadlines with not much time for frivolity and fun, so I set the date rapidly as though throwing knives at a spinning circus pinwheel, my own schedule in danger of dying on the board. I had to move quickly, lest I felt the urge to renege.

“Three o’clock this afternoon,” I announced at breakfast one day. “The pleasure of your presence is sought for our Little Ladies’ Tea Party.”

The boys groaned.

“I’m not coming,” Petya declared.

“And that would mean more delicate dainties for us,” I smiled imperiously.

“Food?!” he exclaimed.

“Well, tea involves much more than tea!” I informed him. “Ladies, shall we extend an invitation to the Gentlemen?”

“Up to you, Mama,” the girls concurred, appearing to want them to come, but not if all their food would be gobbled by these Grinch-like guests.

“In that case, Gentlemen, you may join us at 3:00 p.m.”

The girls and I Dressed for the Event. The boys did not. These were among the great mysteries of life and due to the fact that it was not a major holiday, I decided not to make any undue demands on our dining companions. In some circles, tsk-tsk, khaki pants and polo shirts would be considered Dressing….

The table was set for the appointed hour, with various teas, tea cakes, and triangular, crustless tea sandwiches assembled.

We had practiced the art of Genteel Conversation, not to mention Manners, when requesting items be passed. Apparently it was all for naught.

After the first minute, “Would you pass the sugar, please?” a certain percentage reverted back to the Russian “Moznah… etah?” and a jab with the finger in that direction.

So here we were seated, late in the afternoon, at an event where we didn’t need the extreme pressure of Dignified Dining. It was not a State Dinner, no prying eyes, other than my own, were watching from on high. It was supposed to be Fun, a word not uppermost in my vocabulary, but necessary for any child. Today, I’d take what I could get. Which is what the boys were doing at every opportunity, food being packed onto petite plates.

“And so, Gentlemen, what are your plans for the upcoming season of summer? Will you be following your educational pursuits, or spending it at leisure?” I tossed the verbal volley their way.

They didn’t want to play. They would rather play, “Who can stuff their face most full of tea cakes without having squirrel cheeks, stains down their shirts, or displaying any other type of outward evidence of gluttony which would push Mama over the edge.” The girls giggled at every antic, while I, control freak that I am, suppressed the urge to gag. Oh, to have such a willing audience.

Everyone sampled several teas. I kept the hot water coming, pouring with great ceremony for each seated guest. So, we were not being served from my grandmother’s samovar, but there were doilies and silver and a few other tokens of the Nobility. Teatime that day was a nice pause to a high-pressured life, an opportunity to nod and smile at those youthful faces upturned toward mine, anxious to please, but never quite remembering how.

The fact that we were Together and healthy, happy and having Tea, was all that mattered for those few moments suspended in time. We may need to do this again.