Why go to Yerevan when you can have dental surgery?

This past weekend was supposed to be a fun, exciting, much-anticipated trip to the capital of Armenia. David and I had planned for 2 weeks, we had gathered our passports, obtained the necessary visas, prepared the kids, alerted my son's school that he would be out on Friday. We were ready. Hotel reservations made. Car gassed up.

And then? And then my tooth, the one that has had not one, not two, but three root canals done to it started hurting again. Badly. So very, very badly. After the last root canal my dentist, a wonderful man named Gigi, told me that if the tooth was not better, I would have to have it surgically fixed. They would have to cut open my gums, drill out my jawbone, cut the roots inside the jaw, refill the jawbone with prosthetic material and sew me up. (For the record, the first root canal was done in Washington, DC and lasted a little less than 2 years before it started bugging me, the second was done in January of this year here in Georgia, right before we went on vacation, and the third was done by Gigi when I went to him for a second opinion after my first Georgian root canal didn't fix it.) I called Gigi and told him about the pain. About how I could not sleep. And his answer was "Come on Saturday at 3 and we will do the surgery".

So much for Armenia.

On Saturday at 2, I took a Xanax because Georgian dentists don't give you any gas to make you floaty and happy while they hammer away in your mouth. At 3 I was in the dentist's office being prepped for surgery. I had a lovely surgical cap with matching blue drape, a pair of snazzy amber glasses to protect my eyes from any splatter and to lessen the glare from the overhead lights. By 3:45 the surgery was done and I was on my way home with a mouth full of stitches.

I would have much rather gone to Armenia. Instead, I went here:

Yes, that is where my dentist's office is. See the purple door on the right side of the derelict-looking building? That's his space. And, you may find this hard to believe, but inside this building it is beautiful. And Gigi's offices are state-of-the-art. He has all the latest and greatest technology, from digital wireless xrays, to drills with fiber optic lights on the ends. Living proof that you never judge a book by it's cover.

11 weeks

Well, a little less than 11 weeks, actually.

We are moving. The Other Georgia will be no more. We will be saying good-bye to our favorite little post-Soviet struggling republic.

I have so much to do. So much junk to sort through to get ready for the move. So many decisions to make about what to take, what to sell, what to store, what to get from storage.

Oy.

I will continue blogging, but will probably start a whole fresh new blog for our whole fresh new country.

Oh, Georgia, how I love thee

Georgia. You just can't make this stuff up.

So Georgia has FINALLY finished construction on the new airport. The much talked about airport. The airport that was supposed to open last November. Then December. Then early February. Well. They did open it. And a few days later? The roof started leaking. The official response? Well, we couldn't test the roof to see if it was water-tight because we built it during a dry spell. Then, a few days later, a huge wind storm came through and blew off part of the roof. Ah, Georgia. One step forward and two steps back.

David had to fly to Germany a few weeks ago. He sends me a text message "Wow! I'm flying out of the new airport!" An hour or so later I get another message "Will email you later about flying out of new airport". Turns out that he checked in at the new airport. Waited for his flight at the new airport. But when it came time to board his flight, he didn't get to walk down one of the new fancy jetways (the airport has 4, count 'em folks, 4 whole jetways!). Nope. Instead, David got put on a bus and carted over to the old airport where he climbed the steps to the plane, just like it has always been done. When he came back a week later, they landed at the old airport and then bussed him over to the new airport to pick up his bags. It took a while for the bags to make it over. Really, you have to love Georgia. You have to.


But the best, most hysterically, typically Georgian thing that we have experienced this past month has to be the birthday party. Blaine was invited to a classmate's 5th birthday party, which was held at a local children's entertainment place called Bao Babi. Bao Babi (I might have mentioned this place before, but I'm much too lazy to search right now) is like Chuck E. Cheese, it has a large indoor play area, video games, and they host parties. No big rat, but they have these (I'm guessing here) Aztec warriors called Bao Babi that come to the party. You can also hire Spiderman, Batman, a clown etc. to come and entertain.

Well, this party really topped all others. The mom hired the clown. And with the clown came a Genie. Or a Sultan. I'm not really sure what he was supposed to be. He was a bubble blower. Yes. A bubble blower. He had a bubble machine cobbled together out of old fans and frayed wires. I actually asked one of the other parents there if he thought they were in the middle of repairing the air conditioning or if he thought that the fans were going to be part of the entertainment. His response was along the lines of "this is Georgia...I'm banking on that being part of the entertainment".

But wait, it gets better. The highlight of the bubble-blowing genie/sultan's act was not the big fan blowing hundreds of bubbles here and there. NO. NO. NO. Remember, this is Georgia. The highlight of the act was when the clown came over and lit a cigarette for the genie/sultan. And then? And then he smoked and blew huge smoke bubbles! Bubbles filled with cancer! Fun for kids of all ages to pop and play with!


Don't believe me? I have pictures. And video. Oh yes I do.