i've got a golden ticket! and...IKEA

yesterday austrian airlines called to tell me they FINALLY recieved my paper ticket from krasnodar, and that i could come to the town office to get my new ticket.

in case i'm being unclear (which is very probable) the story went like this: after i went to court, and the lady at visa services yelled at me to bring her a ticket, i called austrian airlines to see if they would re-issue my ticket, leaving from st. petersburg instead of krasnodar. of course they could, for a modest fee of 100 euros, but unfortunately the people in krasnodar had kept my original ticket when all the visa drama was going down. i had all the other tickets from vienna to new york and back again, but the ticket from russia to vienna was hundreds of miles away in that horrible krasnodar. they had talked to them and asked them to mail the ticket to st. pete, but it hadn't arrived and without the original ticket they couldn't do anything. seemed pretty medieval to me, but what can you do? on saturday i went to the town office to see if i could browbeat them into giving me a ticket, but the office was closed. i took a bus to the airport to see if someone there could help me, but they couldn't. all they could do was printout my reservation and itinerary and put an official stamp on it, wishing me luck with the visa lady that it would suffice. it did, but i still needed my real ticket at some point.

i was a little worried, the russian postal system being what it is, but it finally came and yesterday, after forty minutes watching the airline representative click away on the keyboard with her long, rapping fingernails and emptying my wallet of almost all my money, i had the stinking ticket in hand. triumphant, i strode out of the building humming the golden ticket song from charlie and the chocolate factory. i decided to celebrate my recent success by buying a new book (asimov's robot stories) and finally, after years and years of waiting, to go to IKEA.

maybe it sounds dumb to want to go to a furniture store so bad. it probably is. but i wanted to, and yet every time i've tried to go to IKEA i've been thwarted somehow. this time i was determined. i'd met up with seriosha and since he knew how to get there he led the way. it's outside of the city and a free shuttle takes you there from the end of the metro line. i don't know why, but there's something totally bizarre about seeing a huge warehouse full of swedish goods sitting in the middle of nowhere in russia. and the place was a maze; they even had arrows on the floor so you wouldn't get totally lost. i walked along, musing over the concept of having a nicely decorated house with furniture that matches. strangely, it didn't make me sad like i thought it might. something about this whole fiasco has made me...i don't know. either i've become apathetic towards materialism or my priorities are better--either way, while the idea of a nice house is...nice...it's not something i long for so intensely anymore. so anyway, it was fun to see all the pretties and sit on the couches and play with the toys, and now i can say i've been to IKEA. i even bought something. nothing much--a puppet and mask for ilya because his birthday is coming up--but still. i am the proud owner of some cheap scandanavian mathoms.

today is going to be boring. i have every intention of being a bum, sitting around in my pj's and reading my new book. and eating lots of beets and cucumbers. i don't know why. it just sounds good.