Really gloomy weather here today: +2C and raining.

There are so many things I want to get done, but there's so little time, and I have this constant feeling that I'm not getting anything done at all, except for feeding Marta and doing the dishes. And doing laundry.

She's asleep on me now, so I'm writing.

She's had a cold this week or something - we wouldn't have guessed if it hadn't been for some fever on Monday night and some coughing today: in between, she is the usual Marta.

I called a doctor on Tuesday (or was it Wednesday?) and he said she was okay, developing normally, etc. But in Moscow they have this favorite condition - intracranial hypertension syndrome (sindrom vnutricherepnoy gipertenzii) - which seems to be just like hip dysplasia in Kyiv, a scary-sounding but rather vague thing that they feel safe (mis)diagnosing way too many kids with. The doctor - elderly, with a fancy medical/scientific degree and a personal stamp - said Marta should be checked by a neurologist, and, of course, he recommended someone, a friend, I'm sure, or a colleague he's getting commission from for sending customers her way... I mean, patients, not customers... I was actually thinking of one cozy restaurant in Istanbul as I was writing this - our friend, its owner, told us all about this commission thing (as it applies to him and his friends, not the Turkish doctors). Anyway, here's why the doctor thought Marta could have hypertension syndrome: because of her large forehead. Ha ha ha. If left untreated, it'd crush her brains, he told me very kindly, but was careful enough to put a question mark next to the diagnisis on the paper he issued to me. I told him (quite proudly) that the forehead is most definitely from Mishah, a familial trait, sort of. I hope he understood that his neurologist friend isn't getting any money from me.