Me-yen Khan-mun!

When The Great Plotnik and The Great Ducknik got to the airport yesterday afternoon, they didn't know that Niece KDP's friend Zhanar looked like this. Zhanar had sent a photo by email, though, so Plot and Duck rolled out their hand written ZHANAR RUSTEMOVA signs and each time an Asian-looking woman came out into the Visitor's Lobby of the International Arrivals Building, they pointed a sign in her direction. The problem was a plane had just come in from Hong Kong.

But then this woman approached them.



"You are waiting for Zhanar? I am waiting for Zhanar," she said.

It turns out that Zhanar's best friend Helen, also from Shymkent, Kazakhstan, arrived in Saint Plotniko two weeks ago and is living in a house on 23rd and Church Streets with four other Russians, all of them who work at Google. The man on the end is Alex.



(Plotnik asked Helen how she likes Saint Plotniko after two weeks.

"I am very cold," she said.)

Then Zhanar walked over and said "Hello, I am Zhanar. Are you waiting for me?" Plot and Duck have had lots of practice picking up young folks at airports, so the next stop was at La Taqueria on Mission Street. If you look closely at the two top pictures, Zhanar and Helen are holding chicken deluxe tacos.

Zhanar's family sent along beautiful gifts for Plot and Duck, and Zhanar took one look at the regal Great Plotnik and taught him how to say "Me-yen Khan-mun," which means I AM DA KING in Kazakh, so don't go messing with The Great Khan-Nik, 'aight?







One look at Zhanar and it is clear that she is very capable and possesses extraordinary moxie. She and Helen are planning to get jobs and work all summer, then by September they want to begin a trip to LA and across the country, ending up in NYC where they'll fly home in October. Plot has a hunch, though, that Zhanar has not spelled this all quite so precisely to her family back home, because her brother has already called twice from Kazakhstan since she has been here. (There is a thirteen hour time difference.)

This is the way it works, see? We worry about our little girls, long after they stop being little girls.

The Great Khan stops now.