ice removal, a la Kyiv

It still looks like this... everywhere.

See what these ladies are doing? Yesterday, I followed them down the street/path/whatever for awhile...

Yes- they are doing their part to help pedestrians stay upright when they're out ummm

pedestrating? Ambulating, for sure...

Nice set up- child's sled with a bucket of gravel. One pulls, one scoops and throws! (I want the scooping and throwing job!)

Then today, this dump truck/snow plow jumps onto the sidewalk in front of me... and proceeds to sand it... (really, I've never seen the sidewalk done with a dump truck... we might be slow around here, but we are creative and unique!

He ditched the sidewalk when he got to the bus stop... then couldn't get back on the sidewalk because of a huge snow bank and a fence... but after about half a block, he got back on the sidewalk and drove all the way to the metro station spreading sand the whole time. Hurray!!

Meanwhile- outside our kitchen window. That street is treacherous, too... yesterday this was spotted out there...
have you ever seen winter streets dealt with by a bulldozer? I hadn't. And, as Phyllis says- It would sure work a lot better if he got that blade into or under the ice... he appeared to be scraping it along the top... I was thinking the tracks on the dozer might at least rough it up a bit...

Happy Winter! ;)

recent randoms

We had some really super days the past few weeks. Here are some leftover pix that have not much at all to do with the super days but that seemed to beg to be taken!

this was taken waiting for the bus at one of my favorite spots on the earth!

then we were at a bus stop in a village and this mutt went cruising past...

something caught my eye... but she was moving around a lot...
here Muttly... here Muttly...

look at meeeee (she was a hard one to convince) do you see it? The cutest canine underbite of all-time... I could take a dog like this home with me!

bet you don't know what this is....

this is me trying to capture the glow-in-the-dark smilies on the wall of the bedroom I camped out in several nights... sighhhh.... it didn't work so much in case you can't tell...

and then back to Kyiv and onto the metro to come home... this girl got on at the train station with us...

do you see what's on top of her suitcase?

standing right by a door. She let that cat's head out... and believe me, that cat was not what I'd call calm or cool or collected... I had visions of it making a break for it and either a) shredding some other passenger to bits with its claws or b) flying through the open door and meeting some horrible awful and bloody end. None of that happened while we were there to see it....

when we got off the metro, we were met with this...

apparently Kyiv had some rain, some snow, some meltage, some freezage, some more snow... and very little 'yuck removal' while we were gone. Hard to tell here, but that's pure ice with a dusting of snow on some of it, some of the snow's already been smooshed around onto and into the ice... and it's frozen into wonderful hills and valleys... Hobbit-sized hills and valleys... I forgot the girl and her cat (after being mighty thankful I didn't have to lug a huge suitcase AND a cat home over terrain like that) and concentrated on staying upright. Not all the ice is like this... quite a lot of it is smooth enough to skate on... wow...

(we) made butter!

Yup, 'we' did! :)
Minnya-the-cow is giving lots of milk... more than everyone (except Mom) knows what to do with. So, when Mom went north to visit relatives, Oldest Dau was left in charge of the heaps and buckets and kettles of fresh milk. She made butter with some of it... I helped by taking pix.

start with an electric mixer (I'm quite sure they didn't used to do it this way!)

eventually, the beaters aren't up to it anymore and you have to switch to another method

a good old fashioned wooden potato masher
this is even more work than it looks like...

after a few hundred hours, it looks like this. About now is when you take it out and pat it into a mound... and wash it... several times... under cold running water.
pat it into a mound again and there you have it! Pretty straight forward and simple, actually, but certainly not fast (or easy if you're referring to effort put forth). Good though!

Dear Trude

FoxTrot has a special on refrigerators... 3290 uah for a refrigerator (or 329 uah per month if that's better).

If you don't know what this is about, maybe you should go check out my Trude friend's latest blog post....

it was a whizz-bang sort of day

We've been back in Kyiv since early Tues. I've noticed something about myself since that surgery last fall- I get tired. Really really reeeeelly tired. So I've dedicated some of the time recently just to extra sleeping. And to massage. See, all the lying in bed and sitting in chairs and on beds and much inactivity and zero sort of motion back in Nov and Dec... and my back hurts. Really truly. And the deal? You don't exactly feel like lying on your tummy to have your back worked on when there's a raw spot there... that's the deal. So now- it's time to take care of that... (I purposely timed it so that I'd be out walking to and from the clinic when there was 4-6 inches of ice on every surface out there... wouldn't want the massage people to run out of potential longterm clients, after all...)

speaking of massage- during yesterday's, I find this out: my massage person (that's pc, eh?) earns 600 uah ($75) a month. (!!- this is low, even for here) There's a 400 uah ($50) tax levied by the clinic each month just for the privilege of being employed there (!!-the only answer is to take private clients between clinic-scheduled clients). Now the clinic wants to install 2 people to answer questions about H1N1 in the room used for massage, kicking the massage people out and moving them into a slightly larger room where 5 other massage people already work. This means no more private clients for Massage Person of Interest. Which means future monthly income would be 200 uah ($15) a month. Utilities cost a lot more than that each month. Not to mention food. And a whole lot of other things. He just laughed. I'll have to quit my job if it comes to that... He says I can't afford it.
Me Anita? I have no idea how I'd cope in this kind of job environment. People we talk to are looking for any way out of Ukr they can find. It's depressing.

Back to our whizz-bang. We stayed in till this afternoon...when we had a lesson of sorts. We went slowly and carefully and finally got there (it took over an hour and 15 min... time well spent to avoid broken bones, contusions, concussions and confusions). So we go. We sing a song. Now- let's just say that not everyone is a born singer, shall we? And let's just imagine that not everyone really knows about 'tunes' and 'carrying-a-tune-in-a-bucket' ok? And shall we further imagine that about 5 such people are happily yodeling away at the same time...different beats, different notes, different timing. One of us gets the giggles (it wasn't me, honest) in the middle of a song and finally has to excuse herself to get a handle on it all...
Meanwhile- I'm having issues of my own. My feet are blazing. Fiery. Itchy. Horribly.Uncomfortable. It's what happens after being outside awhile and coming in from the cold. The only fix is dousing them in cold water. But this isn't really possible when you're a guest in someone's home for an hour or 2 and you're singing a song and everyone's sitting in a circle being totally (mostly) serious. My.Feet.Are.On.Fire. I rub them on each other, on the floor, on my chair legs. (I have no idea what the problem is... they've been doing this in the wintertime for years.) I'm about to climb the wall and scream.
And then it's time to get serious. Phyllis has been reading some very nice things and she wants to tell us about them... I try to get a grip.
And P starts reading in Luke. Chpt 4. And she tells us that Jesus was led into the desert to be eaten by the Devil.

I think I'm going to cry... from mirth or fiery.feet or mirth. (V shivers from head to foot and quickly says Tempted...tempted... and no one cracks a grin... except for me this time...)
we giggled all the way home. It was a pretty muchly good day! ;)

per Phyllis' request: Phyllis is NOT the person that left the room in a fit of giggles... she's much too dignified for that! :)

ATM's

Ukraine has long been a place to be very canny and cautious when it comes to using credit/debit cards and ATM's. We've been watching out for the following tricks here for years... but did you know it's happening in the States now, too? Be careful at the ATM!
ATM with a card capture device added- not cool at all!
real GreenSleeve- a security device
ATM with fake GreenSleeve- be careful

oh yes... and we have an election tomorrow... a presidential election, to be specific... no one's very excited. Maybe they'll all fall on the ice and break their necks on their way in to the polling stations??? We can only hope...

memo to the (insane) neighbors

You have poor (I can't emphasize this enough) taste in

• footwear
• hours you keep
• music
• (and most particularly) the volume at which you choose to listen to your so-called music

Good days

Packed up a duffle bag the other day and caught a train. Headed west. All night. Stu wanted to go,too. Caught him trying to sneak into the duffle bag. (I suspect Phyllis was egging him on but it's not for me to just say.) So I turfed him out. Somebody's got to stay back and water the plants.
So we took off. It's great over here. Snowy? Yup. Cold? Yup. Waiting for a bus the other day, met this dog sneaking into bus station and off down a back corridor. He was looking chilled. And like he didn't want to be seen.
Had a great weekend. Special visitors, special times, special special special

Suniday night always makes me think of popcorn... found some at a local supermarket- got the last 2 packages.

Then came on to another place. Our Kyiv kids are visiting here. One found a harmonica. Smells just like ours, he said. (Sounds like theirs, too, in fact.)

No idea in what order the pix will post, but maybe you can figure it out.