Happy Birthday!

To My One and Only Dad! He's sixty-what? ;)

Hope it was a great day- spent at McCordsville, in fact! Love you! xo

Did I post this one before? I think I did... I love it- because of the rather unique expressions, body language, whatever... it's actually 5 years old but Dad hasn't changed so much. This is from Dad and Mom's visit Fall, 2003. (That's Julie's youngest on the floor)

Dad and his grandsons, a year ago
and with 2 of his granddaughters

Just a little reminder

This electronic age is really great in a lot of ways. Because of web cams and excellent high speed internet, I can watch my nieces and nephews grow up, blow them kisses and have wonderful little chats just about whenever I want. If I remember at the last minute, I can still get a B/day card out to someone. If we need to be in touch about something, it's fast, easy, painless and no one has to talk to an answering machine to leave a message for someone who's out. It also flies out your realm and into mine and is irretrievable with one split-second barely noticeable miniscule exertion of effort.

Which brings me here: be careful. Most message programs have auto completion- you start typing, it quickly scans your contact list and list of recently used addresses and pops up names that match what you're typing. My point is- twice recently I've received messages that weren't intended for me. The first was completely innocuous and we had a good laugh. Last night's was not. It wasn't for me, it wasn't nice and I doubt the sender would really want it to have gone astray like that. Nor was there anything trey could do about it after one tiny click of the mouse.

So- make sure you're sending to the person you have in mind and remember that electric communication is not always as private as it seems.

Thank you (steps down off soap box).

update: I doubt that the author of the 2nd message even knows about this blog, so it really was just a reminder for all of us, me included. It's too easy to do stuff that we might really be sorry about later. That's all...

Brilliant and gorgeous

Having been in close proximity, both here and in Poland, with people from England, Ireland and Australia, I couldn't help but notice that their word choice is sometimes a bit different than mine. Like: boot, rubbish, bin, nappy, biscuit, tea for: car trunk, trash, garbage can, diaper, cookie, supper to mention a few. Hazel and Fergie use the word "brilliant" like we would "cool" or "neat"- not too difficult to gds. However, during clean-up at Barcelona, the young South Austrailian lady working beside me at the back of the diner conversationally told me Yes, Robert D he's been in our field and I think he's just gorgeous.

For a half second, there was dead silence; I'm pretty Sure. In this context, ''gorgeous'' must mean ''brilliant'' or "cool" or "neat... not, well "gorgeous". I nearly had to excuse myself to have a giggle.

People-watching

I love to people-watch. If you've been reading this blog awhile, that's not news to you. So yesterday, on the bus from Kyiv, I was sitting across from this little missy. She was noteworthy because of those bracelets. So first of all, the fact that she even has them is pretty unusual. Those goofy little plastic bracelets are a totally ''West" thing. Americans, Canadians and Western Europeans wear them, but not Ukrainians. And of course- she's only got about a hundred of them.

As an admitted people-watcher. It's been interesting to watch a gradual increase of Western habits and influence.
- men now wear jeans- all the time, everywhere. Time was when wearing jeans marked you as a foreigner.
- lots of men have long shaggy hair (although they're still much more likely to have very short hair than your average American.)
- tennis shoes. everywhere.
- body piercing- on lots of people. They really like the belly-button thing but you see more of it everywhere.
- ''tramp stamps" and other kinds of tatooing- tatoos are no longer an indication of having been in the army or having served time in jail.
- mp3 players; in fact, these are so prevalent that you're practically a nobody if you don't have one.
- as mentioned earlier, flip-flops.

On the other hand, Phyllis and I had a great time picking out people from this part of the world while waiting in the Barcelona and Rome airports last week. We were right every time.
- very tight jeans (women) with glitter and sparkly stuff on them.
- all kinds of high heels paired with everything under the sun. Or should I say, Choosing to wear ridiculously high heels for a day of travelling, roaming airports and running to catch planes when you're not a flight attendant.
- loading up on liquor and cigarettes at the duty-free shops.
- any of the above accompanied by bleached-blonde hair with dark roots if you're female is pretty much a dead give away.

None of this is so important, of course, but I find it fascinating.

No crocs yet and no wearing sweatpants just anywhere and everywhere. (And for that last one, well, I'm truly happy. I hope they never discover sweats.)

Care package

See that paper bag? Can you read what's written on it? In case not, I'll just tell you. Brown paper packages, tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite thinigs. (Are you singing? Me, too.) There's a signature, too. I'll let you figure that out or not. Let's just say that the Peanut Butter M and M's really brought a grin...a chortle...a howl of pure delight and happiness. There's also a container of Pringles in there. Which I've already started to eat... and I'm going to eat them ALL BY MYSELF (just so you know.) The package itself caused me to break out in warm fuzzy feelings and smiles. Thanks, D.

The other little thing is the cutest little container of Peanut Butter ever. Did you know such things existed? Well you proly did but I didn't...and I think it's brilliant. That's a little present from the folks who delivered the other package. You NE denizens would know Don and Phyllis. My first time to meet them. They're here for a couple months and it'd be hard not to love them on sight. Meant to get a pic of them, but sort of forgot. Anyway, they put me up for the night and then got up early, had breakfast with me and hugged me out the door at 7 this morning. It's great to have Moms and Dads- more than you can number.

big stuff

I found this shot lurking somewhere in my digital life. I took it on a bus about a month ago- these 2 girls were so into themselves... they had a major conversation. they wore rings and held their hands out, fingers splayed, admiring and examing each other's rings. they had a really serious conversation, complete with crossed legs and leaning in (chick on the right here)... I don't know- it was such a 'play grown-up' thing... I couldn't resist taking the pic. And when I showed it to the kids where I was going- Taras giggled and said, I go to school with them. Well, all I know is they were big stuff. Totally.

what you find when you look

Went to the airport today and waited a LONNNNNGGGGGGGGGG time. This was the view beyond the magically opening and closing opaque doors beyond which no person could pass and expect to live... occasionally, though, it did spew people and bags (like TONS of bags) out.

The wait was worth it! After massive lines at passport control followed by an incredibly quick trip through Customs, these 2 waltzed right to me!

There was a tv hooked to a live camera in the baggage claim area and, just when I thought they'd missed their flight in Frankfurt or were dealing with lost luggage, I caught sight of Leanne on the tv screen over my head! Yay! (then I got the real deal) Welcome back to Ukr, Leanne! We're glad to see you and glad to meet Hubby!

Spanish leftovers

Finally got around to looking at the pix I got from a couple of people in Spain as well as digging through the rest from my phone.

Barcelona- view of one of the homes on the grounds and tent tops. It's hard to describe this place with words- it reminded me of an enchanted castle- lots of half levels, both in the 3 houses and outside, lots of little half-flights of stairs appearing suddenly and ending at a doorway (which you felt like you maybe shouldn't barge into, not knowing just what was behind it)- I kept thinking there might be disappearing steps to jump or house elves hiding behind the doors- but never saw either. The place is built into a major hill and that explains the very unique architecture. In fact, there is a chicken coop and run only accessible by ladder which you can look down on from a certain balcony. It was wild. The house in this pic had the coolest fridge... ie: built in ice maker and dispenser; I wanted to bring it back with me but it wouldn't fit... humph.

entrance to the main door of the original house
downtown Barcelona- Segrada Familia- the famous Goudi church which has been being built for over 100 years. I thought it ugly- but it is definitely worth seeing, never-the-less
overlooking the Barcelona port
proof that I fell off the coffee wagon in Spain (I'm quitting again though- had 1/2 a cup today and won't have any tomorrow and that's a promise)somewhere but I don't remember where... hmmmm (these are Anne's pix- maybe she'll leave a comment and say what this is... I thought the pillars were cool)
a bad cell-phone cam view of Barcelona- it is impressively huge and spread out over the hills
ditto
heading for Madrid on the bus- lots of 'wind fields' (Anne's pix again, dedicated to the windmill fans among us)
more of the trip to Madrid. Very arid part of Spain... and major hills (mountains?)
Madrid sunrise from my balcony bedroom! with my phone...Anne's version of the Madrid sunrise. Sunrises were gorgeous here, although the first day was most spectacular.

when we left our room, Anne's and my beds turned into the 'closet' for 5 people!
Here's our open-air bedroom... my bed in the foreground.
ooooo- 'the chair'- you practically had to book 15 min chunks of time in this chair- it was perfect for ummmm, developing skin cancer, shall we say.
Dorien's bed (left side of pic) had to lean against the wall each day because people pulled up chairs and sat there

the news

We had a 9.45 am flight out of Madrid...all went well. Got in to Barcelona, had a run around finding our bags but got them, found our friend patiently waiting and came back to her house. Had a blissful nap. Then found out this or click here or here... My word. I'm speechless... and very thankful. And glad we were long gone by the time it happened.

observations

- a full moon shining right onto your open-air bedroom can make it nearly too bright to sleep.
- crocs are universal: the Aussies talk about them, the Spanish have them, my red-white-and-blue nephies and neicies have them, every airport we were in last week had its share of croc-wearing folks...but the Ukies do not yet have them. It used to be that way with flip-flops; the flip-flop has officially arrived on the Ukie fashion scene. I'll let you know when crocs hit.
- it doesn't take long to sunburn your nose in your open-air bedroom when you're about 10 feet from the sun...
- I'm dying to know (catch that? Know, not Learn) Spanish; listening to translation all day long, it's easy to think, Well in about 2 days I could know it... I know it's not that easy; I also know that I won't learn it unless I need to...
- singing in Spanish is an adventure. It's perfectly legit to cram 25 syllables into, Oh, about 18 beats... make sense? You have to look ahead so that you can slur your syllables together appropriately because you'll certainly have left-overs at the end of the verse if you insist on doing it otherwise.
- having said that, singing in Spanish is fun and, well, I think I've said it before- I like to sing... you don't have to be good at it, remember, to like it.
- don't sing while you iron outside the sisters' quarters during siesta... (now why do I know that?)
- although I love the bread here, I do believe I'll banish it from my diet for at least 6 months after we leave. Continental Europe is a bread-loving and -eating place... I'm ready for cereal; I'd even eat oatmeal... I would I would
- ditto for the cheese. And they have got delish cheese here...
- if food is good, it's better with olive oil. The more I eat it, the less inclined I am to ever use any other kind of oil ever again...except for baking sweet stuff. Seriously. We had sandwiches- bread, cheese and ham- for the bus ride from Barcelona to Madrid... the bread was spread with olive oil... and the next day, they 'grilled-cheesed' the left-overs and served them... oh dear oh me oh my... and I grew up on a dairy farm... but butter can't compare to olive oil.
- I love love love green olives... and I still don't like the black ones.
- should we mention the melons again??? nothing's changed. They're superbly supremely superduperly yummy...

- the best thing of all? These days have been fabulous...the stuff that doesn't get said is the most personal and best of all. It's hard not to love Spain when it gets into your heart so much. I could say the same for some other places I've been...but this is the here and now. And this has been very good for me. Now, Buenos noches... sweet dreams...

Muy frio

or is that 'mucho frio'? hmmm, No, I think it's muy... (I won't be held accountable for spelling though)

See, we're here in Spain. Spain is hot. Especially in the summer. So I didn't even pack a sweater, a jacket, a long-sleeve anything. Nada. Nothing. No-thing.

Do you know what 'frio' means? Yeah. It doesn't mean 'hot' I'll just say. Well, here in Madrid it sure hasn't been hot yet. Wow. Amazing. As in, I have goosebumps.

Now, the very idea of having goosebumps in August in Spain is so totally wonderfully great that it, well, it gives me more goosebumps. Like my goosebumps have goosebumps. Yup.

And get this. There's a fair number of people here. I'm only concerned with the female types, so I'll tell you that there are 23 of us...as in my kind. Plus Mrs Lady-of-the-home. Ok, now 3 of those 23 sleep somewhere else, so that's 20. 3 are out in the girls' sleeping tent, that's 17. The rest of us are in 5 rooms in the house. The one room has this amazingly cool balcony off of it. This balcony is so cool that it turns the corner of the house, has a nice tile floor and a waist-high wall. No roof though. So, usually it's so hot that to survive, people move their mattresses out onto the balcony. So we did. I mean, in Spain, in the summer, you have a totally cool balcony off of your room and you're NOT going to go sleep on it?! No way. So here we are. And I'm telling you, my goosebumps have goosebumps. There's also a major 'zephyr' whistling around here... in fact, it might just might be a tad bit more than a zephyr... like maybe an actual wind... or a gale.

I just hope my blankets stay on all night. And that my mattress doesn't blow away in the night. If it does, I hope it dumps me off first.

That's all.

who's this?

Ok, I told you I saw some folks that I wasn't expecting to see... I didn't recognize this young lady at first... (this reminded me of running into Sarah P at Vienna con in 2001- I seriously stared at her for days thinking... how could I know her??? And then we finally connected. I love running into people like this and re-connecting!)

well some of you will recognize 3 of the 4 Ukies present last week; I'll admit, I knew I'd run into Katya there. Very glad of it, since she didn't make it back to Ukr this summer for ours.
ahhhh.... now here's a good one. Anyone know this kid? (hint, Trude: he sure didn't remember me but I was watching for him; he'll be here this week, too.)
This family was the biggest surprise of all... hadn't seen them since 199what? 7, I guess. Look at them! (nice bonus: Mom knows Eng now, too!)
just Katya and me again. She's studying like a mad woman now for her Chinese exam. Needs to pass it to cont in her studies and it's not just a piece of cake, I guess. (fancy that)
I reckon he'd be real impressed with me for posting this one- just cropped right out of the group pic- but I don't have another. I think his eyes are open...but I wouldn't just swear to it...

Pan

You wanna hear some serious screaming? Then listen closely....
I suggest that all annual gatherings everywhere adopt the Barcelona bread system... whereas they have a special wood-fired outdoor bread oven....
where they bake all the bread for all of preps and all of the special days for all of the people... 17 loaves at a time...
oh my goodness sakes
the master bread maker; after he makes the bread (pan), he takes out each loaf....
and puts each one back into the oven with this completely cool bread paddle...
it makes each loaf perfectly crispy/hard on the outside- a perfect European bread. It is honestly the best bread, hands down, that I've ever had.... Viorel was going to try to get the recipe to take back to Ukr eventually. It makes a perfect bread: wonderfully soft on the inside and hard on the outside.

can you hear the screams from panicky sisters everywhere????

and my crazy laughter... hahahaha

the bread process begins hours ahead of the actual baking when he builds a good hot wood fire in the stove, lets it burn down and then rakes out all the coals (the bricks retain the heat)
Meanwhile, he has a huge mixer going where the dough for 17 loaves is being made. All of this is in a special little kitchen outside in their courtyard- as near as I could tell, this kitchen is used exclusively for bread. The 'summer' kitchen (which is really used year round) is next door to the bread oven.

Gracias por todo

Really, that's about all I know of Spanish.

We had super duper fabulous days...and I reckon we will this week in Madrid, too. I will be getting some pix (from Katya!) but until then, this is all I have:

Hands down, the best melon you ever want to eat! It's super. And we've had heaps!

There were some surprises here- people that I didn't expect to see- dear old friends...but you'll have to wait till I get the pix to see who!

And, it was nice to make some new friends! And to see these folks here again. Ahh, life is good!

We're off to Barcelona! xo

We got in to Barcelona just fine, not as late as we figured- about midnight, I guess. And it was Anton (now called Antonio- I can't quite get used to that, but anyway) who met us, smiling and looking happy. And he had Derek along, too- also smiling and looking happy. Nice to see 2 old friends in a 'new' place and happy! Even though we kept them up late! (Sorry, Duane, no hugs delivered- you'll have to do that yourself... I told him, though. He grinned and said Hi.)

So, there's about 100 opportunities for speaking here, so this might be the lone post from here. Just saying hi- I had time this am to catch up on reading blogs, left a few comments but mostly not. So, that's what's up around here! xo and all that!

Oh my

Here we are flying the friendly Alitalia skies eating our 11 pm (midnight Ukr time) pseudo-supper, complete with this little tiny packaged sweet for dessert. Being half-starved, I raced through my funky sandwich and dove headlong into that little dessert thing...and squealed my tires to a halt. Wow. Double Wow. I'm in love. Yup. The package says it's: Amaretti di Sassello. The ingredients are: sugar, apricot kernals, almond and white of egg (direct quote). All I know is I hope I have occassion to eat it again sometime. And Viorel didn't like it. And its just too bad he ate it and not me. Yup.

The patience of Moses

My very good friend Deb: her mom is a 7th grade math teacher (which must be a total nightmare, but anyway)- well I heard this story once about Said Teacher. There was a particularly Trying Student and in the same class a little girl who really liked Mrs S. So after one particular incident with Little Mr Trying Student, Little Miss I-really-like-you-a-lot said, Mrs S, You must have the patience of Moses. (I always imagine this was said in a worshipful tone of voice, but I can't remember if I ever knew that for sure or not.) Anyway- as you hopefully know, it is Job- not Moses- who is associated with patience- Moses got a bit impatient when he struck the rock. But the WHOLE POINT OF THIS POST IS... As we frantically raced around the Rome airport, me in the lead, not finding our flight posted, not finding our gate BLAH BLAH BLAH and really worried - and as we suddenly realized that it was 8.25 pm in Rome and NOT 9.25 (and our flight was for 9.25) and we had a whole hour... And as we got sent from gate B7 to B1 to the transfer desk and back to gate B10 - let's just say that I was infinetly glad to have someone along who truly does have the patience of Job. No Mistake. We finally collapsed at the correct gate and had a laugh. And then I went and got some over-priced cold drinks and yummy little salty crispy things. Thanks, Trude, for the Euro cents!

(And then I realized that I'd been looking at my pocket watch which was still on Ukr time- which sort made everything clear. I'm such a dingbat. Thank goodness for patient good-natured people.)

The last flight was 2 hours late leaving. This one will be at least an hour late. But at least we're on the plane and waiting... At this rate, it'll be after midnight before we get in to B'lona...who knows how long it takes to get to the grounds. Poor folks on the other end. Anybody wanna place a bet on who it'll be? We're hoping it's Anton. Since he proly likes to be up all night anyway.

I didn't just say all that stuff in the last paragraph...must be late...must be tired.

He'll kill me

But haha...

Happy Birthday Duane! Today in fact..

One more

We're on the plane... Finally. Original departure time was nearly an hour ago, so we shall see how things go from here.

Ps. Maxine- I saw your post with the Fancy Nancy/Butterfly B/D pix...just can't comment! I chatted with a few of those dollies a couple hours before the party. They were just a tiny bit enthused with their butterfly wings! Looks like you had a good day!

The airport is an interesting place

Hello! We're hanging out at the airport, waiting to board. As usual, there were no problems whatsoever with passport control or anything else. The computers went down when we were about 3 people away from being next in line at passport control so we twiddled our thumbs there for awhile. I'm always so glad when things go off without a hitch that the long wait was no problem at all. We had plenty of time, after all. And further more, our flight's been delayed nearly an hour, so no sweat on our part...that is, until we're in danger of missing our connecting flight in Rome. AS it is, we get in to Barcelona just before midnight, so a person sort of very fervantly hopes there will be no missed flights!

Pix are of Viorel walking along, killing time. He's on his way, after Spain, to England for a year to improve his English. Ask him how much he's looking forward to that... or not.
Other pic is just a random shot from the airport.

The little doll in my next field

This little guy came along with his daddy to tell Viorel good-bye. He wasn't too sure about me at first, but I made faces at him until he giggled.

A week ago

Made friends with this dog at our 2nd bach. He likes us so much now that we have to lock the door to keep him out since he can open it himself.
Saw these gorgeous orange flowers while taking a walk.
Tried to get out to the road by the normal path but had a slight problem...just a little firewood in the way. Tanya says it's been there all summer.

Just stuff

What to say? I've been a long time quiet here. Not sure why- just not a lot to say. I've been running around here, there and everywhere. Did a bunch of sewing (made my clothes smaller! yay!), made some visits, met Paul in L'viv and had a conversation-packed 4 hour bus ride with him (Hi Linds- he's pretty smart, you know- doesn't need us to look after him!) and had a night here in Kyiv with Olya- she's so sweet...and their little tiny house is adorable.

So these pix? Just me at Max and Elaine's being dumb, some pretty common white flowers and the stack of mail that I DID NOT get answered... in case you were wondering.