Murchyk (Мурчик)- Life of a Cat

Got out to Ira's this morning... it's a very cold day... they'd fired up the wood stove this morning... it felt good...

I'm not the only one who thought so... what's this?

Ahhh... This is 'Murchyk' (Мурчик)- his name means he purrs...

understand?

He wasn't very inclined to wake up at first....
but I know how to talk to Ukr'n cats...

:) Monkeyshine

He was about to settle in again... so his 'Mom' hauled him out of there... poor thing...

Here's the other side of that stove. The 'business' side. There's a kettle of water there and burners... they only use it for heat, though, as they have a gas stove in the kitchen...

a little while later, look who came back... we know who's important around here! :)

misc stuff...

heading off for the bus the other day after yet more snow/rain/ice... it was beautiful!

the sun was still managing to shine... but soon disappeared and hasn't been heard from since...

looking out the front door... not too pretty right now... but we have a great caretaker/groundskeeper- always lot of gravel down by the building... you'd have to try to fall here... ;) (speaking of falling- I was rushing home from the grocery in Kyiv a few weeks ago- driving too fast for the conditions... hahaha- on foot, of course, but I like the sound of it... there was a sturdily-built, low-to-the-ground, slow-moving vehicle ahead of me. I zipped into the passing lane and picked up speed. And just as I pulled even with her, whooooop, down I go... right onto my back***, legs waving in the air like a tipped turtle's...(well almost). The other vehicle froze in place instantly and peered down at me... sort of startled-like... I peered up... heh heh... It's slippery she says. Uh huh I say... and cont on (at a slower rate of speed)...)

our neighbor's door has this scrawled on it in pen: Come to the post office to get your pension. 12.06.09

what to do if you don't have post-it's...

and last but not least! Sharon had foot surgery recently. (If all's well, we're going to Odessa Mon to get the stitches removed.) After Stu's timely addition to my life, I recommended finding some cuddly something or other for Sharon and this is what Karen came up with... not sure what his name is, though...

***what I really fell on was my backpack which had a carton of eggs in it... and none of them broke... or even cracked. I went down pretty easily, actually... wasn't even sore afterwards... I give you permission to laugh...

another secret passageway*

*I realize this is a fairly loose interpretation of the term secret passageway

Howdy Hello! I've been quiet awhile again. Karen and I traded places not quite 2 weeks ago... so she's enjoying my cozy corner up in Kyiv and I'm down here in her pleasantly drafty (I like a good draft, thanks!) and very cheery space.

There is a lot of running around down here and, as always, lots of it is under your own steam... the '2 legged transport'. So, coming home today, I did some path documentation. There's a secret way (not all that secret, seeing as how every citizen of the whole city knows about it...but it's unpaved and unmarked and involves wending your way through shady places) to get from the street out in front (this is another loose interpretation) of the apt building to the actual apt. Here we go!

looking back the way we came... (see what I mean about everyone knowing about it? It's well-worn... even in the ice and snow)

turn around, face forward... we're heading this way... (the cement 'fence' may or may not border a school playground...I never can quite figure out where that playground really truly is...)

round the corner of the cement 'fence' and our path splits... we go to the right. The upsidedown V? Used to be a swingset...

aim for the gap... that's someone's unattached garage (like really unattached- it's in a 'garage park') up ahead...

someone scrawled 'child of the moon forever' on that garage...

hmmmm- What does that mean?

so now we're plunging on and marching through the garage park... there are more garages behind the row on the right... and there is often a stray dog with her pups hanging out back here. She's short and bedraggled... but fierce when it comes to her pups....

and emerging from the garage park- the row of dumpsters... these dumpsters serve at least 3 big buildings... nearly always overflowing... it's always amusing to toss a bag of trash in and watch a highly offended, startled and spitting cat fly out... I wouldn't do that on purpose, mind you, but I don't get close enough to check out the status of the dumpster before tossing, either...

so now- the home stretch. Garbage to the left of us (off the pic), one last garage to the right, another fence...and... laundry ahead...

yep... freeze-dries... (as Sharon says- Thank goodness, we don't have to hang ours outside... we have a niftly folding rack. My fingers get cold at the thought of the other...)

our building and our entrance dead ahead now...

ahh yes- and the "Liars' bench" outside the entrance... heavily populated in warm weather by all manner of people who while away the time in that beloved-among-many-peoples manner: ShootingTheBreeze

Empty today though...

oh baby!

We have a new baby here! Can you guess who this is?

see the little blue hat?

Yep- this is a boy baby! He cries!

He opens his eyes!

He's Artem. Born a week ago. I've not actually met him yet but hope to later this week. Momma and Daddy are both deaf; Daddy's is genetic, so they'll be keeping an eye on this little fellow for that. He has a big brother (who can hear perfectly well when he wants to, thanks very much). Alyosha is 7 1/2 already and wasn't all that keen (at first) on the thought of another body in the house. Then he adjusted. When they introduced Big Brother and Little Brother, Big Brother was a study, we hear. He looked and looked... looked at his feet- this kid can't walk... looked at his mouth- he doesn't have any teeth... all he does is CRY... What use is this?! I guess he was quite disappointed! He'd apparently been picturing a ready-made playmate and this just doesn't look too hopeful!

Big Brother is also the kid I asked (when he was 3)- Alyosh- can I kiss you? He looked at me and retorted- It's a bit early! (ещё рано!) Everyone rolled on the floor laughing and wiping their eyes.

3six5 again

The 3six5 project is in the running for grant money from Pepsi; the grant would be used to help defray the costs of eventually publishing the project as a book. Vote here if you feel so inclined.

3six5 refresher
authors' posts so far

The other Daudy B

A year ago exactly my Daudy B was in the hosp and then passed away. My dad is the 2nd child and the oldest son in that family. Last Friday, he had a heart attack. Thankfully, it was not a massive one, thankfully Mom was there, thankfully they got to the doctor and then to the hospital, thankfully the doctors were able to remove a clot without having to do any other procedure. Thankfully he's recovering well... he sounds perky on the phone and ready to get out of the hospital. That may happen soon.
What took my breath away was realizing what the outcome could have been had this happened a week earlier... when Mom had a weekend away with her sisters; her oldest sis turned 70 and the other 5 sisters went to their nephew's in FL to surprise their sister for her birthday. Life, of course, happens many ways and many things happen... but I'm more than thankful that, for now, my own dear dad is safe and sound and fretting (I'm sure) in a hospital bed across the ocean.

Now I need to go... there's this program on my comp called SKYPE... and I'm going to go talk to my dad! xo

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! :)