Hello Monday!

Having never had a kidney stone, I laughed robustly (but pretty quietly) over this one. Can the I'v-had-a-kidney-stone crowd also laugh? 

It's Monday. Unlike most people, I love Mondays. And have for slightly more than 20 years now. Ever since the big 'career' change. When Sunday is your biggest day of the week well, Monday is like a breather. At least when it's a quiet day..and ours tend to be. Thankfully.
Yesterday we visited our old and blind friend out in a village. The village is down a long and very pot-holey road that winds up and down and in and out of several major ravines. To me, the village is on the way to nowhere although there must be something farther down the road. Back to our friend. He's 86, blind, poor, stubborn...and has had an interesting life. He was forced into the Russian army at some point. When he'd had enough of that, he left. Deserted, I suppose, but he's never been a fan of the Russians. He was jailed (I think for deserting) and escaped from jail. He might have done that twice. He has grown children and grandchildren. He's a widower. And he's nearing the end of his road here. When we were with him yesterday, for a little while, I thought we'd be there with him as he finished. We weren't. We left when one of his daughters came to sit with him for a while. What struck me most yesterday was how strong his will to live is. We humans hang on to life with just about everything in us, it seems. Speaking was very difficult for him but he talked about the pills he was taking to make him better.
F's eyesight has been fading for the entire 14 years I've known him. His sense of hearing has been remarkable though, and for a long time, he knew everyone that visited him by their voice. Then that faded as his hearing faded. Another thing that struck me yesterday is that his hearing is better again. He once again knew me by my voice. The pic is from 2 years ago. 

Just a few fairly random thoughts.
My birthday is past again. I really like birthdays- my own and other people's. Our family never did anything big (or as my mom's family would say 'large') for birthdays but it was always a fun day. I remember the thrill of having a short birthday party at school- I loved having treats for the other kids and passing them out. I also remember Mom bringing cake in to school. That was fun! (I wonder if you can still do that? If not, I feel sorry for today's kids.) 
Back in the fall of 2007, I joined Facebook. And some time after that found out how much fun a F/B birthday is. Why? Well, of course, Because of all the birthday wishes from friends. Let me just say that, with a very few exceptions, all my F/B 'friends' are actual real honest-to-goodness friends and acquaintances. There are a small handful whom I've not met and even fewer of those who I likely will never meet. I don't collect F/B friends randomly or just for the fun of it. And just now, when I finally had the chance to read through the b/d wishes on F/B, I loved thinking of the people who had taken the time to leave a greeting. So many of the posts brought back specific and special memories of the posters. I can honestly say that these do more for me than just give me a temporary happy feeling. But then, I think that is part of what this great family is all about! We do help each other along the way.
And along that line- I've thought of our hymn- I Would Be True. Most of you probably know it. I often think of the line 'because of those who trust me'. And more than anyone will ever know, that has helped me. I'm glad that we need each other. And I'm glad that we have each other.

I love animals. I've always loved both cats and dogs. I've not ever really enjoyed sharing living space with a hair-shedding pet, though. But this cat is a rather special one. Someone callously said that the only reason he wanted to park right here on me was that he was cold, having just come in from outside. Whatever. It was still rather purringly special! ;) This dude's name is 'Fenya'. His favorite food is potato peelings (!). He also eats mice...but seldom catches his own. He likes to have them trapped and then hand-delivered! ;)

It's definitely time........

To do this again! Admit it- You've just been pining away for a comics post! ;)

  

This just made me grin. Isn't friendship a bit like that, though? Sometimes I think we give to and take from a friendship X and Y. And in the other person's eyes, it's more like M and N. But it's friendship. And it endures. In spite of different sunglasses and book clubs. :)

I have this J-boy nephew. He was 2 1/2 when I met him. And so lively and curious and full of life. And one day, he climbed onto the seat and then the arm rests and then the back of his daddy's swivel desk chair. His momma and I were chatting away. His momma had just warned him not to do that particular bit of climbing. And then the chair spun and he spun ever so gracefully and magically pirouetted from the chair back to the arms to the seat all while the chair spun around. And then he looked at us with huge eyes and said: Momma! How'd I do that Momma? How Momma, How?!??? And no one could answer him. The universe was deliciously random that day! And he was heart-stoppingly adventurous!

  

But after they're done with their little bit of boxing ring madness, they make delicious banana bread. As I remembered again just last week. :) (Warm banana bread, soft butter, a cup of tea. Do you get it???) 

I have a friend. A dear friend. When she's visiting here in Ukr and someone rings her doorbell, she loves to say 'Друг или Враг?' (Rus'n for 'Friend or Foe'?) Which can be sort of puzzling to the locals. But is sure a lot of fun! ;)

The students here? They love Google. In fact, they call (him) 'Uncle Google'. "Just a minute, I'll ask Uncle Google..."

Catered small parties are great! I like this guy. (But I don't like his shirt.)

See this? This pic of the red sauce? Do you even know how yummy it is and how easy it is to make? This is the reason to eat pasta. It's the reason to eat bread sticks (which you really really need, right? I thought so).

Ok. So now look at that up there. That would be a cheese quesadilla from here. (Prepackaged, ready to heat and eat.) But they're super easy to make, too. And super yummy.
Yesterday, our Tuesday evening English club stood us up. Completely. But K had already made the quesadillas. There was a part of a jar of whole canned tomatoes in the fridge. There is oregano, basil and black pepper in the cupboard. There is garlic in the fridge. After peeling those 'maters, I rough-chopped them and dumped them into a small kettle. And liberally added the basil and oregano. Pressed a clove of garlic into it. Added a dash of salt and a dash of pepper. Mixed. Simmered for about 10 min. (No onions or olive oil this time. Actually, I don't typically use olive oil in my sauce but most recipes call for it. If I use onion, though, I always saute it in a bit of oil. Onward.)
So then we ate those leftover, reheated quesadillas with this wonderful marinara sauce. I'm telling you, it's been a good day! So delicious. And so easy. And so.....
Happy. That is the perfect word for it! And you know what? Turns out you can marry Mexican and Italian food to each other (especially if you're in Ukraine using substitutes for the quesadillas-

ha) and everyone's pretty happy with the situation! (all about lavash)
Marinara sauce pic from here.
And then I had Earl Gray tea and that really made life full of purrs.
:)

oh boy

Umm
Have you (fountainmist) seen this??? Oh Boy. Oh my. (Blood sugar level is an issue, keep calm and don't click just dream. But wow- whaddadream!) ;)

And is this a bit.... uff? Not even really funny.

And I guess that's me for now. I'm here, you're there. Life spins. That's not so bad, is it? :)

Gulp

Every week we spend time with our always interesting, very special and somewhat eccentric friend Dima. His big thing for several years now has been gathering and drying many different plants and then making various tinctures, extracts and teas which he consumes himself and also generously shares with interested parties. (Aside: It's his "fireweed extract" that has significantly diminished my migraines. Hooray!)
He's also a huge fan of cottage cheese-based fruit smoothies for supper (Delicious!), mutton (Also Yum although four+ meals a week of it is a bit much maybe) and homemade raw fresh-squeezed fruit juices. His latest juice love is mixing various fruit juices with the juice of an onion. All freshly squeezed (or maybe "pressed" or "squashed" are better choices; I'm not sure you can "squeeze" an onion...) So,  in spite of not liking raw onions at all (because they really really upset my stomach and leave me feeling queasy and yucky for hours), because I'm a sucker and he's a good salesman, I tried a spoonful of it. Apple,  pear and onion. And felt rotten all night. I don't exactly recommend it. Ugh.

There's a tumbochka, too

That little divanchyk settee thing is part of a set. There's a little (well really,  it's kind of big, heavy and awkward) low table on wheels with storage underneath, too. Since the storage is only accessible by lifting the very heavy wooden top,  it's empty- except for a set of dirty sheers belonging to the landlord. In any case,  this brilliant piece of Soviet craftsmanship was the same red and black checked pattern as that poor divanchyk/settee- Oooo- ugly. So I also took the curtain and sleeping bag liner leftovers to it and,  with the help of that fabulous staple gun, gave it a new outlook on life.
And no, as someone noted in the comments a couple posts back- There are no before pix. None. Zip. Zero. I guess I was just too excited to stop long enough to do that.
Ahem.
And there are 2 more covered pillows now, both inflatable and fairly unexciting... although both tie shut with darling little ribbons. And that plain white pillow top got a simple white hankie with a simple blue  embroidered peacock stitched to the top. Sometime,  somewhere I got a ton of hankies,  mostly pretty... and I don't use hankies. They're fun little pretty-me-ups. And there are no pix of these newly-altered pillows. :-)

Oh the pillows?

Well yes,  I've been working on those pillows. As sometimes happens,  our plans for today were canceled. Everyone's looking out for the army these days and today was some big something or other to raise funds for the army. So people did that instead of come to our place. So I spent a good part of the afternoon working on this pillow. It's simple, yes I know. It has piping,  though. Some I made this time. And,  uh, it took me awhile to find the right presser-foot for the sewing machine and then to find the right cording for the piping (Are you taking note, Charlene?! You're absolutely right, It's The Piping!!)

Plus there was a simple square feather pillow to do (it needed a new casing as well as a new cover). And then there was the fun little new pillow! For a long time,  there  have been  four little, basically useless, tiny roundish neck-type pillows floating around this room. Noone ever used them and,  like everything else,  they matched nothing. K latched onto the foam one when she saw what kind peril it was in; I nabbed the other three  and had a party! One was regular fiberfill batting; one was  stuffed with puffy poly fiber balls; the last was stuffed with what looks like the hulls from something like millet. I made a casing,  put it all inside,  mooshed it around to a pleasant consistency and sewed it shut... and then made the cover. There 

are two more to go. :-)   

What to do? Besides wait...

We were waiting at the bus station. Well really,  we were waiting at a nice café near the bus station. The were no tickets on the bus we needed and the next bus was 2 1/2 hours later. 

So I  started a post of  some of my favorite shots from this summer.   I'll do the pix now and maybe do captions later since I'm once again waiting at that café for that same bus... and the Blogger app is not particularly user friendly. Urp.  

Divan, day 2

After several more hours yesterday afternoon, this is the little divan-chick. There's some hand sewing left on the sides and the front. And then deciding how to finish that back. Two crocheted lace runners there for now.

Whadda Mess

It's been a long time.... so I'm just going to jump in and go and pretend I never missed a beat... starting now.
My room doubles as the living room... Or else the living room doubles as my room.  I get that mixed up sometimes.
So, there's a couch. Blue plaid. And a table. Brown. And a bed. Covered in bedding and (quite often) lots of my stuff. And a few chairs. Green fabric. Some miscellaneous cupboard-y shelve-y things.  Small.  White,  cream,  brown,  ummm red. And then there's the short little divan-chick. The sort of strange,  completely ugly,  somewhat ungainly, heavy-as-lead Soviet-era sort-of-loveseat. Whoa.  Ugly. Very. Upholstered in red and black, with a red velvet cover (No,  the reds don't match-Should they?) Earlier I ditched the ice-blue polyester (shiny- All I can say is people have different tastes, I guess.) throw cover that had been trying to hide the various reds underneath.
Someone came back from the second hand store with the news that all household linens were 50% off.  Earlier, Karen had wondered out loud if a person could buy used curtains and reupholster furniture. So off I went to SecondHandLand. For $7, I got a pile of drapes,  a blanket, a sleeping bag liner, a valance, a duvet cover, some curtain lining fabric. There were even 3 tassles and some piping in that bundle. Laundered and dried and ironed (some of) it. Then started ripping seams on the main pieces. Salvaged the tassles and piping. Did some measuring and some sewing.
Not done yet but bedtime snuck up on me. The pix show this afternoon and evening's progress. 
-There's the partially done beast with the various fabric scraps and pieces. And the tassles and piping.
-There's the shot that shows the old red upholstery.
-There's the stack of pillows that get done up to match. (The furniture around this place needs pillows to be comfortable. Plus,  I like pillows. A lot. Plus,  I'm having fun.)

A few shots from our trip to downtown Kyiv on Monday. We roamed the area where the protesters and government forces faced off in the winter. Lots of impressions and emotions. And very vivid memories of what it felt like to 'watch' from afar the last 3 days of fighting (Feb 18 - 20)- following posts on Twitter and Facebook as government forces nearly swamped the last of the protesters and then as the snipers mowed them down that last awful day. And how it felt to go down to the central square here in our city as we saw off our own dear child- the little girl who used to play doctor with all her dolls and teddy bears- she once hooked her teddy up to a working IV- he got soaking wet- No longer a little girl, she's now a 2nd year medical student and spent many hours in Kyiv working in several of the field hospitals there. When we said good-bye to her that night, the snipers were still shooting and the situation looked desperate. The busload from our city was determined, upbeat and sober- but no tears. Most of them were men. Everyone had one or two people seeing them off. The whole lot of us were very sober and quiet...but there were no tears shed that I saw. Thankfully (for us), by the time that bus got to Kyiv, Parliament had passed several measures that halted violence. 

These are just a few of the pix. For the full album, go to this link (on facebook). 

Name of our city (Ternopil) with the name of a local boy who was killed in the fighting; I wonder if this is where he died......

brave new world

More than a month since the last post. Things got really dicey really fast right then and just took my breath away. And it's just been hard to get the 'umph' to write. There have been some very encouraging days in there but also lots of very uncertain days. Ukraine is in brand new territory, feeling her way through. As has been echoed from everyone from the new government on down, We never even thought to prepare a defense of some kind against Russia; we never could have imagined that we'd need one. 

But need it they do. And prepare it they have...or are. 

The army began mobilizing about 3 weeks ago. One of the things the last pres did (the one who was impeached) was to nearly do away with the army (never mind that, number-wise, it's still the largest in Europe). A voluntary conscription was begun and thousands have signed up. Including many relatives and neighbors and acquaintances of my students. And some of my own acquaintances. 

And, of course, lots of military movement and training. And fund raising. 

The bright side of this? There are several, actually. 

-People need each other, they need us, we need them- we all feel it. People are listening intently and with need. And on the streets and in the stores and buses- people are nice to each other. Polite. Kind. It's been interesting to note.

-Not nearly as many drunks. In fact, since the holidays ended mid January, I've seen probably a handful. And usually there were that many a day. 

And that brings me to this: Purpose.

One day, my friend and I were walking along the road and noticed a small dog tearing along in a straight line- Point A to Point B, that was very clear. 

There goes a dog with a purpose, One of us said.

Zoom- another, larger dog goes tearing along hot on the heels of the first dog.

And there goes his purpose, The other one said.

And we laughed.

But we're like those dogs- We need something to focus on, to motivate us, to get us moving in a straight line. We need a purpose. Many Ukrainians have found a purpose that they didn't have. 

There is a better purpose, even, than theirs. I'm glad I have a purpose.  

Yesterday has a new name- Bloody Tuesday

A post is in order, I suppose. But I'm not much in the mood for it. I'll put in a link to some pix I posted to facebook- although the album is private, this link should give you access to it. I haven't yet written about this on this blog at all, I don't think, although I've thought about it more than once. This winter has been a very tense one here- although I've not felt threatened or in danger at all. We have been able to go about our business without any problem. (Except for this morning's trip to our city's downtown area, I have stayed completely away from the areas where 'stuff' has been happening since late last Nov.) It seems

Ternopil police admin building last night (video of the destruction- this has been or is being repeated in many cities throughout the country- it seems that ours was first.)
And the prosecutor's office (also a video)
And the court (video)
And here's a video of the police in another city NW of ours (Lutsk) being escorted out of their admin building to chants of 'shame' and other (not very nice) things. The title of this video is 'For policemen in Lutsk they organized a corridor of honor' with the last two words being in quotes as obviously, it's a walk of shame.
There are many many pix and videos and links from Euromaidan/Evromaidan/Євромайдан #tags on twitter and pages on facebook and instagram. What a fool this man has been to push the people this far.

And I've pretty well lost my appetite for this kind of thing. I never had much of one to begin with, actually, although I've seen enough here to make me wish for physical change for this country. It's good to keep in mind that there is a much greater power than any displayed in these pix or videos that has been true and will be always. 

a few recent links

I want to eat make this salad. Recipe found here.

I want this room bed. More? Here.

I did a whole month of lessons on this (Nov- go figure) and used this song (and tried not to cry) and stuff I've gleaned from these posts over the past months. 

Mr FixIt and Son Tales

The bathroom floor- finished! And the washer is back in its place- that's what really made us smile! (You'd smile, too, if you were running out of vital things of clothage). I thought at first Mr FixIt's son said they were going to 'seal the grout'- which really knocked me out of the ball park. But...it's just there- the grout. They didn't seal it. Oh well.

The bedroom floor yest morning. Not long after we had a slight altercation polite discussion- Someone (cough) lost the PO box key. BigAndInCharge PO Lady gave me a number to call to take care of that. (No, they could not do it there and No they cannot go and check the box for us. Ok.) So- we asked Mr FixIt and his son to please refrain from using the saw for just a little bit while we made the all-important phone call. In the middle of the call, all other sound was suddenly drowned out by...the saw. I ran in there and asked them to PLEASE wait just 1 min. Their response? Tell her to go out into the corridor (the stairwell of the building). My eyes rolled so hard they nearly got stuck pointing some direction other than forward.

The floor at 4 pm last night when Mr FixIt left. 

In other remodel/FixIt news

-I pointed out that the shower head no longer fits into the wall-mounted holder. I yanked it last week (cough again) and did something dreadful to the inside liner and had to replace it...and the new one- didn't fit. The end was too fat. I pointed all that out. Could you please figure out something here? I asked. And he did. He (cough yet again) took it off and put it back on right side up. Oh. I mean. WhoKnew?
-We've started the big clean up. Big. As in- Mr FixIt cut the first of the tile for the bathroom in the bathroom with the door wide open. If you want to see how far that powdery dust can launch itself in about 10 seconds...well- come on over. Inside cupboards (whose doors were closed at the time). All pipes Everywhere. The door at the foot of my bed that goes out to the balcony. All the potted plants (they're getting showers in the tub.) Not to mention our tooth brushes (shudder- don't worry, we took care of those straight away). It. Is. Everywhere. Sigh.
-Yesterday AM we were having quiet time, getting ready for the day when Mr FixIt's son zooms over to their stash of materials right outside the door to my room (the middle of which is a large panel of glass with a frosted flower design in it- Yes, it's poorly designed)- the door is ajar (because it won't stay shut- no doorknob, you know)- He looks in through the glass, sees N by her bed contemplating what clothes to wear- thankfully she was still in her pj's (Yes, they got here early yest)- and says Hello!- all bright and cheerful. N looks stunned and says to me- It's like living at the train station. And I did what I should have done 3 months ago and put a throw over the glass. No one's looking in anymore.***
-This morning, N was reading her Bible on her bed and Mr FixIt comes charging into the room (without knocking) to inspect where the new doorknob will go. She's once again in shock. (I was in the kitchen eating this time.) Just what planet are these clowns from anyway? Mr FixIt and Son? We Are So Over You.  (They both left about 5 min later and haven't come back.)

***I feel like explaining this one a bit more. We got home very late Sun night- after 11 by the time we got in... and that's not in bed that's just in the door...we'd had a BIG day. Mon's are the one day we have to try to recover from the previous normally-very-big-and-long days. I woke up quite early with a migraine. A bad one. And was still trying to get to the point where I could move without the risk of throwing up. N was getting sick (she's flat out sick and in bed now). Mr FixIt has been arriving somewhere between 9 and 10 am. So his arrival not long after 8 yesterday caught us completely off guard and unprepared.  

Some fun links from today's feedreader stuff
  Language game? Now this is interesting. :)
  This little girl in the rain- absolutely adorable! But I'll bet there were some tears when they finally hauled her back inside. ;)

Mornings outside our kitchen window are never dull. That path road out there goes right to an elementary school- next building down from ours, in fact. So there's a steady stream of parents with small children, bigger children (too big to walk with their parents, that's for sure!) as well as people walking dogs and people hurrying to work (or wherever). This pic only has a smattering of people in it, actually. You'll have to come see for yourself! ;)

N was in a cookie baking mood. She made 'hedgehogs'- which, if you google 'hedgehog cookies'- do not look like this. This is a local variation, I guess. Strips of dry cookie dough cut into short strips (like short noodles) and baked, then clustered together and doused in egg whites beaten with sugar....

...and baked. Being as how I love meringue in nearly any form, these are pretty ok with me! 

Today was the day we got a new floor in the bathroom! Now this truly is big stuff! I don't think I have a pic of how it was...but the old floor was composed of smaller tiles that had mostly broken up altogether. The middle was just the bare yucky cement (we had a mat there). 

And the finished product. (Excuse that board- it is really truly there for us to stand on while we brush our teeth, wash our hands, etc...since the cement he used to set the tiles isn't dry yet. ;) 

From where I sit

Gorgeous hoar frost this morning. It's been warming up and is supposed to be above freezing during the day for the next week or so. Can't say that I mind all that much. :)

Closer to the window. I loved looking out this window early last week when the snow was fresh and unspoiled. There's that poem about life being like a field of newly (driven?) snow- be careful how you tread it for every step will show. There's a lot to be said for learning from our mistakes (and how sad if we don't)... but what about learning from others' mistakes? And what about asking and seeking and knocking until we find, receive and are opened to? And sometimes we have a fresh snowfall that covers it all up and lets us 'start again'. Life truly is special.

This must have fallen from a floor above us. Someone must have a clothes line off their balcony/out their window. I don't know- I think I'd go claim it if it were mine! It's been there for days and looks more lonely and forlorn with each passing day! ;)

• The remodeling is progressing. Mr Renovator Man has taken to opening the window (again) and smoking 'out' it...only, as he sheepishly said today 'It doesn't always work out'... No, it doesn't. We're not nagging him about it- he knows we don't like it but does it anyway...so what to do? I can't figure out why anyone would want a newly redone room to have the lingering odor of cigarette smoke in it from the very start...
• We've been battling ants (little tiny ones. Tiny and hardy.) for nearly a year now. Ugh. K first noticed them last spring- she thought she'd brought them home in a box of cereal; I've come to the conclusion that they have a whole metropolis with suburbs and outlying areas in the walls of our building. We found a smallish anthill (not kidding) on our top cupboard shelf underneath the stash of disposable dinnerware- that was enough to give us the heebie-jeebies, I'm telling you. After that, we've waged a serious war- homemade ant poison and vigilantly checking the kitchen. Often. We lost 2 house plants to them- they must have moved into the pots and eaten the roots??? We found one ant highway that led to a crack under the windowsill and provided them with plenty of doctored food in that vicinity. Sigh. Did you see that thing that was going around the web earlier? About pouring molten aluminum on an anthill and seeing cool things? (Google 'anthill art')- that just always made me feel slightly sick, actually. I mean- ants outside in their anthill doing ant things. Why do you have to kill them for the sake of seeing something cool? But these ants? The ones in our kitchen. Grrr. If I could have reached their main colony, I'd have gladly taken it down. We are slowly winning the war. Months after putting out the first poison. (Wouldn't you like to come visit us? :) )

ahhh

Just checking in!
Today
- I realized I've lost the PO box key. Hmmm. Possibly when we get this renovation done and N's stuff moved back into her room it will show up??? One can certainly hope.
- I read about my aunt and uncle's trip via AmTrak to New York. Their train was only 10 1/2 hours late leaving IN. No kidding. They spent the whole night on one of those Very Cold Nights waiting for that train, running to nearby gas stations for food and restroom facilities. This is enough to completely blow the mind of the locals here. My aunt came to the conclusion that you never leave for a train trip without 1) food or 2) books. (This is something I abide by in the land where they're nearly always on time...same goes for bus trips. You. Just. Never. Know.)
- Mr Renovation Man has finished the new plaster work in the nearly new room. And I noticed that the light switch has been moved down to about waist height. Our landlady (the real one, not her mom--who's the one footing the bill for the renovation, remember?) has a 1st grade son. The new wall paper is blue. I have come to the rather astute conclusion that we will soon be looking for a new place to live. This renovation is not for us. They will also not be doing more while we live here. (I'll get back to you in a few months' time to let you know about the accuracy of that prediction!)
-Popcorn is superbly splendid. Especially the kind that you pop on the stove top. In fact, let's not even include the microwave stuff under the heading 'popcorn'. After being wintered in for over a week in a village in the western part of the country, N's face was one big grin when we had popcorn for supper!
-N also loves corn bread. It's a give and take kind of thing! I love love love 'Zeleniy Borsch' (I've never had it with parsnips but it would be worth a try! One nice addition is some Polish-type sausage; also cilantro. pix here)- which I never had before the fall of 2000; I have also developed an affection for savory buckwheat, boiled (like rice, for instance) and served as a side dish.

I used to wonder about the steps in an escalator. The world is full of magic to children! 

Sit down-

It's me again! ;)

Looking up into a corner. Looks like only the ceiling will be drywall

And a wall! ;)

Shall we call this a February Challenge?

Someone else in blogland is committed to blogging each day of February. I haven't exactly decided to do the same but I have been remembering how much I used to love to just babble here a bit and how long it's been since I did much of that on a regular basis. And maybe that's not a bad thing.

February here is 2 1/2 days old and so far has been gloriously sunny. Today is 21F, bright blue sky and beautiful. I've not been outside yet...but it's on the agenda. For one thing, there was the phone call last night on the train. First there was the sms about UAH 40 having been put on my phone acct. And then the umpteen missed phone calls from an unfamiliar number. And then the one I actually answered (it was my smart phone which I seldom use as an actual phone- it's my mobile internet, actually- so don't ever have the volume on). This unfamiliar unknown person on the other end was begging me to return the uah 40 she'd accidentally sent to my number instead of her own. It's easy to do. We have these iBoxes everywhere (I just googled that- And I have no idea why we call them iBox! It's just a freestanding machine where you can punch in your phone number and then feed it money and your acct is recharged; you can recharge a lot of other accts, too but the phone is the only one I'm interested in). So if you accidentally switch a couple numbers or enter a wrong digit and that number exists- Bingo! You've given someone else a present! So, I need to go out and put uah40 on her acct...since it turns out doing it through the phone company involves passports and other rig-a-marole.
For another thing there's the nearly empty fridge out there.

When my little sis was in middle school, she was (for how long? Don't know.) the arm wrestling champion. I can only imagine all the boys were thrilled. 

 That Peanuts reminded me of this one. An old one featured on here before (back in 2008). Yup. That bro-in-law was just about to get creamed by his wife's sis. Who is one tough chick! ;)

The new room is progressing. There was just a tremendous crash followed by happy humming and scurrying feet and more sounds of drywall being mudded so apparently there were no casualties. Mr Man also sings while he works. He's about 2 inches tall, weighs about an ounce, looks like he's about a hundred and moves in fast darting motions. I can only assume it was a short trip to the floor. 

Aaannnnnddddddddddddd February!

The renovation is still going strong. Day 2 (yesterday) revealed that, although the landlady (well, her mom really. Wanna know something? The actual for-real landlady uhhh doesn't know about this little new room. Yup. I had a call the other day from Anya- the lady who originally rented this place to us. Unbeknownst to us at the time, the apt is in her adult dau's name. All our business was with Anya until a certain point last year when the dau stepped in and said- I'm the owner you know. Your dealings will be with me now. I think she thought her mom was too soft with us. heh. teehee. I wonder why. So anyway- Anya calls- Uhhh You're meeting with my dau later today? Yes, I say. Uhhh. Well. Do you mind not telling her about that work we're going to be doing on that room at the apt? She uhhhh doesn't know about it. She uhhhh doesn't think we have enough money for it right now. I thought for a minute. And then said Well I can just keep quiet about it. I had no intention of lying about it but I also couldn't see why it should even come up since Darling Dau had no reason to suspect, apparently. And sure enough, not a word was said. If I hadn't had so many frustrations with Darling Dau, I would feel a bit sorry for her but... so anyway- back to the proverbial ranch. Day 2 revealed that, although the landlady's MOM said they were going to redo the walls, it is, in fact, the whole room that's getting a new do. There is laminate flooring in that collection up there. And the walls and ceiling will be drywall. And Mr Renovator Man is one hard working dude. He works from 9 am to 6 or 7 pm with no breaks for anything- food, drink, toilet, nothing. He goes outside (ahem) about twice in that stretch for a smoke. And. That. Is. It. After a previous experience* with some handymen-types here, that is impressive, to say the least.  

So yeah- it's February and real winter has finally set in. It's so cold and windy that I had to put a sleeping bag on the windowsill in my room to keep the plants from freezing. And I'm wearing everything I can get on and still move. And I'm just in the apartment. Looking through the window at the few people out there trying to navigate cured me of the urge to go anywhere.

So- babble much? I guess.

*Little T and I once were called by a frantic (sort of) male from our little team- Get over here as fast as you can. These clowns who are supposed to be doing the painting aren't working fast enough. We need to use this place for GUESTS next week and they're slow as molasses. So off we went. To paint. And sure enough, there were 2 handymen. Painting. Sort of. Reality was they took a 20 min smoking and tea break once an hour. I kid you not. We worked circles around them and they laughed at us. What do you want to get this done for so fast, they asked. There'll just be more to do after that. One of our team said to me He doesn't want to hurry up because he's out of the house and away from his wife while he's here. Well haha. We gotter done, thanks. And they got fired.