Usually when one has nothing to say, the advice is not to open your mouth and prove it. However...
Saturday it was warm enough we went into town for groceries and went through a whack of money in a hurry.
Tanya needed new jeans so we went to Kansas Jeans which is the only store in town with a wide selection. Now women may be accused of accumulating unlimited numbers of shoes and handbags but my weakness is shirts. Kansas carries Wrangler cowboy shirts in my size. So Tanya got three pairs of jeans and I got a new western shirt. Very nice but not LOUD enough for my tastes. My shirt would be $50 to $75 in Canada at a western wear store but it was $25 here. They make up for it with the jeans.
Clothes $200
Groceries $200 (our pantry was bare. they love us at "Big Spoon" supermarket)
Gasoline $40 (2/3 full only)
Internet $70 (we are both serious users and each have a wireless modem)
Haircuts $20 ($5 for haircut and $5 for a tip for both of us. Yulia was upset because I put my Russian fur hat on my beautiful hair cut and messed it all up. Tanya told her that it was "normal" for me.)
Tomorrow we will go and pay our utility bills. Low in comparison to Canada but with this cold it will be another $200 gas electricity and water. Our house is so poorly insulated it grieves me all the heat we waste. I'd love to put a new roof on it with thick fibre glass insulation under it. And styrofoam on the exterior walls and then siding. Hah. Won't happen. Cost would buy a lot of heat.
During the cold snap my shower froze up - the pipes run in the outside wall and the cold line froze. It did that in the cold spell two years ago. I had been running the water in the shower every few hours but not enough I guess. Anyhow today it warmed up enough outside -5C that heat from inside was enough to thaw the line.
Must be spring coming. Kuchma yowls to come in the house, stays 10 minutes and yowls to go out again. This for three days now. Volk disappeared three days ago and has not been seen since. Bobik came home like a good boy but cries because he is lonely. I am keeping him home as if Volk has a girlfriend, I don't need them battling to the death again like last fall. This video shows a crow trying to break up a fight between two tom cats. Pretty funny and totally fruitless.
Watched a presidential contenders debate tonight. Russian not Republican. I may be crazy but I am not stupid. Leader of the Communist Party vs an Oligarch whose name escapes me. Putin will not lower himself to debate the little people since he is going to win anyhow. He was too busy and such trivial things would interfere with his important duties as Prime Minister. When he said that, he was busy chairing the National Anglers Association meeting
Not sure how many are running against Putin. Khodorkovsky in in jail for the foreseeable future. Two wannabee guys didn't make the cut - they were disqualified by the Electoral Commission. One was the Governor of Yakutsk who was a good guy. The other one apparently was not. They have strange rules for running elections in Russia. Transparent is not a word I would use. Kind of like the Florida Supreme Court and the electronic voting machines in Ohio except much more crude of course.
Showing posts with label clothes; Ukraine Diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clothes; Ukraine Diary. Show all posts
Monday, February 6, 2012
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Not Nureyev
Two more trees gone today. An apple tree by our neighbour's fence and the cherry tree in our front yard. I'll do a before and after of our house next time I am out with the camera. Yuri cut them into stove length blocks which will in a couple years make for very good shashlik fires. I sure wished I could have turned that cherry tree into usable material for building or turning as the wood grain was just lovely. As an aside, the nutritionist at Brooks Feedlot said years ago that horses chewed corral rails because they were after the grain in the wood...but I digress.
Yuri was here at 8:30 this morning, so we all went outside to help. The trees were huge and had to be cut down small section at a time to avoid too much collateral damage. Tanya's flowers took a beating but the fences and windows are still intact. It was a damp day with a strong west wind and it felt COLD. No Chinook (Foehn, for the uninitiated) but the temp did go up 10 degrees to to +5C (41F) and it was cold if you worked up a sweat then stood and waited for the next batch of stove length blocks or bunch of branches to haul.
I dressed warm. T-shirt under my shirt and then dug out my long underwear which I put on about once a year. They are local bought black tights, (with no feet, thank God). They fit like a second skin. Not so much poured in as painted on. Not a sight for the public but better than white Speedos (gotcha).
Bobik and Volk wanted to help so I let them run. They played like puppies, wrestling in the deep snow, chasing around and in general, having a wonderful time. Masha built a snowman and Bobik went over immediately and expressed his approval. When I finally put them back in their run, they were tired out and glad to go.
I have to bribe them, of course, with treats. I buy "Studentka Sausiska" at $1 per package of 9. These are half fat, half milk powder and the rest meat. I cut three up into 18 pieces (3x6) which I feed them one piece at a time as reward for going home. They are 6 times happier with the 18 pieces than if I gave them the same amount as 1 and 1/2 whole wieners each. I don't know if this is because they are dogs or because they are males.
Yuri was here at 8:30 this morning, so we all went outside to help. The trees were huge and had to be cut down small section at a time to avoid too much collateral damage. Tanya's flowers took a beating but the fences and windows are still intact. It was a damp day with a strong west wind and it felt COLD. No Chinook (Foehn, for the uninitiated) but the temp did go up 10 degrees to to +5C (41F) and it was cold if you worked up a sweat then stood and waited for the next batch of stove length blocks or bunch of branches to haul.
I dressed warm. T-shirt under my shirt and then dug out my long underwear which I put on about once a year. They are local bought black tights, (with no feet, thank God). They fit like a second skin. Not so much poured in as painted on. Not a sight for the public but better than white Speedos (gotcha).
Bobik and Volk wanted to help so I let them run. They played like puppies, wrestling in the deep snow, chasing around and in general, having a wonderful time. Masha built a snowman and Bobik went over immediately and expressed his approval. When I finally put them back in their run, they were tired out and glad to go.
I have to bribe them, of course, with treats. I buy "Studentka Sausiska" at $1 per package of 9. These are half fat, half milk powder and the rest meat. I cut three up into 18 pieces (3x6) which I feed them one piece at a time as reward for going home. They are 6 times happier with the 18 pieces than if I gave them the same amount as 1 and 1/2 whole wieners each. I don't know if this is because they are dogs or because they are males.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Shopping for Clothes
Tanya took me shopping for clothes today. I have a love/hate relationship with clothes shopping. I love new clothes but hate spending money on them. But Tanya was buying, so what could I do. I don't mind suits and ties but always feel uncomfortable in them as they do not always fit like they should. No matter what, I never look like the Armani models. I am a jeans and shirt man. I never met a shirt I didn't like, especially western style, in loud colours with pearl snaps. Two pairs of jeans and forty-'leven shirts and I am good to go for years. I would meet the Crowned Heads of Europe wearing jeans and shirt except my wife would be embarrassed to tears if I did.
A local magazine "Animal Industry Today" is sponsoring a Round Table on the Ukrainian beef industry on Feb 2. The magazine has published a few articles of mine related to improving the beef industry in Ukraine. These have come to the attention of the Deputy Minister (Livestock) of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. The publisher asked me to write an article for the January issue in preparation for the Round Table that would (my paraphrase) agitate the fecal mass a bit. Not that I am good at that but I gave it my best shot; repeating in my usual diplomatic style, advice that the Ministry was given 10 years ago and never acted on. I have now been invited to participate in the Round Table. The Minister of Agrarian Policy will be there as will the Deputy Minister and several other heavy hitters from around the country.
This is NOT a jeans and shirt crowd. Darn! The suit I wore to my daughter's wedding two years ago (well,17 months ago) is still good as new. But I need a car length dress coat. My good leather coat is too heavy unless it is -30. And a new shirt. A shirt?? Now you are talking my language. Let's go!
Left for Krivii Rih at 10 am, Andrei driving. Best men's store in town ( I bought the suit there) has some very nice coats but not my size. A city of almost 1 million people and no "Big and Tall" that any one knew of. If Andrei can't find it in Krivii Rih, it doesn't exist. By 2:00 we were in Dnipropetrovs'k at a "Big and Tall" where winter coats were half price, no less. There were several that fit and I got one both Tanya and I liked. Along with a new shirt.
We next stopped at Tanya's favourite ladies' wear (She is coming to the Round Table with me, of course! I don't leave home without her; she keeps me out of trouble). Tanya got a skirt and two tops for the same price as my new shirt. There is no justice.
A local magazine "Animal Industry Today" is sponsoring a Round Table on the Ukrainian beef industry on Feb 2. The magazine has published a few articles of mine related to improving the beef industry in Ukraine. These have come to the attention of the Deputy Minister (Livestock) of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. The publisher asked me to write an article for the January issue in preparation for the Round Table that would (my paraphrase) agitate the fecal mass a bit. Not that I am good at that but I gave it my best shot; repeating in my usual diplomatic style, advice that the Ministry was given 10 years ago and never acted on. I have now been invited to participate in the Round Table. The Minister of Agrarian Policy will be there as will the Deputy Minister and several other heavy hitters from around the country.
This is NOT a jeans and shirt crowd. Darn! The suit I wore to my daughter's wedding two years ago (well,17 months ago) is still good as new. But I need a car length dress coat. My good leather coat is too heavy unless it is -30. And a new shirt. A shirt?? Now you are talking my language. Let's go!
Left for Krivii Rih at 10 am, Andrei driving. Best men's store in town ( I bought the suit there) has some very nice coats but not my size. A city of almost 1 million people and no "Big and Tall" that any one knew of. If Andrei can't find it in Krivii Rih, it doesn't exist. By 2:00 we were in Dnipropetrovs'k at a "Big and Tall" where winter coats were half price, no less. There were several that fit and I got one both Tanya and I liked. Along with a new shirt.
We next stopped at Tanya's favourite ladies' wear (She is coming to the Round Table with me, of course! I don't leave home without her; she keeps me out of trouble). Tanya got a skirt and two tops for the same price as my new shirt. There is no justice.
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