Sure works for me

Tanya is in cleaning and furniture rearranging mode, getting ready to decorate for Christmas, even though it is +21C outside as I write.

Last spring, at end of season, we bought an electric fireplace for looks and as an extra heat source in the living room.  (Electric heat is cheaper than gas heat). The floor model came with no box or instructions.   It had fake flames and all and looked pretty in late evenings when we plugged it in but gave no heat.  As it was summer we didn't explore further. 

Today she moved it from under the TV to another wall, for ease of decorating and to make room for the tree to go in the window.  I decided to see why it made no heat as it had a heating element and should have a fan.  No sign of a control panel anywhere. Plug it in, "fire" works.  Unplug it, "fire" stops.  Puzzle.

When Tanya finished dusting it and was pushing it back against the wall, she kicked it, in some frustration at its unwillingness to throw heat.  A hidden door popped open and there were the controls.  I just looked at her in amazement.

She said, "Sometimes stupid works, too".

Hard Times Come Again No More - Mavis Staples

Utah Savage posted this song on her blog a few days back.  I downloaded it and have been playing it over and over.  It is beautiful.  It is sad.  It is a powerful reminder that hard times haunt a great many people still, in every country of the world.  Greed and poverty seem to go hand in hand since the dawn of time.  The pictures on the one video are from the '30's but I could find pictures every bit as tragic today here in rural Ukraine or any part of the FSU. 

Been there, done that, can't remember*.

*Picture courtesy my friend Ken.

Hospital Number Four

Schools and Hospitals in Ukraine are numbered.  Streets have names.  Like Lenin, Karl Marx, Heroes of Stalingrad and the Glorious October Revolution.  Changing street names is fairly low on the priority list.  Repairing them is only slightly higher.

Tuesday, Tanya made an appointment for my annual check-up with one of the top Urology specialists in Dnipropetrovs'k.  Prostate glands are the bane of men and angels. Angels, you say?  Certainly, there is even a song about "Let angels' prostates fall".  I think it is in the Hymn about the Royal Duodenum that my cousin Lorne and I used to sing 40 or 50 years ago. But I digress.

The appointment was for 11:00 and at 11:2O we were ushered into his office on the 3rd floor of Hospital Number Four near the west end of the city in the industrial area.  At 11:40 the examination was over and at 11:45, with hand written report to put in my medical records (individuals, not the doctor's office, are responsible for maintaining their own records) and having paid him $25 we were on our way home.  With a clean bill of health and the satisfaction of having done my duty as an aging male and actually gone for a check up.

And I'll put in another plug for my Number One Son-in-Law who is growing a one month wonder mustache to raise money for Prostate Cancer Research.  You can donate HERE.

Come for Tea

Come for coffee about 7:00.  In Canada it means come for coffee and a visit.  Maybe with snacks (usually with snacks if it it married couple to married couple) which might be veggies and dip or some deadly dessert.   It does not mean come for supper (or dinner, depending on how and where you were raised).

Come for tea about 7:00 means virtually anything here in Ukraine.  When Tanya says to me do you want tea, it usually means with the appropriate meal or if not meal time, then snacks or something but always tea means food.  I often have to specify TEA...no food, please.  Sometimes she listens.

So this afternoon friends invited us to their home for tea, about 7:00.  We had no idea what to expect and it is not polite to ask, apparently.  Ryya said she had tried a new recipe.  They had been at my birthday party and loved my apple crisp so Tanya thought maybe it was a dessert recipe.  So we had supper before we left.  Chicken and potatoes.

Mistake.  Tea this time was supper.  Platter piled high with chicken, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots apples and oranges all roasted together, basted with some kind of sauce and delicious.  Would have been more delicious if we had been hungry but we managed to eat enough to be polite.  Chocolates and coffee for dessert.

We had a great visit.  Both Ryya and Vladik teach at the "Lycee" (or something like that) which is a special school for exceptionally brilliant kids.  Their one wall, from the front door to the back of the bedroom is lined 8 high with bookshelves.  They know lots of stories and there was lots of laughter.  A good way to finish a day.

Rough Week

Sorry for not posting more often this week.  I have neither energy nor ambition.  Nothing 'citing ever happens round here.  The dogs have been good, the cat only crapped in the bedroom once this month and the garbage truck was on time yesterday.  Maybe things will pick up later in the week.

Rough week, but I made it.

Pictures from Chukotka in the far north east of Russian Federation

Our friend Volodya from P'yatikhatki did some consulting work for a gold mining company in the Autonomous Region of Chukotka in the far NE of Russia. Anadyr-Ugolnyye Kopi is the only settlement of note I could find on Google Earth so I am thinking that may be where he flew in.  Certainly it is near the ocean.  The Chukchi are the aboriginal people.  In winter they cross the Bering strait where it is fairly narrow to visit relatives in Alaska and in return receive American Eskimos (Dene?).  The army don't know where to look to keep them from crossing and likely don't care either.

You can see Volodya's pictures here. http://foto.mail.ru/mail/valdemarr2/-/slideshow 

I hope this works. Not sure if they are password protected or not but I can open them on my computer.