Care Packages

Tanya mailed New Year's gifts to Siberia yesterday.  Gifts for her sister, Luda, her niece and nephew, Ksenia and Slavik, her grand niece Uliana and even something for her cousin's 3 year old grandson, little Tolik.  I wanted to send Tolik a set of wrenches and screwdrivers which for him would be an even better gift than drums or bagpipes but Tanya thought not as I would never be able to go there again.  (At age two, Tolik loosened the wheels on his great grandmother's wheelchair so they fell off and dumped her..."Get up, Babushka...")

Tanya took three bags of stuff to the Post Office.  All unwrapped, as the Post Office has to inspect and approve anything that it ships in country or internationally.  They provide the packaging as part of the cost of shipping.  About $50 worth of gifts and $30 worth of postage but it was ever thus.

One year I mailed $10 worth of Turkish tea (1 kg net) to a friend on Vancouver Island.  The packaging the tea was in put me 50 grams over the 1 kg limit and it cost me $25.  If I had known I would have grabbed 100 grams of tea for my own use.  Too soon oldt und too late schmardt.

We got our own care package from Canada last night.  Meest (bridge) Corporation Inc is an awesome package delivery service from USA and Canada to the FSU.  It was started as a way for people in NA to ship care packages to relatives in Ukraine and grew from there. (That link doesn't seem to want to work in English language but Meest America Inc is in English).

There is a lady in Regina who collects boxes for Ukraine.  I am sure there would be a contact person in every community of any size with a Ukrainian diaspora. The boxes are trucked to Montreal (I think) where they are loaded in a container and shipped to Ukraine.  It takes six to eight weeks. We have made use of this many times in the past 6 years. Cost is about $2.75 per kg plus insurance and delivery.  Max weight is 30 kg and runs about $125 delivered to our door in Mar'yaniv'ka.

Tanya has gone to Krivii Rih today with Andrei and Tania so I am making chili for myself for lunch.  It is not exactly Screaming Sphincter Chili but it is hotter than she likes it and tomato sauce disagrees with her.

Vase dat you say?

We drove Masha home at 6:00 pm Sunday night. Masha and Tanya made greeting cards all Saturday evening and Sunday morning. In the afternoon they went outside and raked and burned leaves.  Kids seem to love fires.  Tanya sorted the apples we had stored in an outside shed and I hauled them into the summer kitchen where they will stay until it gets really cold.  Three laundry sized baskets will last a while.

Masha went with me to walk the dogs.  For a long while we walked hand-in-hand.  Her idea.  I guess I am a pretty good step-dedushka and it feels good.  We stopped by the river on our way home and the dogs immediately bailed in off the edge of the road and swam out and back.  That water had to be cold!  Then they chased each other through the grass and tall reeds until they dried off while Masha skipped stones in the water. Throwing rocks into water is something else that all kids seem to love.

Tanya was dead beat tired by evening.  One-on-one with a 9 year old for a day and a half can wear you out.  She was too tired to sleep so she watched movies on the internet until 4:00 am and then fell asleep upstairs so she wouldn't wake me coming to bed.

Kuchma had decided not to go prowling at 10 pm as usual.  He was sleeping on his couch blanket (dirty feet) when I went to bed and at 5:00 am, I heard him go upstairs looking for someone to let him out.  He makes more noise going up and down stairs than I do. I blindly stumbled out of bed and bumped the bureau, tipping over an ancient 75 cm red glass decorator vase.  It fell gracefully but landed hard.

When I told Tanya in the morning, she was not impressed.  Said I needed a bedroom with only a bed in it.  Reminds me of an Australia joke about a kangaroo but we won't go there.  And for someone who stubs her foot against the bed as often as she, I didn't think she had much room to talk about me but of course one does not say that.  And she didn't break any vases.

Dance Band on the Titanic

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada.  The Armistice,  ending the Great War, was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  What does Dance Band on the Titanic have to do with remembering and honouring those who fought in wars past?  Listen and I expect you will figure it out.

"Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Mama stood cryin' at the dockside
Sayin' "Please son, don't take this trip"
I said "Mama, sweet Mama, don't you worry none"
"Even God couldn't sink this ship"

Well, the whistle blew and they turned the screws
It turned the water into foam
Destination sweet salvation
Goodbye home sweet home

I'm in the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

There was a trombone and a saxophone
The bass and drums were cookin' up the bandstand
And I was strummin' in the middle with this dude on the fiddle
And we were three days out from land

And now the foghorn's jammed and moanin'
Hear it groanin' through the misty night
I heard the lookout shout down "There's icebergs around"
"But still everything's all right"

Oh, the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

They were burnin' all the flares for candles
In the banquet they were throwin' in first class
And we were blowin' waltzes in the barroom
When the universe went CRASH!

"There's no way that this could happen"
I could hear the old captain curse
He ordered lifeboats away, that's when I heard the chaplain say
"Women and children and chaplains first"

Well, they soon used up all of the lifeboats
But there were a lot of us left on board
I heard the drummer sayin' "Boys, just keep playin'"
"Now we're doin' this gig for the Lord"

I heard the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

There's a wild-eyed boy in the radio shack
He's the last remaining guest
He was tappin' in a Morse code frenzy
Tappin' "Please God, S.O.S."

Jesus Christ can walk on the water
But a music man will drown
They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned up
Well, I was strummin' as the ship go down

I'm in the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me"

To heir is human; to sleep, divan

Masha is here for the night, so I guess I get the couch again.  I picked her up after her English class.  She was all packed and ready, loaded with hobby stuff.  Two classes in greeting card making turned her into a pretty good little crafty-type.  I've seen some of her cards and they are quite good for a nine year old.

Babushka has caught the bug, being quite artsy in her own right.  We are going to Dnipro next week so she can go to a big craft store there and buy "stuff".  She has been twice to a small shop here in town so the two of them are now scattered knee-deep across the living room.  We had been running short of little pieces of paper but I think we will be OK now.

We'd been in town earlier in the day for groceries.  We got about three blocks from home when Tanya realized she had forgotten her wallet.  She has a lot of things to remember to keep us organized so her wallet or mobile phone or list often get missed.  I just have to remember where I left the car last.  As to the essentials, I simply cross myself (spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch) and away we go.

Velika Kshenia (Big Spoon in Ukrainian) has their Christmas  New Year's stuff out. This year we are going to look for outdoor lights.  Maybe when we are in Dnipro. We have not seen them in previous years.

There are a couple of light arrangements I would like to try but am not sure they would be appreciated.

Lighthearted Furriness

Some friend he turned out to be

Jenny and Dave Christensen at Dave's retirement in 2003

Dr. David A Christensen, Professor Emeritus, Animal and Poultry Science, College of Agriculture and Bioresources, University of Saskatchewan has been my professor, mentor and friend since undergraduate days.  He graduated from U of S himself 11 years before me.  If you look at the grad pictures from that year you recognize a lot of scientists.  There were no jobs in 1958 so they all went to grad school.

Dave was a dairy cattle nutritionist and I think frustrated human nutritionist as he seemed to enjoy human nutrition as much as ruminant nutrition.  He taught nutrition to the Medical Students, less than 1/4 of a semester.  You know where it says always consult your doctor before going on a diet...Dave just laughs.  (I advise consulting your veterinarian as they are far better trained in nutrition).

You can read about his career here. We got along quite well.  I think he tolerated me because I could be used as a bad academic example to warn other students.

The summer between 3rd and 4th year, I worked for him.  One of the projects was a digestibility trial featuring clover screenings.  Four x Four Latin Square design; four rations, four steers, three weeks adjustment, one week measurement; everybody change; repeat four times.  All data was written in a scribbler, hung on the wall beside the steer pen.  There was no backup.

Close to the end of the 3rd replicate, on a Sunday morning, I was late getting there to feed the steers.  Ten a.m. instead of 7 a.m.. One steer had stretched his long neck and longer tongue to reach the notebook and ate it.  Did I mention I hate Jersey steers? In panic and terror (I HAD been warned) I raced to his house.  His wife Jenny comforted me with bacon and eggs while Dave laughed at me and redesigned the trial so we wouldn't lose three months, only two.  The digestibility of ink-filled notebooks featured in successive nutrition classes over the years.

High tech analysis was a long way off and wet chemistry was the norm.  The Kjeldahl method of determining crude protein (nitrogen) involved digesting the sample in concentrated sulphuric acid, adding concentrated sodium hydroxide to neutralize the acid and boiling the mixture to drive off ammonia which was captured and measured.  If you didn't mix the acid and base carefully enough, when it started to boil it would explode.  When they closed the old building years later, I still was tied for the record of blowing up the Kjeldahl room most often.

In 4th year we had to write a thesis which was actually a glorified term paper but could involve actual research.  Mine was straight literature review.  We had all year to work on it which means I didn't start until after final exams were over and Dave put a gun to my head.  It was a month late.  He knocked me back from an A to a B for the effort he put into getting me to write it.

Yet for all this when I showed up five years later to do graduate work, he was willing to take me on as my advisor. I was just married and Ella said she would work two years to put me through before we started a family.  I think Dave figured with Ella around he wouldn't have to do all the nagging.  He was doing cereal silage work in those days, which was perfect as the crop grew in summer, you fed it in winter and did your analysis in spring.

His office was filled with tables, on and under which were stacks of paper three feet deep.  He did not need Google Desktop.  Ask him about anything and in two minutes he could locate the paper in the middle of a pile somewhere.

There was always a lineup of students waiting to get into his office.  I have no idea why unless they were masochistic but you always came out smarter than you went in.  He cross-examined like a trial lawyer and could pick holes in the best of arguments.  I apparently said once, "If you think you don't have any problems, go and see Dr. Christensen". It was quoted ever after as Hingston's Law of Graduate Studies.

At the end of two years, all the research and analysis was completed.  With a new baby and a new job, I flung my data into a box, knowing I had three more years to complete my thesis.  (You can see where this is going?)  At the beginning of the fifth year, I dug out the box and began writing.  Ella had an IBM Selectric typewriter and we went to work.  Now anyone who has ever written one of these things knows that multiple drafts are a necessary evil.  My first draft was pretty good other than it was organized according to Hingston not according to Hoyle.

About this time, my boss died of a massive heart attack and I was doing his job as well as my own and never home.  Dave and Ella revised the thesis over the phone (we were several hours from Saskatoon) as it was getting close to the April deadline.  Two more drafts and it was a done deal.  There was some mention at my oral defence that they had the wrong person in the room.  I said, "Go ahead. Ella knows this thing as well or better than I do and understands it too".

We stayed in touch over the years. Dave was always my resource for dairy nutrition since I was more into beef cattle.  We share much the same cynical sense of humour.  He has been to and worked in more countries than I have.  Last time I was in Saskatchewan I grabbed a whole afternoon to visit him. and we email back and forth usually once a month or so.

Which brings us to last night, I dreamed (no idea why) that Dave and I were teaching a nutrition class together.  I was supposed to get paid but Dave deducted for all my personality deficiencies and I had to pay him.  True story, I swear to God.

Beautiful Amazing World

Thanks to MRMacrum's comment on the last blog post, I am NOT going to give anyone my two bits about tomorrow's election in USA. Andy Borowitz does it far better and is at least funny.

No, I am going to promote one of my favourite Facebook pages Beautiful Amazing World   https://www.facebook.com/Beautiful.Amazing.World

They simply post photographs of beautiful amazing places, animals and things.  Worth being on Facebook just for this.  The page also features pictures from other pages such as https://www.facebook.com/IurieBelegurschiPhotography photography of Iceland and Greenland (two shown below)

Icelandic horses

Newfoundland

Cloud patterns in Iceland

Lynx kitten

Spain