Shopping is easier if I can sit down

Last Thursday Tanya and I took the bus to Dnipropetrovsk to pick up the documents for our trip to Greece, including her Schengen visa.  She asked if I wanted to go with her and I said yes.  She doesn't ask much and it was good to spend time together, with me on the computer so much these days.

Tanya also wanted to buy material to make new drapes for the big south window in our front entry and a roll of wallpaper to repaper one wall in the kitchen.

We arrived at 11:00 am and rather than waste time going to McDonalds we decided to "eat off the street" and bought chibreki and tea from a street stall and ate on the fly.  Chibreki, for the uninitiated, is a thin pastry filled with spiced ground meat and fried in about an inch of oil.  After picking up the documents we started looking in fabric shops for material with no luck.

We stopped for tea and dessert (and a bathroom) at a little restaurant which I immediately recognized as one that Tanya and her friend Natalie and I had coffee in back in 2005 when I was in Dnipropetrovsk to visit her.  I remembered where we sat and what we talked about. I'd had no idea at that moment that we would be married a year and half later but that was the beginning of it.

We went to the Ozerka market finally as if it isn't there, we don't need it kind of thing.  The main building of the Ozerka is a farmers market with the best produce and meat in the city.  Surrounding it are about 6.5 ha (16 acres) of stalls in any number of arrangements.

Ozerka Market, all 7 hectares of it.

By this time we have been walking for some time.  Walking isn't bad, it is the standing that kills my feet, knees and hips.  And when shopping there is a lot of standing and waiting.  There maybe a hundred wallpaper stalls in Ozerka market.  Tanya knew what she wanted but it was hard to find.  Skimming stalls was the easy part.  Finding a stall that had maybe the right colour and pattern took the time as of course one has to look and unroll and all and all.  

We found one she sort of liked but kept going.  Then we found one she and I both liked and we hemmed and hawed for no end of time.  I needed a chair which I found in the next stall.  She bought it...at gunpoint, I might add.  "But I haven't seen all the other stalls yet and I might find something I like better".  I've been that route before so it was no deal.  I carried the 10 m2 roll for the rest of the day.  Several women stopped to say how much they liked the wallpaper so that pleased Tanya.

She had no luck finding material in the drapery stalls but at least I found the odd place to sit down.  They all wanted to sell her stringy things that looked like costumes for a belly dancer rather than drapes.  They are apparently in style now.  Tanya decided to buy the material she had seen and liked in Zholti Vody the day before.  (I told you I had been that route before.)  

So we went clothes shopping.  She looked for clothes and I looked for a chair.  I was sitting on the counter of an empty stall when the saleslady in the stall across offered to let me sit on her chair.  It did not look very sturdy.  I said I am too big;  she said she was not exactly small either, which was true.  I'd guess two axe handles three cans of tomatoes and a plug of chewing tobacco wide tall or deep.  So I sat and the chair held up quite well while we visited.

On our way to the bus depot we stopped at the big clothing market where I had got my shirts that fit at Gross Men's Wear.  Tanya wanted to buy me a new sweater for fall as my sweaters were all several years old.  We ended up with two very nice pullovers and a (black, of course) nylon sports jacket to replace the one I lost two years ago.

I am not a sweater person. I would have been much happier with a new (very loud) cowboy shirt.  But when Tanya says "You look good", what I want is not very relevant any more.  Dressing to please her is far more important and she has excellent taste...(well, she married me didn't she?). 

We were wandering around and past a new shop just opening up.  They were unpacking and had just hung up a jacket for Tanya that she had been needing for some time.  She looked awesome in it and it fit to perfection so we grabbed it. 

We are not amused.

Then she started looking for tops, blouses and such.  This takes time so I am looking for a chair. She bought a couple of things at one place and we moved on.  I found a bench in the "boulevard" and sat, while she tried things on.

There was one top she liked.  Now Caterpillar/calf scour/highway-line yellow has never been my favourite colour  but it is Tanya's and she does look good in it. Besides she says it is gold not yellow. She left the top and me on the bench and set out to "shop".  90 minutes later she came back empty handed and bought the gold top.  I told you I had been that route before. 

Masha Starts Fifth Class in her New School

Today was the first day of school in Ukraine. Masha started 5th class (grade) in her new school, Lesia Ukrainka Gymnasium.  Going to school in a gymnasium makes no sense to North Americans unless you are a jock so I include the Wiki definition below for edification.

Languages and literature are Masha's strong suit, hence the transfer to a school with strong academic credentials in this area.  The math and science types go to another school called here Lycee.

It is hard to believe that four years have passed since Masha started in First Class and three years since Second Class. Since she was starting in a new school, we went to the opening exercises to give her moral support.  She isn't as excited about this first day of class as she was four years ago.  She does have friends here though.  Her neighbour Sonja was there and the two of them stuck together.  Katya and Yuri's daughter Natasha will be there but she is at a Sanitorium in Evpatoria for a month but will keep up her studies there.

I think the youngest kids in this school are Grade 5 but they look very young beside all the high school students.  There are two classes of Grade 5s with 20 students each, compared to four classes of 25 students in the school she attended previously.

The Grade 5s were all marched out at the beginning of the ceremony and welcomed to the school. All the usual suspects spoke and even a few minutes each adds up.  We left after an hour and went to visit Dasha.  Baba Natasha took her home after a few minutes as all the noise bothered her.

Masha looks a little worried.

Two students MC the ceremony.

Fifth Class students all lined up in the front row; Masha is near the far end

Masha's face side profile barely visible; Sonja with the headband

Some of the teachers

I don't recall girls like this when I was in high school

The boys haven't changed though; still awkward and geeky.

These two are well over 6'; a few more and the school basketball team ...

I just loved this red coat worn by a lady standing beside us.

A gymnasium (pronounced with a [ɡ] in several languages) is a type of school with a strong emphasis on academic learning, and providing advanced secondary education in some parts of Europe and the CIS, comparable to British grammar schools, sixth form colleges and U.S. preparatory high schools. In its current meaning, it usually refers to secondary schools focused on preparing students to enter a university for advanced academic study.

The Dnipropetrovs'k Circus

My daughter Lyn and friend Laura came from London to visit us  for a week. There was a Moscow based circus performing in Dnipropetrovs'k so on Saturday we took in the 5:00 pm show.  Can't recall the last time I took my kids to the circus. No pictures were allowed of the performance.  Sorry.

The Dnipropetrovs'k "Tsirk" is a one ring circus, smaller than Kyiv but decent nevertheless. Source: Google Maps

There were all the hucksters and hype that comes with a circus.  Cotton candy and popcorn.  Lots of plastic happiness with bright flashing lights for parents to buy little kids. Pizza and beer at intermission. The trapeze artists and gymnasts were superb, as one would expect from a Moscow troop.  Russian clowns are the best in the business and are dearly loved and celebrated.  "Harry" was no exception.  His difficulties in setting up and lying down on a collapsible cot had kids of all ages shrieking with laughter. We could all identify!

It was the animal acts I came to watch, to see if I could "eyeball" whether the animals were mistreated or not in any way.  Circuses have attracted their share of attention, deserved or not, from the PETAs of this world, so I was curious.  There were dogs, horses, sea lions and doves.  We had to leave a little early to catch our bus so there may have been more but possibly not.

The dogs were wonderful and worth the price of admission (well, along with Harry).  They were funny and seemed to know it.  They were cued to the second, tails wagging and all happy with pats and treats from their trainer.  I loved the Basset Hound.  When asked to perform the impossible, he would lie down and play dead.

The doves were nothing spectacular.  They did what birds do - fly and sit on things.

The horses, on the other hand, made me wonder.  They were not carrying any excess flesh though they appeared sleek enough.  The lady trainer didn't appeal to me much, though her whip (string on a stick) and her cane were just for signalling.  At the end, she rode out on a fancy black all duded up, with a mean double bit on him that had him foaming at the mouth the entire time.  She may have needed it to control him as he was bursting with energy and should have done a 10 mile fast run before the show.

The sea lions were a puzzle as I have no idea how to tell a happy one from a mistreated and unhappy one.  They were certainly well trained and when one missed a cue, the other jumped off his tub and went after him.  Male jealousy.  They were certainly treated well in the ring.  Treats as rewards and lots of hugs from the trainer for a job well done.  It is how they are penned afterwards that could be a concern.

No lions, tigers, bears or elephants suited me fine.  And unless I could see behind stage and in the off season, I couldn't make a final comment on the care of the horses or sea lions.

An Irish Nurse In Africa - a Book Review

An Irish Nurse in Africa by Brian Ross
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An Irish Nurse in Africa and its companion novel The Irish Boer (both available on Smashwords) were originally written as one novel. The publishers refused it as it was over 300,000 words which is apparently forbidden for a first time author. So Brian Ross tried to split the book and in my opinion ruined it (hence only three stars) as unless you read them both at the same time as the author suggests, everything seems out of sync. I wish he would put it back together and re-publish it under another title. I would read it again.

Having said that, the books are still a good read. The author writes dialogue well and realistically. His battle scenes make one feel part of the fight. The stories occur in roughly the first year of the Second Anglo-Boer War(1899-1902) and follow actual historical events quite closely. Francis O'Driscoll is an Irish nurse who finds herself on the side of the British while the Irish Boer is her brother Arthur who leads a Boer Commando fighting for his adopted homeland.

Full disclosure: Arthur and Francis were my Great Grandmother Ross's brother and sister. The Irish background details in the book are true as are SOME of their adventures. Francis was indeed a nurse with the British army and Arthur did lead a Boer Commando which participated in some of the battles described in the book.



View all my reviews

I cannot seem to catch up n either blog reading nor writing since I left for Greece almost 4 weeks ago.  I have been home now almost two weeks and am swamped with three reports to write (with background papers on Greek and data either not yet found or in Turkish and in Greek and a summary article.  The reports I get paid for; the summary article is pro bono sort of.  The client will pay for my 145 Euro steak supper in the Galaxy Restaurant of the Athens Hilton.  I wandered in there out of curiosity and asked for a menu.  The salad was 23 Euro and I thought "What the Hell, might as well go for broke".  All this for a view of the Acropolis in the distance.  But it was an AWESOME steak.

Something I learned since I got home is not to drink a pot of coffee after supper and then read the comments section on an article about GMOs.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/10/filipino-farmers-destroy-genetically-modified-golden-rice-crops/

The absolute ignorance and venom spewed at anyone who dared to even question the notion that all GMOs are poison made my blood boil and I laid awake half the night.  The Left loves "research polls" that show that the Right does not trust science but it is my observation that the anti-food, anti-agriculture, anti-everything folks of the Looney Left have no more trust in science than the Repugnant Right.  They, too, only believe "science" that reinforces their already existing world view.  AGW?  "Science" says we MUST destroy Big Oil.  GMOs?  "Science" is all evil lies, paid for by Big Ag. Apparently "97% of all scientists" only counts when it agrees with me.

Today I ran into these two blog posts which in themselves are interesting but the real gems are in the comments section.

http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/11/08/argumentum-ad-monsantium/

http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2012/07/thoughts-from-shill-for-monsanto.html

In Defense of the Big Mac

Chardonnay Socialists and their anti-food, anti-agriculture, anti-everything friends of the Looney Left love to hate McDonalds.  I happen to love the Golden Arches.

Chardonnay Socialists, being progressive liberals and all, have to have some way to demonstrate their intellectual and moral superiority over those of us who fall into the "Ewww, bus people" crowd.  So they eat only things like organic salt and free range arugula and eschew any food that doesn't have the word "natural" (mis)used in its description.

Cost is no objective.  It is like listening to New Russians.  "I paid $5 for this package of three free range organic natural radishes grown from ancient seeds preserved by the Peruvian Incas that I bought from a local farmer 50 miles away".  "That is too bad, if you shopped for food where I do, you could have paid $7.50".

The Looney Left hate McDonalds because it is big and successful. Both groups make all kinds of ridiculous noises about how terrible the food is.  Junk food (whatever that is) is their favourite expression; Super Size Me is their cult movie and of course the company is totally responsible for everyone getting fat.

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 Since McDonalds is the first place I head for a taste of home when I get to the city every month or two, I did some personal research, looking for "Junk Food". Their coffee is pretty good and my beverage of choice for breakfasts.  Orange juice?  Check. Soft drinks?  Check. These are drinks you can buy in any grocery store and on a hot day, an ice cold coke just hits the spot.

They even have bottled water.  Not Perrier, (sorry CSs), but in the Athens airport McDonalds I paid  0.35 Euro for the same brand and size water that cost me 7 Euros from the mini-bar in the Hilton.  I am sure the Hilton water was far healthier than the McDonalds water.

Breakfast Wednesday in Dnipropetrovsk was a Sausage and Egg McMuffin, a Bacon and Egg McMuffin and a hashbrowns.  So I had two eggs, two slices of cheese, two slices of real bacon, a slab of pork sausage and four pieces of bread (two English muffins) some greasy fried potatoes and a large coffee.  All good food, nothing junk about it.  I could have cooked it at home but then I would have had to wash the dishes.  And it held me until we got home at 6:00 pm.

Then there is the hamburger itself, this icon of fast food and staple of the backyard BBQ.  As you can see from the pictures, a hamburger consists of bread, ground beef grilled well done, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese and anything else you would like to add.  What in Heaven's name is junk food about this?

I have eaten burgers and fries for lunch in many restaurants, chains like TGI Fridays and any number of white tablecloth restaurants and paid three or four prices.  Did that make it healthier?  The french fries had peelings left on in the fancier places.  Definitely upped the nutritional value, I am sure.

And if you are so inclined you can order salads and such.  I can and do eat salads at home.  Eating one at Mcdonalds seems like a waste of opportunity.

Another charge from the Looney Left against McDonald's is that they target children.  Well, golly, Sarge.  So what?  I think 'Donalds was the first word at least one of our kids said.  We would take the kids there for a treat every week or two.  They actually ate the food and played and left us in peace.

The Repugnant Right say you are to blame for everything.  Bad choices.  Mostly not choosing wealthy white parents, when it comes down to it.  The Looney Left on the other hand would have you believe nothing is your fault.  It is all the fault of the evil Koch Brothers, Peabody Coal, Exxon, GOP, Harper Cons, Nike, Walmart or take your pick.  But definitely not your fault.

By the way, when Super Size Me came out, an Edmonton teacher ate only at McDonalds for a month and lost weight because he used his head and ordered and ate sensibly.  If you and your kids eat at McDonalds often enough that the calories are a problem, you need a life and your kids need some parenting.

On the other hand, a good case can be made that a lot of people don't have "a life" and that parenting isn't that simple when working two or three jobs.  But that is not the fault of the Golden Arches.

Bra-vo or Lingerie Shopping with Tanya

Tanya and I took the bus to Dnipropetrovs'k today to deliver her documents in application for a Schengen visa for our Greek holiday in September.  It will likely take all five weeks to get approved.

There is a good lingerie shop in Dnipro that Tanya likes that sells a better quality than she can get here in Zhovti Vody. I am always after her to spend the money and buy good bras that fit and support.  I try to hold up my end of the bargain but am not always available.  She also needed a new swimsuit for our Greek expedition.

Tanya went back into the shop to the fitting rooms.  There were two young ladies working there; a tempest in a D-cup and a trainee.  I could play no part in the process, though I have often thought of becoming a diesel fitter in a lingerie shop (Yep, dese'll fit 'er).  I parked myself on the pink leather chair near the front door to admire the merchandise.

The store sold men's underwear. Who knew?  The pictures on the packages reassured me that the models were paying attention in their marketing courses, especially the section on positioning the product in the mind of the consumer.  Positioning is simply remembering to put the potato in the front of your Speedo instead of in the back.

There was a display of uh, er, ah intimate night apparel.  The pictures on the boxes were quite revealing.  I wondered who could afford these...not the negligees but the girls wearing them.  The photos on the displays of expensive thongs really cracked me up.  Very cheeky on someone's part, I thought.

Eventually Tanya appeared with her purchases all nicely bagged and we then went to the huge clothing market.  I had not been there since the old one burned down.  It has been rebuilt and expanded.  There are maybe 300 or more individual shops all numbered by street and shop so you can find them again.  The shops average about 3 meters by 6 meters but range in size from 3x3 to 6x6, each one selling different lines of men's, women's and childrens clothing and accessories.

We had just stepped in the door when a woman looked at me, grabbed Tanya and hauled us into her shop which carried clothing for large men or large clothing for men or...  At any rate 20 minutes later I had three new shirts that fit and she had $100.  The name of the shop?  GROSS.