Navel fleet

Never mind...

Offensive post?

Sorry for offending the sensibilities of my gracious readers with my last post. I can't fix it until I get to a computer with cookies enabled. I didn't mean to be gross; I just got carried away

Suspenders, Leotards and Lintcollectors

I used to wear leotards (I don't ever remember them called "tights") in kindergarten. I hated them because they were always sagging down and they didn't stay up around my whole anatomy. I was always tugging and yanking on the elastic waistband and then I had to like wiggle around to get them yanked UP... so the answer was suspenders. They were more utilitarian than cute. I don't remember them having a cute design on them or anything like that. If I wore them under my top I couldn't tuck the top in, only the part over my belly and the part over my bum, so I didn't do that very much. If I wore them over my top everyone knew I was wearing suspenders, which was not a great big deal in kindergarten, but you had to pretty much keep your pullover tucked in all day.
Well fashions change and suspenders have gone out of style for my age group The style now is lintcollectors. It should be obvious to the world that you have a lintcollector and it should be evident to anyone who cares if it is an "<" or an ">". On crowded transportation you could get any number of navels of strangers in your face. I've noticed the women who wear these things try to surreptitiously yank them up too, kind of like what I learned in kindergarten.
This trend calls for specific clothing. Now the waist starts somewhere above the pubic bone and below the hips, and blouses and T-shirts and tops reach about below the bra line. I didn't have anything like this in my wardrobe until the last pair of nylons I acquired, (A likely dumped them on me). And now I need suspenders again.

Did you know that

Kobe Bryant is fluent in Italian? It's true. I know because Anita told me

playground toys

I took these pictures last week at a kindergarten. The colors were so overbright and weird that they remind me of intense childhood memories.

hairy man in a tanktop

Sitting next to me in the bus...I don't like skin to skin contact, unless it's somebody special, like maybe Casey and Colter's baby, so I have my left arm wrapped in my wool sweater. But it's HOT!

Defense against the dark arts

You see the picture here? I'm seated just behind the driver and to his left you see his large jack knife. Most drivers carry some kind of a weapon in their car. And on a few occasions we've seen them pull them out. One of the first times was up north as we were leaving after a weekend in the village; we were seated in the bus and an angry passenger accosted the driver. It's nearly always about money; the situation escalated fairly quickly and our driver pulled out a screwdriver long enough to tickle the end of your esophagus. It was convincing enough because the other guy backed off. Another time we were zooming down the highway and a couple was exchanging blows on the side of the road. As our vehicle approached she flung herself into our path. The driver veered to miss her, screeched to a halt, pulled out his mukchucks and worked the woman's partner over before dumping him into the nearby pond. Next our driver had to run to the car for cover before she attacked him. Instead she threw herself in front of the next oncoming vehicle. It just was not her day, as that driver swerved to avoid her as well.
One more and I'll quit. We were trying to get a ride out of a village down south; after a long wait a car finally stopped. The driver looked us over and said we could come with him. He opened the trunk for us to stow our bags and there as big as life was a rifle. Now my parents did not raise me to be a hitchhiker, but the buses weren't running and we needed to get on with our trip. My fellow-traveller seemed nonplussed at accepting a ride from a guy with a rifle in the trunk, so we climbed aboard. We rode on in silence for a while before I asked "is your gun loaded?" "no, been out shooting rabbits" he tells us in a friendly grandfatherly voice. He went on to say that he almost never picks up hitchhikers because you don't know who's out on the road these days. But he could tell from looking at us that we were harmless and he'd be safe to take us along.

Boastful posts

I read somebody's post the other day where a very bold claim was made; something like: "nobody can cram more junk into their luggage than _I_ can"...well...guess what. I'm hauling 2 bags belonging to this little short person, and she's probably gonna kill me when she sees how much of MY stuff I've managed to cram into those nooks and crannies! HA!!

We have a winner...

Anita B has left a new comment on your post "What is this?":

haha- that is the cap to the olive oil tin! Yay! Where was it...

good thing I answered before you actually got here...

Posted by Anita B to lurkingplaces at May 20, 2008 5:11 PM

Not noodles

Everyone who guessed noodles or pasta is wrong...(but can I still come see you?) they are in the picture, but the item to be identified is in the photo to the right of the noodles. Here's a clue: it was photographed where it was found. And if you don't get it, here I come - ready or not!

What is this?

Identify this and I'll come visit you.

Transportation

I like a story my mom tells on herself: She might have still been in college and on a trip to Oslo possibly for the first time by herself. Maybe it was after her interview for studying in the theater, anyway she needed to get across town (to hangout with my future father at their favorite cafe?) She saw a stopped tram and streetwise and savvy as she is raced up to it and jauntily jumped in and grabbed a seat and waited breathlessly for it to careen off down the street to their rendezvous. Only the tram just sits there and sits there; the driver must have been on a cigarette break. She tells it on herself that by then she was feeling like a kid from the country who'd watched too many movies where trams are caught only just in the nick of time.
Does this figure in to this post? Well, yeah because I like to get places fast too. Like the time last week when Simona and I jumped off the train at 10:00 instead of staying on 'til 1200. The idea was to race across country on a bus and make up time that way. Well we had a short hike through the mud to the station where I got in line for tickets...and the line did not move...the cashier was not on a cigarette break, no. There were three people at the desk trying to fix the computer. All of them were older than me which did not bode well. Something else I noticed was behind the computer to the left was a "ruskaya pechka". This is a traditional wood/coal burning stove (for making tea and for heat) which is built into the wall. Some of them look like they belong in a gourmet bakery like for pizzas or something. It had a stovetop built in to it with a burner made of 3 concentric iron rings that could be removed. There are special pots then that fit into the hole so bottom of the pot can nestle into the coals. The word that came to mind was "a-n-a-c-h-r-o-n-I-s-m". I took a picture, but all you can see on there is the sign that says "Information - 50 kopeks"
There's more to this story, so hang in there -
The other ladies in the line with me were also going nowhere, like my mom on that tram that she was in such a hurry to catch. So we all had our noses pressed to the window to see the action, are they gonna fix the computer or will they give up and make tea? She probably felt a bit awkward with us fogging up the window, because she finally yelled at us to get lost; we then all agreed on who was first and next and last in line and amicably dispersed. But hey! In a matter of moments another line forms of totally different people! And before long she is selling tickets to THEM! Well we all know that's not fair and a second line forms... The ORIGINAL line, the REAL line. We are the good guys because we were here first and she asked us to leave and we did but now we're back and we are FIRST! Yes, you could say that all animosity broke lose for a while but we pushed and shoved until they all knew better than to mess with US!
See the picture of the cat? He slept through the whole thing.

Impulse buying gone wrong

I already had an attitude when I walked in, cuz none of this was my idea, but I had a sample of what we needed 7 meters of in my pocket, and this was a plus in a situation where I'm on the other side of a city I'm unfamiliar with, and not sure if I can find my way back to where I belong - especially if I have 7 meters worth of the sample which is in my pocket.
The only positive aspect of the situation I find myself in is that I've always wanted to go to a building supply store here in Ukraine and this place is like a Home Depot. These places where you can walk around and look for stuff you want and then put it into a shopping cart are new here, well something new in the last 5-6 years. Also they are full of guards who make sure you don't shoplift. The first thing I saw when I walked in was the back of Igor's stubborn square head, his jaw set at an obstinate angle just daring anyone to just try to get past him with out paying for 7 meters worth of stuff to nail your screens to the window with, (what's it called?) well that super store has a lot of cool stuff and one thing I picked up was an insolated coffee cup with a lid. I don't really need it, but only 20 grivens! But as I carry it around the super store looking for my window sill sticks I find that I need this cup less and less. Finally I find a kid who works there..."no we don't carry that" this always makes me unreasonably mad..I came all the way across town to THIS store and you have disappointed me, but at least I have this cool cheap cup, but I don't even want it anymore. But I pull out my money at the cash register. The girl there looks at the item and says, "there's no price code on this, go run ask the clerk for the price code." By now I hate the store and I'm never gonna drink out of this cup, so I say, "no, I'm going to and leave the cup at the register and head out of there. This is Igor's cue to jump into action since finally someone is leaving the store without paying for the merchandise! I deftly avoid him and head home to take a bath in the laundry basket. Am not posting that picture though...
Now you can please email me to tell me if you'd rather NOT get these posts delivered to your inbox. When I get to a real computer I can disable you from my dimension.

The winner!

Is Anita. Just checking if you're really out there. Yes, she's right; the correct proverb is "blue sky OVER a golden harvest"
(it was a mistake, my proofreader missed it too)
Did the picture turn out ok?

Rape of Ukraine

The Ukrainian flag has a band of blue under a band of yellow. It symbolizes " a blue sky under a golden harvest"
We see this out of the bus window now as we drive past the cannola (or rape) fields.
In times past Ukraine was invaded by neighboring kingdoms; many young girls were kidnapped and taken away across the Black Sea to spend the rest of their lives in harems.
In our day here we see advertisements and posters recruiting women for western based marriage agencies. Something else we see is posters offering to buy hair. They pay by the centimeter. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that young women is Ukraine's most exported and exploited product.

Sugar factory

Sitting at the bus stop in Dolynskaya. I'm on a bench with a lady who was eating a bun. A cat came up and gave her an enquiring look. "give some to me please" I ventriloquized, which she did after smiling at me. Another lady, younger, comes up to the vacant place on the bench next to me. "has the bus for the sugar factory left yet?", she asked. cat bun lady: "what's that bus to you?" Younger lady: "I work there". Me (not the cat): "there's no sugar beets yet, why go?" "oh, the plant's closed down" she told us.
Upon hearing that the cat walked away. I'm still sitting here wondering where sugars come from.

Ukrainian hotdogs are delicious

Wish I had pictures. They use fresh buns made with real bread dough; the opposite of squishy wonder bread buns I remember from childhood picnics. With grated carrots! It's called 'Korean salad'; has hot spices in it to make it interesting. Then the nice lady working in the dumpy looking kiosk at the bus stop where you can get out and stretch for 5 minutes squirts ketchup and mayonnaise on it in a beautiful squiggly pattern. She gives to you with the air of having created it just for you. The first bite is hot, and besides that the surly, hung over driver is menacingly rattling his keys, and - well good natured and obedient as I am I docilely climb in. 'careful how you eat that!' he barks at me. 'harasho', I reply with offended dignity. Well...if that bun had only been made from aerated wonder bread dough! Gnaw and rip as I could with all my might; the hotdog takes on a power of it's own! The driver is glaring at me in his rear view mirror! The whole thing falls in my lap! My purse is smeared with ketchup and mayonnaise (same beautiful pattern). I'm left holding the weenie...
Several Kleenexes (from Simona) and wet wipes later I recover my dignity enough to reach out for my sense of humour...

Photo resizer on ppc

You can resize photos on your handheld with this free program. Then you can send them to your blog. That's how I did the slippers. http://www.pocketpcfreeware.mobi/download-photoresizer-v1-0.html

Those red slippers

I really like them a lot, because it was exactly what I wanted when I was looking for them at the time. What I like about them is that the soles are made of an organic material, not straw, not bamboo, but like that. This is why they don't stink. We must take certain precautions in life if we don't want to stink. But anyway, Anita thinks they are funky, and they are falling apart. I'm gonna have to sweep the floor again soon to pickn pick up more pieces. I'm not buying new ones though...these pink ones were debris left after the flood, maybe I'll use those...

Yeah, my portableapps thumbdrive

Here's Dilbert
In my last post I seemed to use the word "so" a lot. So I'm going to (whoops), try to avoid, doing that so much. (oh yeah) It's such a good word though...
Well anyway, now Simona's back and she's using her computer. She lets me use it too, but not all the time! It's hers you see, so she has certain rights I guess. So (see) now I'm thinking about how to hook up a blue tooth monitor and keyboard for me to use so we can BOTH be on the one computer at the same time. Not that I NEED to, it would just be so cool to push the limits.
But that's the way it is with computers; if it's there it seems like it's occupied. I couldn't tell you how much time I used to spend here at internet cafes just waiting for one to free up. I'm glad those days are over. Sitting in a stuffy room full of teenaged boys in smelly sock who were blasting the universe apart - complete with all the sound effects of destruction. But that's not what Simona's doing. She uses it as the multipurpose tool that it is. A multipurpose purpose tool that only one person can use at a time. That doesn't seem right to me, (so) I'm thinking what to do?
In a few months from now I'll be traveling a lot more and I won't want to be saddled with a computer bag all the time. Well, a solution could be my pocket pc. It's small and handy; not always straightforward to connect to the web though. Each provider has different access points, and by the time you've learned what it is you're "so" frustrated that writers block sets in. But could this work: could I reformat my pocket pc and change it into a Linux system? If I did that could it read my thumbdrive? I'd love to try it! Then I could compose on the road; when I check in to my home for the night I could plug the thumbdrive into my host's computer and that would be it. I wonder if it would work?

Well Svvvvvv was right, the slippers aren't broken, they are worn out! Very good Svvvvv, but you don't get a prize, because the other stuff really is broke.

This is mobile blogging and I can't get into the comments -)

No dustpan, but a squeegee and a mop

So where do you keep your dustpan if you have one? I'm in Simona's bache and she's coming back tomorrow. In Romania they called her "the mother-in-law", but she's so mellow now that sometimes we even call her "Simon". So anyway I'm working away here trying to remove traces of several days worth of human habitation. One of those traces is hair. In these quarters there's lots of long hair woven into the dust balls which occupy the dark corners and dead space under the furniture. So I sweep. After a through search I find no dustpan, so good natured and cheerful as I am, I hum to myself as the dust balls billow. Then I mop. I have a theory about cleaning house: the main thing is if it SMELLS clean. I pour Mr. Clean into the bucket, (he's bald), find the mop and industriously splash it around the premises. Then I have to depilite the mop. Wet long hairs, yuk; and there is a law governing wet hairs: that is they must stick to the surface they are on, so now the floor that I swept and mopped, (couldn't find the dustpan) is covered with hairs! But I found the squeegee behind the bookshelf, and thought "I could squeegee all this!" If the floor had been the size of the kitchen window, well sure I would have done it, but...anyway, it's done now, and tomorrow Simona's coming! The train is sometime around 0600, so I think she'll come in really quietly and make pancakes before I wake up...
So now here's a question for you - what is depicted in the photo on this post?

Stuff I broke this week

Can you identify these objects?

• popcorn popper(s)
• sole(s)
• Simona's iPAQ charger(s)

How did I break them?

• shaking the stove while making popcorn?
• walking all over our huge baches?
• uhm, it's old and the rubber was rotten...

Which of the objects isn't really "broken"?

My next post will be about the unbreakable appliances we have in this residence.

life as a blog

I have a friend who lives to tell stories on himself.  Far says that he views all his experiences as a narrator and for this reason he doesn't really suffer during his mishaps.   He goes through the experience enjoying in advance the great story he's going to tell to his next audience.  Well, I wonder if blogging is a bit like that. 
These gray overcast days in bumpy old buses virtually brighten up as I picture them enhanced by the light of my computer screen.
Something else I think about is this: is it a bad thing that I enjoy messing around with my computer more than using it as a tool to enhance my productivity?  Let me tell you what I did today.  I don't have my laptop with me on this trip; I decided my smart phone would be all I needed.  But I'm not sure, for one thing it is so tiny that I'm getting tennis elbows east and west.  So I made a thumbdrive with portableapps.  And the truth is that I enjoyed the process of making the drive a lot more than I enjoy using it.  The first day or two it makes me more productive because it's new and interesting.  Maybe that's why software developers are always changing things?  Maybe that's why we like to move the furniture?  comments please?

Crusader Castle

We also were in Sidon, the ancient town is gone, and the oldest thing there was this castle.  I had fun with the lighting in there.

Tyre

We also saw Tyre.
These posts are after the fact, but I couldn't upload the pictures when I was over there.

The Cedars

I posted my Lebanon pictures on flicker, let's see if I can make a link to them for you to veiw them here...

A night in the village

This is a groggy morning after a wild late night in the village.  We got to bed early enough after a big day with several visits and a couple of phone calls which had me juggling my raw egg emotions and trying to eat an apple at the same time kind of thing.  
But we had a good day and finally it was over and a person was free to drown everything in a good night's sleep.  And so the lights go off but sleep doesn't always come easily, even in the most comportable of beds, finally in the middle of the night Anita says , "I'm putting in my earplugs", and cheerfully has 10 more things to tell me; I was twisting and kicking around in a borrowed winter mummy type down bag, so missed a lot of the important details of those 10 things until she started to scream.  I was struggling with the zipper mechanism of this high-tech out of season down bag and thought the commotion would soon cease, but when I noticed in the outer reaches of my peripheral vision in the dark that she was jumping around on her bed I began to pay attention.  (skipping a few details here) ahem...anyway then the lights were on and she's attacking a huge beetle on the floor.  As she furiously beat it to a pulp she says shrilly, "you know the name of this place is Novie BUG??"

Many travels

I've come a long ways Virginia Slims, and still on the road. Anita and I are on the bus on the way to a gsp mtg. I have my earphones on with music turned up full blast nearly to overwhelm the sounds of murder coming from the movie on the front of the bus.
On the way down here I had 3 consecutive nights on the train, the last night was on the top bunk in the open carriage. It was unusually uncomfortable because my mattress kept wanting to slide off the bunk, which made me feel like I'd be sliding off right along with it. I'd use my two feet to grab the corner that was dangling in the face of the passengers sitting on the bottom bunk, but that would nearly precipitate debilitating foot cramps. So you may ask why I didn't just sit up and yank it with my to hands at the end of my own two arms, well there isn't enough space up there to do that. I can just imagine folding myself into the shape of a paperclip and THEN getting debilitating foot cramps.
I managed to extricate myself from the top bunk in the morning and then spend the rest of the trip sitting at the feet of the grandma who remained reclining on the bottom bunk. After a phone conversation with Anita I became part of the general conversation...'are you a teacher or a translator? I saw you reading that Agatha Christy book last night...I always think there's got to be something strange about a person who likes to read about how to murder people...' oh wow, well at least I just read about it I've never committed any murders, I guess I should just have read my bible on the train last night then I could torment you about the need to repent for your soul's salvation...I thought all those things before I put in my earphones to drown out the thoughts of murder from the screen inside my head.