My brother's stories about his childhood

He tells the most bloodcurdling tales, honestly you'd believe he thought we were trying to kill him...

From kidz

6th sense technology

Very cool stuff...

Over a year since she was murdered

Memorial March for Martine Magnussen
the suspect still has not faced trial.

Ratcatcher post

I was thinking I was wearing my ratcatcher here, but doesn't look like it.  A ratcatcher is a special shirt worn by equestrians for dress up I guess is the best way to describe it.
This picture was taken in Festus, Missouri in about 1974.  It's me and my dad.  The horse is Carrigan, I was told he was a descendant of Man of War a famous race horse.

Kalyway Hackintosh

First let me tell you that we did buy an install disk, in fact my dad has three install disks, so the license is paid for.  But since I don't know how to apply the patch myself I downloaded one of the Kalyway distributions.  It was exciting to install it last night and see it work fairly well on the old hard drive of my Dell pc; that is I had no sound and no wireless, but otherwise it was a near Mac experience.  Here's what it looked like:

I think that's the aurora borealis glow off of Dave's elbow, actually the standard Leopard desktop image.  Since that effort put me back quite a bit on my REM time I tried hard to make up for that by cooking good food today.  Here's what it looked like:

I got the recipe from the October issue of Prevention magazine.  We keep it on the bathroom floor for lack of better inspiration in that room.  Anyway, here's the recipe:

Prepare  8 oz whole wheat rotini according to package directions.  (I simply boiled some noodles)  In medium saucepan, simmer 1/2 12 oz package frozen butternut squash (I bought an unknown variety on the hoof out near the bus station) until combined.  Remove from heat and mix with 1 c shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese, ( no Cheddar here, just whatever) 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp dry mustard, and pepper to taste.  (I added Lebanese zatar)  Pour drained pasta in to baking dish stir in cheese mixture and top with 1 Tbsp each Parmesan and bread crumbs.  Bake at 375 F for 20 minutes. 

I also added 2 beaten eggs to the squash.  It was kind of a fun way to hack mac and cheese.
As we were eating I dug the label for the noodles out of the trash can to wonder what they used to make them green..."spinach?", we wondered...here are the ingredients:


durum wheat semolina, wheat germ, red chili, black squid ink, dehydrated beet root.  Contains fish...

Anyway it was vegetarian.  I topped mine with chopped walnuts to give my plate a real gourmet effect, it tasted great and I was glad for the crunch as I wondered about the nutritional benefits of black squid ink.

missing my umbrella at the Warsaw parade

Yesterday we were in Warsaw to see a historical parade commemorating the independence of Poland. In 1918, at the end of World War I, today's Poland was freed from the Austria-Hungarian, German and Russian Empires.
It was a great day, my only problem was that I couldn't find my itty bitty umbrella in my cool purse for which I made the fisherman's vest dividers. That, however is beside the point.

From from Angela's camera

Standing there in the rain with the Poles, watching the historical parade of the different regiments in the history of Poland from the rebel army before independence to today's troops made me feel very small.
Let me explain: Yesterday I remembered the 5th grade me. That was the first time I'd ever heard a "polack" joke - it could have been about how many of them it takes to screw in a light bulb, or something similarly enlightening. Being an immature grade schooler I thought it was funny of course. I didn't know what was meant by a "polack", just that it was someone dumber than me. Of course I went on to tell this little joke, and others like it to anyone with patience to listen, until my mom overheard me. It precipitated one of the few lectures that I can actually recollect. She told me that what I was calling a "polack" were real people from a real country, a country called Poland. The people who live there are properly known as Poles. They are Polish, not, "polacks", a derogatory, ignorant term. Poles are hardworking people who love their country. They have fought for their country. After their capitol was bombed to the ground in World War II they rebuilt it with their own hands. Before the Soviet occupation they were a proud and talented people. Poland has produced famous musicians, composers and writers. Don't ever tell "polack" jokes again. Poland, their country which they love has been taken away from them, but they still love their homeland and want to be free again.
I did not appreciate or care for that speech, my Norwegian mother obviously didn't understand sophisticated grade school humor.
But I never forgot it.
And I remembered it again as we stood in the rain near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in one of Warsaw's many beautiful parks. We stood watching the stirring sight of different military regiments parade past us,

From from Angela's camera

after having laid wreaths of flowers on the tomb.

From from Angela's camera

All the while we stood shoulder to shoulder with Poles in the rain who let me stand under their big umbrellas in the Warsaw rain, because I couldn't find my own.
By the time the opening ceremonies are over I'm so glad I'm not a soldier, glad I don't have to spend the night in a pup tent, because I'm wet and cold. My two fellow companions on this outing decide to deposit me at a cafe so they can go and enjoy the sites of chilly, wet Warsaw.
At the cafe I get a table near the radiator and drape my scarf and gloves over it to dry them off, then look through my purse for any errant zloty to pay for an Americano - and what do I find? The last gift my mom gave me before I left home last summer, my tiny black totes umbrella nestled within the vast recesses of my diplomats bag.
So now, who's the polack?

From My drawings

did I already post this here?

When was riding horses I had a special shirt which was part of my riding habit, called a "ratcatcher". I never caught any rats in it, but if I ever needed it, it's NOW!
Our Drohobich bache is on the first floor this year there we've only caught 6 mice, last year we did real well at 11 live mice that we can either let go into the wild, or drown in a bucket of water. After temperatures go down to freezing at night it seems like the mouse are holed up for the winter, and we don't have any more problems with them.
I'd been hearing noises in my room though, enough to convince me that a mammal with a heavy tread is living under the floor of my room, and that he's working on some kind of a project. I told Karen who gave me kind of a glassy look, like "oh really", so I dropped it when I could see she wouldn't volunteer to trade rooms. Imagine my vindication when Karen in making before breakfast coffee agitatedly tells me that "at 4:30 this morning the RATS dragged a chain across the floor" under her room. "We should give him a name" she said, "Sebastian, he's building a torture chamber" I really enjoyed that remark and have shared it with some of my friends.
Then we are expecting company to our bache. Our Polish friends, who take care of our mail are bringing it in, so we scurry around our bache and try to make it seem clean and cozy. Cobwebs in doorways are a big problem, Tammy is taller that both of us, and we don't want her getting spider webs in her hair. They come, we have a great time, Karen cooks delicious Oriental food, and we eat with chopsticks. Our friend Sasha is all pleased that he managed to use his during the whole meal, he and Halya refused at first, but we gave them a lesson, and somehow took away their inhibitions. After the meal Sasha said he had a cramp in his hand from the chopsticks! Our steady listener came, (Anya!) D. S. came, all a great success.
Bedtime, Eleanor has the couch in my room. I use earplugs and am out for all night. In the morning she tells me she heard noises in the night, "Oh yeah, that's Karen's friend Sebastian, he's building a torture chamber" Well, Eleanor had heard things that had made her get out of bed, take her flashlight and investigate. "Do people walk by here swishing plastic bags?" she questioned musingly...I volunteered that there is a garbage dump down the street with lots of plastic bags that the wind might blow.
The next morning it’s back to just Karen and me, "Trude, come in here." A tone of voice which prepares me to expect the worst. The scene which greets my eyes is our dumped garbage pail, the plastic sack is chewed up, (rat tooth doily) and the garbage is perforated with rat's teeth...I fled the scene, leaving Karen to pick up the mess, after she finished making my (and hers!) coffee. I hadn't taken my first sip and again, "come here" in tones that got me out of bed again...this time it was the toilet...on the floor were banana peels and an empty milk carton from the kitchen trash...the wastepaper basket was also tipped over. I backed out of there as quickly as my squeamish bare feet would take me. Closed my bedroom door, got into bed with all my covers on. In this race the rats are winning!

Oh, Karen’s first words were, “let’s not tell the girls huh?” Let’s see how fast it takes for the news to get to Poland !

Update: When I emptied the trash the smell was rank, delicious to a rat of course. I learned that in 3^rd grade when we read about Templeton the Rat in Charlotte’s Web. The land lady came by today and we discussed plugging the rat hole. Her suggestion was to let him crawl out into our apartment and die here…I shot that idea down as tactlessly as possible. She’s coming tomorrow with some goop to plug the hole.

Murder in the Village

My gentle readers will remember my post about all the indignities suffered by Bruce, a dog of the village Antonivka. He is named in honor of the martial arts master Bruce Lee. This dog of such a noble name disgraced himself today in the wee hours of the morning.
A young, maimed, chicken was discovered beside his supper dish. In my previous post about Bruce I praised him and his endurance of certain canine sufferings - chickens eating our of his dog dish for example. Well this morning we had no witnesses as to what allegedly did occur, but a dead chicken was found in the proximity of the dog house. This dead chicken's unmolested corpse was found within the reach of Bruce's short chain which attaches him to the said dog house.
This picture was taken as evidence, unfortunately the corpse had already been removed by passersby (who intended to cook it for lunch).
I think we can see guilt painted all of over the face of this dog, but there is evidence of remorse, he wouldn't touch his breakfast, the surviving chickens are eating it all right under his nose.

grafitti artist caught in action

Just in time to wish us all a happy Halloween!

For Anne of Green Gables fans

click here for an interesting video regarding the new L.M. Montgomery book.

Anita wants to make me a chair like this one

this is making the rounds, so I don't want you to miss it

village life

We are really glad to get out of town once a week and go to visit our friend in the village. It's about an hour and a half on the bus from here to get out there. Once we are there it feels like a lifetime away from the world we know. There's no store out there, no public square, no internet, (unless we connect with our cell phones, which I don't bother to do!)
When we arrive the first one to greet us is usually Bruce barking up a storm.

From it takes a village

Here is Bruce trying to defend his supper dish from a Chinese pig. This poor dog suffers all kinds of indignities, even the chickens are bold enough to try to rob his supper dish!

From it takes a village

With young people moving to town to find work and better possibilities there are lots of Ukrainian villages that are quite uninhabited, but that's not the case with this place.  However there are some homes left empty when the occupants go away for the winter.  Maybe I should say empty nests.

From it takes a village

Svitlana, our friend, has a strip of land in front of her house where she can plant potatoes and beets and whatever else she wants to grow. 

From it takes a village

This week we helped her mow the strip to the left in this picture.  I'd never used a scythe before, never thought I'd ever master that skill, but she and I mowed 10/100 of a hectare together. (1000 meters squared, about the whole length of the field, almost to the trees)  It took us about an hour.  When we started I had no hope of finishing, glad we were doing it together!  You can see the scythe in this picture:

From it takes a village

This picture from http://www.vtcommons.org/files/images/scythe.gif is easier to see.  The trick is she told me is to swing it and aim the "heel" to the earth, when I started doing it that way I couldn't believe how it cleared a huge swath in front of me.  In time it became quite normal to take a step and swing my arms, take another step and swing my arms and watch the greens tumble from their mowed down stalks.  That was 2 days ago, and yes, my arms are still sore!
What I found very interesting is that the field was sown with something she calls "oil radishes", people sow their fields with radishes, mow the field then plow the crop under.  This is done instead of fertilizing the ground.  It seems that farmers at home are doing something similar as well.  Click here for the story.
bye! thanks for listening!

Askold and Dir

From it takes a village

Askold and Dir were 2 rulers of ancient Kiev according to myths with some hazy historical documentation by the Arab historian al Masudi.  Anyway it seems a fun name for these 2 Chinese pigs of Svitlana's.  They are cute little pigs, don't eat much because they're small, and they like to tear around the yard like puppies when they play!

From it takes a village

And this is a real living tomato from Svitlana. I had never eaten a sprouting tomato before.

Something else I miss from home...

My mom's sewing basket.

Push ups again

Exactly one year and one month ago I posted this.  Back then I could do about 2 push ups at a time, so I could with great difficulty do 5 sets of 2 push ups.  I was inspired by this webpage and followed the program for about a month or so before I got distracted with life.  The other day I tried to see how many I could do, and now I can do 10 pushups!  So - in about 10 years and 10 months I should be able to do 100 pushups?

alternative medicine

While the health care debate rages at home I am pursuing health and well-being over here in Ukraine.  All I want is to be pain free without taking lots of ibuprofin.
The search took me first to a massage therapist who recommends a hot sauna.  It's effective and the cold pool is especially stimulating.  Then I moved on to a neurologist who practicies accupuncture.  He uses long sharp needles to make my muscles relax.  Some people fall asleep during the 20 minutes they have pins poking out of them.  My muscles may have relaxed, but it didn't really make me feel cosy enough to take a nap.
This neurologist works in a rather nice facility; it's called the Chernobyl hospital.  It has some nice up to date machinery.  After a few treatments of acupuncture he did an x-ray.  The printer wasn't working, but I saw the x-ray on the computer screen, and I was properly impressed with the quality of the picture.  His recommendation after the x-ray was leech therapy.  I don't have any pictures of my own to post here, I may borrow some online if I need graphic aides.
"Why leeches?"  I asked.  Well, leeches bite a hole in your skin, (my back) and suck blood.  They are also called blood suckers, or they are called horse leeches.  The saliva from a leech works as a painkiller, it also has therapeutic anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant properties.  (Because of this, the wounds continue to bleed all day!)
After the leech takes in 10 to 15 ml of blood it gets full and stops working.  He used about 5 on me.  When they are done working they are simply disposed of.  But, he told me, leeches have become quite expensive compared to what they were before, so some people opt to take them home and keep them in a jar of water where they remain alive (water has to be changed every 3 days), in a few months the leeches can be used again.
Well, they still only cost 9 hriven a piece, so I don't think I'll start keeping leaches around as pets.

Things I miss from home...

Breakfast

This is a kitchen scale with chaff on it.  The chaff doesn't weigh anything, but I spent several minutes picking it out of my homemade granola the other day...I do this every day, because I bought the cheapest oatmeal in the store.   Angela told me not to collect a week's worth of it to weigh, is tempting though!

dealing with apples

There are apples everywhere this time of year, and everybody likes to give us a bag of apples to carry home!  In this case I was more interested in the basket than the apples!
So when you have apples you can't just let them sit around and get old, but I'm hard pressed to eat even one a day sometimes...I just don't have that much time to sit around and chew, so what to do?  We did press 8 liters of apple juice here: 

From Apples!! by Trude

From Apples!! by Trude

Well, there's always applesauce, and pie... who has time to make apple pies all week long???

From Apples!! by Trude

So this is what we did with all our apples

From Apples!! by Trude

today...

From Apples!! by Trude

We want to dry them and make apple chips or apple flakes?  This is just half that we have sliced, should take a few days to dry them on a low flame, then if we're lucky someone will give us some more, because this is fun! :)

Borscht recipe

This is our friend Anya, we met her in a little shop where we'd go when we needed macaroni and stuff like that.  She was always very helpful and gradually we became friends.

Here is Anya's recipe for canned Borscht:

• 4 kg boiled beets, grated
• 2 kg green peppers, blanched
• 2 kg onions, diced
• 2 kg tomato, diced
• 250 gr vinegar
• 100 gr sugar
• 150 gr salt
• 350 gr oil

simmer in a pan until all ingredients are cooked,

From from Angela's camera

then seal in glass jars.

From from Angela's camera

This is great to have on hand, half a jar is enough for 2 of us, a good quick meal with a slice of bread.
We made half a recipe, got 3.5 liters.

From from Angela's camera

I think these canning lids are interesting, nothing like what I was used to from home, and getting them off is not easy either!

From from Angela's camera

From from Angela's camera

Stuff on the Balcony

Our flat in Rivne has a balcony on the east side. It's great to have a balcony with your apartment because then you have a place to hang out your clothes, and a place to store food when it's cold out; it's kind of like a mini back porch (the size of a bath tub) if you have enough imagination.

Our balcony has great potential to be all these things, but unfortunately it has become the catch all for the owner and perhaps previous tenants of this 2 room plus kitchen domicile.
I've made lots of trips to the trash already, but when the junk isn't really yours it's harder to dump it, a person just doesn't feel so free somehow.
We have lots of wardrobes in our place, this is great too, except that the owner and perhaps previous tenants have left junk in the wardrobes too: a child's winter coat, a leather jacket, a fur coat, a busted radio, a locked briefcase, and so on ad infinitum. I asked the landlord about the coats, “just put it on the balcony” is his pat reply when ever I ask him about any of this junk. There is a plastic 60 liter drum with a screw on lid (for making pickles) also out on the balcony; that's where I put the moth eaten fur coat. And screwed the lid on tight. That has somewhat decreased the moth population in our place.

There was a washing machine out there too. We have reinstated it and are using it for our laundry. It's actually just a laundry agitator; it whirls the laundry around until it's all in knots, then we undo all the kinks and do a manual rinse in buckets in the bathtub, then we spin it out in our spin dryer, a gift from Holland (they had 6 to give away at the convention place there; Karen brought it in for us. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!)
There is also a windshield from a car out there. Oh, you don't see it? Well, look here...

I'm not sure if it's a Saab windshield or not, likely not...

A walk in the park in Ternopil

Ternopil means "thorny field". That was certainly the case 10 years ago when I was there and lost my colleague who suddenly passed away one night. At the time we had been working in Ternopil and teaching English at the teachers college.
My next co-worker, DeAnn and I stayed on in Ternopil for a few more months before moving on to Lviv, where I taught at Ivan Franco University. I wasn't at all unhappy to leave Ternopil because of the sadness we had experienced during those months.
Several years passed and there was never a reason to return to Ternopil until we met Teresa, an English student on the train one day. We began meeting up with her a few times a month to sit on a bench in the park in Ternopil and read together in English. Usually the weather was nice, but sometimes it was cold; we would still read and chat on a bench in the park. If it rained or snowed Teresa knew of a cafe where we could sit and read together.
So we have happy memories from Ternopil now; here is a picture I took a few days ago as Pat and I walked through the same park where I walked with Avis and DeAnn.
These are giant bubbles and you can get inside and walk around on the surface of the pond. We didn't try it, but while Avis and I were there we did walk across the frozen surface of the lake one day!

Ange's lamp

refining our technique with bath salts. Karen was helping me then Vasil and Sergie showed up. We had fun!
I think it was Joyce who reinforced the idea that I need to put something into the bottle. Also most of the websites say that there needs to be ballast in the bottle so that it doesn't tip over.

Dumpster diving in search of light.

Recycling is an in thing to do these days, even in the western world where I hail from. It's been a way of life in Eastern Europe for a long time. Ever since the early 90's when my colleague Joan and I arrived in Lviv we saw that. From our kitchen we had a good view of the trash can and Joan would give me the reports on what was going on out there. We got sort of partial to one she called "The Old Man"; we would even put out special stuff for him. The Old Man had class; he always had an entourage of dogs with him; they weren't Corgis, and they weren't on leashes either, but they followed him everywhere. Seems he always shared some of the good stuff with his dogs and they became his loyal followers.
There are lots of different divisions of trash picking; The Old Man was pretty much into subsistence trash picking, but a person can specialize in paper, fabric, glass, plastic, and I don't know what else.

Some are very professional in their approach, I've seen them use gloves and a mask. Others may use a stick to poke around in the trash bin and fish out their spoils. You can always hear the bottle collectors coming because of the musical clinking sound of bags of empty beer bottles. They may have a plastic sack full in each hand. With a practiced eye they walk past trash cans to scan the contents as they go by. Any bottle which is visible is fished out and added to the menagerie of vodka, wine, beer and who knows what other kinds of bottles.
Well...my latest project has been getting our apartment in Rivne livable. One thing we need there is lamps. I don't want to buy lamps, that's too boring, why not be resourceful and make lamps? There is a collection of informative sites on the web with very helpful ideas and instructions on how to use what's on hand to make your own stuff instead of buying everything you want.
So today I made my first glass bottle lamp.
I was out walking to the hardware supply store to get wiring and switches for my project when I saw some really good bottles. Some of them were just on the ground at my feet, there were several good ones in trash cans, but I resisted snatching any of them. As I gathered more bottles I noticed I was clinking musically as I went along scanning all around looking for prizes. By the time I got to the store I had a bunch of bottles in my bag. It looked kind of grungy too because the bag had holes in it and someone had written "Anita's prep things" on it, so that was kind of embarrassing as a person could well understand. I went to lock up my treasures in one of the store lockers, but this place is so up town and classy that you have to check all your bags at the wardrobe when you enter. Well, I've dealt with these kinds of wardrobe ladies before, they can be very snooty because of their high profile job. I weighed up the situation and decided not to check my bags, but to simply stash my goods outside the store by the trash can.
One thing you need for this project is a diamond tipped drill bit. I researched drilling holes in glass a good bit before I started this project; I put the bottles in a tub of water with water covering the surface I was going to work on. I managed to do 3 bottles without any accidents.
The next step is to get the light socket wired up.
And here is the finished product.
looks crooked in real life too...
I had a blast as I was making this, but collecting the bottles was almost like crossing a fine line into another cast. I walked for a half an hour to get home rather than clinking onto a bus and avoiding everyones' politely averted eyes (we don't stare at trash pickers). So for my next project (making drinking glasses by cutting the tops off of bottles) I know where to go. I'm buying 6 beautiful, empty wine and champaign bottles from the trash pickers! But for that I need one of these I wonder if Ange will bring me one?
I'm giving this lamp away to my friend, because her dad gave me some tips on drilling into bottles. You know who you are! You can pick it up at Artseulova. :)
One more thing: does anyone have any ideas for a lampshade? How to make one from scratch like?

Outside of our building

Our place is a 2 or 3 minute walk from this bus station.

We live on the 4th floor of this edifice, but our view is of the beautiful rolling hills on the other side. The little blue house in the foreground has a pigeon roost in it, is cute. No, it's NOT an outhouse.
Pictures boldly stolen from Jake's Facebook album.

progress!

We got new kitchen furniture today, I was totally surprised at that, I thought we were going to have to put up with the dissolving pressboard stuff.

Also we hauled the rotten linoleum out; it's by the dump waiting for someone to come and claim it.

in case you were wondering, this is what dissolved furniture looks like: