My Favorite Shoes

Size 10 and a half double or triple A is no fun. Ever. Never. Most of my childhood shoe shopping expeditions ended with no results except tears and something ugly for my feet. The good side of all that is that I don't care what I wear on my feet anymore, simply do not care. Oh, later I did discover Ferrigamo shoes, and bought myself a $300.00 pair, but decided not to take the matching $1000 purse. It was after that that I discovered Nordstrom's rack; I try to make it by there every 5 years or so. Now internet shopping makes the whole shoe shopping thing easier, if the shoes I ordered make it to me before the end of the season that is...

I always try to avoid second hand shoes, they are smelly and are already formed to some other possibly deceased person's foot, but these, my favorite shoes – came off the give-away rack in Casa Grande last summer. I would never have chosen these if they were not free, they are so cool and trendy, and pricey, that they wouldn't be for me, besides – they weren't really my size...but I tried them on and I knew they were mine! My magic size 8 Keens! Kayaking sandals, super grip soles, waterproof! How fun!

They are just the thing for summer in Ukraine, I can wade through flash floods, in less than an hour they are dry again, and they look really cool.

Well, here we are way up in the Carpathians for a few days to get away from the terrible heat down on the flatland. We have a cute little log house, Simona's upstairs in the loft, I'm downstairs on the couch, no internet, bad phone service, just perfect for us.

The first evening I left my Keens on the porch and got ready for bed; over on the hillside I saw a little, white rat-terrier like dog who was industriously chewing up a piece of rope. I tried to get his attention by mewing like a cat, growling like a dog and yipping like a puppy. He did glance in my direction but was very busy chewing up his rope, after which he scuttled off in the direction of the chicken coup as if to go and steal some eggs. Feeling rather foolish, I headed for bed. After a few chapters of Harry Potter in Ukrainian I turned out the light. In the dead of the night I had to get up and go out, on the way back in I took a prideful glace at my Keens, and there was only one shoe! That miserable rat-terrier was now chewing up my beloved second-hand kayaking sandals! I found my flashlight and searched the porch, all around the log house, nothing. Went back to bed, mourned my lost shoes, decided I have too many pairs of shoes to care...couldn't sleep, got up again to look some more, brought my one shoe that was left inside, still no sleep, read more Harry Potter and finally, feeling like I'd lost my wand drifted off to sleep.

The next morning was rainy but I got up with a purpose to hunt down that dog and find what was left of my shoe and give it a proper burial, perhaps throw the dog into the river. Over on the side of the hill where the egg sucker had been flossing his teeth I saw my poor shoe, ran to retrieve it and could not believe my eyes to see that it was all in one piece, perfectly undamaged!

My Magic size 8 Keens!

Kombucha tea

I remember last year when I was in California it seemed like there were different things I'd never seen before. It's usually like that when I go home, I go to the store and lots of the products have changed their packaging, so at first they are almost unrecognizable.  But some things are really brand new to me on the market, and I don't know what I'm ingesting.  

Anya's Kambucha starter

One of these things I found out what it was, I was at Mt. Ranch and someone opened the fridge and showed me some bottles there and invited me to help myself.  "Kambucha tea, it's healthy, have some."  My baser desires would have steered me towards a Classic Coke, (THEY at least stick to the same basic shaped bottle and label and I can always recognize a Coke when I come home).  But I tried the Kambucha, unfortunately I drank straight from the bottle, so was obliged to down the whole vinagary contents myself. 

It's really slimy

The recipe that Anya gave me is like the ones you read on line:

• boil 2 liters of water, add a small amount of tea leaves 
• add 3 tablespoons of sugar
• after it's cooled off add tea mixture to the culture
• in the summer the drink is ready after 3 days, in the winter it takes a week

a pot of tea to feed our starter

pour into a 3 liter jar

here's how the Medusa looks after a day in the dark hallway feeding on its sweet tea to keep it alive.

If you notice in the picture Anya is holding a pancake type of an object, that is "the mother", as it's called. It is a slimy, weird, slippery, jellyfish-like thing, a combination of yeasts and bacterias.  We hope we survive to report what it tastes like and how healthy we are after drinking it.

To the Lavra

Lavra

The last time I was here was with my parents in 1998, at that time it was being renovated after about 70 years of neglect.  At that time it seems that the catacombs were closed.  I wanted to see them because the remains of Nestor the Chronicler are intered there.  Judging by the size of the shrouded figure he was about the size of a an average contemporary 12 year kid.

To get in to the catacombs you have to have a scarf on your head, so Lillian suggested our serviette from McDonalds... heh heh,

Lillian says that kerchief looks "quite jaunty"!

From Lavra

anyway we got in, but had to buy a candle, which we really needed to illuminate those dark dank tunnels full of mummies.

 Something else if you're not interested in petrified monks is the Museum of Miniatures; I saw the chess set on a table made of a pin head with my own eyes, also a flea with golden shoes!

Kyivska Lavra

I hope to coax my friends to come with me tomorrow

View Larger Map
The underground caves of the petrified monks should be nice and cool in this raging heat...

A Viking Grave in Kyiv

I'm admittedly fascinated by the legends of Vikings in this part of the world.  I say legend because I don't know of any real proof that they really were here.  The one historian, Nestor, who wrote of those times seemed to record the stories as he heard them, but I don't know how accurate they were.
There is a story about two Vikings, Askold and Dir, or was it one man by the name of Askoldidir?  It seems that nobody knows for sure.  They were rulers of Kyiv in the late 800's
There are some traces of their possible existence:

Askold alley

When my brother and his wife were here we looked for the grave of Askold which has been marked by a church in later years; we searched fruitlessly along the right bank of the Dniepr, and all the time it was just up the hill from us, we'd have found it easily if they'd just stayed another week!

The Grave of Askold

the barefooted guardian of the temple

I tramped around plenty before I found my way, all the time glad not to be a tour guide, and afterwards got in line for a half liter of cold kvas.



How to get there:

View Larger Map
I actually took a short cut, 'A' is the Arsenalna Metro, I went around the east side of it and followed the road which leads to a trail through the woods then I crossed the street and walked through the park to find the church which marks the site.

Why to sand after spackling

This is why you spackle first, sand second:


A simple power sander isn't really sufficient to do a good job.



But I had the best helpers!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone