Today was a day of having people over. It was kind of nice, actually.
John arrived while the flat was still a disaster of Christmas boxes, partially decorated everything, things still needing another dusting and the floor needing a good vacuum. He came in from Kiev on the train and wanted a shower. Alas, the water pressure was still too low, so he had to wait until closer to noon before that could happen - but it eventually did.
Mel and John left to go have lunch together at a cafe where they could talk privately about a variety of things. I got busy finishing prep for dinner, and then started finishing decorating and cleaning. Busy, busy over here at this flat, wanting it to look really good for our guests tonight.
Soon the doorbell rang and it was Alexei from Nikolaev ready to meet with John and Mel. I sent him down the street a few meters to the cafe. An hour or so later Mel returned . The other guys went on in to the first floor flat we rent as an 'office' and mostly storage area, to wait for the rest of the Session to have their regular weekly meeting. Mel informed me that a funeral was going on outside our entryway.
Sure enough. Last night "the keeper of the stairwell" came by to ask for donations for someone. Mel and I neither one understood her completely. We thought someone was having a hard time and needed financial help of some kind. She mentioned our neighbor across the landing from us. We know that she had been widowed just a few weeks after we moved in here several years ago, and lived alone on her pension. She lived very poorly, didn't even have the electricity hooked up to her flat. I have wondered many times that never once in all the years we have lived here have I ever seen anyone visit her, go in or come out of her flat other than her, and she just one time. One time! We heard from "the keeper of the stairwell" earlier this year that she was in bad shape mentally and couldn't remember how to do simple things like turn on and off the hot water heater correctly (could have blown up our whole section of the building). So, we made a donation and I made a mental note to ask Olya K. to be a translator for me and I'd find out who it was for sure and see if there was some other way we could help (like a bag of groceries, or a bill paid anonymously, etc).
Instead, today there was a funeral. We are still not sure if it was this neighbor or someone else who died. Mel said that when he came in he tried to look in the casket to identify the person without being super obvious about it, but, let's be honest, sometimes at that point it's hard to tell who the person is, especially if you've only ever seen them a few times. (Sorry Olya if this is not easy to read again. :) ) In an Orthodox funeral, a fancy scarf is placed over a woman's hair and a paper with verses written on it is placed across the forehead. The face is visible, but surrounded and partially covered.
The priest came and started the Russian/Ukrainian Orthodox funeral. Lots of singing by both him and one or two women, lots of incense being wafted around. Lots of people standing around the entrance to the building. I looked out from off the balcony but did not recognize anyone - I was seeing mostly the tops of people's heads.
John came upstairs and got his overnight bag, talked for a few minutes and took off to go back to Kiev. I finished all my housework, finished all I could with dinner, played a couple games on the computer, and spent some time just thinking about things.
Finally the meeting downstairs finished and Mel and Sergei K. came upstairs. It was so good to see Sergei again! It has been awhile since he and Olya have been able to come over for dinner and I have missed having them here. (Yes, I saw them on Sunday, but somehow it is different when they come over for dinner - more like having one of the kids come home for dinner, or something.)
Sergei is like a son to us in many ways. We love him dearly. We also love his Olya dearly. :) It was about 45 minutes later that Olya and her papa finally showed up. Papa is staying with them for a couple weeks to help them in the major renovations they are doing to their house. Including building a new kitchen on to the existing house. I guess it is getting to be almost done!
So, we sat around the table, eating and chatting. Lots of talking and laughing. Stories told. Mostly in English with translation for papa, but some in Russian as well. Around the table, in our flat, newly decorated for Christmas. Around the table decorated for Christmas (with the two fish enjoying a new view in here beside the computer for a few hours). Enjoying roast pork, green beans almondine, mashed potatoes, black and green olives, a cabbage salad, tomato and cucumber slices, bread and for dessert, apple Betty. Coffee and tea after, and then some photos on the computer from our last trip through Wyoming and Montana a few years ago.
It was really nice. Relaxing. Like old times in many ways. I have missed having people over. I have missed it a lot! Now that it is the holiday season I hope we can have a lot more over. Starting tomorrow with another young couple we love dearly. Next week - well, I have some ideas about who to invite for next week, too! Hopefully the season is over of people being so busy with just trying to live that they have no time for anything else, and they can now have more time for enjoying life and other people and Christian fellowship. I hope so!
Showing posts with label guests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guests. Show all posts
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Busy Days
May 30, 2006
Life has become very busy this past week. We hired a young man in the church to come and paint the bars on our balcony. I warned him that it would take at least 3 or 4 days to complete (and I was thinking that was not realistic). It’s kind of funny to watch people here react to my ideas of how things will go. He said sure, he’d be willing to paint them and kind of gave me the “3 or 4 days to paint the bars on a balcony? Ha! I’ll do it in way less than that!” look. For some reason – maybe because I’m a woman and I’m not supposed to know these things – I get this response often. Well, Kolya has been here 4 days and he finished painting the “anti-corrosive,” or primer yesterday. He hasn’t worked a full 8 hours each day – it’s too hot and the paint fumes are too much. But he has put in some long hours out there and he seems to be a hard worker. I checked this morning just to see how it all looks (gray). I know from personal experience that the pattern in the bars is complicated enough that it is easy to miss parts – the top of this bar, the side of that one, or the bottom of another. That’s what I get for having such a pretty security cage installed lo these many moons ago, when we first moved in here (can it truly be 7+ years???!!!)
Mel and I are late night people, which means we are also late morning people. We asked Kolya to show up no earlier than 10:00 am (I know that makes it the hottest part of the day to work, but……). He showed up yesterday at 9:30 and I was still asleep, arriving so early because he wanted to show us his photo album (he is a very homesick young man right now). We had been up way past 1:00 am the night before because:
Dave is here again. Dave is a former short term team mate, now back in the States attending seminary. He arrived about a week ago and will be here another several days. He’s staying in our “office” flat on the first floor. And because his ‘bedroom’ is just two floors below us, he is able to stay late – it’s a very short commute home. Ha! Sunday night he and I played two rousing games of cribbage, which I won, and it was great. Not because I won – that was just the icing on the cake for me. No, it was wonderful because I was raised in a family that liked to play games (Candy Land when we were little, Life, Parcheesi, Scrabble, Pinochle, checkers, Chinese checkers, etc.). Mel has never been a game player – he just doesn’t enjoy it at all. So, having Dave here, willing to play with me has been very fun for me. I’ll willingly stay up till all hours of the morning playing cribbage. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not live on the late night, late morning schedule….
Last night we had guests – Ira and Melinda came for my special “Ukrainian spaghetti.” This spaghetti recipe consists of throwing fried farsh (a ground beef and pork mixture) into a pot with chopped cabbage, grated carrots, grated beets, frozen spinach (can’t buy fresh here), chopped peppers and about a liter of tomato juice, a handful of dried oregano, a bay leaf and some basil – let it simmer until the cabbage is cooked and yum, yum! I don’t know why, but I try making it like that in the States and it’s just not as tasty. I think it has something to do with the tomato juice here, or maybe the farsh…. Whatever. I served spaghetti, made garlic bread and for dessert a homemade potato starch vanilla pudding topped with real maple syrup from Canada, which Denis brought me. Melinda brought my favorite Ukrainian Roshen chocolates and some waffle cookies. It was a feast.
Ira told us a lot about her trip to the States and then showed us photos. Dave came up, made himself some dinner with the left-overs. My computer started acting up – wouldn’t show Ira’s videos. Sigh. I think we need a new fan – it gets really hot and then slows way down. So, Ira and I spent some time trying to fix it, or figure out what was going on. She majored in computer science, so was able to show me some tricks on how to get it to work faster (YEA!). But, we finally gave up, with her instructing us on where to take it to get the fan replaced.
It was good to hear about her trip. I think I still have a lot of questions for her, but those will come in time. I’m thrilled that she was able to go to Texas this time, which is the closest she’s been to “my culture” in the States. Ok, ok – I hear all my Colorado family and friends screaming at me – Texas culture is close to Colorado culture?? AAAAIIIIIIHHHHH – no way!! The only good Texan is one on his way out of Colorado, etc. etc. and so forth and so on. (Sorry Lisa!) (But I love cowboys – yes, I do! No matter what state they come from!).
Ira and Melinda left – Dave stayed, talking to Mel and me for another hour or more – and then he got out his cribbage board, which he had conveniently brought upstairs. Ha ha! This time, he beat me soundly.
Today I have my Russian lesson, and tomorrow Kolya will be back to start putting color on the bars, so I can have my pretty balcony again. Our neighbor upstairs asked him how long it was going to take before he finished painting – I think they are sick of the smell of this paint, as am I. I hope they will be patient just a couple more days – the next step will go a lot faster. But I will be really glad when it’s finished – the need to have them painted like this has been weighing on me for almost three years!
I am very much an introvert and need my time alone each day. Having someone here from the time I wake up until just a couple hours before we go to bed can be very difficult for me after a couple days. Yet - - it has been so good to have Dave here again, to have Ira home, to have Melinda over and to have the bars painted. Plus, the time Mel and I have spent talking to Kolya has been very good – when we can get him to speak in his simple Russian! He’s from western Ukraine and is very nationalist – the first day he told us we need to learn Ukrainian. When I asked him to speak in Russian because we don’t understand Ukrainian, he replied, “But I am a Ukrainian man!” I understand the sentiments – but oh, it is exhausting to try and cipher out the Russian when it’s all mixed up with Ukrainian.
We are expecting another guest today – our Denis. Denis was born and raised here in Kherson but moved to Canada a few years ago. He was Mel’s first Russian tutor. He came back a few days ago to visit his family and has been over to see us a couple times. Sunday night his girlfriend arrived from Canada and he plans to bring her over so we can meet her as well. I’m looking forward to it. Denis is 30 now and we can see such a change in him, a positive change, as he has grown up and matured.
So, our life has been very busy over the past week. Busy in an interesting way. Lots of visitors, lots of people in and out. A lot of work accomplished. Good food eaten. Laughter. Concerns shared. Life shared.
I enjoy these days.
Life has become very busy this past week. We hired a young man in the church to come and paint the bars on our balcony. I warned him that it would take at least 3 or 4 days to complete (and I was thinking that was not realistic). It’s kind of funny to watch people here react to my ideas of how things will go. He said sure, he’d be willing to paint them and kind of gave me the “3 or 4 days to paint the bars on a balcony? Ha! I’ll do it in way less than that!” look. For some reason – maybe because I’m a woman and I’m not supposed to know these things – I get this response often. Well, Kolya has been here 4 days and he finished painting the “anti-corrosive,” or primer yesterday. He hasn’t worked a full 8 hours each day – it’s too hot and the paint fumes are too much. But he has put in some long hours out there and he seems to be a hard worker. I checked this morning just to see how it all looks (gray). I know from personal experience that the pattern in the bars is complicated enough that it is easy to miss parts – the top of this bar, the side of that one, or the bottom of another. That’s what I get for having such a pretty security cage installed lo these many moons ago, when we first moved in here (can it truly be 7+ years???!!!)
Mel and I are late night people, which means we are also late morning people. We asked Kolya to show up no earlier than 10:00 am (I know that makes it the hottest part of the day to work, but……). He showed up yesterday at 9:30 and I was still asleep, arriving so early because he wanted to show us his photo album (he is a very homesick young man right now). We had been up way past 1:00 am the night before because:
Dave is here again. Dave is a former short term team mate, now back in the States attending seminary. He arrived about a week ago and will be here another several days. He’s staying in our “office” flat on the first floor. And because his ‘bedroom’ is just two floors below us, he is able to stay late – it’s a very short commute home. Ha! Sunday night he and I played two rousing games of cribbage, which I won, and it was great. Not because I won – that was just the icing on the cake for me. No, it was wonderful because I was raised in a family that liked to play games (Candy Land when we were little, Life, Parcheesi, Scrabble, Pinochle, checkers, Chinese checkers, etc.). Mel has never been a game player – he just doesn’t enjoy it at all. So, having Dave here, willing to play with me has been very fun for me. I’ll willingly stay up till all hours of the morning playing cribbage. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not live on the late night, late morning schedule….
Last night we had guests – Ira and Melinda came for my special “Ukrainian spaghetti.” This spaghetti recipe consists of throwing fried farsh (a ground beef and pork mixture) into a pot with chopped cabbage, grated carrots, grated beets, frozen spinach (can’t buy fresh here), chopped peppers and about a liter of tomato juice, a handful of dried oregano, a bay leaf and some basil – let it simmer until the cabbage is cooked and yum, yum! I don’t know why, but I try making it like that in the States and it’s just not as tasty. I think it has something to do with the tomato juice here, or maybe the farsh…. Whatever. I served spaghetti, made garlic bread and for dessert a homemade potato starch vanilla pudding topped with real maple syrup from Canada, which Denis brought me. Melinda brought my favorite Ukrainian Roshen chocolates and some waffle cookies. It was a feast.
Ira told us a lot about her trip to the States and then showed us photos. Dave came up, made himself some dinner with the left-overs. My computer started acting up – wouldn’t show Ira’s videos. Sigh. I think we need a new fan – it gets really hot and then slows way down. So, Ira and I spent some time trying to fix it, or figure out what was going on. She majored in computer science, so was able to show me some tricks on how to get it to work faster (YEA!). But, we finally gave up, with her instructing us on where to take it to get the fan replaced.
It was good to hear about her trip. I think I still have a lot of questions for her, but those will come in time. I’m thrilled that she was able to go to Texas this time, which is the closest she’s been to “my culture” in the States. Ok, ok – I hear all my Colorado family and friends screaming at me – Texas culture is close to Colorado culture?? AAAAIIIIIIHHHHH – no way!! The only good Texan is one on his way out of Colorado, etc. etc. and so forth and so on. (Sorry Lisa!) (But I love cowboys – yes, I do! No matter what state they come from!).
Ira and Melinda left – Dave stayed, talking to Mel and me for another hour or more – and then he got out his cribbage board, which he had conveniently brought upstairs. Ha ha! This time, he beat me soundly.
Today I have my Russian lesson, and tomorrow Kolya will be back to start putting color on the bars, so I can have my pretty balcony again. Our neighbor upstairs asked him how long it was going to take before he finished painting – I think they are sick of the smell of this paint, as am I. I hope they will be patient just a couple more days – the next step will go a lot faster. But I will be really glad when it’s finished – the need to have them painted like this has been weighing on me for almost three years!
I am very much an introvert and need my time alone each day. Having someone here from the time I wake up until just a couple hours before we go to bed can be very difficult for me after a couple days. Yet - - it has been so good to have Dave here again, to have Ira home, to have Melinda over and to have the bars painted. Plus, the time Mel and I have spent talking to Kolya has been very good – when we can get him to speak in his simple Russian! He’s from western Ukraine and is very nationalist – the first day he told us we need to learn Ukrainian. When I asked him to speak in Russian because we don’t understand Ukrainian, he replied, “But I am a Ukrainian man!” I understand the sentiments – but oh, it is exhausting to try and cipher out the Russian when it’s all mixed up with Ukrainian.
We are expecting another guest today – our Denis. Denis was born and raised here in Kherson but moved to Canada a few years ago. He was Mel’s first Russian tutor. He came back a few days ago to visit his family and has been over to see us a couple times. Sunday night his girlfriend arrived from Canada and he plans to bring her over so we can meet her as well. I’m looking forward to it. Denis is 30 now and we can see such a change in him, a positive change, as he has grown up and matured.
So, our life has been very busy over the past week. Busy in an interesting way. Lots of visitors, lots of people in and out. A lot of work accomplished. Good food eaten. Laughter. Concerns shared. Life shared.
I enjoy these days.
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