Weekend Wrap Up

A perfect weekend is a blend of cheerful industry, improvised adventure, and undemanding solitude. Such was ours. Saturday was gray and pouty with immanent rain, so (having gone on our Saturday grocery trip earlier this week) we stayed indoors and spent the afternoon cleaning and taking care of household chores. I scrubbed and wiped down the humid bathroom while Brian put on angry music to tackle the floors with our temperamental vacuum cleaner.

Later I made bagels using a recipe from this highly-recommended book, Brian cleaned a bike he's getting ready to sell, and we watched Ace in the Hole--an unrelentingly cynical film from Billy Wilder, one of my favorite directors.

Sunday was even nicer: a day of food and bicycle riding. We made pancakes; rode our bikes to the lakefront and through the sunny, empty city; bought falafel and beef kofta sandwiches at Baba Pita; cycled in fancy dress to Chicago Cut for a Mother's Day dinner with some of Brian's family; and ended the night with Fight Club, which neither of us had seen in about a decade.

Candy jars

Candies. On the left are peppermint puffs, which Brian loves to chew to a powdery goo. On the right are my favorite sweets: Polish cream fudges beloved by all Ukrainian children. The kids in my family had different ways of eating them when we were young. My oldest sister Yana ate hers methodically over several days. Dmitry and Oksana (and my Mom) consumed theirs within twenty-four hours. Natasha, I don't remember. Me? I hoarded and savored my stash for months until the fudge turned hard and crystalline.

In my child's mind, the mission of every relative traveling back to the homeland was to return with several pounds of these delights. We often went months without them. Now they're sold in lots of Slavic groceries, and none are more than a ten minute bike ride away in my current neighborhood. Over the weekend Brian and I took our bikes for a spin and I brought home enough fudge to fill my jar twice over, discovered the most delicious home-made pickles, bought a tin of herring, and gave in to a craving when I saw slabs of cold salt pork behind the deli case--all in one little Ukrainian store. Now that I have a supplier nearby, there's no need to hoard my fudge. I've been unfolding the yellow, red, and white paper wrappers and eating a few every day.

Home-making

I'm a domestic person. I like cooking, sewing, and moving furniture about. I learned to knit a few months ago, and have entertained fancies of all the scarves and socks I could make ever since. Gardening and preserving are in my future as surely as time moves forward. To some extent I even like cleaning and putting things in order--organization is peaceful.

But did you know I'm also, literally, a home-maker? During this week of packing and preparing to move I came across a doll-house I made when I was a kid. Hidden on a top shelf in my old closet, the house is constructed of shoe box cardboard, roofed with a cereal box, and held together with scotch tape and Elmer's glue. I wouldn't have the patience to build such a house now, but I once put a lot of work into my little domestic dream. Just look.

The kitchen was my favorite room then, and it's my favorite room now. What could be nicer than a table holding a plateful of donuts? Or a soft, sunset-colored rug underfoot? Or a calendar over the stove featuring a whiny, orange-haired child? I, for one, would buy a calendar composed entirely of scowling children over a calendar featuring sleepy kittens any day.

Anyway, I'm moving in a few days. I don't know what I'll be doing in Chicago or where I'll be working, but it will be a chance to make exciting new decisions. In the coming months I think this blog will focus more on my movements in a new setting--an unfolding story of my doings for the friends and family I leave in Ohio.

In the meantime, I still have to finish packing so I can get this show on the road and make my home in a new place.

 

Changes

I haven't done a good job of updating this blog this year. What with warmer winds and sun-filled days and birds coming home again, spring is (sort of) upon us. The future always looks bright heading into my favorite season, but this year it's especially bright. Next month brings changes I've long been anticipating: a birthday, a move, different work, and a new chapter in my life.

One of the ways I know spring is coming? Last week saw my first dinner hour outside at work. Cold--but nothing a coat, a cup of tea, and maple leaf cookies couldn't handle.

Dinosaurs

In college I met a weird kid named Vinod who, knowing I'd been born in the Soviet Union, would interrogate me endlessly about all of the Russian writers I hadn't read and the Russian composers I'd never listened to. I've read lots of Russian writers since, but of course I've lost touch with Vinod and can't give him my opinions now.

Over the weekend I was going through some things, and I found this fantastic box of dinosaurs he gave me when he graduated.

There was a time when all you had to do was mention Vinod's name to get a good conversation going about his many marvelous oddities. Now, only a few far-flung friends remember him, and I never hear his name. All I have left of him are these dinosaurs and the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange, which I either borrowed or stole from him. I don't remember. Henceforth I will refer to these dinosaurs as Vinod's Legacy.

One year

New Year, New Monster

My first sketchbook page of the year. (Earliest prototype seen here.)

Winter nostalgia

I'm four in this picture; my sister Yana is five. Along with our brother, we spent our earliest years on our grandparents' farm in the Ukraine. Long winters found us digging underground snow tunnels and making igloos nearly every day. I usually don't long for the past, and I know nothing remains the same--not even in our memories. But when I look at this picture some twenty years later, I wish I could return to that time.

Happy onions

This month has had its ups and downs, escalator-style. Wonderful long ups and a few terribly slow downs. Today: an equilibrium of sorts. To celebrate I sliced onions (one of the pleasantest cooking rituals I know) and put them into an improvised curry so delicious and spicy that it made me breathe funny for a while after I'd eaten it. Things are looking up!

I hope my wonderful readers are having a good last few days of the old year before ringing in the new one.

Huzzah!

 

My friend whose love for lemons is nearly pathological has found someone to wed: a woman who eats deep fried garlic mashed potatoes for breakfast.