Rancid Butter

It appears that I spoke to soon on my last weather prediction. The next morning when I woke up, a fresh blanket of snow covered the ground. It continued snowing on and off until the following Monday. Then that Wednesday, true to my student's prediction, the weather was warm - really warm. Needless to say, there's been no snow since that time and pretty much any reminders of winter are gone. Since the last week of March the road repair crews have been making their rounds so apparently even the government thinks winter is over. Who am I to argue with the duma?

I've deliberately not posted for so long because I wanted to have pictures up beforehand. And now that that is finally accomplished, I can relate my rambling prose. Perhaps a few words on the pictures is in order. I appear to have been wrong on that account also. After beating my head multiple times against my laptop (I actually found a great fit for my head - in the slot loading cd drive), I was able to recover all my lost Women's Day pictures except for one movie I made. Maybe later I'll get that too. Then on April 2 I arrived home around 17:30 and sorted / edited my shots. I got them all ready to go and the computer crashed. Stupid me, I hosed the program to upload pictures to the web at the same time. But now, at last, things are more or less working the way they should. Please enjoy (or hate) my Women's Day on the River, Sunday Seaside Rendezvous, and Fort Number 5.

Monday, April 4, all of my pants were either dirty or in the to-be-mended pile. so I wore a pair that I hadn't touched since mid-September. When I went shopping last August, there was one pair of pants that did not look particularly good on me, but were extremely comfortable. I bought them, but decided to get the light khaki color so it would appear more professional. This turned out to be a rather bad idea. After the first time wearing them and getting an ample dose of Kaliningrad mud on my rear I decided to retire them for this year. Actually, it was more due to the fact that the stains didn't come out after several times through the wash that led me to this decision. Anyhow, I resurrected the abandoned slacks today and was a bit surprised. They are still as comfortable as ever, but I've got a healthy sag goin' on with them now. "What, what, what?" I hear you query. "How is it impossible to down a kilo of mayo every other week and lose weight?" My response is that I haven't a clue, but it works for me. (Actually, I only just finished my second kilo bag of mayonnaise since the first post over two months ago.)

After walking along the sea for a few hours on Sunday, April 3, the people I was with decided to go for pizza. I opted to miss the evening's concert and go with them. Let me just say that Russian pizza is not pizza. What I had was good, but it just isn't deep dish. I think I could get used to it, if it wasn't called pizza. One of the ladies asked me if I cook for myself or if I eat out. I mumbled something about cooking for myself as I wasn't in a particularly talkative mood. If the truth is known, I've eaten out under five times since coming to Kaliningrad. Coupled with the apparent lost weight of the prior paragraph, please let me clarify that I'm not skin and bones - I've still got plenty of meat left on me.

Perhaps all this talk of meat, bones, and whatnot is a good place to recount my rancid butter story. Shortly after I arrived, I shopped around for some staples. Unable to decide which brand of butter was better, I got four tubs. One of them soon had a funny smell to it, but it was rather sweet, so I didn't think much of it. Most things I cook only call for a dab of butter, so other than a peculiar smell, I wasn't able to figure out my butter might be bad. Then nearly a month ago I made a cottage cheese loaf (or the equivalent, as we don't have cottage cheese over here). It calls for a big hunk of butter and the smell was the same as before but so strong I had to open the window. Usually the batter for this quasi-vegetarian meatloaf tastes pretty good. However, when I tasted it I reeled backward in pain - it was downright raunchy. I should've taken that as a sign that my batter was not oven-worthy, but I thought that perhaps the heat would kill whatever made it taste so bad. It didn't, but I still ate about half the roast. With enough ketchup and mayo, anything will slide down your throat. My largest regret is that I had put extra walnuts in the middle of the roast and was not able to enjoy them. On the bright side, the butter is gone so I am now free to search for other rancid wannabes.

As is to be expected, things do happen in life. Three weeks ago two men from the Euro-Asian Division of SDAs (in other words, my boss's bosses) visited our English Language Center. I sat in on the main meeting and things seem to be well. Some recommendations were discussed but I somehow doubt that I will be here long enough to reap any benefits or repercussions. The nice thing is that another employee back in Moscow was headed to DC that weekend, so I sent a birthday card to my dad and was able to avoid the Post Office yet again! I think while the two men were there I was observed for the first time since arriving here too. An entourage of about four people barged into my lowest level class and saw me try to explain comparative and superlative adjectives. Fortunately, a decently goofy picture of me 'teaching' was captured by Sergei, the man from the division that helped me get my documents in order when I first arrived.

Over the past two months I've played translator for one of the guys from church named Sasha. He loves to write poetry in Russian. But one of his primary recipients is an English speaker (well, Australian to be precise, but they speak something close to English). Enter the magnificent Trojan Poet. I've learned a bunch of Russian phrases and expressions along the way and it is challenging to preserve some of the poetic nature of a text while still getting the same meaning across in a different language.

This past Sunday evening Sasha came with his latest melancholy piece in tow right when I was cleaning my bathroom. At a later date I'll try to explain the ingenious invention of the quasi-waterless Russian loo, but suffice it to say I left a tiny green sponge in the bowl where I was scrubbing away the waterline. Midway through the translation session, Sasha's friend needed to relieve himself and exploded laughing when he saw a friendly green sponge gazing up at him from a seat-less toilet (the seat was drying on the balcony). Now my bathroom is probably the cleanest it has been since I moved in - I even bought a new shower head finally. The kitchen is the next thing that needs some attention before the little lady makes her once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Kaliningrad, which happens in about a month.

Yesterday I ran into the German teacher I ate lunch with a few weeks back on my way to school. He suggested that we make a weekend trip to Gdansk, Poland. It sounds like a great idea but we need to find the best way to get there and back while still seeing a bit of the city. The way it is looking now, that would happen the weekend before I head back to Moscow to visit some people. Good things come in bunches I suppose.

Speaking of bunches, there are in fact flowers here now. On Saturday I commented that I walk to my Russian lessons that happen on Tuesday and Friday. A few days doesn't seem like a huge difference, but it really is noticeable. The route that I use takes me by more verdant environs than those which I see on my way to school usually. What I said was that two weeks ago on Friday, April 1, there was still ice covering the lake. The following Tuesday the ice was gone and people were lazing about in greater numbers than I had remembered seeing before. April 12 brought buds on the trees and by last Friday the 15th I saw decent sized flowers blooming. Yes, I'd say spring is a bustin' out all over, if you catch my drift...