Well, it’s about 1:00 in the morning and Lori and I are still awake. Lori had a headache earlier and took some Excedrin. This is always amusing because Lori goes a little loopy every time she takes Excedrin. And when Lori’s loopy it’s always time for an interview.
And our thoughts start….now.

C: Hmm, whenever I think of her I always think of her working in the White House. And she’s carrying papers. Along a corridor with a bunch of portraits of dead people.

L: Yeah, I could see that.

C: (Pause.) You know, Lori, portraits weren’t always of dead people.

L: Yeah. Because they used to do them when people were alive. You know, they’d sit and have their portrait made.

C: I know. I just mean that like, back in the day when people saw a portrait they didn’t automatically think it was a dead person. Because now when see them we assume they are dead. Which is usually the case.

L: Because we have photographs now.

C: Yeah, they’re much more accurate, I think. I mean, in the old days if somebody had a big nose they’d just slip the artiste a couple of D.P.’s and he’d do a reduction.

L: They really did that, you know.

C: Yeah, but that’s stupid because then when their friends came over, rather than admiring their nice portrait, the friend would automatically think, “Gee, Fleur’s nose eez a bit bigger zan zat.” They’d say it with a French accent because they were French.

L: But maybe they knew that after they died their portraits would be around long after they were dead. And they wanted us to think that they were pretty.

C: Yeah, but I would still rather have them paint me to look like me. I mean, me on a good day, not me on a bad face day. That wouldn’t be good. Lori, like, did my glamour shots pictures really not look like me?

L: No, it looked like you. Not like, you, but you could tell it was you. Not like, Yu, your friend, Yu either.

C: Right. Well, that’s good because that was really sad that day that [name has been withheld for privacy reasons] said to me, “Wow, Calyn, these are so pretty! It doesn’t look a thing like you!” It really hurt my feelings. I mean, I know all that make-up they plastered on me kinda me look like a prostitute, but I mean, it didn’t look that different.

L: Yeah, you looked like you as a prostitute. Not Jane Doe as one.

C: Well, that is encouraging.

L: I think I have too much caffeine in my system. Why do we say that fans oscillate?

C: I don’t know. Hey, we saw a flux capacitor today in some Tree-Hugging magazine that Oleg Vasilevsky brought back from the States for Roma. I’m not really sure why he brought that magazine for him. But it had a flux capacitor. We saw it.

L: Yup, we did.

C: They could have said something good about the flux capacitor, though. I mean, the article was some…Lori, what’s another word for crap? I probably shouldn’t put that in a blog post.

L: Junk, mess.

C: Huh. Wow. Okay, well the article was about some junk about how we use too much energy to drive vehicles and how even Dr. Brown’s time machine used up plutonium. I mean, really. With a picture of the flux capacitor on the article I thought it was going to be good. Apparently we need to send it to Daniel Northrup. Lori, are you sleeping? Do you have anything to say?

L: Interviews make me miss Jake and Taylor.

C: Well, way to put a damper on the evening, Lori. Lori?

L: Sorry. When it’s gone, it’s gone. I’ve got nothing.

C: Okay then. Well, it’s after one and Lori’s over there turning into a pumpkin or something. She’s mumbling something about losing a shoe…I’m gonna go. Arrivederci!

This interview is dedicated to Jake, Taylor, Derek and Carli, our faithful interview fans.

Oh, and I'd still like some answers about the pigeon question.

The Pigeon Puzzle

Yesterday between church services Lori and I decided to have a picnic in the park so we went to the grocery store and picked up a loaf of bread and some cheese. (Cheap, but good.) I realized shortly after that we didn’t have a knife to cut our cheese with. Turns out that library cards make great cheese cutters. I mean, they’ll cut a block of cheddar as well as a machete. So if you ever forget a knife on a picnic, just whip out your Old Navy discount card or your Driver’s License.

While reading on our picnic blanket, however, my attention was drawn from Bilbo Baggin’s eleventy-first birthday party of special magnificence to a group of pigeons who seemed to be in quite a hurry to go somewhere that was obviously very important, except that they changed directions faster than a Yankees sweep over the Red Sox. Did they have any real place to go? That got me thinking about pigeons. Have you ever thought about pigeons? There seems to be a lot of missing pieces to the pigeon puzzle. For example, why are pigeons always so fat? Why do they have crazy robotic movements? Why do they only congregate in places that are over 95% concrete? Do they build nests? And most mystifying, have you ever seen a baby pigeon? I for one have never been able to answer these questions. However, I haven’t put a lot of thought in them either. So what better thing to think about during a picnic? I’ve developed two theories:

A) Pigeons are hybrid animals like mules. Maybe they’re like a cross between Lake Ella ducks and chickadees or something. This would explain why there aren’t any baby pigeons. Mules are a cross between a donkey and a horse, but they cannot reproduce and make more mules. Mules only come from donkeys and horses, not two mules. So maybe this is how pigeons are too. The robotic movements and lack of nesting can be explained by the fact that they are an unnatural mutation. (And they certainly look as such.) Although, this theory cannot explain the overabundance of pigeons in city centers where ducks tend not to congregate. It also does not explain why pigeons are always so fat. So this brings us to my more probable theory, Theory B:

B) Pigeons are actually trained government spies and they have cameras and or recording devices implanted in them. (This explains the awkward movement.) The government breeds them in laboratories (this explains why there are no nests and no eggs), and they’re placed in cities because that is where they need the most surveillance (this is why they like concrete). They are fat because they are given treats when they come back to the laboratory as incentive to bring back their information for collection.

Passenger pigeons never actually died out, they were just replaced with a newer model of pigeon, known to government scientists as the P-2- your standard city pigeon. However, the Green Party paid the government a lot of money to let everyone think the passenger pigeon went extinct because of human cruelty to promote more tree-hugging. [Daniel Northrup, Gather Round a Tree and Hug It. Ch. 4, Pg. 59.]

I would welcome more thoughts on this issue.

Happy Birthday, Ukraine!

Ukraine is 16 years old today! That means...FIREWORKS! Yeeesssss.

Another Roadtrip!

Party with Pasha!



Lori, that is hot.



Yes, Pasha, it is amazing that you can see yourself in the mirror.

So, as the last day before work starts up again for Radooga staff, we went on a little trip. Today me, Lori, Oleg and Oksana Magdych, Veronica, Ira, Vitalik and 2 of his friends went to this place “outside of Kyiv” (Outside of Kyiv being what we were told. “Outside of Kyiv” says to me 30 minutes max. Over 200 kilometers was the actual distance. I guess it was outside of Kyiv…) called Sofivksy Park and it was soooo cool. It was this huge outdoor park thing with waterfalls and gardens and all sorts of cool stuff. We rented paddleboats for 60 cents a piece (that’s a deal, I’d say) and it was awesome. Me and Vitalik got a jacked up one, though. Everyone else was leisurely paddling and we’re like paddling in bike trip mode the whole time just trying to stay afloat. We had a picnic too and we even played a little Frisbee. I was the official tour guide (Okay, well, maybe not official...) and made up all kinds of stories about what was to our left and right and who the statues were of. I started running out of ideas after about an hour, but Oleg Magdych stepped in to help a little. :0) Saint Bob dyed the water green, the giant cement plant holder was a actually a trophy from when they used to hold dog races there on Thursdays, St. Andrew the Silent opened the first mime school in the Chernigiv region, and the huge old dead tree was actually the mailbox post of the Polish monster that used to terrorize the villagers. Of course, he got a good deal, because everyone was too afraid of him to put mail in his mailbox and so he never had to pay rent or his phone bill. He was terribly lonely, though, which is probably why he started terrorizing the villagers. I wonder if he was terrorizing them or maybe they just didn’t speak Polish. I guess we’ll never know.

Veronica started reading a pamphlet about the park and when it was built and such but I told them that really the founder of the park, Sofia, was a wizard (I had been reading Harry Potter earlier that day) and she built Sofivsky Park as a huge place to play Quidditch. (It’s the game they play in Harry Potter kinda like soccer, but on broomsticks and much more exciting. I don’t know if you’ve read/seen Harry Potter or not.) It’s out in the middle of nowhere, so it’s the perfect place for wizards to play Quidditch without Muggles (non-magic folk) seeing them. There’s even a wizard school on the grounds. (Of course they don’t tell you it was a wizard school, but it’s quite obvious from the looks of it.) I was trying to explain this to Oksana in Russian and I almost tripped over…a broom! lying in the middle of the sidewalk. What’s the means of transportation for Quidditch? Broomsticks! It was so clear! And then we went to the souvenir place and nearly every shop had witches on broomsticks for sale. I don’t think there’s any other explanation. I almost had Oleg convinced by the time we left. (He’s a hard one to crack, he is.)

Hopefully Lori and I will be going to Poland this week, but it doesn’t look very promising at the moment because tickets are rather hard to come by. Apparently Krakow is quite the vacation spot. It’s ‘cause they have dragons. "Tvoy Smok?"

Paddle Boats Rock!



Me and Veronica

"Miren al pepino! Baile, baile, ya!"

Tonight me, Sai’id, Dennis, Masha, Tanya, Zhenya and Veronica went to Hillsong Church’s “Cuba Party” on an island in the Dnipro. We had soooo much fun! I don’t think I’ve ever danced so much in my life. Hillsong Church rented a club or something called “Cuba” for the night and had a big outreach-type event. There was salsa and mamba dancing and games and it was so fun. All us girls danced the night away and it was great because I’m a terrible dancer but we just played around and so there was no pressure. :0) Afterwards me, Lori and Dennis went to the grocery store and bought orange juice and tuna fish (all the essentials, you know) for dinner and so we’re currently waiting on Dennis to come to the kitchen because he’s outside talking on his cellphone. Bad reception inside.
Tomorrow Lori and I are going to buy train tickets for…da, da, da! Poland! My 90 days are almost up so we gotta leave the country one more time. :0) We’re going to go to Auschwitz so I think that will be really good. We’ll hopefully leave on Tuesday. Anyway, I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted so I wanted to let you guys know what’s up with me. Keep the emails coming! I love hearing from y’all.

Pictures! (Facebook's letting me right-click on pictures again!)

Me, Tanya and Zhenya near St. Andrew’s Street.



Plus Veronica :0)



Me, Lori and Roma



Me, Stephanie, Lori and Roma



Me and Lori



Oleg and Oksana



Me and Lori drinking coffee at Puzata Khata





Our picnic!



Veronica with her new boyfriend, "Chio."



Tanya and Zhenya



Our little beggars



Me and Zhenya



As David said, "Ooh-ah-ih-ah-ooh-ah, Ride on the peace tank!"



Lori and Zhenya



Don't walk on the grass...

Anyway, there are some pictures for y'all. I'll try to get more recent ones up soon.

Arrivederci!

I would just like everyone to know that Lori and I are making banana bread and cookies today. Mostly this is for Carli to read and be so proud of us for cooking. And we're not even using the break and bake cookies. Like, we had to learn the word "baking power" in Russian for this. So armed with our instructions we're off to the grocery store. Tomorrow we're going to an orphanage with Veronica and the twins. Yeeeesssss. Oh! And I got mail today! I got a letter from my mom and a postcard from Michael. It's from Pittsburgh! That's so exciting. I'm trying to think if there's anything else exciting I need to share with you all before I post this...

M: ("M" for "me.") Come on, Lori, what else exciting do we need to say? Say something, Lori.
L: I'm not an exciting person. This is why I don't update my xanga.
M:Clearly, blogs are better. Say something about my postcard.
L: Well, it's got a picture of Pittsburgh on it. Calyn wants to go there. There's a nice bridge. I know the word for bridge in Russian. It's "most."
M:Most of what? Just kidding.
L: That's all I've got. I just said it.
M: Pathetic, Lori. Pathetic. Haven't you lived with me long enough to pick up how to make random blog posts?
L: And yet, you still love me.
M: I got sunburned yesterday. In Ukraine. That's pretty cool.
L: I'm going to play "shine" by the newsboys. Is that exciting? It's better than that "devotion" song that was playing earlier.
M: I learned a lot from that song. I mean, when I was little, it was that song that taught me what a "deadhead" was...Along with an awkward conversation about what they meant by a "happy bouncer." Poor Mom.

Okay, well, the crazy lady who stays in the lobby of the apartment and...well, I don't really know what she does...but she's ringing the doorbell again. She's probably going to try to feed us or speak German to us...gotta go.

One more lesson from a roadtrip

On Sunday when we came home from our roadtrip, Lori, Oleg, Oksana and I stopped at a store much like a Super-Walmart and went on a search to find a “souvenir” of sorts for Oleg and Oksana’s three-year-old son, Yan. Oleg had promised Yan that he would bring him back something “big.” In the end we had to decide between a ninja sword and big plastic truck. I opted for the ninja sword (because everyone knows that ninja swords can easily be turned into pirate swords and pirates are the best thing ever) but Oksana brought up a very good point, that Yan already had a sword and he did not have a truck. So we headed to the checkout armed with a couple of sodas and one very large truck. This wasn’t just any truck. It had a bright yellow huge claw arm that could be turned a full 180 degrees and could pick up things twice its size, ginormous monster truck wheels, people in the driver’s seat and a surround-sound stereo. Okay, well, maybe not a surround-sound stereo, but you could probably install one if you wanted. There was plenty of space for it.

Today we stopped by the Magdych’s for a visit, to look at pictures from our trip, and I noticed the truck sitting on the floor in the living room. I asked Yan if he liked his truck. He said he did. But Yan was busy playing with something else. What, you ask, could be better than a giant yellow truck with cool accessories, especially when you’re three? The answer, my friends, is a stick. Yan had discovered an eight inch stick outside and had decided that this was better than the truck.

I am certainly not a parent (I say certainly because I can already hear the chorus of “That’s for sure’s” “I’ll say’s,” and “That’ll be the day’s” coming from a few offices at Northwoods and the bedrooms of various friends of mine) but I imagine this situation is much like the Christmas Eve that Dad spends 8 straight hours putting a bicycle together only to find that Johnny would rather play with the packaging instead. (If I ever have kids, they’re all getting refrigerator boxes and Styrofoam peanuts for Christmas, because experience has shown me that this is the all-time greatest gift.)

What can you do with a stick? Not much. You can break it, poke someone’s eye out, maybe eat it if you’re really desperate, but not a whole lot more than that. I’ve been reading through Numbers every night and I read chapter 16 recently. In it, some of the Israelites are rebelling against Moses and ultimately God because they refuse to follow Moses to the Promised Land and would rather go back to Egypt. They call Egypt the “land of milk and honey,” the same phrase used by God to describe the Promised Land. How soon they forgot 400 years of burning sand and back breaking labor, slavery to the Egyptians. Their rose-colored glasses enabled them to see a fantastical five-star hotel rather than the reality of a prison camp. God had something so much better in mind for them. He offered to let them exchange their twigs for trucks, but they decided to keep playing “Pick up Sticks” in the dust. They never got the chance to go to the real land of milk and honey.

I understand Yan entirely. I’ve often thought that my stick was better than God’s car. There’s been so many times that I’ve known God’s way was better, but I thought that mine was more fun, more productive, more time efficient. I’ve sat at the edge of the sink hole in Lake Jackson adamantly arguing with God that this must be better than the Grand Canyon. I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, but I tell God that I’m sure it can’t be any bigger than this hole we have off Highway 27. How much better my life would be if I’d just quit insisting on having the driver’s seat all the time. The weather’s nice in Colorado this time of year and Lake Jackson’s full of run-off.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts…”

Isaiah 55:8-9

Lessons From a Roadtrip

“Praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD from the heavens,
Praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels,
Praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon
Praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens,
And you waters, above the skies.
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
For he commanded and they were created.
He set them in place for ever and ever;
He gave a decree that will never pass away.
Praise the LORD from the earth,
You great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
Lightning and hail, snow and clouds
Stormy winds that do his bidding,
You mountains and all hills,
Fruit trees and all cedars,
Wild animals and all cattle,
Small creatures and flying birds,
Kings of the earth and all nations,
You princes and all rulers on earth,
Young men and maidens,
Old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
For his name alone is exalted;
His splendor is above the earth
And the heavens…”

Psalm 148:1-13

I remember when I was little and I saw sunflowers on the television one day. I asked my mom if we could get some. I don’t remember the exact dialogue, (When do I remember the exact dialogue about anything? That’s what Jenna is for.) but something was said about our yard being very shady and it being difficult to grow sunflowers without a lot of sunlight. Being eight, of course I knew everything there was to know about growing flowers and I had learned from Sesame Street that talking to flowers makes them grow much better. Talking was my specialty, so it would be no problem to grow a sunflower. Off to Walmart we went to buy a package of sunflower seeds. Now, the packages of seeds that they sell at Walmart five for a dollar are very misleading. One would assume that a package containing 37 seeds would in turn create 37 flowers. This, however, is not the case. Out of a package of 37 seeds one is lucky to grow one or two flowers. At least, this has been my experience. So that summer we were blessed to grow one sunflower. He wasn’t very pretty. His petals were kind of turned up at the edges and his brown middle wasn’t quite a circle, but more of an elongated oval-type-thing that flopped to one side. His head was a little droopy and all the talking in the world didn’t quite cheer him up. But he inhabited the sunniest place in our backyard, the little nook between the living room window and the edge of our concrete patio. It was an out-of-the-way spot, but it received direct sunlight for most of the afternoon. He was so happy in the afternoon. I suppose that’s what he was made for. Sunlight. It was a good summer.

Saturday Lori, Oleg, Oksana and I were on our way to Poltava. It was hot and the day was certainly sunny. We rounded a curve and more sunflowers than you could ever imagine entered our view. Sunflowers stretched from horizon to horizon, arms stretched out in pure ecstasy, heads straining to reach the heavens. I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything I’ve ever seen that was more beautiful. It was then that Oleg Magdych mentioned something to me that I’d heard before but forgotten about. Funny thing about sunflowers. When the sun is shining they lift up their faces to the sun. I suppose that’s where they got their name. I couldn’t help but to get this image of sunflowers lifting their leaves not to the sun, but to their Creator. Fields of singing sunflowers praising the One who made them to lift up their heads.

Sometimes I forget that we’re not the only ones created for praise. And maybe we can all learn something from the sunflowers. I ask myself when was the last time I ever just stood in the sunlight and lifted up my head, happy to be in the presence of God?

“Do not be quick with your mouth,
Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven and you are on earth,
So let your words be few…
…Therefore stand in awe of God.”

Ecclesiastes 5:2 & 7

Hats Off to the Best Roadtrip Ever

8:00 Saturday Morning- Meet Oleg and Oksana Magdych at the corner to go on a road trip to Poltava.

8:02- Argue with Oksana about who is sitting in the front seat. Oleg begs me to take the front seat so that Oksana won’t pester him about driving too fast but I win the war and Oksana gets shotgun.

8:04- Listen to moans in Russian about Oleg driving too fast.

8:06- Listen to more complaining from the front seat. :0)

8:07- Narrowly miss an oncoming truck. Just kidding.

8:25- Stop in Boryspil to buy some yogurt.

8:30- Eat yogurt, open the sunroof, and sing Christmas songs in 90 degree weather. Yeeeessssss.

10:15- Stop and eat breakfast/lunch at this little Ukrainian restaurant and eat omelets.

10:49- Take pictures with every type of greenery imaginable.

10:56- Find flowers. Take more pictures.

11:23- Discover why the word “rest area” has no Russian equivalent.

11:37- Spot a giant field of sunflowers and stop the car and take pictures. Imagine the biggest field of sunflowers you’ve ever seen. Then multiply it by 10. That’s how many sunflowers there were. Sunflowers for as far as the eye can see.

11:47- Explain the rules of the cow game.

12:36- Pass a cemetery and have all 66 of my cows die.

12:45- Arrive in Poltava and drive downtown and see the natural history museum and all sorts of other fun and exciting things.

1:36- Ignore the “No Pictures” sign and take pictures with the wooly mammoth skeleton.

1:48- Narrowly dodge the glance of a sneaky guard babooshka and take a picture with a giant stuffed moose with Oleg’s cellphone.

1:49- Pretend like we’re making a call on the cellphone.

1:50- Hang up.

2:07- Watch a Ukrainian Wedding Ceremony until the doors are shut in our faces.

2:08- Pretend to be terribly offended that we weren’t invited.

3:15- Stop by Oleg and Oksana’s apartment that they rent out to people in Poltava.

3:24- Take a nap on a log while Oksana talks to the new renters.

3:53- Head to the town where Oleg’s parents live.

5:35- Meet Oleg’s parents and have more food than should ever be made put in front of us.

5:48- Try to explain to Oleg’s mom that we’re stuffed.

5:50- Have Oksana explain to Oleg’s mom that we are stuffed.

5:50- Oleg tells his mom that we are stuffed.

5:52- Finally hit a breakthrough…

5:53- …get offered more cookies.

6:45- Head to the coffee shop.

7:24- Discuss the differences between “cappuccino” and “latte.”

8:05- Head to Oleg’s brother’s empty apartment.

9:07- Go to bed early and silently wish that air conditioners were more commonplace in Ukraine. Especially in 95 degree weather.

9:14- Decide that we would rather read about Gideon and his army.

9:20- Listen to Lori read outloud because I’d already taken my contacts out and everything looked like one of those magic eye illusion things.

9:22- Receive a text message from Oleg Magdych on the other side of the wall ordering us to go to bed.

9:23- Write one back saying we’re reading the Bible; we’ll go to bed soon.

9:24- Start a text message war.

9:27- Lose the text message war.

9:32- Go to bed.

9:27 a.m.- Go eat breakfast at Oleg’s parent’s place.

9:45- Mute Spanish soap operas and make up the dialogues.

10:13- Bemoan the loss of Juan Diego’s superbowl tickets.

10:15- Discover that the evil Maria Guerra has taken them because she loves the Steelers.

10:18- Find that Lucia has come out of her coma and has lost her job at the basket weaving factory. She now must work at Domino’s and deliver pizza on the weekends. Minimum wage just isn’t covering the cost of her expensive brand-name cereal eating habit.

10:25- Cry because the soap opera is over.

10:45- Leave the town and stop at every imaginable place along the way to make a 3 hour drive a 6 and a half one. Outdoor museums, random lakes, giant bridges, cantaloupe buying, Armenian restaurants, friend’s houses, grocery stores and birch trees.

6:20- Arrive back in Kyiv and than Oleg and Oksana for the best road trip ever!

You know those family vacations you took as a kid to Disney World and everyone would pile in the car and Mom was already in a bad mood because Dad forgot to change the oil and now everybody’s already in there waiting and seatbelts are buckled and it wastes gas to leave the car running but it’s 147 degrees outside and why couldn’t he have just changed the oil before today and why do we even bother going on family vacations because, honestly, we’d all just rather stay at home anyway, I mean, Disney’s a huge ripoff and Johnny’s scared of Minnie Mouse, something about polka dots, and besides, the water in the “It’s a Small World” ride is really dyed green and those Dutch girls aren’t really Dutch, they’re made in China, and that stupid song gets stuck in your head for 3 hours after you go on it, and, Dad can we just turn around?
You know, those roadtrips?
And you know the part when you’re a kid and you’re driving down I-75 and you see all these magical billboards that promise that for only $19.95, your family will have the best time ever because we have 75 foot long alligators, or if you just come see our live aquarium shark we’ll give you 2 free tickets to Busch Gardens, and you really want to stop because it all just looks so exciting and there’s all these pretty colors that promise fun for all but Mom says, “No kids. We’re going to Disney World. Don’t you want to go to Disney World?” Really the “Seashells- 5 for a dollar” sounds more fun than posing with Cinderella, but you can’t tell Mom that because then she’ll be offended and say you’re ungrateful. And there’s all these orange groves in south Florida. All my life I’ve wanted to stop and take pictures in an orange grove. Never once have we stopped. The only stopping that takes place is when a bladder is about to explode or until a toll booth demands it. You know, those kind?

This road trip made up for all of that.