It’s been a long time since I posted my reading list. Lately, I have read: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt; Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie; Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich; Hitler’s Niece, by Ron Hansen; Thank You for Smoking, by William F. Buckley, Jr.; and The Telling, by Ursula Le Guin. I also listened to the podiobooks An Irregular Miscellany: A selection of essays and lectures from the Common University, by A.F. Harrold; and Singularity, by Bill DeSmedt.
Recently, we celebrated Igor’s Dad’s 60th birthday. The fun involved the usual insane amount of food and drink, lots of toasts, and a lot of reminiscing, especially by Ivan (birthday boy) and one of his oldest and closest friends who came to celebrate with him.
Ivan inherited his grandmother’s house in a village about 5 or 6 miles from Korosten, and it’s his dream to live there when he retires. He is an avid gardener, and he rides his bicycle to the village house every weekend, year-round, to tend the huge garden and work on the house and barn. He dreams of living there so he can tend his garden all day long and eat all the fresh fruits and vegetables he wants. I brought him some seeds from the U.S. for his garden, and he seemed quite excited about them. In particular, I brought him 2 types of corn. He already grows corn, which I had been excited to hear about last summer as corn on the cob is one of my favorite things – and such a symbol of summer for me! But it’s not very available here for some reason. Well, if his corn is typical of what is grown here, I can understand why people don’t eat corn on the cob. The first time I had it, at their house, I was surprised to see Nina cooking the cobs in a pressure cooker for a good hour or so. I thought it was so tough and awful ’cause she’d cooked the hell out of it. The next week, Igor brought me some raw cobs and I cooked them myself, for about 6 minutes in boiling water. One bite and I knew Nina’s cooking hadn’t been the problem. I told Igor that in the U.S. we have two kinds of corn – one for people and one for animals. Clearly, they were growing the animal kind. I hope the sweet corns seeds I brought Ivan will grow into big healthy plants with delicious, juicy, sweet and TENDER corn!
I also brought a special sampler pack of American whiskeys (whiskies?) I bought in the Duty Free shop in JFK airport. Last time I went to the U.S., I bought two bottles of Paddy’s Irish Whiskey on my return trip, which is THE best whiskey in the world, thank you very much. I kept a bottle at home, and took a bottle to Korosten for Igor’s family for the holidays. None of them liked it, though, and Igor and I ended up drinking most of the bottle ourselves at Christmas. I don’t know why I thought they’d have a better reaction to American bourbon. These folks just love their vodka. So far, the list of food/drink items I have brought that they don’t really like is significantly longer than the list of things they did like. In fact, the only thing I can think of that they did like was the Czech liquor called Becherovka. (By the way, Dad and I found it for sale in Columbus at Weiland’s.
Also in attendance at the party were some of Ivan’s friends whom I had not met before. A couple brought their 10-year-old grandson with them, and the poor kid was bored stiff. I gave him my digital camera to play with, and man, did he ever light up! Before I knew it, he was clicking away, and he took some amazing shots! Some crap, too, but that’s the beauty of a digital camera – delete and move on! When the kid put the camera down to have some dessert, Igor’s sister Oksana and her husband Vova started playing with it, too – and started goofing around and laughing like a couple of little kids themselves. It was hysterical to watch them taking pictures of themselves, making goofy faces and hamming it up for the camera.
Anka in Kyiv 