Catching up diary on February 1, 1999.

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Catching Up

February 1, 1999

Dear Family and Friends,

In our haphazard way, we will try to catch up on what's happening. Some of this will be old news for some but today's a great day for "catching up". Why? Because it's Sunday, a day of rest even here. And because it's snowing and blowing and so cold that this may be the first day in five months that we do not go outside.

I've divided this story into chapters so you can pick and choose.

Chapter 1 -- Family

Marianne is in on the phone talking to her Mom -- even though it's 11:00 at night in Fresno. Moms talk anytime I guess. Other than being woken in the middle of the night, the Fresno folks are doing fine. Marianne's brothers and sister also seem to be doing OK. There was a family gathering in Monterey a week ago for Chris and Lisa's engagement party. It sounded like a lot of fun and it's one of those events we do miss. We'll have to make do with going to the wedding at the end of July.

Meanwhile, Gabby is busy getting ready for a conference in Israel later this month. It's a hectic time for her at work but the travel sounds great. She's going from warm Israel to wintertime Kyiv on her way back and we are all looking forward to that. She will be our first visitor and maybe the only one to come during the cold season. I don't think we recommend Winter visits but it should be fun exposing her to all the novel parts of life in this city.

My Mom is not so well but my sister just spent a week out in Ukiah so they had a lot of time together. I can't visit there either but I send e-mail, with pictures and phone when I can. (We've just learned about a "callback" phone arrangement that could reduce the per-minute charge for calls from $2.00 to about $0.65. That would make phone calls almost reasonable.)

Not much news from Brian of Geoff. Brian remains busy in Boulder working on his company's new product (I think). And he is a real, live homeowner so that always brings chores. (Something that I admit I don't miss.) I've been comparing weather between Boulder and here and it seems like January was colder there than here. However, I'll bet we've got him beat on this first day of February. Meanwhile, Geoff's graduate work at George Washington has restarted. The last I heard, he was going to have a mix of classes, teaching (TA) and time in the Naval Research Lab. He seems to enjoy what he's doing and is settled in for the long haul toward the PhD.

Chapter 2 -- Work for Marianne and Me

Marianne is back in the swing at Kyiv International School(KIS). She still loves it and has signed on for another year. Several of her fellow teachers have not renewed so, if there is any interest among the teacher-types out there, it's a wonderful, learning experience. Seriously, it is. Honest, would I kid you? The hours are fairly long but the school atmosphere is very friendly and the kids are all above average. Here, one such student is on the receiving end of weekly teacher evaluations.

My job remains "interesting". When I first explained my professional reasons for coming here I said I looked forward to working on an international engineering effort because blending different engineering cultures (or is that "engineering in different cultures") would be such a challenge. That has proved to be a significant understatement. Everything here is a "blend". The funds come from 26 countries, each of whom wants a say. Each contract is with a multinational consortium, including our own French-German-American mixture. Even the client side has a mix of cultures and languages. The political side is Ukranian, a country with just a few years under its belt - but with it's own language. The technical side is Soviet, a country that's disappeared but with a long-lasting technical legacy - and it's mother language Russian. (We write official transmittals in English and Ukranian but the technical work and meetings are in Russian and English.) I now know how the engineers on the Babel Tower Construction Project felt.

Chapter 3 -- General Life for Us

I think we're settled in. Yesterday, Marianne bought a coffee table and an end table so the last of our boxes-as-furniture are being thrown out today. I may even have to hang a couple pictures this evening. Yesterday, we tried the artist's street market and it seemed like we were the only buyers among the stalls. My purchase yesterday was a samovar from turn-of-the-century Russia. It was cheap because it was being sold on the street and "winter prices" are now in effect. While it's another antique which we can not export and take with us, we can enjoy it now. In the big picture, that's all any of the things we buy are good for I guess. This is just practice for that last can't-take-it-with-you trip home.

I'm back to taking Russian lessons. I have three 90-minute lessons a week and homework. The teacher swears that three months of this routine will make me able to get by on the street. I hope so because we feel so lame without the ability to speak. This particular approach also has me writing Russian in cursive script and reading both cursive and printed writing. The added wrinkle of cursive script is a surprise since many cursive letters do not look at all like their printed counterpart. ("t's" look like "m's" in cursive for example whereas printed "t's" look like "t's".) If I make it through this tutoring series it will help me both on the street and at work but it does strain this old head. Marianne is making progress too and she has the advantage of being braver than I am when it comes to talking to people. Who knows, maybe we'll survive after all.

Socially, we mostly hang around with the school crowd. My work crowd is too "non-English" and we are still way too "non-Russian" so casual chit chat is out of the question. Last night we went to a party at the school's #2 administrator's home. There was about a dozen people for drinks and dinner. After dinner we had a "Minnesota contest" which tested our knowledge of Minnesota culture (an oxymoron?). It was fun and to my complete surprise, I won! My Seattle experience made me as Scandinavian as anyone from Minnesota and Kyiv experience gave me a feeling for "real winter". With that preamble, we had the grand finale: a viewing of the classic upper midwest movie: Fargo (with Chinese subtitles). There's something surreal watching about Fargo in the middle of a Ukraine winter. The Chinese subtitles happened because this particular laserdisc came from our host's last job in China.

At the end of the party, all the guests went to their cars (except us) but Nancy could not open her VW's doors. The locks and/or doors were frozen solid. Fortunately, the hatch in back could be opened so she climbed in over the seats. We worried that she would be frozen inside the car but one of the veteran cold-weather (and VW) experts said the solution was to pour vodka around the door. So, with the finest of imported Finlandia vodka, he dribbled some around the door and presto the magic worked. We came here to learn things and learn we will - even a new use for vodka.

Today it's mostly just catching up on e-mail and on photography. We had a nice breakfast on our new coffee table while we watched CNN. Meals and CNN have become our pattern and the new table will make it much easier I guess. After breakfast, Marianne took still life pictures of lacquer-painted boxes and such. We have to find a new film developer because the place we've been using has abandoned any quality standard and the colors have been strange and the prints marked with dirt and lint.

I'm going to try to get some good winter shots - both digital and old fashioned film. It's been snowing pretty constantly since 7:30 this morning so things should look like everyone imagines of a Russian February. (I'd say "Ukranian February" but we've found that people have an image of Russia but not generally one of Ukraine.)

Chapter 4 -- Winter.

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Orignially sent February 1, 1999. Reformatted for the web May 31, 2001. This page created on a Macintosh using PhotoPage by John A. Vink.