Our First Social Engagement
It's been a slow few days. Very hot and humid weather, encouraging indolence!!
Yesterday the only thing of note that happened during the day was the actual delivery of the FedEx package that Fern had sent (with file folders and legal pads for Ed) on Saturday at the astronomical cost of almost $80 (that's with the 75% discount that she gets!!!). It began with the familiar phone calls, - a woman on the other end insistently speaking Russian, despite my frequent and equally insistent "Ja neh rosamiou" and "Ja neh havorio po Ukrainski y ja neh havorio po Russki" and "Ja Americanka" "Ja eenozimka." After the fourth call, with her abruptly hanging up after a few minutes of non-stop Russian, I interrupted and said "FedEx??" "Dah, dah FedEx." I responded by reciting our address "Vul Chubarya Budonik odine apartemente sheesich voiseem" - "Dah, dah" she said, repeating the address, then more Russian stuff I didn't understand. I tried calling Alona to have her call and explain that we were home and that they could deliver the package, but she wasn't available on her cell phone. So I decided to walk over to the FedEx office (I knew where it was because of the Goldman Sachs FedEx fiasco), and told Ed to stay home, just in case they actually delivered the package. Off I went and I was almost there when Ed called to say that the package had been delivered. He told me an older woman had delivered it, and he thinks she was also trying to sell some other things, but he wasn't sure! I came home (after stopping at the market of course to pick up sausage, juice and a couple of morosivos), to find Ed happily filing away all his papers for the PD project. He was very pleased with the supplies that Fern sent, and I think he even felt it was worth the price!
Last night was our first "social engagement" in Kharkiv! Ed had invited Gennady (Genna) and his wife (Nella) and his daughters (Yrena, whom he had met before - the 25 year old dentist who works a block away from our apartment and who will be staying with Belle when we go to Moscow, Riga and Vilnius next week, and Marina, whom neither of us has met - the 17 year old law student who will also be staying at our apartment with Yrena) to have dinner with us at a restaurant (we can't entertain at home since we don't have any pots and pans to speak of and we don't have enough plates and cutlery for entertaining). The plan was to meet Yrena in front of her office at 7 p.m., and she would drive us to a new restaurant next to the Opera House where we would meet Genna and Nella.
First, of course, I had to decide what to wear. I didn't want to get too dressed up, but I didn't want to look as if I didn't care. So I decided to wear my turquoise paisley cropped pants and pale green V-neck short-sleeved top - the same outfit that I wore to Jed and Jenny's rehearsal dinner BarBQ at Torch Lake. I wore my 30 year old Charles Jordan gold, bronze and white leather braided sandals, with a gold leather ankle strap, so that I could walk (my only other choices for "dress up" shoes are my beige backless high heeled sandals - not suitable for walking even two steps - or my black nubuck Arche flats - obviously a totally wrong choice for this particular outfit). Ed wore his new pale lavendar linen shirt that he bought here last week, and clean, freshly pressed khakis (they were cleaned here in Kharkiv at the Panda International Dry Cleaners) and his loafers. We walked over to Yrena's office and arrived exactly on time to find Yrena and Genna and his wife waiting for us. We were very appropriately dressed. Nella was wearing black pants and high heels (I couldn't really see them though), and a pink short-sleeved low-cut top with pink flowers, made of the same fabric as the top, along the neck line. She has dark red (almost brown with very dark red color entwined) hair - it's definitely colored, but it's also clear that one is intended to know that it's colored), about chin length with eyebrow length bangs. She's a very pretty woman and looks very young, but she must be in her forties, at least, because she has a 25 year old daughter. She had on a very nice subtle necklace and small earrings, and a thin gold wedding band with rubies. Her nails were long pink fake juliettes, with an elaborate design on them (they are not meant to look natural at all - they are worn almost like jewelry - my manicurist had even longer nails like this, but hers were light green with a gold design!). Genna was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt that was basically white with some black lines on it, and gray slacks. He also looks very young, and still has short sandy colored hair without a trace of gray in it. The real stunner though was Yrena - Marina did not join us (she is a blond, we later learned, and she was out with her boyfriend). Yrena has long, straight, very dark hair - almost black - but it looks absolutely natural, and I think it probably is her natural color. Her face is very pretty and she has a great figure (we later learned that she was the captain of her aerobics team all through high school and dental school - in fact the teams traveled to other countries to participate in aerobics competitions!). She was wearing a black and white teeny tiny skirt that sat on her hips, and a matching top, with bits of red in it too, that ended before her waist. Her midriff was exposed showing a bejewelled belly button and a spectacular tan. Her legs are very long, and she was wearing about 4 inch high spike heeled red sandals and a knock off Louis Vuiton black purse with all the LVs in bright colors. She had on thin, but big, gold hoop earrings and her nails were perfectly manicured, long but not spiky, with a dark red polish.
We drove over to the Opera House (a short walk) and parked next to the building just to the south of it, and went into a restaurant called Chateau, but written in Ukrainian so it spells out SHATO. It was a very nice place, and we ate outside on the balcony overlooking the Opera House (not a great view, unfortunately!). Yrena did all the ordering, and even though it's a "French" restaurant, we had mostly Ukrainian dishes (for our benefit). We had two bottles of a really good Georgian red wine, chicken, veal and beef shashlik, with grilled squash, eggplant and yellow peppers, as well as a kind of potato souffle with a little cheese on top. There were three salads to start that were very good, and then for desert Yrena got us two different kinds of "blini" - one dish was two blini filled with ice cream, one chocolate and one vanilla, and the other had two blini, or crepes, filled with fruit. They were really delicious. Yrena maintains that she doesn't speak English, but she really does, she just doesn't know it. We managed to talk quite a bit - I found out about her aerobics background and arranged to join her in an aerobics session on Tuesday at 7 p.m. I don't have my Asics here (they're in Kyiv), but she assured me that they could provide me with shoes. We also talked about going to see a monastery, just outside of Kharkiv, that is carved into a cave (it's called something Gorst), that Olga, my travel agent, had told me about, but whose name escapes me now. Nella offered to take us all there one day - Genna wasn't interested. He like sports, not sightseeing or cultural events. But we also talked about going somewhere for ice skating!! I really liked Genna's wife. Even though she really does speak very little English, after a few glasses of wine we all seemed able to communicate pretty well! Genna couldn't help himself from talking with Ed about the office and "business" - so much so that I actually changed seats with Ed so that he would be sitting next to Genna and I could concentrate on trying to talk to Nella and Yrena. We talked about Nella's background - they met at University where she was studying engineering - she was an engineer for many years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, when there was no money to pay the engineers, she actually went off on her own and opened a hairdressing salon!! We talked to them about whether they thought independence had made a difference (it did - there is more freedom, especially freedom of speech), and the hopes they had during the Orange Revolution when they went out to Lenin Square waving their orange flags thinking there would be a huge change (there wasn't - they still haven't been able to form a government here, and the other day they actually broke out into a fist fight in the Rada (parliament) and Yulia stormed out and she and her followers are setting up tents around the Rada building!!). We talked about how much change there has been in the U.S. in the past 50 years - that it takes time, but it happens when there is a political will on the part of the population (look at the women's movement for example - the status of women has changed dramatically from when I started law school - or even the rights of criminal defendants, which were virtually nonexistent just before I started law school), but that you have to be ever vigilant (look at the recent assault on civil rights, the rights of defendants, etc., in the U.S., thanks to the Bush administration) to not only make those incremental gains, but to protect them. We talked about how the young women in Kharkiv dress (we all agreed that it was great if you are young and look like Yrena, but not so good if you are not so young, or are not as fit and thin as she is!). I told them that I really liked it because it reminded me of my youth and my days in law school and at Paul Weiss, when my skirts were pretty damn short too. The difference though is that we didn't have the exposed midriffs or the 4 inch spike heels that seem to be part of the uniform today.
During the meal it really started to pour - but the patio was covered and it didn't bother us a bit. All the outdoor restaurants and cafes keep these blankets that they give the patrons if it gets really cool, which it did last night. I had my shawl with me, so I used that, while Yrena and Nella wrapped themselves in the nice cosy blankets. The rain didn't last too long and by the time we were ready to leave it was over, and the air was fresh and the humidity greatly reduced.
All in all it was a really nice evening despite the language difficulties, except that Ed and I had meant to treat them to dinner, and when Ed went to pay the bill he was told that it was already taken care of. I was actually quite upset - this was not a cheap restaurant, and they just don't make that much money here (the PD lawyers for example are making $400 a month!). And, besides, we had invited them! They insisted, despite our protestations, and we finally decided to accept gracefully, but only if they agreed to let us take them out the next time. I think it may actually have been Yrena who picked up the tab (she chose the restaurant and she did all the ordering), and we'll try to make it up to her by giving her a nice stipend for staying here and taking care of Belle (but we also have to be careful not to go overboard and look like the "rich Americans" who have no concept of the value of money). We're thinking that maybe $5 a day would be right, and based on my theory that I should just assume that Hryvnas are Dollars so that I will not have culture shock when I get back home, that sounds about right - 25 Hryvnas a day. (I usually pay between $20 and $25 a day back home for someone to house sit and stay with Belle. Glen and Diane won't let me pay them when they take Belle which, in the months before we left for the Ukraine, was every time we went away, but maybe if they read this they will change their minds when we come back! They should, because I feel so secure leaving Belle with them and Lucy - it's the only time I don't worry at all about how she's doing - I know she's just fine with them. In fact, I suspect she prefers living with them to living with us!! She actually followed Diane out of the dog park and wanted to jump in her car the first day we were back from one of our last trips!)
We finished dinner at about 10 and just as we came out of the restaurant we saw fireworks nearby. Yrena and her mother explained that the fireworks were coming from the Metropol restaurant, and that they were for a wedding! They were excellent fireworks - not just some dinky flares in the sky, but really good and very elaborate. I can't imagine anyone being able to afford doing that at home (except the stratosphere richies), or being able to get a permit to do it for that matter.
Yrena was going off clubbing after dinner and Ed and I decided to walk home - it was such a nice night and it's such a short walk. We got home about 10:30 and fell into bed and didn't get up until 9 a.m. on Saturday (today)!
I was supposed to meet Oksana, a woman who responded to my email requesting someone who could help me with Ukrainian or Russian conversation, at 11 a.m. at Pushkinskaya Metro Station. But I got a text message from her (my first real text message - i.e., my first text message from someone other than the phone company!) saying she couldn't meet me today and asking me to call her on July 24. I text messaged back (my first time sending a text message) that I'd be out of town until August 1. So we'll just have to see what happens when I get back from Moscow and Riga.
This was a real do nothing day. I think I might have been slightly hung over - I definitely felt very washed out, no energy and extremely lazy. I spent most of the day reading the Pilates book that Jennifer gave me before I left - I'm hoping I can make myself do the pilates exercises
without someone to help me. This book is very good, so I just might be able to do it. I checked it out online, and there are at least two places in Kyiv that have pilates classes, so I definitely will take it up again once we move there. For me, it really has made all the difference between being crippled and being able to do just about anything. I've finally gotten Ed interested in it too - he's reading the book, and I'm so excited about the prospect of him doing these exercises. I think it will make such a huge difference in his back, his knees, his posture - everything. We shall see.
I did venture out once with Belle for a long walk to check out Club Oscar which is reputed to have a "circus" as well as a casino, a disco and other things. I found it on Petrovsky Street (and I also found a restaurant we'd been looking for called "Napoleon") but there was a sign that either said "Closed Until August 23" or "Closed until July 23" or "Closed From July 23" or "Closed From August 23". However, given the fact that the door was locked, and that the hours of operation were listed from 9 a.m. to 12 midnight, I suspect it's closed until either July or August 23 (I definitely have to check out the names of the months in Ukrainian). So we won't be doing that tonight!
We had a little supper at home and now I'm ready to hit the hay - no more Georgian wine for me, for awhile anyway.
Yesterday the only thing of note that happened during the day was the actual delivery of the FedEx package that Fern had sent (with file folders and legal pads for Ed) on Saturday at the astronomical cost of almost $80 (that's with the 75% discount that she gets!!!). It began with the familiar phone calls, - a woman on the other end insistently speaking Russian, despite my frequent and equally insistent "Ja neh rosamiou" and "Ja neh havorio po Ukrainski y ja neh havorio po Russki" and "Ja Americanka" "Ja eenozimka." After the fourth call, with her abruptly hanging up after a few minutes of non-stop Russian, I interrupted and said "FedEx??" "Dah, dah FedEx." I responded by reciting our address "Vul Chubarya Budonik odine apartemente sheesich voiseem" - "Dah, dah" she said, repeating the address, then more Russian stuff I didn't understand. I tried calling Alona to have her call and explain that we were home and that they could deliver the package, but she wasn't available on her cell phone. So I decided to walk over to the FedEx office (I knew where it was because of the Goldman Sachs FedEx fiasco), and told Ed to stay home, just in case they actually delivered the package. Off I went and I was almost there when Ed called to say that the package had been delivered. He told me an older woman had delivered it, and he thinks she was also trying to sell some other things, but he wasn't sure! I came home (after stopping at the market of course to pick up sausage, juice and a couple of morosivos), to find Ed happily filing away all his papers for the PD project. He was very pleased with the supplies that Fern sent, and I think he even felt it was worth the price!
Last night was our first "social engagement" in Kharkiv! Ed had invited Gennady (Genna) and his wife (Nella) and his daughters (Yrena, whom he had met before - the 25 year old dentist who works a block away from our apartment and who will be staying with Belle when we go to Moscow, Riga and Vilnius next week, and Marina, whom neither of us has met - the 17 year old law student who will also be staying at our apartment with Yrena) to have dinner with us at a restaurant (we can't entertain at home since we don't have any pots and pans to speak of and we don't have enough plates and cutlery for entertaining). The plan was to meet Yrena in front of her office at 7 p.m., and she would drive us to a new restaurant next to the Opera House where we would meet Genna and Nella.
First, of course, I had to decide what to wear. I didn't want to get too dressed up, but I didn't want to look as if I didn't care. So I decided to wear my turquoise paisley cropped pants and pale green V-neck short-sleeved top - the same outfit that I wore to Jed and Jenny's rehearsal dinner BarBQ at Torch Lake. I wore my 30 year old Charles Jordan gold, bronze and white leather braided sandals, with a gold leather ankle strap, so that I could walk (my only other choices for "dress up" shoes are my beige backless high heeled sandals - not suitable for walking even two steps - or my black nubuck Arche flats - obviously a totally wrong choice for this particular outfit). Ed wore his new pale lavendar linen shirt that he bought here last week, and clean, freshly pressed khakis (they were cleaned here in Kharkiv at the Panda International Dry Cleaners) and his loafers. We walked over to Yrena's office and arrived exactly on time to find Yrena and Genna and his wife waiting for us. We were very appropriately dressed. Nella was wearing black pants and high heels (I couldn't really see them though), and a pink short-sleeved low-cut top with pink flowers, made of the same fabric as the top, along the neck line. She has dark red (almost brown with very dark red color entwined) hair - it's definitely colored, but it's also clear that one is intended to know that it's colored), about chin length with eyebrow length bangs. She's a very pretty woman and looks very young, but she must be in her forties, at least, because she has a 25 year old daughter. She had on a very nice subtle necklace and small earrings, and a thin gold wedding band with rubies. Her nails were long pink fake juliettes, with an elaborate design on them (they are not meant to look natural at all - they are worn almost like jewelry - my manicurist had even longer nails like this, but hers were light green with a gold design!). Genna was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt that was basically white with some black lines on it, and gray slacks. He also looks very young, and still has short sandy colored hair without a trace of gray in it. The real stunner though was Yrena - Marina did not join us (she is a blond, we later learned, and she was out with her boyfriend). Yrena has long, straight, very dark hair - almost black - but it looks absolutely natural, and I think it probably is her natural color. Her face is very pretty and she has a great figure (we later learned that she was the captain of her aerobics team all through high school and dental school - in fact the teams traveled to other countries to participate in aerobics competitions!). She was wearing a black and white teeny tiny skirt that sat on her hips, and a matching top, with bits of red in it too, that ended before her waist. Her midriff was exposed showing a bejewelled belly button and a spectacular tan. Her legs are very long, and she was wearing about 4 inch high spike heeled red sandals and a knock off Louis Vuiton black purse with all the LVs in bright colors. She had on thin, but big, gold hoop earrings and her nails were perfectly manicured, long but not spiky, with a dark red polish.
We drove over to the Opera House (a short walk) and parked next to the building just to the south of it, and went into a restaurant called Chateau, but written in Ukrainian so it spells out SHATO. It was a very nice place, and we ate outside on the balcony overlooking the Opera House (not a great view, unfortunately!). Yrena did all the ordering, and even though it's a "French" restaurant, we had mostly Ukrainian dishes (for our benefit). We had two bottles of a really good Georgian red wine, chicken, veal and beef shashlik, with grilled squash, eggplant and yellow peppers, as well as a kind of potato souffle with a little cheese on top. There were three salads to start that were very good, and then for desert Yrena got us two different kinds of "blini" - one dish was two blini filled with ice cream, one chocolate and one vanilla, and the other had two blini, or crepes, filled with fruit. They were really delicious. Yrena maintains that she doesn't speak English, but she really does, she just doesn't know it. We managed to talk quite a bit - I found out about her aerobics background and arranged to join her in an aerobics session on Tuesday at 7 p.m. I don't have my Asics here (they're in Kyiv), but she assured me that they could provide me with shoes. We also talked about going to see a monastery, just outside of Kharkiv, that is carved into a cave (it's called something Gorst), that Olga, my travel agent, had told me about, but whose name escapes me now. Nella offered to take us all there one day - Genna wasn't interested. He like sports, not sightseeing or cultural events. But we also talked about going somewhere for ice skating!! I really liked Genna's wife. Even though she really does speak very little English, after a few glasses of wine we all seemed able to communicate pretty well! Genna couldn't help himself from talking with Ed about the office and "business" - so much so that I actually changed seats with Ed so that he would be sitting next to Genna and I could concentrate on trying to talk to Nella and Yrena. We talked about Nella's background - they met at University where she was studying engineering - she was an engineer for many years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, when there was no money to pay the engineers, she actually went off on her own and opened a hairdressing salon!! We talked to them about whether they thought independence had made a difference (it did - there is more freedom, especially freedom of speech), and the hopes they had during the Orange Revolution when they went out to Lenin Square waving their orange flags thinking there would be a huge change (there wasn't - they still haven't been able to form a government here, and the other day they actually broke out into a fist fight in the Rada (parliament) and Yulia stormed out and she and her followers are setting up tents around the Rada building!!). We talked about how much change there has been in the U.S. in the past 50 years - that it takes time, but it happens when there is a political will on the part of the population (look at the women's movement for example - the status of women has changed dramatically from when I started law school - or even the rights of criminal defendants, which were virtually nonexistent just before I started law school), but that you have to be ever vigilant (look at the recent assault on civil rights, the rights of defendants, etc., in the U.S., thanks to the Bush administration) to not only make those incremental gains, but to protect them. We talked about how the young women in Kharkiv dress (we all agreed that it was great if you are young and look like Yrena, but not so good if you are not so young, or are not as fit and thin as she is!). I told them that I really liked it because it reminded me of my youth and my days in law school and at Paul Weiss, when my skirts were pretty damn short too. The difference though is that we didn't have the exposed midriffs or the 4 inch spike heels that seem to be part of the uniform today.
During the meal it really started to pour - but the patio was covered and it didn't bother us a bit. All the outdoor restaurants and cafes keep these blankets that they give the patrons if it gets really cool, which it did last night. I had my shawl with me, so I used that, while Yrena and Nella wrapped themselves in the nice cosy blankets. The rain didn't last too long and by the time we were ready to leave it was over, and the air was fresh and the humidity greatly reduced.
All in all it was a really nice evening despite the language difficulties, except that Ed and I had meant to treat them to dinner, and when Ed went to pay the bill he was told that it was already taken care of. I was actually quite upset - this was not a cheap restaurant, and they just don't make that much money here (the PD lawyers for example are making $400 a month!). And, besides, we had invited them! They insisted, despite our protestations, and we finally decided to accept gracefully, but only if they agreed to let us take them out the next time. I think it may actually have been Yrena who picked up the tab (she chose the restaurant and she did all the ordering), and we'll try to make it up to her by giving her a nice stipend for staying here and taking care of Belle (but we also have to be careful not to go overboard and look like the "rich Americans" who have no concept of the value of money). We're thinking that maybe $5 a day would be right, and based on my theory that I should just assume that Hryvnas are Dollars so that I will not have culture shock when I get back home, that sounds about right - 25 Hryvnas a day. (I usually pay between $20 and $25 a day back home for someone to house sit and stay with Belle. Glen and Diane won't let me pay them when they take Belle which, in the months before we left for the Ukraine, was every time we went away, but maybe if they read this they will change their minds when we come back! They should, because I feel so secure leaving Belle with them and Lucy - it's the only time I don't worry at all about how she's doing - I know she's just fine with them. In fact, I suspect she prefers living with them to living with us!! She actually followed Diane out of the dog park and wanted to jump in her car the first day we were back from one of our last trips!)
We finished dinner at about 10 and just as we came out of the restaurant we saw fireworks nearby. Yrena and her mother explained that the fireworks were coming from the Metropol restaurant, and that they were for a wedding! They were excellent fireworks - not just some dinky flares in the sky, but really good and very elaborate. I can't imagine anyone being able to afford doing that at home (except the stratosphere richies), or being able to get a permit to do it for that matter.
Yrena was going off clubbing after dinner and Ed and I decided to walk home - it was such a nice night and it's such a short walk. We got home about 10:30 and fell into bed and didn't get up until 9 a.m. on Saturday (today)!
I was supposed to meet Oksana, a woman who responded to my email requesting someone who could help me with Ukrainian or Russian conversation, at 11 a.m. at Pushkinskaya Metro Station. But I got a text message from her (my first real text message - i.e., my first text message from someone other than the phone company!) saying she couldn't meet me today and asking me to call her on July 24. I text messaged back (my first time sending a text message) that I'd be out of town until August 1. So we'll just have to see what happens when I get back from Moscow and Riga.
This was a real do nothing day. I think I might have been slightly hung over - I definitely felt very washed out, no energy and extremely lazy. I spent most of the day reading the Pilates book that Jennifer gave me before I left - I'm hoping I can make myself do the pilates exercises
without someone to help me. This book is very good, so I just might be able to do it. I checked it out online, and there are at least two places in Kyiv that have pilates classes, so I definitely will take it up again once we move there. For me, it really has made all the difference between being crippled and being able to do just about anything. I've finally gotten Ed interested in it too - he's reading the book, and I'm so excited about the prospect of him doing these exercises. I think it will make such a huge difference in his back, his knees, his posture - everything. We shall see.
I did venture out once with Belle for a long walk to check out Club Oscar which is reputed to have a "circus" as well as a casino, a disco and other things. I found it on Petrovsky Street (and I also found a restaurant we'd been looking for called "Napoleon") but there was a sign that either said "Closed Until August 23" or "Closed until July 23" or "Closed From July 23" or "Closed From August 23". However, given the fact that the door was locked, and that the hours of operation were listed from 9 a.m. to 12 midnight, I suspect it's closed until either July or August 23 (I definitely have to check out the names of the months in Ukrainian). So we won't be doing that tonight!
We had a little supper at home and now I'm ready to hit the hay - no more Georgian wine for me, for awhile anyway.
posted by Susan Spivak at 5:38 PM
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