So Weary In My Bones

The day after exercise resumes post-hiatus is always an exhausted one. I raked almost all my yard today after school with Claudia. It was good to feel my muscles stretching out and warming up. Our tools: the stick-bundle sweeper, two long-handled majorly heavy-duty rakes (before we got our rake on, Claudia threaded sticks through the tines, possibly because they would shove the leaves around better that way), a cardboard box, and a big square cloth, formerly a blanket, to gather the leaves on so we could carry them to the leaf pile.

And the pile is getting huge. It's up to my shoulders. I can only assume someone will light it on fire soon. As we carted our loads of soggy leaves out to the roadside, we walked through the little woody area in front of the apartment building. There are several footpaths worn in the dirt. The amount of litter makes me daydream about going out there and just picking up. I might do that this weekend, in fact. I also got to inspect the fort that was built last spring in the corner closest to my apartment. It's pretty serious. The roof is woven so tightly that rain might not even get in there. It seems uninhabited for the most part, however, so that makes me less nervous about its presence.

Typing this makes me want to take pictures. I'll try to remember to do that tomorrow.

School was freezing again today. The lessons were shortened to 35 minutes and we didn't get our normal long breaks (20 minutes) after the second and third lessons. Normally we gather in Lena's cabinet and drink tea, chitchat, and I avoid eating the salo, liver, or other food items being presented. I'll eat hard-boiled eggs with mayonnaise, bread with mayonnaise or ikra ('caviar', but it's a vegetarian puree, quite tasty really), and cookies, but I draw the line at any kind of meat products. I just can't get over my staunchly indoctrinated cultural food safety beliefs. But today, what with the short breaks and my ravenous appetite from the increase in activity yesterday, I ended up in the lunchroom with Vika (English teacher) and Vika (who has amazing, thick, wavy, long black hair). We scarfed piroshki with cabbage, and I caved in to the craving created by Raven-haired Vika's sausage piroshki. It was a hotdog in fried dough. I bought one and wolfed it down as the bell rang.

After school Alina, Alina and Zhenia caught me by the English room. Actually, I'd been hanging around in case anyone was looking for me. In my wandering, I bumped into Tatiana in the English room where she was tutoring Maxym. If you think you've seen an adorable little boy, think again. He is so cute he makes buttons weep, and he loves to study. He's in third grade, and he's shy but tenacious as can be. His favorite part of the lesson is to write on the blackboard. He grades himself afterwards, smiling this secret little grin complete with dimples. Adorable.

Tatiana had had a successful trip to the open lesson and was excited about the Teachers' English Club we're starting. She said the teachers were looking forward to it, but she discouraged me from offering tea. "It's too much work, Sarah," she admonished. "Not only that, you have to buy everything yourself - tea, sugar. And you have to wash the cups afterwards. I don't think you should do it." I may rebel, however, because I want the teachers to come back again and I intend to offer little positive reinforcements, a fairly innocuous one being tea and cookies when they're hungry and tired after teaching all day.

Anyway, my girls begged me to stay and work, even though I thought I saw icicles forming in the windows. So we worked on our posters for our Culture Exchange Project and chattered away in English. It was pretty fun. By the end, they were getting the giggles and insisted on walking me home. Outside the school, I put up my fur-trimmed hood and they followed suit. "We're like sisters!" gasped Alina with something like joy. I felt joyful, anyway. I like it.

Mystery Phone Call #1

In case the caller gets the courage to repeat his performance, I thought I'd document a random phone call I got at about 7:30 pm last night. I forgot to write about it yesterday, but it bears recording. So, it went like this: the phone rings, a man's voice says "Hello" (remember, it's in Russian). I'm like, "Hello, can I help you?" He's like, "Well, yeah. Let's talk." I'm all, "Okay, what do you want to talk about?" And he's like, "Oh, well, anything. It doesn't matter."

So now I'm sleuthing. "Who is this? What's your name?" I ask. He won't tell me. "How did you get my number?" I want to know. He says I wouldn't give him my cell phone number but gave him my home number instead, but he won't tell me when I gave him the number. He doesn't sound like my upstairs neighbor, or like the firefighter I met at my host family's house a few weeks ago, these being my primary suspects. He sounds vaguely familiar, not too much older than me, I don't think younger than me. He admitted that he lived in Kuibyshevo.

We chatted for a while, playing the "cat and mouse" game, as he called it. It was like some sort of bizarre semi-flirting in another language with a mystery man. Well, I guess that's exactly what it was. Funny! He wouldn't tell me how old he was, what he did for work, or his name. But instead of getting mad or hanging up, I wanted to talk more. It was like a test of my Russian skills. And I learned two new, quite useful words: 'to happen' and 'to allow'. So in fact I kind of hope he'll call back.

All day today as I was walking around, I kept my eye out for someone giving me a look like, "I secretly talked to you last night." Mystery! Intrigue! In sleepy little Kuibyshevo. How thrilling.

P.S. My Dinner Confession

This is so silly I had to write it down. For dinner tonight I ate:

• A bag of Cream and Greens suhariki (these are my favorite Ukrainian snack, they are croutons, but long and thin, crunchy and satisfying in so many ways)
  
• Two spoonfuls of peanut butter (I'm running low! I don't want to think about it)
  
• A banana
  
• Two glasses of Apple-Carrot juice
  

What?! I am on strict orders to avoid my kitchen because of the electrical situation, it's literally freezing in there because of previously-mentioned electrical situation, and I'm weary, too weary to even fry an egg. I can always eat tomorrow.