Pancakes in the Park

We have been staying home on Sundays and meditating on the true meaning of “Sabbath,” mostly goofing off and watching TV.  At home, we started skipping church in the summers and having “home church” on Sunday mornings, with just the kids and ourselves.  Here, honestly, we are just so tired by the time Sunday rolls around, we hardly do anything.  

However, on this Sunday, our apartment owners asked if someone could stop by and look at the apartment.  This was somewhat annoying, but since we are going to be gone in a few weeks (right God?) it is reasonable that they should want to rent it out after we leave.  It would have been a non-event, if we hadn’t gone to some effort to clean and even air out the apartment before they came.  There are now seven of us in three rooms so we occasionally open ALL the windows and doors to get some air-exchange.  Anyway, two fancy young women came to look at the place and they were here for maybe two minutes total—in body.  Their Ukrainian perfume lingered for quite a while. I couldn't believe it.  Some sort of odor is involved in every event here. 

The sun shone and the kids mostly played quietly all morning.  Matt and Paul made a car-maze in the sun room while Reilly, Sharon and Ruslan turned the box house into a duplex.  Sharon sleeps in the box house every night.  Ruslan never indicated that he wanted to sleep there, but he must have wanted to because when I woke up from my Sunday nap, there was a whole other house for Ruslan in the living room. There were a few extra, large pieces of cardboard that came with the refrigerator box and they used them for walls and used a sheet for a roof.  It wasn’t too stable, so I was a little worried that Ruslan was going to get frustrated with it.  He can’t control his body very well and he knocked the walls out a lot.   

Ruslan himself, finally came up with the solution.  We don’t have any duct tape here, but we do have string.  He found it and showed me that he wanted to wrap the whole structure with string.  I did this to humor him, then I cut holes at all the joints and used the string to tie them all together.  This wouldn’t have worked if the pieces were flat, but they are not.  They are end pieces so they are one huge piece with four small edges about four inches wide on each side that bend inward. Anyway, the upshot is that it worked and he is sleeping in his new house as I write this.

After we made the house, Ruslan had a second temper tantrum (the first one was Saturday night over a water bottle).  We were going to the park and I wanted the kids to have a snack before we left.  I snuck them theirs because Ruslan hadn’t finished his (very small) portion of cut up pancakes and bacon earlier in the day.  He wanted a cookie, so I communicated that he had to finish his meal before he could have a cookie.  Well, as soon as I set it down, he started to whimper.  Then after about five minutes, I put a small piece in his mouth and he went ballistic.  He SCREAMED to high heaven.  It’s like dealing with a spoiled two-year-old, only the poor guy is SEVEN.  This time, we all knew full well, right away that he was throwing a fit.  I told him NOT to spit out that pancake and I left the room.  He SCREAMED, again, like I had just poured boiling oil on him.  I was worried that he might choke on the pancake, so I had the door open a crack, but it was lodged between his lower teeth and outer lip, and he keeps his head forward when he screams, so I felt it was pretty safe. 

In the meantime, Bill had gone for a run and was planning to meet us at the park.  The other kids were getting ready to go.  I told them that we wouldn’t let Ruslan’s temper interfere with our schedule and he would just have to finish his meal at the park before he could play.  I had visions of rolling his screaming little self down our hallway, and was thinking about acoustics of the cement walls when he suddenly stopped screaming.  I opened in the door and told him, “great job, now finish your pancake.”  Just like that, he ate it and smiled over at me like he was the happiest child in the whole wide world. I packed up the rest of his meal in a margarine container and gave it to him to hold while we put him in his stroller.  He ate the rest of it as soon as we got to the park like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. 

He did really well at the park.  The ground is covered in sand, so I ended up transporting him wherever he wanted to go on the play equipment.   He loved the slides and the swing and our kids were great about helping him out and looking after Sharon.  I hate it here, but I have to say, it has been really good for our kids to have to look out for each other and rise to the occasion. 

After Bill arrived, we started lamenting all the things around us that are falling apart needlessly.  It’s just so….bewildering to see so much deterioration in one place.  Just outside our apartment door, the trash piles are overflowing, there are tall weeds everywhere, the curbs, sidewalks and roads are uneven and broken, the playground equipment is rusty, a lot of things need painted…after a while you look at it and wonder, “can this be ALL from a lack of money?”  Their average yearly income was a little over $5,000 [Deaton, Bill K] ($5,410) a year according to one web site Bill looked at, compared to $40,000 [Deaton, Bill K] ($37,500) for the states.  So, yeah, it’s got to account for a lot, but many of the problems we see don’t require money to solve or prevent  (for example, cut a broom with a longer handle so you don’t have to bend over all the time when you sweep, or smooth out the cement between the bricks so no water seeps in).  

This is the building behind our apartment. You probably can't tell, but it is a wreck.  The brick work is shoddy, the balconies are crumbling, the top windows are blown out.  It's a wreck.

This is the U-Store-It behind our apartment. 

This is our actual building.  Someone ran into the corner of the parking garage and this is their 'repair.'  You might have to zoom in a little, but even in a NEW building such as this one, the brick work is messy.  The fact that they cover the brick work over with slate is indication that they KNOW this is bad work.  The question is, "why not do it right in the first place?"

We were leaving our local park as we were discussing all this and I had just put Sharon in the second stroller and was walking down the sidewalk to the grocery store when I asked myself, “So, what is it?”  Of course, I wasn’t watching where I was going and just as I had that thought, I hit a hole in the sidewalk and sent Sharon out of the stroller and sprawling onto the pavement.  Whatever the answer, there’s obviously enough to go around. 

So, we got her back in the stroller (still not bothering to strap her in) and got to the store.  We have been using the stroller to lug groceries.  Bill thought of this and it has been such a back saver.  Sunday night is the ONLY time the grocery is not packed with people so every Sunday night we make a family trip to the grocery and try to stock up for a week.  After a month here, I finally have a little depth to our stock and each week we try some new stuff.  This week I tried to find real cream for my coffee.  I took a risk on an orange lidded milk container, but it turned out to be some sort of yogurt drink.  Their stock varies from week to week, especially in their produce so I have learned to really look around.  I actually found fresh broccoli, which is great, but I found it frozen last week, so it wasn’t as big a deal as it might have been.  Then, as I was about to leave the produce area, I saw the little “specialty section” against a far wall.  They usually have things like leeks, kiwi and pineapple there, but this time on the bottom shelf I noticed celery.  I was so happy and surprised I gleefully shouted, “CELERY!” and practically ran over to the case.  It was way too expensive to buy, but I felt it was an important moment since I was affirming, once again, the “Loud American” stereotype that we have been sent to perpetuate.


At bedtime, we had to tell Ruslan to stay in his bed and keep quiet.  We told him "three chances and on three Ruslan goes to the kitchen."  Well, we got to three and we went to move his bed, but he communicated that he would be quiet, so emphatically that we gave him a second chance. We let him stay and, thankfully, he didn't make a peep or leave his bed the rest of the night.  Hopefully, we are over tantrums for a few....hours. 

So, we now have a Sunday routine: rest, park, groceries.  Scary thought.