forgot to mention Wicked

Did I forget to mention that we took Stefanie (well, Larysa too) to see a performance of Wicked for her birthday a month ago?

I was really impressed with the show, the costumes and scenery helped me "colourize" if you will, the book I had read last summer. The writers of the play had done the best they could focusing on one aspect of the book, since the novel itself was an entire history and background to the Land of Oz. So where the musical made the story more about girl power - to play to the thousands of girls and women who go these shows, the book took a more political approach in describing how the Wicked Witch became wicked and the power struggles in the Land of Oz.

The music I thought was great, the most memorable pieces being "Defying Gravity", when Elphaba learns to fly, and the love song between Elphaba and Fiyero, "As long as you're mine". Stefanie and Larysa were expecting a little less singing overall, though, and found it tedious to follow the lyrics.

The only problem I saw was the ending (don't read further if you don't want to know) was too "Hollywoodized", so instead of being disintegrated completely by the bucket of water that Dorothy throws, we're meant to believe that she's alive and off somewhere in hiding with her lover?

Very expensive nit-pickiness

I was dressing for tennis this morning and found the only top I had had a small stain right front and centre. After spending 10 minutes trying to remove it using various products (including a bath tile cleaner containing bleach) without success, I decided to go upstairs and find a sweater to wear on top of it.

Now Orest was in the shower and in the 20 years we've been married, he's never been able to see what I looked like without his contacts or glasses, let alone comment on it. But since he's had his Lasik surgery, he's been much more observant and says:
"You know you have a stain on that top?"

Great! 5000 dollars so my husband can point out things wrong with me that I already know about!

The funny thing is, he had not been very impressed with the results of his surgery (which had been done in Canada over Christmas) and decided to see someone here for a 2nd opinion. After a quick check, the opthamologist informed Orest that he had 20/20 vision and could get no better. I can only imagine his disappointment with the world in general, since from where I sit (with my 20/20 vision), it all looks good to me!
Or as Adriana like to sing: "I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all popsicles in my way..."

Ni Hao

I did promise an update on my Mandarin Chinese course and the above title is just about all I feel 100% comfortable saying after 4 months of classes.
What's my excuse, you ask, since I am such a 'cunning linguist' as I often announce? Well, for one, the course is once a week, and in order to learn any language, the experts will say that this is not enough to absorb much of anything. Secondly, this is the hardest language I've ever undertaken. The written language is pictorial (characters), not phonetic and the spoken language is easy enough, except for the 4 different tones they've added, just to confuse and embarrass us non-Chinese.
So for example: 'ma' pronounced with tone going down is 'horse'; and 'ma' with tone going up is 'mother'. So every time you call your mother, there's a risk you're lumping her in with the equine species. (That won't get you any cookies, my friend!)

Another example is: "I criticize your leather drum carried on horseback" is translated as:

"Wo pi pi pi." ( the 'pi' pronounced in different up, down and flat tones)

Not that you'd say that phrase very often, but still, a telling example!

Our teacher recently informed us that come September, they'd offer a cost-based course for those who've already taken the current course and another free taster course for beginners. We're not cheap, but going back to the beginning again appealed to most of us who'd felt like they'd only absorbed 10% of what they'd been taught!

The psychology of parenting

Stefanie injured her finger again (this is the same little pinkie that she broke 18 months ago on the trampoline) and I'm trying to not let her get away with zoning out of her activities completely and spending all her spare time doing sweet f***-all. Does that sound harsh? I know my daughter very well, you see, and if you let her, she'll milk this for all it's worth.

So I gave her a choice the other day: "Either you come with me Adriana and watch her do her ice-skating lesson, or you go down the tennis courts with Larysa and take care of the dog, while she does her lesson. But you're not going to sit around at home MSN'ing and watching telly all afternoon." Stefanie chose the tennis courts, and what do I find when I get there an hour later? She's been cooped up in the clubhouse the entire time not caring for Jessie at all! I wouldn't have minded, but it was obvious there were a few people put out by her inattention. First, there was the lady who was deathly afraid of dogs, hid behind her husband the entire time; another one hid in the clubhouse she was so frightened of her; Gwen had to poop and scoop after her; and finally Jessie got into the clubhouse (a big no-no!) and Stefanie had apparently done nothing to remove her.

My mortification complete, I tried to spell out her misdemeanors to her, but all I got was a surly apology and the brush-off at the courts. In the car on the way home, I tried again to impress upon Stefanie my disappointment in her irresponsibility, and all I got was deflection. The old "It wasn't me, it was my sister" routine is great to confuse and confound the parents most of the time, but this time I wasn't buying it since Larysa was in her tennis lesson the whole time.

It wasn't until I was on the phone later with Orest, recounting her behavior and the possibility of selling the children (we've since discovered that selling them piece-meal - one organ at a time gets a greater return) that she finally delivered the heart-felt apology and remorse that was required under the circumstances.

I know this is just a regular part of parenting, but boy, nobody told me it would be so exhausting! Shortly after sorting this all out between us, I was (gently) snoring away on the sofa, unable to continue on in my normal evening duties. I'm going to need a resident analyst on-hand, pumping me with some stock phrases, instead of me having to tax my brain to come up with all this myself!

Ukrainian Easter Myths

We got back from skiing late Easter Saturday evening and very little time to put the usual 4 baskets together (1 for each child, plus the family one which carries all the "icky" stuff the girls don't wish to contaminate their baskets with, like horseradish, mustard, butter, etc..). Luckily Halya had baked the paska for me (the traditional Easter bread), because I had no desire to sit up until midnight and beyond doing it myself. Over the years, I have found that most traditional Ukrainian food is very:

1. Time-consuming - as if to perpetuate the chauvinistic attitude of keeping women in the kitchen, Ukrainian food preparation must have been invented by some cossack intent on keeping his women subservient. It takes hours to make any of the recipes I've been handed down, and there have not been any labour-saving devices to minimize the effort it takes to present a plate of pyrohy that will be gobbled up in 10 seconds flat. Plus that fact that most Ukrainian mamas and babas will sneer upon any attempt to short-cut and recipe by using new technology.

"Hunky Bill's Perogie Maker?? Ty zdurila (Have you gone mad)?? When I was child on the kolhosp, we had to stay up til the crack of dawn until it was right!"

2. Labour-intensive - forget tennis elbow! Have you ever had to knead and stretch paska dough? Man, it's a killer! It seems an awful lot of sweat-inducing back-breaking work for something that's ended up looking like a hockey puck instead of this:

2. Fiddly - almost any recipe I have ever tried seems to miss one minute step or one vital ingredient to as to make yours look and/or taste like nothing your mother-in-law has ever presented; thereby perpetuating the myth with the men in your life that "There's nothing better than Mama's borsht!" (I think this one was dreamed up by Ukrainian women, not the men. It keeps the men dependant on them for the rest of their lives if they want a "decent meal".)

Anyway, got to church at 8 am the next morning with said basket to be blessed by the priest, only to find that we were an hour early for Mass and that there was almost nowhere to sit. Luckily, they had reserved the first few rows for children and senior citizens (with police tape, no less) and we were able to wait it out sitting down. Two and a half hours later, it took me 15 minutes to get me and my precious load out of church, as the next Mass was starting at 11 am and just as many people were pushing to get in as were pushing to get out. What chaos! I'm surprised there weren't any serious injuries with a sharpened kabanosy, or something!

First (and last) skiing of the season

Isn't it amazing that this is the first skiing I've done this season?
First no snow in Collingwood over Christmas
Then, the wind storm that stopped me going to St Moritz in January
and February half-term's wise decision to stay home while Orest took the kids skiing.

So here it is April 1st (no joke) and we have beautiful conditions in St. Johann in Austria for our annual ski camp with the Ukrainian Scouts. Four days of sun and enough snow to shush down on, it was probably the best time to go. Now if only I could duplicate that next year (don't tell Orest)...somehow manufacture a lack of snow or cyclone for each planned trip, so that I only have to go once a season instead of 4-5 times.

Heresy, I know, but after you've been doing it for 20 years, (barring those times I was heavily pregnant or with infant too small for ski school), it gets a bit old. But I married one of those "avid skiiers" who practically wrote these trips into our marriage contract, so not much of a choice.

Anyway, skiing was great, Orest won the slalom race for the menfolk (and fastest in the whole camp again), I came in third for the women, Larysa also came in third and Stefanie unfortunately 'bit the biscuit' 3/4 of the way down the course and got a DNF, poor girl. Oh well, better luck next year.

New Vocab

Kids these days! The things they come up with...

Stefa has been using the word "emo" a lot lately. I asked her for a definition and was told:
"It's kind of like when somebody's depressed all the time or like my friend's brother who like when he gets anything less than an A at school, comes home and cuts himself."

Nice!

I was trying to remember if we had created any word similar to that in my youth, but all I could some up with was cry-baby or Wendy Whiner (from SNL). Not quite as powerful, I think.
(But then again, self-harm wasn't the in-thing in my day... if you were going to use a knife, either you go all the way or not at all!)

This new word's rubbed off on Adriana as well. She said to me the other day:

"Mama, how come I don't have a emo address on the computer?"