No salsa, peanut butter, popcorn, or saline....

1. Track outfit.

2. Ducky underwears.

3. Hard at work on a translation.

4. Relegated to the rocker.

5. P&R at Celetano with latte

[Robin]

These are the mysteriously missing items in the grocery stores here. Today Colleen and I went to four pharmacies to try to buy some saline solution. I even had a note written in Russian from Phil to hand to the sales staff. No dice. I might have to resort to using something akin to Visine to store my contacts for the last week.

The day was fairly uneventful. Phil, Colleen, and I went to the orphange in the morning and played with the kids. It was a pretty day and warmer than the past couple of days, which made being outside more enjoyable. We went to the pizza place for lunch. Then Phil went home to work on a translation (thank you Universe!) and Colleen and I shopped for a stroller for Ana (several fairly lightweight, collapsable models were found), then went on the search for saline solution and then went to the internet cafe for some online time (since Phil was occupying our link in the apartment). On our way back from the internet cafe, we spied a children's clothing store. We went in and I bought a couple of things that I think will fit her (clothing sizes are not uniform). We need a few outfits just to get us through the last couple of days here.

We are going to post some pics of these clothing finds, but I warn you, the selection was limited and there is nothing like GapKids in Kramatorsk!

This afternoon just Colleen and I braved the playground (Phil kept working). Ana was in a great mood and was really happy to see me. Unfortunately the new caregiver didn't share her excitement. She proceeded to dress me down (finger wagging in my face) for the coins that Phil had given Ana. She handed them back to me with great disdain. Then when Colleen and I tried to play with Lily and Ana on different types of playground equipment, she would tell us no ....everything (slides, swings, etc.) was too dangerous for the kids. She finally pointed to the two-seated rocker and told us to play with them on that. The bad news was that this is not really very interesting to the kids. It just doesn't do much other than rock back and forth. We tried to be gracious about these restrictions, but it was hard.... We finally just colored and played with some other toys that we had brought.

After the orphanage, we went to the grocery store and it was packed....everyone getting items for their dinners. We got in line at the deli counter and stood behind this guy who ordered practically everything in the case. The large line of people behind us was really getting impatient and I started sweating just thinking that they might think it was us holding them up (remember we don't "blend"). One woman broke in line, and I thought this might break the seal of civility and we might never get served. Luckily I think we positioned ourselves well because we did finally manage to get the worker's attention and get to order our takeout items. We bought chicken filets, potatoes with mushrooms and onions, and meat-stuffed cabbage rolls. We came home and warmed them up (and added some spices). Turned out to be yummy. We watched Spinal Tap on DVD and had some laughs over dinner.

[Phil]

Yes, I basically worked all day and really have nothing of substance to add, except that every time I watch Spinal Tap I discover something that I missed before. This time it was when they were unable to find the stage from the bowels of the stadium, so when they ran across the maintenance man, they asked for directions:

David: We're in the group. We're in the group that's playing tonight.

Janitor: You go right straight through this door here, down the hall....

David: Yeah.

Janitor: ...turn right...

David: Yeah.

Janitor: ...and then there's a little jog there, about thirty feet.

Derek: A jog?

Janitor: ...jog to the left...

David: A jog?

Derek: We don't have time for that.

Har har. I got a serious case of the giggles after that. Now we need to go to the market and find all the Mel Brooks movies on DVD, and our last few days here should be very enjoyable.

That's all for now. It was a busy day for basically doing nothing.