A year ago this week

Photos:
1. Lola's 10th birthday treat
2. Our shrimp boil feast at the beach
3. The Girls at the pool in Pine Knoll Shores
4. Ana on the beach (with papa's sunglasses)

[Phil]
I just looked at our oldest blog entry, and it was a year ago this week (July 26th) that we first went to Ukraine. It seems so long ago. For the sake of comparison, here is our first post from Kiev last summer, after we had been there for a couple of days.

At that time, we could not have possibly imagined what awaited us. We knew theoretically that we might have to make 2 trips, but we had no idea what the actual implications were: the expense (!), the stress, the feeling of helplessness, the red tape, etc. But at the same time, I feel a lot of nostalgia when I look at those photos and read those words that we typed. I think a lot of it has to do with Walker Percy's ideas in his book Lost in the Cosmos about how day-to-day life shuts one off from actual living, and how novelty and even, let's say, stressful experiences make you feel more alive. I remember an example he uses that goes something like this:

Imagine you are on a tour of Greece with your alumni group. You have had a big breakfast of all your favorite foods in your hotel that morning. You are driven to the Parthenon in an air-conditioned bus, with an English-speaking guide who points out all the interesting landmarks and gives you a concise and entertaining description of each one. Now you are let off the bus to take a tour of the Parthenon. You take a cursory look around but feel bored. Question: Can you see the Parthenon?

He then goes on to write:
"Imagine you are a NATO colonel defending Greece against a Soviet attack.
You are in a bunker in downtown Athens. A missile attack is under way. Half
a million Greeks are dead. Two missiles bracket the Parthenon. The next
will surely be a hit. Between columns of smoke, a ray of golden light catches
the portico. Are you bored ? Can you see the Parthenon?"

Okay, that whole digression (besides revealing my love of Walker Percy - please read his essay "On Bourbon") was just to explain, maybe to myself, why I still have such great memories of Ukraine. For the most part every day was a new adventure, be it good or bad. And we were way out of our comfort zones (for example, take our first apartment, which we promptly flooded on the first day, since we had no idea how a "bathroom washing machine" worked). Nevertheless, I'll never forget us watching "Hour of Justice" on Russian TV every afternoon, Robin getting her daily latte at "Kofe Khauz", or our afternoons spent reading Harry Potter books in our tiny sleeping nook to pass the time until we could go blog at Le Borsch. Granted, I may have more pleasant memories of the first trip since the second was so hectic (Mission: Get Anastasia). But nevertheless, I actually miss Ukraine and would love to go back to Kiev with Ana and Robin one day in the not-too-distant future. I might even take our first apartment, now that we know how to do our laundry.

Okay, back to the present. It's been almost a month since we've updated the blog. Since then we've had Lola's birthday, my birthday, another trip to the beach, Ana's moving to a new class, and Isabel's (my goddaughter) 7th birthday:

Lola's 10th birthday party was a lot of fun, and featured THREE vizslas, a puppy, numerous humans, and a birthday cake (one of Ana's favorite things). Then a couple of weeks later, we had my birthday. Carmen was nice enough to invite us to the beach for that weekend, so we had another fun couple of days at Pine Knoll Shores, featuring many of the same activities as last time (lunch at the Shark Shack, Ana in the swimming pool, beachcombing, dancing around the condo to old R&B on the ipod speakers). This time, however, we also had an awesome shrimp boil on Friday night, a great birthday dinner at Scotch Harbor and a pretty hilarious "jazz brunch" at DJ Shooters. We had tried to have breakfast at the very old-school restaurant in the Ramada Inn, but it seems as if there's no more Ramada Inn! What happened to it? If anyone knows, please tell me. We saw a suspiciously drab-looking Sheraton and thought that maybe it had taken over the Ramada, so Robin drove the car into the lot and asked the parking attendant "Did this used to be a Ramada Inn?" He said, "Ma'am, I really have no idea." She then asked, "Does it have a restaurant with, like, breakfast and rope?" "Breakfast and rope?" He looked genuinely puzzled, but I happen to speak "Robin", so I leaned over from the passenger side and said, "A nautical-themed restaurant." We all had a good laugh about it later (like 2 minutes later), but we never did find our breakfast-and-rope restaurant.

A brief update on Ana:
Likes: Little Bear (TV series based on the M. Sendak books); Enchanted (Disney movie with Amy Adams - I'm hearing "Happy Working Song" in my sleep); Robin Hood (the very 70's Disney animated version with Peter Ustinov doing the voice of the evil prince); Isabel's birthday party with the giant (really giant) slip and slide; her new class (Classroom 1), which has the oldest students in the Y preschool - 4 and 5 year-olds; singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "The Wheels on the Bus"; swimming in the pool with her float; free samples at the grocery (especially cheese); teasing Lola; pizza.

Dislikes: Bedtime; any TV show I want to watch; not letting her talk on the phone to my clients; plain old water instead of juice; being asked to entertain herself; bugs; english muffin pizzas; not being able to wear flip flops to school.

Until next month,
Phil