shopping Saturday and lazy Sunday

Valery Y., age 9, yesterday after church and before lunch (all of this translated from Ukrainian): You're coming over on Tuesday, right?
Me: Maybe. Or Wednesday.
Valery: Wednesday.
Me: Yep, Wednesday.
Valery. You come on Wednesday...
Me: Yep.
Valery: And next Sunday...
Me: Yep.
Valery: And give me ice cream!
Me: *eyebrows raised amusedly* No...ice cream!!??
Valery: Ice cream. And cake. And candy...
Me: And pizza?
Valery: Ice cream.

He's such a hoot. Although I have no idea how Nadia manages to deal with him sometimes. I guess at this point she just has had a lot of practice.

The Y's are having a lot of company these days...4 family members from Kyiv who have been here over a week and are staying indefinitely, plus 6-8 more coming this week. The three oldest kids are at various camps right now, leaving Nadia with a houseful of little kids and a lot of extra people. When, as always, she said yesterday that I could come over any time, I said, "I thought I maybe wouldn't come this week since you have so many people here." She gave me a hug and said, "You're no problem. I love you like one of my own kids."

That's made me feel happy ever since.

Oh, and if anyone ever wants to know what happens to Operation Christmas Child boxes, I know where 10 of them go every year...to the Y house in Balaklia! I've been drafted to help write thank-you notes when this year's batch comes.

~*~

Kharkiv is bad for my pocketbook. I went in BOOKS, the very nice bookstore where I bought Harry Potter in Ukrainian, and found Anne of Green Gables in English, but with explanatory footnotes in Ukrainian and activities to use if using it in university classes. For 20 hryvnia.

So, of course, I bought it, as L. M. Montgomery was my favorite author throughout middle and high school. Granted, I don't think I have anyone who can read well enough to use it in school, but I had an enjoyable re-read Saturday evening. It's a lot funnier than I remember...I think because at the point when I first read it, I saw the whole story through Anne's eyes as a dreamy, talkative adolescent, and didn't realize how funny she was to adults.

I also found brown sugar, but that will have to wait until my next trip to Kharkiv, as train tickets to Kyiv have doubled in price (that was the original objective...to buy tickets to and from Kyiv for the Germany trip), so my extra spending money was diminished for this trip.