Happy Valentines Day!

My red roses and the crocheted chocolates I made

Garry woke me up with a dozen roses for Valentines Day. He said the man was reluctant to sell him such an even number, but he said he was sure he wanted 12. In Ukraine, flowers are given in odd numbers, even numbers of flowers are for funerals.
 Later that afternoon we were in the mall and saw many girls carrying one rose or three roses, and one with a huge bouquet, which I am sure had an odd number in total, maybe 15.

  I had packed some candy for Garry in my suitcase, Hershey miniatures, a large kiss and peanut butter cups, but I crocheted him a special box of chocolates that will last, also. The boys here decided they were a great joke gift.

Garry bought me a card, too

If you are wondering how Garry bought flowers early in the morning, he had taken the overnight train to Kiev on Wednesday night to check out the Farm Show in Kiev. Andrey and both Maxs went with him. I decided to stay home and take advantage of the empty house to give the bathroom a couple coats of white paint.

Garry said that there were not as many exhibitors or people visiting the show as the one we went to in the fall (story is on the trade school blog) He had hoped to find a corn planter to buy, because it has become apparent that the one he liked at the show in the fall from Turkey is not going to work out, the company does not know how to get it here. He said there was only one that was close to what he wanted, but it had electric motors everywhere- like on each fertilizers box instead of chains, and that looked like trouble. No "bobcat" either, so they are back to checking ads for used ones for sale on the internet.

So Friday morning they got home shortly after 8 am, with roses. I had to get up and let them in the door. I did not sleep much because around 10:30 I was trying to touch up the paint job, when the stool I was standing on tipped, while I was reaching up paintbrush in one hand and phone in the other, because Garry had phoned while he was waiting for the train back, to tell me about his visit to a new KFC. Exciting news, a Kentucky Fried Chicken near the train station, we have never seen one before in Ukraine. Anyway, I fell hard to the tiled floor and really whacked the back on my head, bent my glasses, scraped my leg... and finally went to sleep around 4 am, after holding frozen hotdogs to the lump on my head for several hours.

After a morning nap, and a quick lunch, we went into Dnepro because Garry was doing his English book club meeting that evening. We actually went to the mall and went bowling, however, I only won one game, unlike the week before when I beat Garry twice. You pay for the lane by the hour; in one hour, the two of us can almost finish 5 games. The mall was full of balloons and young couples listening to a pop band that was playing downstairs on a stage. You could even take photos with a giant white bear for valentines.

We did not have many people out for our meeting, which is held at the CCL building, since we don't live in the city. Unfortunately one of the guys was bitten by the neighboring dog that was loose,on his way in, it ripped a foot long tear in his jeans. There is an alley off the street, you go into through a gate to get to the door. The dog was inside the alley when we arrived and it seemed a little protective, I held my purse behind me, between me and dog, but it hung back then.  Victor tried to find the owner to complain, but there was no answer to banging on and  calling out at their gate (standard way to get someone to answer here, if you wonder). The dog was still running loose when we left so we walked very carefully past him, but everyone got out without further problems. We felt very bad for Eugene, luckily his leg was not hurt badly. His jeans however are quite ruined.

We passed a different mall, the Dafi on our way out of the city, and the parking lot was overflowing. It seems that Valentines day is becoming a more popular holiday here, especially for young lovers, even though one of our older students told us she does not celebrate it because it is not one of their holidays. Those days are coming soon, Feb 23rd is Mens day, and March 8th is Women's day, when Ukrainians give gifts to friends, relatives and people they work with.... almost every adult!

Most city centre mall was ready for Valentines Friday