Our Apartment

We purchased the apartment from an elderly woman named Very Petrova. Her husband and son from her first marriage had died, so she decided to cash in and move to the burbs where living is less expensive. When we first viewed the apartment in August, Vera welcomed us into her home with a toothless smile and open arms. We immediately loved her and the space. The apartment had not been renovated since the late 60's, maybe even earlier. After the second world war this type of house was used for communal living; several families in one big room with a shared kitchen and toilet: maybe a toilet. In the 60's the big rooms were divided up and made into apartments. Vera Petrova and her family were living in the apartment at that time. They were told to leave, find an other place to live for 4 months, then return to a new apartment of their own. The reconstruction of the interior during this time made the apartments oddly organized. In ours the toilet room is one long corridor because to make the toilet the construction engineers built a wall in the corridor thus adding another room. Interesting.

Vera moved out at the beginning of September and we began our reconstruction at the end of September. The contractor in charge is named Roman; accent on the second vowel. He is young and somewhat inexperienced, as we are quickly learning, but he is not as expensive as other more experienced contractors. Masha is dealing with him on a daily basis making sure he follows the plan and he does not over spend on materials. She has had a few serious talks with him about his lack of planning. She is very good at being direct. This I appreciate.

We are still living with Ira but we have now found our own temporary place which we will move into a week or so from now. Autumn break begins today and most people are taking off from here, but I will be around working to get the next unit of study organised with the new grade 5 teacher. Apparently the first one did not like his apartment so he decided to bolt back to Alberta. The new guy is friendly and has no apartment problems. He has a good ear too as I now tend to go on at length about the renovation. Soon it will be tiles and paint chips.

That's the view from here this week.

It's Thanksgiving this week

The weather has turned and fall is definitely here. Masha says it's now a real Indian Summer because the weather is cool but skies are clear. Today we woke up in a fog, literally, the air was filled with a thick haze moving across the yard. Beautiful.

It's my first attempt at blogging. This will be brief, but I hope to make entries more interestin' in the near future.

Today I am cooking two turkeys. Or is it two turkies? Nonetheless, here we only get the parts to cook but Masha's mother has a 'realtionship' with the butcher, and was able to convince him to keep 2 from being chopped into their various bits. She even got him to keep them in the freezer there until we needed them and he offered to rotate them if fresh ones came in. For this we are thankful.

I am missing my high school reunion in the Soo but I have informed some representatives to mention my name as much as possible, and that I could not attend due to my high flying international lifestyle. No, I don't yet have a Citizen's quartz watch.

Tonight we will go to Wendy's house. She has invited some other Canadians living here for a T-giving dinner. I offered to cook turkey. And I'm glad I did. One is done, the other will be soon.

We wish you all a wonderful Thansgiving. Look here in a week or so for another entry. I am off to Istanbul at the weekend with the boys football team. This trip may provide some interesting fodder. We'll see.

Cheers
October 7, 2006