Summer and Skirts

Summer is almost here. The weather is warm, the trees and flowers are in bloom and my students are as disinterested in English as they've ever been. I understand, I was a student once too, but it's annoying as a teacher.

I'm getting very excited for summer, not just because I'll have no school, but because my parents are coming in June. I've been busy planning for their whirlwind tour through Ukraine (Bar, Lviv) and Hungary (Budapest).

***

Last wednesday, the 9th of May, we celebrated Victory Day. It's one of my favorite holidays because it is all about remembering the victims and the heros of World War II. In the morning, I joined the teachers at my school in a parade through town. There were hundreds of people in the parade. We walked through town to the first of two war memorials. Each organization walking in the parade put flowers at the foot of the statue. Then we walked to the park and put flowers at the war memorial there. There were speeches and songs and it was all very nice.

The weather was bad last wednesday: cold, rainy and very windy. Yet there were still festivities in the park. There were kiosks with food and drinks and ice cream and cakes. People picnicked despite the bad weather. My friends and I spend about 30 minutes in the park before we threw in the towel, opting for the warmth of my apartment.

***

Since the 9th, the weather has been lovely, hot even. Roma and I often meet our friends at the park and spend the evenings outside. Last week I had the misfortune of sitting down on a bench that had just been painted -- blue. I had a comical blue bench mark across the rear of my favorite black skirt. I wasn't alone. My friend Alona also had blue bench marks across her jeans.

Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in getting the paint out of my skirt...so I gave it to Roma's mom and let her work her magic. She managed to get the blue stains out by washing my skirt in gasoline. As you can imagine, I was thrilled. Now I'm just working on getting the gasoline smell out of the skirt. I fear that by the time I'm done with this task, I will have washed/gasolined my poor skirt to death. We'll see.