On Friday people kept complimenting me on my sweater. "This sweater has a STORY," I told them.
Kyivian winter weather has arrived, and I'm still walking to work (30-35 minutes). It just takes longer to get dressed in the morning. Underwear, polypropylene long johns or wool tights, long undershirt, socks, more socks, top layer of sweater, skirt, pants, whatever, scarf, headband, hat, glove liners, mittens, coat, boots. I'm puffing before I even start walking.
Last week it snowed every day. By Thursday the snow had been compressed to solid ice in a lot of places (sidewalks are cleared sometimes, but not often). I tried walking but realized it would take twice as long as usual, so waved down a marshrutka (local minibus, cheap: 50 kopeks or 10 cents, expensive where you might actually get a seat: 1 hrivna 50 kopeks or 30 cents).
Patty had given me a pair of black rubber straps studded with spikes that fit over boots. I decided to try them out on Friday--one more thing to put on, but they worked! no sliding or slipping as I clattered over the ice!
But more than halfway to school, too late to turn back, a dreadful realization: under my coat, above my waist, I was wearing only my long undershirt. In the glee of donning black rubber and spikes, I'd forgotten my sweater.
What to do? wear my coat all day long? borrow something from Victoria, the grade 1 teacher next door? she has a couple of extra sweaters, but she's a size 0. wear the science teacher's lab coat? bluff my way through the day wearing an undershirt?
to be continued.
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4 comments:
I want to see pictures, lots of them.
My mother tell the story of when I was 4 and stayed with my Grandmother in Brooklyn. It was winter, and we were snowed in and I had to stay for a week. When my parents came to get me, they could hardly see me under all the layers of clothing my Grandmother dressed me in. She was from Russia. I must have looked like you. Did you have a babuska on your head?
I thought a babuska was a term used for grandma or elderly people?
Is babuska something else or do I have the spelling wrong?
I read in they are taking down soviet statues and replacing them with one statue of Ronald Reagan as he was the great facilitator of change in the Soviet Union. I guess they are concerned with the end result. alicia
"babushka" also means "scarf" worn over the head--all the old ladies here wear them and that's how the word evolved. Now it seems to be a generic word for "old people" so the security guards at apt. buildings are called "babushkas." (my building has two men, two women, all called babushkas)
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