“You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

I kinda felt the same way when I woke up: I was particularly cheery, excited to start my day. No, I wasn’t getting ready to lay fire to Viet Nam, but I was ready to get back on my motorcycle. After all, it was the first damn day in 2 weeks that it wasn’t raining. Wooo-hooo. No kidding. It started raining 2 weeks ago and did not stop until yesterday evening. It has been gray, ugly, overcast, cold, and frumpy.

I woke up, meandered for a minute or two, and noticed (after leaving my room and returning) that our room has taken on a cat odor. You see, we have taken into our custody 4 kittens that we have spared from the hands of Peasant death. They are the second litter of the year from our adopted cat Yoda, out at our summer house. The first litter met certain death, after it was born in the Peasants barn. The Peasants, being that they have several cat-mouths to feed as it is, simply drowned the last litter (of 5) as soon as they were born. Easy come-easy go –> life in a rural former Soviet Republic. So Yoda had the sense, and we had the compassion, to have the next litter in our attic. We have cared for them, and Mom, and fostered their growth until now. Last weekend we brought them to Kiev, so that we could bring them to the market to sell/give away. Of course, it has been raining non-stop, so we haven’t gone yet. It has been fun, playing with 8 week old kittens… but damn, their shit smells. We live in a small apartment, and our living situation mandates that we have the kittens and the litter box in our room. So be it… a little smell ain’t soooo bad… especially because they are truly soooooo DAMN CUTE!!!!

After admiring the noxious smell coating our room, I decided I needed a shower. I hit the shower running, just thinking of all the fun I could have without the rain…  and then…  BLAMMO!

Chlorine

I tell ya, THAT was nasty. As if the water quality isn’t bad enough as it is. You shant drink it, if you know what’s good for you. Many people trust the water from the outdoor well (between building complexes) more than what flows through our pipes. Anyway, something (some bug) must have been particularly nasty, because I could literally smell the chlorine in the water — and the taste, from what squeezed past my nostrils and tightened lips, was even further perturbing. Either they were doing their yearly sterilization of all the pipes with a Chlorine Blast, or some nasty bioorganism crept into the water supply that they (the water controllers) had to eradicate rather quickly.

Whatever… just one more of those things that makes you scratch your head and wonder –> “what am I exposing myself to by living in these conditions?”

Another funny water issue came back to haunt us today. Thankfully it didn’t happen while I was in the shower. Anyway… from 9am until noon every Thursday, the water is shut off. I seem to remember somethign like this happening last year, but I had forgotten about it because it has been so long (aside from the 2.5 weeks where the hot water was off in June/July). I don’t know why they do it, but once a week, the water is OFF! No hot, no cold.

I’ve only been caught once off-guard!

Yep, I was using the toilet. Number 2. I went to flush, and someone had already depleted the tank after the water had been switched off. What could I do? I made sure nobody saw me exit the bathroom, and quickly got dressed and left the house. Too badk for the next person. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know. There’s no way to know. How could I have known?

Turnabout is fair play. I went into the bathroom yesterday and found a mother-in-law turd staring up at me. I lost my appetite to pee, flushed, and waited another 15 minutes until the image, albeit slowly, faded from my memory.