Our winter

The snow is slowly starting to melt and this is bringing new hazards - falling icicles:
Excerpt from the Kyiv Post :

It’s the season of falling ice, a perilous time in Kyiv - Yuliya Popova

. . . The snowfalls have been more than brief flurries this winter. And the layers of packed snow and ice have brought their own hardship: One person has been killed and thousands have been injured on Kyiv’s slippery streets.

Until the spring thaw, Kyivans are warned to walk as far from buildings as they can and to look up so as to get out of the way of falling icicles and ice blocks.

Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, long thought to be on vacation somewhere warm, even snapped into action. He asked citizens to alert him about dangerous ice-block formations on the city’s roofs and promised to remove them – pronto. . . ." I appeal to all Kyivans not to be indifferent and to call me personally 1551 and report icicles,” he said on Feb 19. . . . ..

For some people, however, this wake-up call came too late. Pensioner Galyna Zinyuk, 78, was one of them. She went out for a walk with her husband on Feb 21 to the Park of Glory in the Pechersk district and was hit by a brick of ice. It dropped from the roof of the National State Transport University and landed right on Zinyuk’s head. According to witness reports, she died on the spot. . . . .City authorities called a few emergency meetings to respond to the icy crisis. “All the dangerous places near buildings should be sealed off with warning tapes, and I particularly request that Kyiv residents walk around such zones,” Chernovetsky said.

Municipal workers followed the orders, cordoning off many pavements with red-and-white tape. Cars parked along curbs took a good share of the remaining walking space, leaving people the choice of venturing under roofs or dodging speeding traffic.

“We receive 30 to 35 people daily,” said Yevhen Kasyan, a doctor in the Shevchenko accident clinic. It’s twice more than last year, he said, and "there are more fractures than before.”

There are still many icicles in the city and, with the weather getting warmer, they would be showering down in the blink of an eye. “If a five-kilo ice block falls from the fourth floor, it hits the ground with the power of more than 75 kilos,” said Nikolayev.

Anxious citizens say it is time for business owners and city officials to do their math and remove the dangerous ice clusters before it is too late.

Proactivity

Just thought that you should know that the Department of State has reviewed their fees for many of the services – passports, visas, services while abroad – etc. You can review the fees by looking at the PDF here http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=0900006480a8ffe8

In a nutshell, some fees – such as getting a passport are increasing slightly (27% + $20 increase for the security surcharge) while other fees are increasing whole lot (adding pages to your passport because you filled it up with stamps during the 10 years validity period – going from free to $80 – just $30 short of applying for a whole new passport!!)

You can comment on the fees up until March 8^th, 2010!!!!

If you think these fees might affect you, you might review the document above and read their reasoning for changing the fees and comment on areas where you approve or disapprove.

And – if you’re not interested in doing any of that – then you might at least want to consider renewing, refilling, or applying for a passport before the fees increase to save yourself a few bucks.

If you do decide to send comments – they can be submitted by e-mail to fees@state.gov RIN (1400–AC58) should be included in the subject line of the e-mail.

Wishing

I'm wishing very very hard on the first star to make it through the foggy night that i'll wake up tomorrow and there will be no snow.

I'm wishing vainly, but I'm wishing all the same.

Sunday was beautiful. It was the first day I hadn't worn 2 layers of long-johns. In fact, i was a real rebel and didn't wear any long-johns though i still had two cardigans on over my sweater. We walked out to the metro to church and the sun was shining, the birds were singing and despite the muck and lakes of melting snow - I felt that spring was definitely in the air.
By 6 o'clock the sky was gray and great big snow flakes were falling. The big fluffy kind that don't fall individually, but fall in colonies. Fluffy colonies of snowflakes falling gently to the ground. It could have been pretty - if it had come in December or November and if it hadn't turned into a full fledged exodus of snowflake colonies storming from the sky in uncountable numbers. But just that morning it had smelled like spring - and so the snow, no matter how fluffy just didn't seem pretty.

Our cat enjoyed it tremendously. Big snowflake colonies must look like small birds or bugs to him because he meowed his hunting meow and swished his tail. We even opened the window for him and he managed to catch a few of them - probably wondered how the disappeared so fast and thinking they tasted extra delicious and water flavored.

Today again the sky was bright and sunny - but the temperature had dropped and air didn't quite have the essence of spring - but all the same I am wishing.

Joy

You might remember my post from December 2008 that described the ignoble process of paying ones bills here in Ukraine.
Well - after a very long shuffle of head honchos within our apartment building, (due to the summer no water fiasco and the revelation that 14 apartments hadn't been paying bills for like 10 years) we have apparently signed on with a larger company that is in charge of tracking payments for utilities and apartment services - AKA Komunalni Service.
At the same time - an online company, Portmone , has been steadily expanding its corporate clients and allowing individuals to pay their bills online.

This month marked the first month where we could pay EVERYTHING - internet, phone, electric, water, and apartment services - online - all for the meager fee of $1.05 for using the service. Well worth it to NOT stand in line for over an hour and having people cut and yell at you or tell you you can't pay because you wrote in the wrong color of ink or didn't do such and such (after standing line for more than an hour).

I was so happy, I literally danced a jig.

A view on homemaking

Lots of studies have been coming out recently on the actual value of a second income - most saying that the costs incurred by having two people working outside of the home actually exceed the benefits. Interesting - but what about the money spent on the degree and the boredom experienced by many in doing the same thing day in and day out? While I'm not technically a full-fledged homemaker - having plenty of other things that keep me busy and no children (yet) - i still get tired of how a freshly cleaned living room is no longer clean, or a tidy kitchen has suddenly sprouted a mountain of dishes. (How can two people make so many dishes???)

This article from OpenDemocracy is a very different take on homemaking - promoting it as a radical life choice that does a better job of saving the planet, building peace, and creating economic balance than a UN commission. In the article she presents a brief historical overview of the household, showing a transition from a unit of production to a unit of consumption.

More election news

So the 2nd round of the Presidential elections happened Sunday and true to Ukrainian tradition it won't be the last as it looks like Tymoshenko is going to dispute the elections - despite the fact that the OSCE said that this was a model example of free and fair elections.

As you can see the election split the country in half - with the west voting for Tymoshenko and the East voting for Yanokovych. This is the sharpest election divide yet. Even the Kiev Oblast, which has traditionally been more balanced - had a 70% turnout for Tymoshenko. This doesn't bode well and it will take some delicate politics not to isolate half the country and promote extremism and separatism.