My Blog is Constipated

Seems I have blog constipation. Is celery good for that? Or FibraCon? My father-in-law brought some plums from Zhytomir today--maybe that will work.

Well, here goes nothing. Costya, Lena's dad, came to Kyiv today with a box full of fruit from their garden. Among those goodies was a quince. Unfamiliar with the quince? Me too. Wikipedia tells me it doesn't grow in North America because of a blight. It's unbelievably bitter, and I am not sure what they do with it. It's pictured here.

Costya came because he is going to help us renovate the entryway at the UEC. It's quite a mess and we hope to fix it up for our 5-year anniversary this October. We did some measuring and
went to a building supply store. Several years ago they didn't exist but now there are little Home Depots popping up everywhere. We were treated rather rudely by a lady in the tile department. She told us that there was no difference between tile one puts on the floor and tile one puts on the wall. And acted like we were crazy for even thinking there was a difference. Of course, the boxes are marked, even in English, with things like "FLOOR TILE" and "WALL TILE". I thought about providing a little English lesson but figured there wasn't much point. We just aren't buying any tile there. I guess we will go to the Left Bank at the big open-air market to find a deal on some wall tile.

The cell group tonight had some good discussion about prayer and an unruly member who may have to be asked not to come again. It's been who knows how many times there have been problems with this person, severe divisive problems. We have talked to the person so many times but it seems nothing is helping. I think, now, only God can intervene.

The government is starting to collapse. Last week, Yulia Tymoshenko formed an opposition with her deputies and two from the Socialists. Today, it looks like the president's party has given up on negotiating to form a working coalition, so the orange Our Ukraine may be coming into the opposition. If just a few more socialists will jump ship, passengers on the Titanic may just be enjoying their last dance. I doubt they will all jump, though, and we need them all. I am just afraid we are in for 4.5 years of misery until the next parliamentary elections. Presidential elections are soon, but unless the Constitutional Court does something quick, the Ukrainian president will soon have less power than the Queen of England. At least she is incredibly rich!