Soup's on? Nope, just part of our morning routine.
The great thing about apartment living in Kyiv: An endless supply of really hot water. The bad thing: The two weeks every summer when the city turns off the aforementioned hot water in order to work on the pipes. I realize that many, many people on our planet face a life full of cold water every single day, and so I'm being a whiney wimp. Be that as it may, those two frigid weeks are quickly topping my list of least-favorite times to live here. Last year, it didn’t seem so bad because a) the first week, I was babysitting for a family that has their own, personal hot-water heater, b) the weather was really warm, and c) I was having some stomach pain, so the doctor put me on an all-oatmeal diet for the second week, and you just don’t need hot water to wash the mush pot.
This year is last year’s polar (as in “I’m as cold as a polar bear”) opposite. This year, of the 14 days that the water is expected to be off, we’ll have had unlucky houseguests for a full seven of them. This year, it’s still chilly outside, with powerful (and beautiful) thunderstorms. And this year, I need to cook using chicken, beef and other slimy, germy foods that cry out for a good, scalding dishware scrub.
Eric braves the cold water and comes out of the shower with his teeth chattering. I, on the other hand, enlist the aid of every pot we have, boil as much water as possible and take a lukewarm bath in about 2 inches of water. Sigh. Only three more days.
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