The Bean! I had never seen it in person before and it was much bigger than I realized. Here we are under it (note how bundled we are – it was COLD!):

Last evening we attended a college basketball double-header at Atlantis. Georgia Tech v. Richmond and Mississippi State v. Virginia Tech. It was fun and good people watching. I was amazed how many people seemed to be at Atlantis just to go to the games. I can’t imagine spending that much money traveling to see a game. Of course that’s easy for me to say since we were given free tickets. We determined that Virginia Tech must have the wealthiest alumni, as they seemed to have the biggest – and loudest – fan base there by far.

Atlantis had converted their large ballroom into a basketball court and brought in bleachers. We were seated in the third row behind the “home” bench, meaning we got to see inside the huddles of both Georgia Tech and Mississippi State. We were also seated two rows behind the leader of the Bahamian political opposition party, so it was fun to see him get special delivery of his concessions orders. (I wonder if Obama gets the same service when he goes to Georgetown games?) It got even more fun during the second game when we realized that the section next to ours seemed to be family members of the Mississippi State coaches. I grew up in a family of basketball coaches and I recognized the shrill screaming of the woman on the aisle as being filled with the desperation of a spouse that knows her Bahamian vacation will be absolutely ruined if the team loses the game. I’m sorry to say for her that it did not look good when we left at halftime.

As fun as the games were, the halftime entertainment was even better. Both halftimes were the same, but it was worth staying through it the second time. They started with some “dancers,” which were the equivalent of Pop Warner cheerleaders. Meh. But then they brought out some “tumblers” who ranged from tiny girls doing cartwheels to teenagers who looked like they must be preparing for the Olympics. Better. But then…out came the “All-Star” marching band from Government High School. They put on a great show. Good music, well-choreographed, and all around fun.

Note: There’s a video below that doesn’t seem to be showing up on Google Reader. Click on over to my site if you want to see it!

Her dog, Charlie, is a super-sweet, well-behaved Shih Tzu. No problem there. Our dog, as you know, is a super-hyper, non-behaving Doberman. Charlie thought the best way to spend the day would be to lay on the couch together and snuggle. Laika thought that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. If there’s another dog in the room, the best thing to do is Play, Play, PLAY!!! You know I was totally on Charlie’s side, but, unfortunately, Laika out-muscles us both.

The following is what ensued when the two were brought together. You’ll notice the crazy camera angle. That’s because Charlie thought the safest place to get away from Laika would be on my lap. That crazy Doberman would never lunge and snap at her owner, right? Sorry, Charlie.

So I would tolerate about an hour of Laika basically getting in Charlie’s face and going “HEY, HEY, HEY!” And Charlie snapping back with “Get out of my face, you freak!” Then I would force them apart (well, mostly the force was on Laika’s end) for an hour of mandated rest time. This went on for the longest 9 hours of my life. On the positive side, I was only bitten 3 times. As you can see, it could have been much, much worse.

First of all, when Laika and I went for our walk today, we entered a park near home at the same time as a group of children who appeared to be from a local daycare. A dozen kids around preschool age with one teacher. Not weird so far. On our first lap around the park, we saw that the teacher had gathered the kids in a grassy area where they were all running around and being generally kid-like. Not weird yet. As we approached the grassy area on our second lap around the park, I saw that the children had all stripped down to their underwear and were playing some sort of Follow The Leader-type game, led by the teacher (who was, thankfully, still fully clothed). There it is! The weirdness. My first thought was: how embarrassing for those children to be forced to walk around mostly naked in a public park. My second thought was: how many pedophiles are in the park right now? I didn’t have my camera with me, so I have no photographic evidence of this sighting, but I think a photo of that type would probably bring an unsavory new audience to my blog anyway.

Then, this afternoon, I was working at the computer, when a weed whacker started up behind our building. This part was not weird, as I have seen very few lawn mowers in Kyiv – most mowing here is actually done with weed whackers. Then the weed whacking got really loud. Like raise-the-dead loud. So of course I had to go out on our balcony to see what was going on. This is what I found:

Yes, the guy was swinging his weed whacker around at head level to cut down some vines. I don’t know a whole lot about lawn maintenance, but this is not normal, right? And kind of dangerous as well? And notice that he’s right next to our neighbor’s car. Awesome.

And just so you don’t think that all the strange sightings are in Kyiv, here are a couple things from our trip to Crimea:

On a horribly long, un-air conditioned bus ride from Yalta to Sudak, our bus stopped for the 50th time due to “traffic congestion” (a.k.a. Ukrainian driver stupidity) and I looked out the window to see this:

Random. And weird. And then people started posing for photographs with it.

And finally, I put this more in the category of culturally interesting rather than strange, but it is indeed a sighting in Ukraine. (See, I am culturally sensitive.) Shawn and I were out on the boardwalk in Sevastopol in the early evening when it was starting to fill with different gatherings of people. We passed the hip-hop/breakdancing youth group. Then the karaoke group. Then we came upon this group. I could put in all kinds of social commentary here, but I think sometimes it’s just important to enjoy your surroundings and the fact that they’re different than what you’re used to. So according to those rules, this was pretty cool.

But there have also been the snuggly times (okay, these are pretty few and far between, but that just makes them more special); there’s the look on her face when she admits that she loves us; there’s the funny little snort that she makes when she is so frustrated with us, but we just giggle; and there’s her elusive tail wag that makes us shout “look at her tail!”

This is a video that I shot a few months ago and used some spiffy software to put together in montage format. It makes us giggle every time we watch it. Laika’s playing with her favorite toy – a stuffed sheep that we bought at a market the week after we got her and promptly named Wooley. He’s looking a little worn at this point, and we’re worried about what we’re going to do if he ever completely wears out because she is absolutely in love with him. Anyway, you’ll see that the video is very touching (the music and slow motion helps), but the really funny part is that in real time, she’s flinging him around by the neck as if she’s trying to kill him. This is how she shows her love, you see.