Botched That One, Lets Do It Again.

"Whatever you do today will set the tone for the rest of your year."This is the text I received from Shelley a few days ago. I thought thatmaybe she had opened a fortune cookie or she had just simply lost it.Not too quick to judge though, I called in for an explanation.Apparently it was some kind of religious holiday in western Ukraine,and because it was a tone setter Shelley's school would not let her doany laborious work. Every day seems to be some kind of a holiday. Thereare name days, national holidays, regional holidays, religiousholidays, etc. Then normally there is the day before and after thatrequires rest and preparation for the holiday. All in all, maybe 2/3rdsof the year is spent celebrating and in some cases, this day being one,no one can really explain why that particular day is what it is, otherthan thats just how its always been. I love holidays. I love history. I love the history of holidays. So, Iwent to a few Ukrainian friends of mine and inquired about this day. Noone knows or understands why its that day. I thought it would make moresense to have this day on New Years Day because thats the first day ofthe year and most people have traditions to set the tone of the year. Iexplained this to my friends and they told me that they ALSO have thesetraditions on New Years Day. There is also a similar day in July thatsets the tone for the rest of the year. So, which one of these holidays supercedes the other? I guess so thatjust in case you botch one of these days you have a fail safe to rescuethe rest of your year.

Nostalgia

When we are in elementary school, teachersalways make assorted punishments to teach us about consequences and rules. Thewriting of math tables after school, writing sentences about "what i will notdo..." during recess, or standing in the corner during game time. Duringmy rebellious youth I broke the record for the amount of time i had to"stand on the fence". For the typical student we got marks on theboard and for each mark next to our name we had to stand 5 minutes. My marksmeant entire recess periods. I'm not sure what it is about the magical power ofteachers at that age but they seemed to be a kind of sorcerer or part of harrypotters wizarding community. Each mark on the board increased the strength ofthe magical bonds that tied you to the fence post and if you even attempted anepic escape, fireballs and earthquakes would rain down upon you from the handsof the teacher. One gleeful day I actually did not have to stand on the fence and my friendsand I set out to conquer the playground. The only problem was that when wearrived on the battlefield I really had to use the bathroom. Another magicalrule of the teacher was that once you stepped through the arcs of theplayground you could not leave. There was a powerful boundary set between thesewooden posts and I had already crossed passed it. I tried really hard to waitbut patience and pain were widdling me down. I was 8 years old at the time andmy sense of humility was limited to none, I didn't the rules of the world, onlythe powers of the teacher and social status. I decided that a giant oak tree inthe back corner of the battlefield would cover me from the all seeing eyes ofthe teachers. It was tall, thick, and ancient with powers far beyond that ofthe teacher. So, I went and as I turned the corner to return to my conquest acrowd of kids and teachers were waiting for me. Lets just say that I was reallyembarrassed. Fireballs and earthquakes didn't reign down from the teachers thatday but from my parents and the principle. Marks were irrelevant asrepresenting entire recesses now, they now were the representation of entireyears of standing on the fence. This is the story of an 8 year old during growing pains and massive amounts ofawkwardness. I think of this time a lot more now that I'm in Ukraine and I seea lot of "public toilets" - walls, alleyways, phone booths, and otherplaces usually conveniently situated outside of a bar or a gambling palacecalled "Royal" in Cyrillic, - or next to my business center. (insteadof the short cut behind the building we call it the shit cut - clever yea?)Dont get me wrong, there ARE public toilets in Ukraine, most of them areunderground and are never cleaned or most of them cost a handful of change toget into and are never cleaned. Once when I was out with a guy from myUkrainian family I had to go to the toilet and I asked him where the closestone was. He laughed at me and said "this is Ukraine, toilets areeverywhere". I didn't really get it at the time but now I understand withcomplete sincerity that he meant not "toilets are everywhere" butthat everywhere is a toilet. At first it was gross but I just kind of laugh atit now and think "I guess this is what were trying to change", butthen again I'm not really sure.