Imagine this

Imagine walking down a wide boulevard.  The temperature is perfect at 78, the humidity is low, there's a soft breeze, the air is filled with sweet scents from the flowering trees and bushes, and it seems like a warm snowfall with the millions of fluffy cottonwood seeds blowing everywhere.  I can't imagine a more  beautiful early evening.

Today is the first day since Monday that I feel well.  The walk to Glossary was not an ordeal and it was a welcome walk stretching muscles with a sense of healing rather than pain and weakness.  I was not nearly as short-winded as even yesterday.  I've been careful not to overdo.  Kate texted this morning to see if I needed her to do any shopping for me.  Jenia texted from work to hope he'd see me today.  It's funny how some foods don't tire me, like the cabbage salad that everyone makes fun of me for.  We just don't have tender young cabbage at home as they do here.  Something smelled good so I asked what it was and found that it was the chicken meatballs in a spicy oniony garlicky tomato sauce served with steamed whole buckwheat grains.  Normally a cookie is served with cappuccino and a pot of turbinado sugar with cappuccino.  Early in the week, I asked Jenia to not bring sugar or cookies since I was trying to get my blood sugar down. Instead of bringing nothing, today he brought two perfectly ripe strawberries with my before-meal coffee and a slice of a kind of white melon I've never had before that tasted like honey with my after-meal coffee.

Friday night was a repeat of last Friday night.  Bishop Volodya, Fr. Melkizedech, Boris, Ivan, and Igor came over and hung out with me till 11:30 when, once again, they had to scurry for the last metro.  Lots of planning and laughter.  Melkizedech is a young priest (32 on Monday) who is very bright and very large and very jolly.  He has a great laugh.  While they were there, Volodya got a call from another priest friend in another part of county who is a Facebook friend.  He and I had a chance to hear each others' voices for the first time.  We decided that we will make a united religious presence in the Pride parade.  They are a little afraid, but I told them I will walk with them so they shouldn't be too afraid.  Hopefully we won't see stones or eggs thrown at us.

Early this afternoon, Volodya and Boris came to drop off the items we'll need for divine liturgy tomorrow which will be at my apartment at 11am.   It will be the first time I have liturgy with them as an Orthodox priest.  It is also the first time I will see several of my friends since I arrived.

It's been a good day.  For the next days I will walk more and more to build up my strength.  I will enjoy my friends and thank God for life and health and family.  Oh, here are some photos from today.

This is an adventitious chive.  Don't know how it got here but it's a survivor:

And here are the colorful buildings along my boulevard.  The yellow one is part of the library of the National University system and the red one is the Red University you saw in one of the photos I posted the other day.  The late afternoon sun makes the colors incredibly vibrant.

And finally the national opera house, also on my street.  I pass all these things daily on my walks.  I never get tired of their beauty.  There are always people, young and old, lined up to buy tickets or to attend a performance.