Pace yourself

If ever you should find yourself on your birthday in Simferopol, and have the good fortune to be invited to someone’s home for lunch and someone else’s for dinner, you should, first, count yourself lucky. Second, pace yourself. Third, pace yourself. Because there’s always more to come. The instant a plate appears empty there will be more salat oliviér to fill it up, or more chebureshki, or more manta, or cake, or homemade wine, or more of whatever the table is laden heavy with...  Oh, we do know these things, but we forget.

It was a good day. I woke up to some lovely things from friends far away, spent the morning interviewing a Crimean Tatar musicologist, made contact with accordion, bayan, folk ensemble, and other faculty members at the University (who I’m looking forward to working with over the coming months), and then had my Tatar lesson in Milara-odzha’s home. I got to hang out with her two adorable little girls (ages 8 and 11), who presented me with happy birthday watercolors of Minnie Mouse and Baba Yaga. We quizzed each other on proper nouns - they had the right answers in Tatar and I knew the English, at least. We played and sang Tatar songs at the keyboard and I taught them “Heart & Soul” for four hands. It still needs some work.

People who I have known for exactly a week were so kind as to gift me many books, a mug (it says "Мариа" - I'm holding it in the too-dark photo that I attempted to salvage at the top of this page), enormous boxes of chocolates, a loofah, and even a statue of a mouse standing on a glittering pile of money. (How did they know?)

Tomorrow, I'm going to write a less diary-like entry. On the idea of "home." 

Спокойной ночи!