You Should Live Here

I know that one of my friends had a post (or posts) with this title, telling about funny, fun, outrageous or interesting things about the place she lived. I liked the idea and have been wanting to use it, but now (maybe because of the depletion of brain cells?) I can't remember who I'm stealing the idea from. So whoever you are, just remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And I'll pay you royalties or something.

Anyway, in an effort to laugh a bit and appreciate a bit, I thought from time to time I would post reasons you should live here. I will try to keep most of the sarcasm out, but I can't guarantee that every once in a while there won't be a tongue in cheek reason that you should relocate. I'll let you decide if I'm serious. And if my reasons to live here compel you to visit, if not flat out move here, let me know. We've got extra beds. We'll leave the light on.

So...(drumroll)...today's reason that you should live here is...

Mayonnaise in a bag.

When I lived here before, they had all kinds of things in bags - mayo, milk, sour cream, kefir (sour yogurt milk stuff), yogurt, you name it. I didn't like it much because the bags had two problems: they could not stand upright, and you had to open them with scissors, so once they were open, you had to move them to a different container. This usually meant a recycled jar of some sort. One that often retained its smell of pickles or eggplant ikra or dilly garlic canned tomatoes.

But now, thirteen years later, innovation has reared it's shy little head in Ukraine and they have bagged liquid items with flat or pleated bottoms AND a screw-on lid on one corner of the bag. It's a beautiful thing.



The mayo bag made it fabulous to pack sandwich fixin's for our road trip and just squirt it right on the bread. It took less room in the cooler than a jar or bottle would have, and I didn't need to think about packing - or being able to adequately clean - a mayo-spreading knife while we traveled.

It made me so happy that I expanded and bought bagged sour cream for the first time this week. We used it on tacos last night and felt like we were at Taco Bell, just squirting our little blip of cream across the top of the meat, salsa and salad.

(Taco Bell is a dream thing here, since an actual "run to the border" would mean crossing Europe and the Atlantic, and every now and then a person desperately wishes for a fix of Americanized ethnic food to go...never take that for granted!)

It also made me think of what fun I can have when I make borsch - squirting little smiley faces of sour cream into my boys' bowls. They will love it.

I like it. I like it a lot. And what makes me more happy is that the brand name of the sour cream is "Jolly Milkman." He makes all your dairy dreams come true. With a smile.

So, you should live here. Because they have mayo and sour cream in a bag.

***

And now, not related to condiments, but still squeezable, a picture I just had to add:



I got up one morning during our trip and found the boys sound asleep like this. You can see Henry's hand resting on Calvin's arm, and if you look closely you can see that it is Henry's hand under Calvin's cheek. They were practically nose to nose, sound asleep. So precious. They want me to keep them.