Adaptation

So the other day, I wake up hungover from a night of Russian billiards and cards with my neighbors to the piercing toll of an 8:30 am doorbell. I totter over to the door and answer it in my boxers, despite my deeply ingrained and cultural body image problem. My neighbor leads in the employee of the electric company to check the meter for accuracy. I sign some form and lead them back out, but by this time I've had to think too hard about communication to hope for sleep.

Getting my rear in gear, I light the broiler and start to take a shower. Within 60 seconds I notice the bathroom floor is covered with water, dropping my soap into the litter box in my scramble to shut the water off. Apparently when the landlady came yesterday to paint over the rusty pipes she moved the tub, which disconnected the drain from the plumbing.

Now I'm on the floor, wading under the tub to reconnect pipes, and all I'm thinking to myself is, Well, I won't have to mop this floor for a while, and now my soap is exfoliating. Then I realize that any one of those incidents would be unacceptable to me just 6 months ago. Maybe it was the apathy of the morning after, but maybe just maybe I'm starting to adapt to the unpredictability the governs every aspect of life here.

Ukraine: it's no Africa, but it's no cakewalk either.