the sage

All downs are countered by ups, so it was with great joy I again encountered the neighbourhood granny The Sage.

As a sage she predicts subjects people might want to discuss without them having to verbalise.
Last time I met her there was an extremely drunk man in the park whose friends were trying to make him stand, unsuccessfully and she explained that beer doesn't really have a long cultural history here, it ws always something more for Germans and Czechs, and in the Soviet Union you never saw the amount of street drunkedness you saw now. People only drank vodka, and they drank it with workmates or at family occasions, and everyone knew you can drink the amount up to the first crease in your little finger and you dont get silly or try to drink a whole bottle and sure, some people were drunks, but that was a great shame, and they drank at home and it wasnt normal to be lolling around drunk in the park in the afternoon on any regular day.

Today she remarked on how odd it was for Kyiv to experience such warm weather, "What is this, Central Asia?" and by the way, what about those poor people in Georgia right now getting bombed by tyrants who try to destroy them and Chechnya too, what a catastophe it all is, the mentality of Stalin, destroying ordinary peoples lives.

And she has a zippy little dog called Yulia.

And she likes how Johnny scratches the ground after he marks his turf.