Saturday, November 15
Nov. 16th, 2025 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
My Sweetie and Dan the hired carpenter worked during the morning on sheds.
I'm very glad they're getting so much done together.
I got reasonable sleep, but early enough to achieve our goals in the city.
I took the time to "clean up" to my own satisfaction and put together a nice outfit. I made a point of wearing a pair of nice booties (not winter ones, dressy ones) while the weather is still nice.
I picked up a nice scarf from a Marketplace seller, and the transaction went smoothly, and no issues finding her place.
Then we went to "End of the Roll" that sells remaining stocks of new flooring, so it's cheaper than a regular flooring place.
We got sturdy linoleum tiles for the pottery studio floor with less texture for ease of cleaning.
That process was pretty quick and painless, as we had a decent idea of what we were looking for.
We talked a bit with the man who assisted us, and he was interested in our pottery shed project, as he has a lot of artists in his family. He showed us some work done by his adult niece, as well as a single drawing that he did himself, which was very nice. He says it's the only drawing he ever did, which blows me away, I mean really? You pick up a pencil and do ONE DRAWING and knock it out of the park?
I don't know, he HAD to have done sketching or something.
Then we went to a fabric store for sturdy cotton twill to repair my farm coat, and I also got some fun, glittery stuff that I have no idea what I will use it for, but it's lovely.
Then we went to the "cool street" where all the fun stores are, and went back to the hand made soap shop we went to several months ago. It's funny that I've been thinking of going back there, but apparently so had my husband. It was his suggestion.
We seem to have been in a "mood", and bought several bars of soap for ourselves, though we are not short on soap (but this is very nice soap) and some soap to become Christmas gifts.
We chatted with the young man who works there, and I recall he was lots of fun to chat with the first time we were there too.
We ended up talking for quite a while, and he invited us to have a seat and have some peppermint tea in the work area (which is still open to the storefront). He was able to keep working (cutting the bars of soap from the large blocks) while we talked.
We talked about horses, and he was interested in how one would find a barn to take lessons (which felt a bit odd, since we had this same conversation with our friends last weekend), and then got into ALL KINDS of fairly heavy topics.
When he closed up shop we invited him to come with us for supper, since that's what we were doing next anyhow.
So he came with us.
I have to say I felt a bit surprised that we made this kind of connection with someone sort of on the fly.
It was both very cool, and a little scary for me, because on some level, he's...sort of a "scene" person? He's a tattoo artist, an artist in general, and is part of the "art scene" in the city.
He's gay/bi, a lot younger than us. He told us a lot about himself which was pretty interesting, and also a bit scary, as it was just such a different experience than my own.
He was born in Russia right at the time of the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., when there was so much unrest as the oligarchs more or less waged open war on each other for monopolies.
His mother was literally considering selling him as a baby to the nuns, because I guess there was a black market for babies. She wasn't a very nice person, but she was looking at this as a way to get enough money to get out of Russia. Apparently things were incredibly chaotic there, with many people being poor and desperate, and his family lived in constant fear of people breaking into their home to steal things.
He has five siblings (I think?), two of which are still in Russia and he's only seen in person once when he went back to Russia to visit them, and get some kind of tattoo training (?).
His father, who had been employed in Vladivostok at a prison (at one time that city was an infamous point for the holding of prisoners who were being sent to Siberia), managed to get his wife and some of his kids to Canada, and the details of that were not very clear, but it sounds like they lied to Russia about coming to Canada to visit, and arrived in Newfoundland.
Something like that. It was a lot of detail to absorb.
All of this sounds so unreal, given our peaceful life in Canada, but Russia in the '90's was a MESS, and I don't know if it's much better now.
We had a nice meal together, and there are some talks of getting together again, but I'm wondering a bit about boundaries...as in, I feel like I need to know more about this person before we jump right into some kind of "come see our place" situation.
Maybe I'm being a bit overly cautious, he seems really nice, and I get that we had some very interesting conversation.
I'd want to make sure that drugs aren't a part of his life, and would wonder if we would end up meeting "more colorful people" if we spent more time with him.
I have to say, we're pretty staid folks with a nice life. While it's not a big deal to me that he's gay/bi or has had some tough experiences, I am the kind of person who appreciates being safe too.
I did voice me need to go slow with this person to my husband on our drive home, as my husband is the kind of person to just invite people to come see our place or what have you, without thinking about whether it's the best choice.
I'm not concerned about this person in the sense of personal safety, so much as I know how easily a person can bring unwanted drama or "issues" into your life if you let them.
All the same, it was an interesting if surreal experience to have supper with someone so far outside the norm for us.
It made me feel like I've lived such a safe, stable life in comparison to his parents, and that we Canadians really don't get what it's like in other parts of the world. We're like Hobbits.
My Sweetie and Dan the hired carpenter worked during the morning on sheds.
I'm very glad they're getting so much done together.
I got reasonable sleep, but early enough to achieve our goals in the city.
I took the time to "clean up" to my own satisfaction and put together a nice outfit. I made a point of wearing a pair of nice booties (not winter ones, dressy ones) while the weather is still nice.
I picked up a nice scarf from a Marketplace seller, and the transaction went smoothly, and no issues finding her place.
Then we went to "End of the Roll" that sells remaining stocks of new flooring, so it's cheaper than a regular flooring place.
We got sturdy linoleum tiles for the pottery studio floor with less texture for ease of cleaning.
That process was pretty quick and painless, as we had a decent idea of what we were looking for.
We talked a bit with the man who assisted us, and he was interested in our pottery shed project, as he has a lot of artists in his family. He showed us some work done by his adult niece, as well as a single drawing that he did himself, which was very nice. He says it's the only drawing he ever did, which blows me away, I mean really? You pick up a pencil and do ONE DRAWING and knock it out of the park?
I don't know, he HAD to have done sketching or something.
Then we went to a fabric store for sturdy cotton twill to repair my farm coat, and I also got some fun, glittery stuff that I have no idea what I will use it for, but it's lovely.
Then we went to the "cool street" where all the fun stores are, and went back to the hand made soap shop we went to several months ago. It's funny that I've been thinking of going back there, but apparently so had my husband. It was his suggestion.
We seem to have been in a "mood", and bought several bars of soap for ourselves, though we are not short on soap (but this is very nice soap) and some soap to become Christmas gifts.
We chatted with the young man who works there, and I recall he was lots of fun to chat with the first time we were there too.
We ended up talking for quite a while, and he invited us to have a seat and have some peppermint tea in the work area (which is still open to the storefront). He was able to keep working (cutting the bars of soap from the large blocks) while we talked.
We talked about horses, and he was interested in how one would find a barn to take lessons (which felt a bit odd, since we had this same conversation with our friends last weekend), and then got into ALL KINDS of fairly heavy topics.
When he closed up shop we invited him to come with us for supper, since that's what we were doing next anyhow.
So he came with us.
I have to say I felt a bit surprised that we made this kind of connection with someone sort of on the fly.
It was both very cool, and a little scary for me, because on some level, he's...sort of a "scene" person? He's a tattoo artist, an artist in general, and is part of the "art scene" in the city.
He's gay/bi, a lot younger than us. He told us a lot about himself which was pretty interesting, and also a bit scary, as it was just such a different experience than my own.
He was born in Russia right at the time of the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., when there was so much unrest as the oligarchs more or less waged open war on each other for monopolies.
His mother was literally considering selling him as a baby to the nuns, because I guess there was a black market for babies. She wasn't a very nice person, but she was looking at this as a way to get enough money to get out of Russia. Apparently things were incredibly chaotic there, with many people being poor and desperate, and his family lived in constant fear of people breaking into their home to steal things.
He has five siblings (I think?), two of which are still in Russia and he's only seen in person once when he went back to Russia to visit them, and get some kind of tattoo training (?).
His father, who had been employed in Vladivostok at a prison (at one time that city was an infamous point for the holding of prisoners who were being sent to Siberia), managed to get his wife and some of his kids to Canada, and the details of that were not very clear, but it sounds like they lied to Russia about coming to Canada to visit, and arrived in Newfoundland.
Something like that. It was a lot of detail to absorb.
All of this sounds so unreal, given our peaceful life in Canada, but Russia in the '90's was a MESS, and I don't know if it's much better now.
We had a nice meal together, and there are some talks of getting together again, but I'm wondering a bit about boundaries...as in, I feel like I need to know more about this person before we jump right into some kind of "come see our place" situation.
Maybe I'm being a bit overly cautious, he seems really nice, and I get that we had some very interesting conversation.
I'd want to make sure that drugs aren't a part of his life, and would wonder if we would end up meeting "more colorful people" if we spent more time with him.
I have to say, we're pretty staid folks with a nice life. While it's not a big deal to me that he's gay/bi or has had some tough experiences, I am the kind of person who appreciates being safe too.
I did voice me need to go slow with this person to my husband on our drive home, as my husband is the kind of person to just invite people to come see our place or what have you, without thinking about whether it's the best choice.
I'm not concerned about this person in the sense of personal safety, so much as I know how easily a person can bring unwanted drama or "issues" into your life if you let them.
All the same, it was an interesting if surreal experience to have supper with someone so far outside the norm for us.
It made me feel like I've lived such a safe, stable life in comparison to his parents, and that we Canadians really don't get what it's like in other parts of the world. We're like Hobbits.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-18 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-18 08:21 am (UTC)I don't mean hobbit like as in homogeneous, I mean hobbit-like as in peaceful in contrast to, say, Russia in the 1990's.
We are gentle folk for the most part.