Another day

Tonight, Sharon and I were waiting (for hours) in a train station in northern Crimea. I was dying (I'm sure) for something...so was Sharon. We finally decided that we were dying for ice-tea...and you can get several kinds- S likes Lipton's lemon; I like Nestea's peach. Off I went on a hunt.Now, the thing about Ukraine is things have changed faster than your average toddler can empty a cupboard (Hi Chloe! I saw my own niece JennaMae in action, so I know what your mom means when she says you're fast)! So, 7 years ago when I arrived there was no such thing as ice tea in a bottle. Nor was there ice coffee (that's important) in a bottle.


population around 800,000, had 1 store with grocery carts (GROCERY CARTS!!- when you're down, go there just to push the cart and choose your own products off the shelf- loiter and linger to make it last) and it looked like a warehouse with skin disease. There was also a McDonald's about 20 min from our apt and we ate there once a week for sanity's sake. Kyiv was a total rush because you could find Oreos and Reese's PB Cups there, not to mention, Kyiv was just plain cool...in fact Kyiv is still just plain cool (I mean, they have a TGIFriday). Buses were a total nightmare 'back then'.


the most common bus was big, red, ancient (called 'Icarus') and one memorable trip I was sitting just behind the driver and could see the speedometer-which rarely got over 70km/hr (that's about 43 mph) and it wasn't at all unusual to have to stand at least part of the trip, sometimes for hours AND you invariably snagged something as you maneuvered the aisle- there were always sharp things sticking out, lurking, in fact, in dark but impossible to avoid places. And, something I just remembered- all winter you saw people approach their seat, turn around and deftly flip their coats up so that the outside (which shows, you know) wouldn't come in touch with the seat- which was likely dirty.


Back then, DeAnn and I decided that we'd make our first million designing and selling a contraption that people would wear (sort of like a hoop skirt) under their coats- they'd push a button and it would flip the coat up out of harm's way, saving precious moments of 'grab-that-seat-before-someone-else-does' time.