Well. I’ve spent way too much quality weekend time going through those in that blog post and some others.
We’re painting the room we call the Person Cave and we needed to figure out a way to maximise the closet space. Last weekend, he painted the closet white and installed shelves. I’ve been trying to reorganise 40+ years of crap.
I suppose it goes without saying that I’ve spent most of the last two weekends crying.
But… I’ve actually thrown away a lot of memorabilia. Like my parent’s honeymoon photos, my mother’s UCONN scrapbook, their wedding album, my baby book. One of my rules was that I would only keep it if it didn’t piss me off to look at it. So. No pictures of people I didn’t know. No pictures of places I’ve never been. No pictures of people who are dead to me. I kept a bunch of photos of my parents, back when they were young and in love, but only because my father looked so happy in them. The one thing he kept saying during our last conversation was that he wished I knew the woman he married. The woman she used to be. I look at those pictures and I see a strange woman laughing with my father and smiling at him. The only reason I know who she is is because I look like her, and well… historical context. I mean, as far as I know, my father only married once. And if it’s not my mother in those photos than the people I’ve always thought of as my grandparents are… not.
It’s all a bit of a head fuck, to be honest.
Today’s unexpected memory landmine was a bunch of stuff from the UCONN Mens’ Ice Hockey coach, Coach Marshall. He was such a good guy and it showed in the post it notes stuck to every single ticket he left at the door for me, the random letters he’d send me as part of the fundraising bullshit he had to do, the letter of recommendation he wrote for me. And at some point, past me decided it would be a good idea to keep the booklet from his memorial service with all that. Fuck. I’m crying just thinking about all of it. When it came to getting a job in hockey, he was my number one cheerleader. I owe that man so much. And he’s gone.
Yeah.
So… it’s been a bit of a tough day for me.
Let’s end this on a happy note, yeah?
This may very well be my favourite lyric of any song ever (well, as of right now):
Нині не льотна погода
Сказала мені, шоби я
Літав собі голий по хаті,
Показував дулі з вікна.
На мене багато хто скаже,
Шо я тіпа з боку смішний,
А той, хто багато говорить,
По-моєму трохи дурний.
Roughly translates to: The weather is bad today. I’m walking around the house naked, showing my bits from the window. People say I look funny, but I think people who talk too much are dumb.
Seeing how it’s been fucking raining since Thursday, I thought it fitting.
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this collab, but it is LOVE. The video kills me… it was filmed in Ukraine, sooooo there’s that. The Ukrainian lyrics reference the way families are being torn apart. Like in Taras’ case, the lyrics speak to the way his wife and children fled the country and are currently living somewhere in New Jersey.
Between a shitty, shitty, shitty day at work caused by both AT&T and the US Government, the war in Ukraine (bombing near Lviv - always good for a heart attack), and Roe vs Wade, I’m fucking done.
Oh! And it would have been my mother’s 76th birthday today. I have no trouble picturing an older version of my father, but my mother is forever 46. It’s hard to wrap my head around it.
So yeah. Crappy headspace. Good song. Exhausted Wendell.
So.. this has been bouncing around my head for the last few days. It’s really catchy as fuck, and uplifting, and the lyrics make me giggle. Lyrics Translate let me down hardcore, so I’m including the YouTube translation for you.
Leave it to the Ukies to have so much fun with something so terrible. That actually explains a lot about my personality, doesn’t it?
Also, I always lose my shit at Zelenskyy’s wink at the end. ALWAYS.
УКРАЇНА ПЕРЕМОЖЕ
Їхав танк - окупант
На долю неминучу
Башту відірвало йому
Стугною , за Бучу
Полетів окупант ,
Мігом - 35 -м
Для Київського «Привида»
він - здається став 20-м
Горить , палає техніка ворожа рідна Україна переможе
Горить , палає і ще спалахуй Руській корабель іди …Гей, Гей
Ось пливе окупант
В Бердянську десь гальмує
Тепер ворожий десант
Рапанів там годує
Ще про тракторні війска
маю розказати
Бо все ще десь недобре стоїть
Хай буде біля хати
Горить , палає техніка ворожа рідна Україна переможе
Горить , палає і ще спалахуй Руській корабель іди …Гей, Гей
Чорнобаївка є ,
ворогу портал на той світ
Регулярно все , що летить -
завершає там свій політ
Ще лякають ворогів
Наші біо-воїни
Від гусей , курей і голубів
Тікають в різні сторони
Горить , палає техніка ворожа рідна Україна переможе
Горить , палає і ще спалахуй Руській корабель іди …Гей, Гей
UKRAINE WILL WIN
The occupant was driving a tank, to his inevitable fate…
It’s tower has been torn off by stugna* - for Bucha!
The occupant was flying a plane, the Mig-35…
For the “Kyivian Ghost” he seems to have become the 20th hit.
The enemy’s equipment is burning, burning, bright.
Our motherland Ukraine will win!
Burning bright, and it will burn even brighter!
Russian warship go… hey-hey!
Here comes the occupier. His ship is slowly cruising somewhere in Berdyansk.
Now the enemy navy seals are feeding rapanas* down there.
Also about our tractor troops I have to tell you:
Anything that is left unattended will be then used in our homes and gardens.
The enemy’s equipment is burning, burning, bright.
Our motherland Ukraine will win!
Burning bright, and it will burn even brighter!
Russian warship go… hey-hey!
We also have Chornobaivka*. It’s the portal to another world for our enemies.
Everything that is launched here will regularly have its shameful end here.
We also frighten our enemies with our bio-warriors:
From geese, chickens, and pigeons, they are fleeing in different directions!
The enemy’s equipment is burning, burning, bright.
Our motherland Ukraine will win!
Burning bright, and it will burn even brighter!
Russian warship go… hey-hey!
If we’re not Facebook friends, you have missed my ongoing documentation of the war in Ukraine. (Actually, consider yourself lucky we’re not FB friends… I’m so tired of the endless posts about the war, too, but I can’t not share.) I watch the news constantly for attacks on Lviv. On a small village that has no reason to be attacked. On Odesa. Further attacks on Kyiv.
My friends are in Ukraine.
MY FAMILY is in Ukraine.
This is personal.
But anyhoo… I have dissected and ressected (? go with it) and dissected again, my feelings about this. I have compartmentalised and have given my shrinky dink enough material to write a fucking book. And yet the war continues and I continue to learn new things about myself.
Like that stubbornness? The drive to survive at all costs? The ability to be an absolute asshole to anyone who has hurt me?
I used to think it was a side effect of growing up with my mother…
And maybe it is, but not because of the alcoholism.
I’m starting to think that’s not nuture, but nature.
Like it’s encoded in my DNA, passed on from generation to generation of stubborn, survival focused, Ukrainian assholes.
I saw it firsthand: my grandparents, my mother, even my aunt.
I saw it in the rest of the Ukrainian community around Hartford.
I see it in myself.
And I see it in every single Ukrainian person that shows up in my newsfeed, on the news, or on a postage stamp.
One of the things we had planned prior to Putin being a putz was to see Boombox in Miami on March 8th.
Every time this song gets posted, I almost always share the link.
Because I love Andriy Khlyvnyuk (the lead singer). I absolutely adore him and the clip of him singing never ceases to amaze me.
It never ceases to make me feel proud of my heritage - of one of my favourite bands - when this shows up on my newsfeed. To have people who have never heard of Boombox talk about Andriy’s voice, to search out his music… it kind of gives me chills the same way hearing the Ukrainian anthem sung in a plaza in Lviv did. Or hearing it sung at an OE concert at Madison Square Garden, surrounded by a bunch of American born Ukrainian teenagers who weren’t old enough to know a Ukraine under Soviet rule.
And then, there’s Antytila. Who have also gone viral, thanks to Ed Sheeran.
There are so many clips of lead singer Taras Topolya singing on news shows, just speaking about the war, how his family is somewhere in the West…
But I’m going to end this post with a fun video.
I mean, how many bands can lay claim to having Zelenskyy, the fucking President of their country, in one of their music videos?
And he’s absolutely hysterical in it, but you can decide for yourself:
Скільки печалей і скільки морок, і ти вже не можеш ступити крок, і вже зупиняєш серце, рахуючи втрати.
І так нам бракує добрих вістей в країні, в якій так багато дітей знають як варто жити й за що помирати.
Країна, яка не тримає зла. Країна, яка тут завжди була.
Країна, в яку повертають дощі, про яку так легко писати вірші.
Діти вертають в свої доми.
Знову горять, горять мости і зводяться стіни, але тримають нам горішні основи діти, які, які проросли в небо країни.
Діти, що стали нам продовженням мови.
Що то є життя, в чому його кошт? більше сльози не течуть просто очі залив дощ.
Він може змиє бруд сухий, змиє попіл до кінця... Але не змиє слід історії з молодого лиця.
