25 January 2010

Today I begin anew with descriptions of life in Romania.  It is snowing again. My husband says that this is a real winter. The third heavy snow covers the ground and the roofs of the houses in this village north of Bucharest.   We have a lovely soba (better than a fireplace) to keep us warm and to conserve our gas supply in the huge tank in the garden on the other side of the fruit trees. The birds are happy with the grain I put out for them - refilling the tray full of grain that they had already eaten. It has been cold for a long time now and - being from South Texas - I do not plan to drive in the snow - dental work or not!

I have just written a bit of my story for the Excell Center in Cologne, and now Dusseldorf, to tell about the results of the stem cell therapy that seems at this point to have prevented further destruction of my eyesight. For that I am so grateful and now less fearful since it has been a year and no change in my eyeglass prescription has been required. Maybe they will like my story, maybe not. But being able to continue activities with no further reduction in vision is a delight.  AMD has no known cure and I wanted to preserve my vision and to continue to do the things that vision permits me to do.  So far there has been no further deterioration of my ability to see!  Hooray!  While we were in Cologne, we saw among many wonderful sights, a collection from the Mayan civilization located right in the middle of the Chocolate Museum..  After watching chocolates being made, we were surprised to see this excellent display of Mayan works of art.  We also saw a replica of the machines that Eugeniu remembers from childhood that were often found at train stations.  After you put money in, out came a soft candy.

Rini is our precious pet. She is an Akita Inu, 1st place winner in the dog show last spring. She is white and well trained to be a good companion and guard dog. She has been romping around in this snow with occasional breaks to rest in her dog house.  She is happy to play with our neighbor's dogs when they break through the barriers.  And they are running around in delight at having so much room to consider their own, if only for a short time.

Later in the day, I see that the sun is shining and the snow nearly blinds one with its brilliance, but soon the sun will vanish into the horizon and the dark will descend. It is lovely that the days grow longer now. And it is also such a delight when spring finally arrives.

My husband brought groceries when he returned from his errands among which was a packet of fresh mushrooms. I think I will make mushroom soup using fresh milk from our neighbor who has two cows. We get milk twice per week and boil it ourselves, thus pasturizing it if we are to use it as milk. Or, it is placed in a bowl and allowed to become something else. Buttermilk, yogurt? If I skim off the cream and have enough, I can make real fresh butter out of it. When my son and family were here in early December, we did make butter and it was really good - no salt added! All the better for a low salt diet. These kinds of activities are possible out here in this small village that were not usual for us when we lived in the midst of the city. There are other things that we can do here as well. I like my Romanian tomatoes the best.  Garden grown from seeds saved by nuns from a nearby monastery, we grew so many that I could make our own tomato sauce and many other things, but the best of all was the dried tomatoes, some of which I put in olive oil according to directions from someone who said that that was the method that has been used for over 100 years in Italy.  They are delicious and, for this gluten free diet I have been following, make a great snack by placing a dried tomato slice on top of a warmed bit of feta on a bed of rice cracker.  I even add a bit of sliced fresh garlic to make a thoroughly healthy delight.

This morning Vickah knocked down the icicles hanging from the roof that he did not attack yesterday. They were huge and they present dangers I do not think about when looking at the rare beauty as they grow like the stalactites they might be if located elsewhere.  The danger is most likely well known to those who live in cold climates - for instance -you would not want one to break off while you are passing by!

As the sun sinks below the rooftops across the road, the temptation is to post more pictures of this glorious sight.  The setting sun is framed between the sloping roofs of the houses while smoke billows from the chimneys where fire burns the wood so carefully prepared during the late summer and early fall.