Odds & ends

Our driver to and from UB wore a Mizzou sweatshirt. Small world...

The radio station he had on in the car played "Cotton-eyed Joe" at every station break.

On Tuesday, I walked over to the Minii to buy some hot dogs for my puppies. As I was coming out of the building, one of the older dogs was across the street and saw me. He/she recognized me and crossed the street to greet me. We crossed back over and went around to the back of the parking lot where I usually feed my 5 dogs.

At Beree's parents' house on White Moon, there were large chunks of very fatty cooked mutton in a large bowl on the table. You are supposed to take a knife and shave off slivers of the meat. I didn't.

Beree's uncle ate some salad directly from the serving bowl. I was glad I got there before he did.

The Mongolian word for "giddyap" is "tchoo".

The reason I bought sunglass clip-ons was in anticipation of being outside in a blindingly-white snowy atmosphere, like the one at the park. So why did I forget to bring the clip-ons to the park?

Ayuna is from the Buryat republic in the Russian Federation. Buryat is where Lake Baikal is located. Ulan Ude is the capital of Buryat. The Buryat people are very similar to Mongolians, and she says she has a lot of problems in Mongolia because people expect her to speak Mongolian. When it's revealed that she doesn't, they then expect her to be able to speak Buryat, but she doesn't speak that language either. It is very similar to Mongolian; in fact the 2 languages are mutually understandable, for the most part. Unfortunately she speaks only Russian.

I bought something recently at the State Department Store. The price was 5 togrog less than the bills that I gave to the cashier. The trouble is that there is no 5 togrog bill, so no change! The store is getting richer .035 cents with every similar transaction!

I found out that one of my students used to play professional basketball in Viet Nam.