Fish soup...
Apr. 2nd, 2005 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThe dwindling reserve of foodstuffs and the increasing "reserve" of dirty dishes distracted me from translation this morning.
I started to shop for groceries with the intent of making borsch, but a large, deeply discounted package of salmon steaks caught my eye, and I decided then and there to risk morphing the borsch into a fish-based solyanka. This was my third essay at the solyanka form, and if I do say so myself, the result is excellent. (Now, to see how well it "ages" over the next couple of days, in the sense of soups in general "getting better" on the second or third day.)
Once finished in the kitchen, I spent the rest of the day in the basement, working on a set of comments to a toxicology presentation. Fortunately, the text was not as technical as it could be, but unfortunately, my ability to resolve translation issues (such as, what is the correct English for an official U.S. toxic substance classification, expressed in Russian as "недопустимо опасные вещества") wasn't very much in evidence. There's still a pile on the plate, but I think I'm finished for the day.
I was not so insulated from the world that I failed to note the passing of John Paul II. In late 1979, if memory serves, I recall leaving my basement apartment in Jackson Heights, in New York, and walking some number of blocks to go see him pass by in a motorcade from LaGuardia airport, in the days before Popes, too, had to take refuge from the world behind polycarbonate barriers.
I remember some of the media buzz associated with John Paul II at the time, first, because he was succeeding a Pope who had been in office for less than a month when he died (John Paul I), and second, because he was the first non-Italian Pope since the early 16th century and the first Polish Pope ever.
In that same year, John Paul II visited his native Poland, and there are many who say that his inspiring words on that visit helped organize millions against the communists, thereby accelerating the collapse of communism and providing a convincing reply, by his actions, to Stalin's famous remark to Churchill, disparaging the extent of papal influence: "The pope? How many divisions has he got?"
Requiescat in pace, Ioannes Paulus.
Cheers...
I started to shop for groceries with the intent of making borsch, but a large, deeply discounted package of salmon steaks caught my eye, and I decided then and there to risk morphing the borsch into a fish-based solyanka. This was my third essay at the solyanka form, and if I do say so myself, the result is excellent. (Now, to see how well it "ages" over the next couple of days, in the sense of soups in general "getting better" on the second or third day.)
Once finished in the kitchen, I spent the rest of the day in the basement, working on a set of comments to a toxicology presentation. Fortunately, the text was not as technical as it could be, but unfortunately, my ability to resolve translation issues (such as, what is the correct English for an official U.S. toxic substance classification, expressed in Russian as "недопустимо опасные вещества") wasn't very much in evidence. There's still a pile on the plate, but I think I'm finished for the day.
I was not so insulated from the world that I failed to note the passing of John Paul II. In late 1979, if memory serves, I recall leaving my basement apartment in Jackson Heights, in New York, and walking some number of blocks to go see him pass by in a motorcade from LaGuardia airport, in the days before Popes, too, had to take refuge from the world behind polycarbonate barriers.
I remember some of the media buzz associated with John Paul II at the time, first, because he was succeeding a Pope who had been in office for less than a month when he died (John Paul I), and second, because he was the first non-Italian Pope since the early 16th century and the first Polish Pope ever.
In that same year, John Paul II visited his native Poland, and there are many who say that his inspiring words on that visit helped organize millions against the communists, thereby accelerating the collapse of communism and providing a convincing reply, by his actions, to Stalin's famous remark to Churchill, disparaging the extent of papal influence: "The pope? How many divisions has he got?"
Requiescat in pace, Ioannes Paulus.
Cheers...
