MAR 10, 16 .. HERE’S TO .. THE GIRL IN RED

Once in awhile .. From time to time .. It happens. One of these posts of mine ‘Just comes together’. I don’t know where a post will go when I begin. As I progress sometimes I suddenly get the feeling that .. “This post really pleases me the way it is turning out.” THIS post you are about to read is one such special post. I hope you enjoy it. I like to think of it as one of my best. Maybe .. Like Peyton Manning .. I should retire after I publish this post and Go-Out-A-Winner. “Cap.” .. “Yes Peyton?” .. “It’s what we do.”

It took me 30-minutes to access my web site here. I AM on the internet. I AM connected. Yet as I try to access my web site I kept getting .. ‘This webpage is not available’. I thought of you Gullible. As I have told you previously .. I myself have trouble getting into my own web site! While trying to out-wait this nitwit message I am doing other computer activities that I can do. Yet as I periodically kept trying to ‘bring up babakaps.net’ I kept getting this same message .. ‘This webpage is not available’.

As-you-can-see .. I am now IN my web site. Suddenly it occurred to me that since I was on-line and connected to the internet that I would just go to my Yahoo e-mail account and access my web site through my sign-in link that I keep there. And .. here-I-am.

“Very VERY nice ‘work around’ Cap.” /s/ Andrej ..

I am not in the ‘Weather Reporting Business’ here BUT it seems to me our Ulaanbaatar Mongolian weather forecasters have something in common with yours! You can NOT  ‘go-to-the-bank’ with their ‘predictions’. Last Monday the 7th I finally woke-up and realized it is cold here. Last Monday our local temperature was – 17F / -27C. All week they have been saying .. “We are in a warming trend. By weeks end it will be warmer.”

This morning it was -13F / -25C.

“Captain Kanbaatar! THAT is warmer!”  /s/ Your Local Mongolian Weather Forecaster.

“Look friends. I was looking for a temperature with a + sign in front of it.”

THE GOOD AND THE BAD ..

We have North and South .. North Pole and South Pole .. East and West .. Up and Down .. Hot and Cold .. Large and Small .. Summer and Winter .. Spring and Fall .. Black and White .. Day and Night .. Sweet and Sour .. all polar extremes. So to follow this pattern we pretty much have to stay with .. Good and Bad..

I keep wanting to write .. The Good and the Not So Good .. but as-I-see-it that doesn’t fit with the above polar extremes.

None of these fit do they : North and Southeast .. North Pole and The Equator ..  East and the Midwest .. Up and the Middle .. Hot and Luke Warm .. Large and Medium .. Summer and Autumn .. Spring and Summer .. Black and Grey .. Day and Evening .. Sweet and Bland ..

I don’t particularly like to use the word BAD !

I try to always look-for-the-best and to find-the-good in things NOT the BAD !

Moving right along here ..

CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT !

I have a favorite local multi-purpose store similar to Wal-Mart. It is one in an enormous chain of stores. It IS primarily a SUPERMARKET but they do have a second floor with a lot of ‘you-name-it’ items.

I am indeed talking about the NOMIN SUPERMARKETS.
Some of you (Patti and maybe Gullible) may have been thinking of my favorite store .. The State Department Store.
That is a great guess because within the above State Department Store THERE IS A NOMIN SUPERMARKET.When my local NOMIN SUPERMARKET stopped carrying not-just-one but several of my favorite items I immediately went to their store in The State Department Store. No luck there. Then I checked yet another (they are all over Ulaanbaatar) NOMIN SUPERMARKET. No luck. Like our major chain stores the entire chain seems to either have an item or they don’t stock it period.

“I know what you are after!” /s/ Patti and all who REALLY KNOW ME.

“Yes! You are all absolutely and you are all 100% correct.” How could they possibly stop carrying ..
“So out and off goes Gimmesome Roy ..” .. “To the land that knows no time ..” THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT HIGH .. SHEL SILVERSTEIN

SUCCESS .. POP CORN .. I found my POP CORN in another local supermarket.

“How do you-do-it?  You people who don’t have at least a little bit of Pack-Rat in you manage to survive?”

When I found it I got some POP CORN ! .. Simply Put .. I bought them out .. I bought all that they had in stock on their shelf.“I am so sorry! But when I got home I immediately ‘munched down three boxes’ (see them in front upside-down) before suddenly I said to myself .. “I have got to share this with my followers and snap a photo or two or three.”

I use the empty boxes as my ‘trash baskets’! With their cellopane exterior jackets put inside of them they can even hold wet and damp items very successfully.

“Good Lord Captain Kanbaatar! Where do you put all of this POP CORN.”

I am storing it right beside my chair so all I have to do to get a snack is reach down and ..VOILA .. there it is!

“Amazing Captain Kanbaatar! That IS a stash of POP CORN!” /s/ Crocodile Dundee ..

Oh Good Lord Kanbaatar .. You ARE a Pack-Rat!

Well! IF one is good and let-me-tell you all this JAM IS GOOD ..
Captain Kanbaatar! Act NOW! You had better get yourself back to the HOMIN SUPERMARKET while they are still stocking this jam and buy up all the rest that they currently have in stock.

Now .. Finally? .. We have come back to .. Taa-Daa ..

THE GOOD AND THE BAD !

There are some other special items that I also have to get so ..

Today .. After waiting a week or so to come to grips with the fact the HOMIN SUPERMARKET is no longer stocking it .. I needed to finally take a long bus ride to the extreme Eastern outskirts of Ulaanbaatar to purchase something I have seen in a specific store on the East side that I can no longer get here close to me. I did not want to go out because of the cold. It’s a long bus ride and all-that-goes-with riding buses here in the winter makes it a real challenge for me. Windows totally iced up so you can’t see out and you miss your stop .. Jam packed crowded .. People who are cold from standing waiting for the bus practically fight with one another to get on the bus. It is NOT pretty trust me.

Well .. A Day Late A Dollar Short .. Out And Off I finally went in the heart-of-the-evening rush-hour about 6pm.

THE GOOD! THE VERY GOOD! THE UNBELIEVABLE !

THE .. CAN YOU BELIEVE THE BELOW ..

I did not have to wait even one minute for my Number 6 bus. We two arrived at my Eastbound bus stop together. THEN it was literally empty. I had my pick-of-seats for the long 40-minute ride.

IF YOU ARE NOT IN A HURRY .. PLEASE RE-READ WHAT I JUST WROTE ABOVE .. AMAZING .. TRULY AMAZING!

On my return trip the Same Ol’ Same Ol’ .. My Number 6 bus was waiting at its Eastern terminus almost ‘just for me’. I walked up .. Got on .. Picked my seat in the almost empty bus and sat down.

HUMOR ME PLEASE .. RE-READ THE SECOND AMAZING PHENOMENON ABOVE!

THE BAD !

Not only was I not able to get what I went after .. Get This Sports Fans : I could not even find the store I was looking for in the dark of night.

Some days I feel like I-am-losing-it. Some days I KNOW I-am-losing-it.

I have that store so clear in my mind’s eye. I missed it going out. I missed it coming back. No more store? Maybe it is closed? The problem is that I was not looking for the store per se .. I was looking for the SHOPPING MALL it is in. Did a complete SHOPPING MALL disappear?

Trust me on this .. I need a reality check .. I am going back in the daylight when it is warmer.

Back we are going to .. Taa-Daa ..

THE GOOD ! THE VERY GOOD !

I told Patti that this post would have something I consider to be very ‘tender and touching’. Patti .. Here we go Loop de loop ..

I look out the window of my apartment here in Ulaanbaatar and I see the below view. On the left are buildings. To go to my local post office here within my apartment building complex I will walk up the street below next to the buildings on the left. At the far end I turn left and then turn to the right and continue to my special local post office. One you hear little to nothing about. Most days now in the winter the view is gray and on the verge of being a little ‘dismal’. I feel like I know what it would be like to live in Russia. This is a Russian designed and constructed complex as I understand it.

Now I want to share with all of you something very special that I discovered and witnessed just the other day! The day I photographed the first photo below turned out to be sunny in comparison with the above day.

Now you and I are going to take the short walk .. The walk that I told you about above. We are going to go outside and walk along the buildings on the left in the above photo.

Do you want some punishing cold? I was out for no more than ten to fifteen minutes shooting the first eleven photos below. The instant .. the very instant I got back inside of my apartment I plunged my right hand into as hot as-I-could-stand running water and kept it there until it was warm. I grew up in Michigan and I now live in the Interior of Alaska so I know punishing cold. In my last post I wrote that never again will I poo-poo Mongolian winter cold.

Onward! We have just stepped outside of the entrance to my building.
Now we are walking along the buildings to the left above.

We have come to the point where we MUST go left or go right or walk into the building straight ahead!

I can .. Sometimes for-a-change I do .. Turn to my right and go to my local post office that way. On my special day I turned .. as I most often do .. to my left.Nothing at all ‘jumped out at me’. Even IF I would have been 100% present in-the-moment and looking for things I would have idly thought ..

“Ho Hum .. Nothing new here.” I didn’t think anything because for one thing I just kept my head down trying to keep warm in this punishing cold.Looking straight ahead of me .. Suddenly I SAW ..

“Oh My Goodness! What have we here! “
AN ICE SKATING RINK !
A REAL .. HONEST-TO-GOODNESS .. ICE SKATING RINK !

I was stunned. An ice skating rink! Here in Mongolia. Here in my apartment complex.The memories flooded over me!

Ice hockey in Detroit Michigan (THE Detroit Red Wings) was and still is BIG. I never made it into the bigs. I never skated in the National Hockey League. As a child I was a ‘rink rat’. I lived and I breathed and I thought non-stop of ice hockey. The best I did was to skate in some semi-pro games and to have been on the inter mural championship ice hockey team at the University of Michigan in 1957. That was not-too-shabby. I also was the equipment manager of the University of Michigan Ice Hockey team. My first ever airplane flight was with the team flying from Ann Arbor / Detroit Michigan to North Dakota and Minnesota for games there. To be traveling with and as a part-of the Michigan Ice Hockey Team was .. a thrill let-me-tell-you.

I was not equipped to do a full photo shoot then on-the-spot .. Besides there were no skaters as you can see above .. So back I came later to snap the next series of photos below.

The walk back to my apartment located in the building directly straight ahead. I am on the 7th floor in the right section one floor down from the topmost 8th floor.And .. Taa-Daa .. Back I came to shoot some ice skaters.

I will never meet them. They will never know how much they touched me. But touch-me they most certainly did.

I love the girl in red below. Will you all just look at .. study .. her forlorn look!  “Won’t somebody please come and help me. I don’t really know how to ice skate!” I wanted to grab some ice skates and leap over the fence to help her!“Help me?” she pleaded above .. “I can’t skate. Please! I need some help!”  Look at her legs. 

“Here I am! My Little Damsel-in-Distress!” .. /s/ Sir Galahad .. In his quest for the girl-in-red and NOT for the Holy Grail!  GOODNESS .. WITH THE PINK SOCKS COULD IT BE THAT MY ‘SIR GALAHAD’ IS A SHE .. 
Don’t you all just love her!  In both the photo above and in the photo below she sure looks unsteady and wobbly!

Whew! Do any of you remember the Andrews Sisters?

Knock knee’d Dolly with a hole in her stocking and her knees keep a knocking and her toes are a rocking .. Gonna dance by the light of the moon! That song from the 1940s came blasting into my mind when I watched this precious (I will always remember as the) girl in red.

Do you see them at the far end of the ice rink?There they are again on the extreme left below.Young lady .. Sweet Heart .. My Knocked Knee’d Dolly .. It was you and my noticing you that made this post special for me.

They even have a man with his kettle of water to keep their ice rink ‘icy’. He used the water to cover some bare or rough patches of ice.

On this Happy and Joyous ‘Note’ I’ll Sign Off ..

“That’s All Folks!”  I am loving it here. I am so lucky to be here.

Cap and Patti and Bugs Bunny ..

As you can all see I am doing things other-than writing and publishing posts about what I AM doing. If I wasn’t doing something I would have nothing to post. So some of you must be thinking that suddenly I have become super fast at getting posts written and published .. or .. I am spending a lot of my time awake. You got it. I am putting in some 20-hour days keeping up with this because this IS .. What I do .. Smiles .. Cap ..

Captain .. What do you see in the below map Captain?

Let me assist you here Captain. The top RED BALLOON points to Russia. Mongolia the bottom RED BALLOON is not only close to but vastly influenced by Russia. Back-In-The-Day my Captain the Soviet Union’s Red Army had the best skating ice hockey teams in the world. Your Detroit Red Wings as a matter of fact had several former Red Army skaters help them win more than a few hockey games and championships.

Just an idle Rhetorical Question My Captain.

Why does it surprise you to see a nice ice skating rink here in your 1950s era Russian designed apartment complex?

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