Today I was out taking my wife’s ride in for an oil change.  We have a mechanic that actually fixes things (Ralph Blair of Tri-City Battery (509-783-9000)), in a shop that gives him the tools to do so, so it’s not nearly as painful or fearful for me as for many.  On the way, I saw a sign by the street in Cyrillic:  ‘Russki magazin.’  Russian store? I love little specialty ethnic grocery stores, so I swung in and muddled through in my broken Russian.  One thing I bought was a 2l bottle of Kvass, which I’d always wanted to try.

Kvass, at least in the form I had it, was sort of like a carbonated, sweet, tamarindy black tea.  It wasn’t overly sugary.  I never want to drink Coke again if I can get this.  If you get a chance to try some, by all means give it a shot.  If you’re in Tri-Cities, it’s on Clearwater (north side) between Kellogg and Edison.

Had a real adventure making the notes to go with the socks.  Jason would like a note for each pair, which isn’t difficult.  Translating it into Japanese, that’s the hard part.  I felt most comfortable feeding the English to Google Translate, then feeding the Japanese back to GT and seeing what I actually said.  Anyway, a large number of people decided they liked Jason’s idea and are following suit.  Some days, you find out that you know a lot of really wonderful people.