My mama has a fellow-grandmother friend at the sanatorium now - a very sweet teacher of Ukrainian, whose daughter pays around $2,500 a month for two rooms there. They do their laundry in the bathtub - and the way she mentioned it, I realized she didn't think it was anything extraordinary. Nothing horrible, definitely. The kids wear diapers, so they don't really get dirty often, she said. I'll never understand this. She and my mama are the same age, their birthdays are four days apart. They are considered "children of war" (WWII, that war) and were receiving a little bit of extra money from the state, in addition to their pensions. Up until now, they were, but Yanukovych returned and quickly took it away. Mama's new friend complained that she and her husband had counted on this money to help them pay for utilities at their apartment. Just think of it: one family, two generations - and their expenses...

***

I keep forgetting how much my parents' pensions are now. I'll ask tomorrow.