This book is a collection of stories on various subjects written during the past twenty years. The absence of leisure time has severely decreased any chance for composing more stories. I m not getting younger, but with every additional day, I m working more and longer hours as if I were obliged to deliver an important message. As if, I would be judged on the value of my life once more, after my demise. I organized and selected only those considered complete. However, the result was not as impressive as I once had hoped and so I added stories borrowed from other books I have written. In addition, a few letters from a thousand written were also added to reflect my other activities. Why was I rushing to publish this collection instead of waiting for more stories, which might arise in the future? It may surprise some that I answer a question pondered by the reader by asking another probing question: Am I in charge of my life or in control of events and my babies once I become absent? The answer is obvious that I am not. I do not know why I fear the day when the many things that are important to me may be discharged into a trashcan once I have gone. Events that occurred over the past two years were like signs signaling me to be ready. The first was a quadruple bypass open-heart surgery, and the second, a sudden and terrifying bleeding ulcer inside my stomach. I was lucky in both cases. My heart operation was successful. In the second instance, I was able to expel blood from my insides via my mouth followed by an urgent procedure, which stopped the bleeding. I am better for the time being, but unfortunately, some cloudiness in my head remains. The hospital fixed one thing and it looks as if they inflicted some additional damage inside my head. It is possible that I had a mini stroke or some artery stretched due to very high inter-cranial pressure. Now I feel nauseous and my head spins if moved at a slightly accelerated pace. Nevertheless, I must determine the reasons for those signs. Were those signs about my approaching end or it was just a warning that I am not as young as I once was and should started slowing down? Understanding what each signs actually means is of the utmost importance to my comfort. Above that, not having a finished product is equivalent to living an unaccomplished life in my eyes. In the end, it does not matter what those signs were about, I must compile all my written material into books with little time left for completion. There is no special sequence or relationship between compiled stories in this, my seventh book. I would love to say they were selected and organized in a certain order, but that would be false. Chaotically harmonized would probably be a better description. I hope in the course of reading these stories you will enjoy yourself as much I did while putting them into words. Yours, Vladimir

 How to Paint Chickens or The Way My Life Was and How it is Now, the main title of Vladimir A. Shvartsman’s book, is not a course in modern art – he literally painted chickens during his youth for identification purposes.  Growing up in rural Russia, dirt poor and learning the ins-and-outs of responsibility, he would put a chicken “to sleep” by tucking its head under its wing, and swinging it back and forth like a pendulum.  After a few swings the creature would be still, in a form of a trance.  The chicken would be asleep for a varying amount of time, until suddenly awakening and if the paint was not yet dry, the whaling bird flapping its feathers would be flinging droplets of paint aimlessly around the room.