I've been feeling a bit nostalgic lately since I'll have my 20th wedding anniversary this month. I've actually known my Russian husband for 22 years; we dated two years before marrying. I've reached a point where I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't know him. Part of it is my memory is bad. The other part is that half your lifetime is a pretty long time to know someone. Here's a photo of our big day: |
I met the Russkie within days of my arrival in Moscow in June '92 and we quickly fell "in luuuv". A couple of weeks after we met, I took a trip to Kiev with my Russian Mom. (Note-- my Russian Mom, as I call her, is the mother of a dear friend. I stayed with their family in Russia during the summers of 1991 and 1992). Anyway, while on this short trip to Kiev I remember desperately missing and wanting to talk to the Russkie, but that would have meant a trip to the post office to order an international phone call and that was a huge pain in the ass. I often had to do the same thing in Moscow to call my parents. Because picking up the telephone handset and dialing the phone number would have been TOO EASY. I have memories of standing in long lines to book the phone call and then being given a return time to come back and actually MAKE the call. Oh, the scheduled call time is at the same time you'll be in class? That's too bad. Next in line! Anyway, when my Russian Mom and I returned on the train to Moscow, I was beyond shocked to find the Russian waiting for us. He didn't know which train we were on; he just knew my return date. Apparently there was a peak rush hour when most of the trains from Kiev arrived, like every 15 minutes or so. He waited and met EVERY train until he finally found the one I was on. At the time it seemed so romantic. With the passage of time, it seems perhaps a bit stalker-ish. Things that people do while they are in love make no sense in any other context. Hey-- I just met you two weeks ago. Let me wait at the train station for possibly hours in the hopes of MAYBE seeing you. That's the kind of behavior that says, "restraining order". What's funny also is that the FIRST thing my Russian Mom said to the Russkie after meeting him was, "Is that a foreign watch you're wearing? What's wrong-- a Russian watch isn't good enough for you?" I was mortified. I had to just google "What is the opposite of mysoginist?" so I could correctly describe my Russian Mom. Apparently the correct term is "misandrist". Remember this for the quiz on Friday. I'm not being cruel in my description of my Russian Mom, just so you know. She freely admits that she hates men. It may be because her father put her in an orphanage when she was five (after her mother died) and never came back to get her, even after he remarried. My Russian Mom is like a real mother to me in that she drives me crazy but I love her anyways. She will probably show up as a recurring character in many of these posts. Below are a couple of photos of her so you can put a face to her name. On the left as a child; on the right as a young woman on a movie set. I think the photo on the right looks like something out of "Life" magazine. She was was/is a beautiful woman (just like my real Mom).