Last night my six-year old son watched the nightly news with me (anything to avoid homework I think). The big news story was Kate Middleton's pregnancy and her severe morning sickness. I thought I would use the moment as a learning experience. I told my son, "You know a lot of women have morning sickness at the beginning of their pregnancies. It usually lasts about three months. I had it with you but I was sick all day long, not just the morning. At night I would often go to sleep only to wake up and hour or two later and have to throw up again. It was horrible. For a few weeks I slept on the couch downstairs so I wouldn't wake up your father every night." Now I don't know what kind of response I was actually expecting from this kid. Maybe something like, "Oh mother, I didn't know you had to suffer so much in order to bring me into this world. What a wonderful person you are. Thank you for all that you've done for me, even when I was in utero". Note-- he doesn't actually talk this way; it's just my idealized fantasy of what he SHOULD say to me. His actual comment was this: "I'm so glad I'm not a girl."
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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).
I'm not naming names, but this weekend I let someone I know use my work-provided laptop computer. Unfortunately, this person forgot that it was a WORK computer and looked at pR0N on it (it wasn't me by the way; honest. Quit looking at me like that). My work laptop now has a VIRUS that has completely frozen the computer unless we send $100 to the scammers who created the virus. I already told a guy in our I.T. Department that I'll be bringing in the laptop and why (and no, it wasn't embarassing AT ALL. Sigh). This wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that only last week while at work I saw a link that said, "100 Funniest Tweets of All Time". I thought, "Hey, I want to see that". Unfortunately the link went to Playboy.com and I got a giant warning message saying that Big Brother knew that I was trying to access adult content on a work computer. Again, I immediately had to inform the I.T. Department AND my boss to let them know that I wasn't trying to look at pR0n on company time. At this point, I'm afraid I'm either going to be fired or referred to counseling for my "problem". Lovely.
I happened to remember that the girl who called me an a-hole (as described in a previous post) was my roommate when I lived in Moscow that summer. It wasn't awkward or anything afterwards (if there was sarcasm font I would be using it right now). I was in a shared hotel room with four other girls; two girls in a smaller room and I and two other girls in a slightly large room; we all shared one bathroom. Fortunately the girl who didn't like me was in the smaller room. The housing was basically like a dormitory, though it was called a hotel. The name "Gostinitsa Metallurg" translates to "Hotel Metallurgy" in English. You can tell by the name that it was a fine establishment. It's actually still a working hotel in Moscow; $57 a night, although an online review I saw in Russian said simply, "Nightmare". I found this picture of it on the internet : Soviet architecture at it's finest. It turns out the hotel was built in 1988. When I was there in 1994 it incredibly run down and dumpy and the elevators never worked. I blame this hotel for making me steal the only thing I have ever stolen in my life-- toilet paper. If I ever have to take a lie detector test and I'm asked the question, "Have you ever stolen anything?", it really pisses me off that my answer will have to be toilet paper. The reason I stole is because the hotel didn't provide us with toilet paper. The famous toilet paper shortages of the Soviet (and even post-Soviet) era were not exaggerated. Also, the humor about the bad quality of the paper is true. For a long time I had saved some Russian toilet paper to show people that you could actually see pieces of wood pulp in it, but I don't know what I've done with it. Here's a photo I found online that will help give you an example of what it looked like: One of the girls in my room made a brilliant discovery. There was a nice foreign hotel within walking distance. They had public restrooms (for foreigners to use; if you were Russian you'd have a hard time getting through the door) with real luxurious, white toilet paper. And it was there for the taking. Which is what we did. We all carried big bags and we waltzed in and loaded up with TP. I'm not proud of this, but desperate times call for desperate actions.
The hotel also didn't have air conditioning, which was common for most buildings in Moscow since it only really got hot in July and August. Of course those were the two months I was there. We had to open the windows at night (no screens that I remember) and the mosquitos were HORRIBLE. Even though I would slather myself up with "OFF" repellant every night, nothing worked. Everyone was bitten but only I and the one other vegetarian in the group were absolutely covered in bites every morning. Supposedly we were/are sweeter tasting because of being vegetarian and therefore attract more mosquitos. I don't know if this is actually true (is someone out there licking vegetarians and meat eaters and making comparisons?). OK, just googled it and yes, apparently there is quite a bit of tasting going on and the consensus is that vegetarians taste better. If you are at work reading this, DO NOT do a google search with the keywords "vegetarians taste sweeter" because you will be directed to many NSFW websites. You've been warned. One last (moderately funny) thing about my time spent at Hotel Metallurg. My roommates told me that when I slept at night, I put both of my hands together under my cheek and slept like a child. At first I was like, "Awww, that's nice. So glad I'm not drooling or otherwise embarrassing myself." Then I was like, "Wait a minute you weirdos-- quit watching me sleep". Seriously, don't watch me sleep. It's kind of creepy. You'll note that this is my second post for today. I was going to save this and post it tomorrow but then thought, "What if die in my sleep? The world will never know the truth about bad Russian hotels and my life of crime." In advance--you're welcome. I thought I would share some recent strange interactions that I've had-- mostly with men. Another time I'll write about my strange experiences with men from years ago. It might take me a while to remember all of them. Because I'm lazy, I'm just going to upload the text messages of the events. I like to text people in real-time whenever strange things happen. Mostly because I like to read the reactions I get. Below is a conversation I had with a family member; my part in blue: I got to Trader Joe's a lot. I was there last week and I didn't know if I should avoid the peanut butter/sticker cashier or specifically go to his line. After I got to the store I decided I would go in his line, just for the entertainment value. Then when it was time to check out he wasn't there. I admit I felt a bit let down. A few weeks ago I was at Walmart and I needed to pick up an item that had been ordered online. When I got to the order pickup area, a man in a stained navy blue t-shirt said to me quite out of the blue, "You smell wonderful". Which was a nice thing to say I guess. But he was a COMPLETE STRANGER and I didn't really know what to say, other than thank you. It felt weird. Then I kept running in to him around the store and I kept getting a "stranger danger" vibe. A week or so later I was at Walmart again and I had this text conversation with a friend: The "Did anyone smell you" question made me laugh hysterically. I probably made the Bluetooth lady seem quite sane by comparison. While on the topic of Walmart, my son and I saw this last night in the toy department: Thanks for always keeping it classy Walmart.
Does everyone remember the first time they got called an asshole? To your face I mean. I do. It was the summer of 1994. I was studying the Russian while in Moscow, Russia. I joined the language program at the end of June; most of the other students had already been in Russia for a month in St. Petersburg. I opted out of that part of the program since I only wanted to study in Moscow-- that's where my friends were as well as my Russian fiance. We were planning a September wedding. I only had a couple of weeks in June to get everything ready for the wedding because as soon as I returned to the U.S. at the end of August, I had to return to graduate school (in a different state) and get ready to teach Russian. My dear friend David came to visit me to help me pick out flowers and make other wedding related decisions. He was a florist at the time and he has good taste. He also has my same sense of humor. One time while we were out running wedding-related errands every station on the radio was playing a song by Rod Stewart. It was really odd. David mused out loud, "Maybe he's dead?". For some reason that struck us as really funny. We are bad people, I know. This small moment of humor lodged itself in my brain. When I joined up with the students in Moscow at the end of June, they had been cut off from the world for a month. This was 1994 and the only way you could get news (if you weren't fluent in Russian) was if you made the effort to pick up the English language newspaper, "The Moscow Times". I think it was published weekly. People were dying to know about current affairs. I remember being in big group of people and being queried about the O.J. Simpson car chase. Then I told a lie. I don't know what made me do this; maybe because I had a large captive audience who would believe anything I told them. I told the group that Rod Stewart was dead. He'd been killed in a car accident. The reaction that people had was amazing. Some people just lost their shit upon hearing of Rod's untimely passing. I never knew he was so beloved by so many people. After a few days, the truth came out and for some reason some people didn't find my prank humorous. One of the girls was really angry and she called me an asshole to my face. I'm sure I'd been called an asshole many times up to that point (and have been many times since then) but it was the first time it was said to me in person, in anger. I don't blame her though. What's funny is that this was around the same time that Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson got married. When I reported that bit of news to the other students, no one believed me. I had become the girl who cried wolf.
Unrelated note--I'm still figuring out how to add features to this webpage. This is all quite new to me. I did figure out how to add a box where you can submit your email address to receive updates. It's generated through google; I don't receive the email address or anything like that. Don't worry about me spamming or phishing or doing whatever to you. I'm not tech savvy enough to do that. If you are reading this, it means you probably already know me and have been invited to come view this site.If so, you've endured years of emails (sometimes texts) of my random absurd observations and memories. Perhaps I should apologize. I almost feel bad that I've made you read about what I was thinking, whether you wanted to or not. Anyway, a blog seems like a more friendly way of allowing me to express myself without foisting myself upon others. You can stop by at your leisure and see what's on my mind. My strange little mind that so often seems to betray me. Do you want an example? I once laughed at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I didn't WANT to laugh and I still feel mortified to this day. It happened in May 1998, when we were in D.C. for my cousin's wedding. My husband and parents and I were touring the museum. This is my memory of what happened: We rode an elevator down to the basement to start the tour. We were each holding a card that contained the photograph and biography of a person who had died in the Holocaust-- it helped to set a somber tone. As soon as we stepped off the elevator, my Mom decided that she needed to use the restroom. After she exited, she rushed up to the three of us and said in a forceful stage whisper, "Someone is taking a shit in there. THAT IS SO DISRESPECTFUL!". It took me a second to process her words and then the hilarity of the moment hit me with full force. I had to choke back my laughter. My eyes started to water and it took all my muscle strength not to have convulsions. A museum docent looked at me and I could tell she was wondering if I was already crying with sadness (before seeing a single exhibit) or if there was something else wrong with me. I completely blame my Mom for this incident. However I'm the one who laughed in a sacred place. I really and truly feel sorry about it though.
My plan is for this blog to be a way for me to recount the funny and unusual things I have experienced in my 40-plus years. A lot of my best memories are from time I spent in Russia in my early 20's. Because of the way my brain works, the memories and stories I share will seem completely random. Hopefully a lot of the content will be current. Lucky for you, I seem to be a weirdo magnet-- for weird people and experiences. I'm not sure why. I have a secret suspicion that it's the principle of "like attracts like" at work. Lastly, if you post a comment, please be kind. Humor is always appreciated. However, I try not to hurt other people's feelings because my own feelings get hurt so easily. Thanks darlin'. (If you know me well enough to come here, I probably adore you and call you darlin'. If you are a stranger who just stumbled upon this blog, you can ignore that last sentence. But thank you for coming kind stranger!). |
GinaI'm the worst kind of asshole-- I think I'm funny. Archives
November 2016
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