Tha Shiznit

Good stuff all around.  I’m getting more comfortable with teaching, and even beginning to enjoy my work.  That being said, if the PR department keeps jerking me around, I won’t hesitate to quit.  Still, over all, it was a very good week.  I’ve been teaching a lot of successful classes, and use Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too, Sing America,” to segue into talking about Barack Obama.  It’s worked out every time, and sometimes the kids even pre-empt me.  Radical.

Tonight my landlords came over for the rent.  They are the sweetest couple you’d ever hope to meet.  They call me “Abigail” instead of “Ebi,” which makes me think they might be on to my semitism.  Good stuff.  Tonight, we even joked around.  Every time they come over, I offer them tea, which most Russians accept if not expect.  But they always refuse and say that they just came from the dinner table.  Tonight I said, “What kind of Russians are you?” and they laughed and said “People are all one!”  When they saw my internet wires running through the house, instead of getting angry as many landlords would, they said, “Tell your parents we said hello!”  Then, to top it all off, after we finished our business, my landlady took an ice cream treat out of her purse as a gift for me.  Seriously, I am so lucky to have landed this apartment.  Even if the place were a shit-hole, landlords like them are, well, hard to describe without resorting to cliches.  As I told my mom, good landlords are a rare breed even in America.  In Russia, they’re like mythical beasts.

I went grocery shopping and it was a bit of an adventure, not to say challenge.  They had no olive oil, only brand after brand of sunflower oil.  After frying up a smelly batch of eggplant parmigiana at Katherine’s in Tiumen, I was in no great rush to buy that.  I settled on what I hope is vegetable oil, but may just be sunflower oil that is good for cooking vegetables.  I shopped not without regard to price, but under the assumption that I had enough cash to cover it all.  But then, when I went to pay for my wine (which is like a mini-store within the store), I discovered I had about 200 rubles less than I thought.  So what if I bought two bottles of wine?  One is for my dinner party on Sunday, and one is for myself until then.  As Max Fischer said, “I can write and direct a hit play.  So why can’t I have a little drink to unwind myself?”  A-ny-way, I was really nervous when I went up to pay, because even though the store takes credit card, the machines don’t always work.  The cashier also didn’t believe I could use a MasterCard, even though I swore I’d used it there before.  When the card went through, I said “Thank G-d” in Russian but in a distinctly American south accent.  The important thing is that I made it out with all my purchases, and without anyone asking my nationality.

Plans for this weekend are very low-key.  I had to stay in tonight to meet my landlords, but you’re never alone with the internet!  Tomorrow, temple, then lunch at the rabbi’s.  I have a video-chat date with Jessie at night, so that pretty much takes care of my Saturday.  My student/friend Masha invited me to go to another rock show, but she didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the band.  She explained that my review of the Moy Raketi Verx show was “very sweet,” but she hasn’t been able to put it online.  Also, she added that she saw Moy Raketi Verx again and they told her to tell me hi.  Rock!  Sunday, my friend Veronika invited me over for dinner, but I’d already made plans to have Yulia and Margarita over to my place.  It feels like I have a real social life, even if it rarely forces me out of my apartment.  It’s kind of like living in Tivoli, except without three of my best friends in the adjoining rooms.  Good times.