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Saturday, November 15, 2003
Things I am definitely doing immediately upon my return to the US
In no particular order:

Reading: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, books 5-10.
The new Terry Pratchett book.

Watching: The Return of the King.
Angel season 5.
The Two Towers: The Extended Edition DVD.

Eating: Crazy Spicy Noodles from Sukhothai (sans sprouts, with chicken).
Something....anything...mint flavored. Why is there no mint in Russia?
Same goes for peanut butter! Why the hell is there no peanut butter?!
Cap'n Crunch.
Steak. A slab of lovely well-done steak. Prepared in a way that does not involve frying.
Coffee truffle ice cream from the Babcock Dairy.
A submarine sandwich, preferably from Big Mike's. #4, no sprouts. Aw, MAN, do I want a #4 no sprouts right now.

Breathing: non-deadly air.
The aura of marijuana that pervades Madison. Ahh, home sweet home.

Cosseting: my ferrets
my horses Whiskey, Playboy and Clair.

Finding and hugging: a whole number of people. You know who you are.
- declared by Liusia @ 9:26 AM


Friday, November 14, 2003
Less offensive quotes from Jonathan Latimer novels:
The Search for My Great Uncle's Head
"I wonder what he does with them?" he mused.
"Does with what?"
"The heads he cuts off. Do you suppose he reduces them to the size of a potato, like South Sea savages?"
His words brought into my mind a picture of the madman, his pale round face intent, bending over a kettle in which reposed Uncle Tobias' head. I shuddered and said, "I should think a detruncated head would be very unpleasant to carry about."
George Coffin sat down in one of the leather chairs by the fireplace. "Not if you held it by the hair," he said. His voice was perfectly serious, and for the first time there was a note of animation in his manner. "If you had a woman's head, for instance, you could swing it around easily. But a bald-headed man would require a different technique. I don't know exactly--"

'What the hell,' I thought. 'What the hell?!'

Dead Don't Care
"When they went back to the taxi, Crane blew his breath in puffs from his mouth, interestedly watched the silver mist form in the cold air. He stopped and tried to blow a circle, but he couldn't. "That's a point for the cigarette manufacturers," he announced. "You gotta have smoke on your breath to blow rings." As Williams shoved him into the cab, he asked petulantly, "Why hasn't the American public been informed of this fact? Is this a conspiracy of silence?""

[A drunken Crane tries to give O'Malley phonetics lessons:]
"That reminds me," said Crane. "The word 'trun.' You do not use 'trun.'"
"No."
"No. You do not use 'trun.' We are not going to be 'trun' to the alligators."
"You're telling me?"
"If you have to use 'trun,' use it this way: he fell like a trun of bicks."
"You mean a trun of bricks."
"Or a one-trun tuck."
"You seem to be confused," said O'Malley.

Major Eastcomb said, "You're supposed to be a detective."
"I am," Crane said. "I can prove it with a certificate."
- declared by Liusia @ 3:32 PM


Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Call me Mrs. O'Malley
Okay, so this is pure silliness, but I'm indulging my ridiculous teeniebopper side here for a minute. I got the link to this site

off of Katia's blog and just felt the need to sign up to be "married" to a movie, television, game or book character. But instead of picking, say, Legolas, like most of the people on there, I signed up for Tom O'Malley. Now, unless you are Jessica, you have no idea who that is, because no one other than the two of us has read Jonathan Latimer's hard-boiled detective novels since the year 1930. And we only read them because we came across the smelly ancient books by chance in the stacks of the UW Memorial Library, and any set of novels which contains a book entitled "The Search for My Great Uncle's Head" must be perused.

I'm not sure if I should recommend the books or not. On the one hand, they're hilarious. Most of them star this alcoholic private detective named Crane, who solves the most morbid of cases, but generally does so accidentally or by merit of the work of his partners, O'Malley and the other guy whose name I can't remember, because he was much less cool than O'Malley. O'Malley in particular is a winner - he's pretty much a walking, talking Irish stereotype, but every scene he's in is laugh-out-loud funny. And that brings us to the reason I can't, in good conscience, recommend the books - oh, but they're offensive. I think Latimer was just telling it like it was, but it's an epithet-a-minute in these novels, which ordinarily woudn't bother me much, since dialogue is just that, dialogue, and you have to use the language people actually use, but some of the characterizations make me a little squirmy too. But that doesn't diminish my love for O'Malley.

Anyway, that's the story of the website. Huzzah, literary crushes!
- declared by Liusia @ 2:33 PM


Tuesday, November 11, 2003
In which I die of the consumption
Okay, guys, this is ridiculous. I was starting to think that my bronchitis, aka The Galloping Consumption, had finally started to go away. But no! Stupid Peter the Great, building a city in the swamp. Stupid Russian Duma, not making laws curbing vehicular emissions and industrial pollution. As much as I love it here in St. Petersburg, I have to admit that I'm looking forward to going home, where I don't have severe respiratory issues and don't die a little bit every time I walk somewhere.

You may notice that the site has a new layout. As boring as my classes are, it turns out that staying home sick is even more boring.

Okay, enough lamenting. Here's the happy portion of the blog update:

Sunday, I went to see The Marriage of Figaro at the Mariinsky Theatre. It was hilarious, all the more so for the fact that I couldn't figure out what was going on. I mean, I could understand the Italian lyrics, I could read the Russian subtitles, I'd already read the program notes, and I knew the story ahead of time, and I still was confused. French revolutionaries kept showing up, which I'm pretty sure isn't supposed to happen. At one point, the French revolutionaries shot down the wall of the palace and struck the famous Les Miserables pose. They also crashed Figaro's wedding and stole all the fruit off the table.

In an unrelated note, you could tell that the gardener character was supposed to be a gardener because he was covered in peat.

It was pretty bizarre. Just the way I like my opera.

Okay, I'm gonna go lay in bed and wheeze some more. Meanwhile, here, have a picture of the Hermitage at night:

- declared by Liusia @ 7:00 PM


Sunday, November 09, 2003
Regarding my abortive attempt to learn to crochet

Sonya: What are you doing?
Me: I don't know what it's called in Russian. A thing with yarn.
Sonya: Knitting?
Me: I guess.
Sonya: Is that a sock?
Me: It's turning out kinda rectangular.
Sonya: A scarf, then?
Me: Why not?
Sonya: It's kind of...
Me: Yeah.
Sonya: Terrible.
Me: It's my first try.
Sonya: It's terrible.
Me: Yeah, but the big holes make it look more authentically homemade, right?
Sonya: Actually, they make it look terrible.
Me: They do, don't they? Maybe it won't be a scarf.
Sonya: What else could it be?
Me: A square made out of yarn.
Sonya: Why don't you buy a scarf?
Me: That would be giving in to The Man.
Sonya: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Me: I'm gonna give it to my sister.
Sonya: The one you don't like?
(Tolio walks by.)
Tolio: Did you make that cool thing?
Me: Um, yeah.
Tolio: You're so clever!
Me: (laughing)
Tolio: Is it a hat?
Me: I don't know yet.
Tolio: It could be a scarf, except scarves aren't square. But it's pretty!
- declared by Liusia @ 3:49 PM

 

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