November 6th (Part Deux)

A friend from Kislovodsk. No relation to the post... sorry.

Ok, this is a bit of a non-sequitor as far as this blog goes, but you’ll have to forgive the lack of anything cultural in this post. This is a little blurb from my daily life, so I figured it has its place. Ok, so last night at dinner I was talking about how in the Caucasus literally all eleven of us got sick within two days of drinking the mineral water. My hozyaika always says that if you eat an onion everyday then you’ll never get sick. Sure enough, I hadn’t had any onions that whole trip and I made the joke that we were all sick because we weren’t eating onions. Well anyways, my hozyai (Gina), who just LOVES mocking me mercilessly (envision a cynical, bitter little Ukrainian man), asked me if there wasn’t a market for me to buy onions there. Of course there was but I said I’d only bought bread and cheese and beer.

“And vodka.”

“No, I didn’t buy any vodka.”

“Sure.”

“No, really! I didn’t!”

“Yeah…”

“I stopped drinking vodka two months ago.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Seriously! You remember the last time I drank vodka.”

“Right, when I found you making salsa pancakes in the kitchen at 4:30 in the morning.”

“That might have been me… I don’t drink vodka anymore.”

“Sure.”

“Ok, you win.”

“I know.”

Well, I guess the fact that he eats dinner with us now is a plus, although often when I start telling a story about my day he’ll get up and turn the radio volume up… I don’t know why his antics don’t infuriate me, instead I think he’s got to be the funniest guy I know. For whatever reason, my Russian always seems to fall apart when I talk to him and he takes endless delight in making me feel like an idiot. We have an odd relationship to say the least…