MOSCOW, November 6, 2005 -- You shouldn’t write when you’re in a bad mood. Did I read that somewhere or is it just common sense? Of course, the exception is when you have a deadline – even if it’s a self-imposed blog deadline.
This column was virtually completed and was just sitting there under “my documents” on the computer “desk top” waiting for a few final touches when….
Well, actually, it all started …..
Well, first of all, I finally reached Max in Nizhny Novgorod to tell him I was thinking of going to visit him and Vanya this holiday weekend. His response was less than enthusiastic: “Call me back when it’s closer to the day you plan to leave and we’ll talk more about it.”
If he has to think about whether he wants me to come visit him or not, then maybe I should rethink this. I rethought it. I had already tentatively arranged to meet with Basil on Friday, a new holiday intended to replace the controversial celebration of the “Day of Revolution,” which actually took place in October, 1917, but was switched to Nov. 7 with the change of calendar which took place sometime afterward to try to bring this sprawling, Byzantine empire into the 20th century.
Ex-Pres. Yeltsin renamed it the Day of Peace and Reconciliation, but everybody knew it was really the Soviet revolution they were still celebrating, so they looked for another historic event close to the 7th that could be celebrated with as patriotic fervor.
The only thing they could come up with was Nov. 4, the day in 1612 that a butcher and a prince -- from Nizhny Novgorod, no less – turned away the invading army under a pretender to the tsarist throne dubbed, appropriately enough, “False Dimitry.” Rumor has it that they were actually gay lovers, an allegation the history books for some reason don’t comment on. In any case, there’s a big statue of the unlikely pair in Red Square in a manly warrior pose.
The plot thickens because False Dmitriy was supported by an army of Poles, who are right now out of favor with Russia because the ungrateful wretches – like the citizens of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – are still resentful of the years of uninvited Soviet occupation and domination for which the new Russia refuses to apologize.
Some Poles recently beat up some Russian teenagers in Warsaw, and Russia retaliated by beating up several workers from the Polish Embassy here, so the new holiday looks to some like Russia is celebrating a victory over the Polish Army and extending a huge symbolic middle finger toward Poland and its new anti-Russian president.
Others say it’s a celebration of the Russian Orthodox Church over the Polish Catholic version.
In any case, 60% of the population doesn’t like it. The head of the State Historical Museum calls if a “fake holiday” not worthy of celebration. Ironically, amidst this disunity, they’ve named it “People’s Day of Unity.” Anyway, most Russians have no idea what they’re celebrating. They’re merely grateful for a day off.
And that’s why Basil and I had decided to meet on Friday to discuss a cover design for my friend Sam Love’s nearly completed book, Electric Honey, because we both have so little free time. Sam liked the design for this Red Queen web page -- which Basil designed -- so much that he asked if Basil could come up something for his soon-to-be self-published opus.
So that was a good reason for not going to Nizhny Novgorod.
So far so good.
Vanya in the meantime called to tell me that he was coming to Moscow for his own three-day holiday from his job as a credit officer in a Nizhny Novgorod bank. And on Thursday night, Vanya turned off the Internet after he had finished using it to write some of his friends.
But when I tried to re-enter a little while later, there was no connection. Coincidence? Or did Vanya accidentally screw up? Push when he should have pulled? We had just paid for November Internet service the day before, so that wasn’t the problem. Anton, something of a computer ace himself, couldn’t fix it. I called old standby Slava for some emergency assistance. He would come on Friday night and try to fix it as well as re-install Windows, since I’ve managed to acquire a few viruses over the past several months despite my Dr. Web.
So while Basil and I were discussing the book cover and Basil’s separation from his wife (Chapt. 149, 150) Slava arrived with a super computer expert friend of his named Dima to re-install Windows and get me back on line.
And that’s when it happened: Dima accidentally deleted all my current files, including this column. I’ve lost all my accumulated files and records and excerpts and “Another Night” columns for the past six months and -- worst of all -- the index I had created for them!
And that’s why I’m depressed – mostly, except for....
Zhorik returned from Svetlograd on Monday, Nov. 1, the twins’ birthday. Andrei sometime over the previous two weeks had lost or misplaced his key to the apartment, and he announced as I was getting ready to leave for my 6 p.m. class at Masha’s law office that he and Zhorik would be leaving in a few minutes, meaning I was not to lock the door because it would be locking them in.
I had earlier seen Yegor in Anton’s room, so I thought there was a key available to get themselves out of the apartment. So I locked the door.
When I surfaced from the Komsomolskaya Metro Station, my mobile phone was ringing and Andrei was screaming at me because I had locked them in the apartment and his friend Valeriy was waiting for them in a car in the courtyard. “I told you not to lock the door, but all you ever think about is sex,” he screamed.
“You’re insulting me, Andrei,” I replied, and hung up.
The shouting match continued after I returned home, and I told Andrei that if he really thought that all I think about is sex, he could go back to Stavropol the next day. He ‘lowed as how he would, and crammed the ownership papers for his truck into my pocket to help repay the $ 15,000 I’ve lent him.
I turned to Zhorik: “I’ve told Andrei to leave, and if you think all I think about is sex, you can go, too.”
Startled, he followed me into the kitchen. “Dane, do you want to go shopping?” which I recognized as an invitation to have a talk.
“Why is Andrei so angry?” I asked when he reached the street.
“Well, I’m only guessing, but I think it’s because you haven’t wished him Happy Birthday! He thinks you’ve forgotten.”
I had thought about his birthday several times that day, but I hadn’t remembered it when I was in the apartment. I had planned to go through the ritual that evening and give him $ 100 as a present. But now….
Oh, well! Better patch things up. I don’t really want to end my relationship with Andrei – certainly not over a missed birthday -- so while we were in the store, I bought a couple of bottles of wine that Andrei likes, as well as a birthday cake, and spread it out on the table to initiate the thaw when we got back.
We rehashed the trauma and kissed and made up, and then Andrei confided: “I had a talk with Zhorik, and he will let you play with his dick, and my dick will be well in a couple of days, and then you and I can have sex again.”
Suddenly I was walking on air. So when Zhorik and I went to bed, I massaged his torso for the first time in a couple of weeks, and when I thought he had slipped into sleep, I let my hand stray down to his flaccid dick. But he gently moved it up to his stomach – twice. Maybe I mis-heard Andrei?
Later in the night, while he was sleeping soundly, I found his cock again, and while I massaged it with my left hand, my right hand was busy with my own, and for the first time since before Sergei left, I prevented some prostate cancer.
But every night since, he’s slept fully clothed. And Andrei has announced that he is returning to Stavropol this week – as soon as his dick has recovered. Where will that leave me?
This is not working out according to the script!
But there is a ray of hope. Slava’s computer friend Dima is vivacious, friendly, fun-loving, and a little bit cute. He’s also, Slava confided, a little bit “bi-“ and he himself volunteered that he loves having his dick sucked.
Well!
So I’ve promised to give him free English lessons on Sunday nights and we’ll see to what “other,” one thing will lead!
The fly in the ointment? Zhorik announced today that he doesn’t like Dima. And for that matter it’s hard for me to forget that he deleted my crucial files.
To complicate things, Dima called twice tonight just “to talk” to his “very dear friend,” reminding me several times that “I very like you.”
When Kreutz came by on “People’s Day of Unity” to pay me for this month’s editing, he said he was again looking for a courier and asked how long I’d known Zhorik. For more than a year, I replied, and I could guarantee that he would not do what Sergei had done – i.e., “lose” money between the client’s office and Kreutz’s (Chapt. 96).
So Zhorik now has a job! He starts tomorrow. The wage has increased from $ 200 a month to $ 300 a month since Sergei was fired. So at least I can quit forking out money for cigarettes, beer, cocktails and phone cards. I will pay this month the $ 800 his dad borrowed from the bank to make up for the money Anya didn’t have, and he will repay it at $ 100 a month over the next 8 months.
He’s had a lot of health problems since he got back. The second night he was here he had a stomach ache which has plagued him several times since, as well as headaches. Last night his tooth ached all night. He’s got to get to a dentist, but it gets really complicated now that he will be working with no time to go to a dentist even if we find one!
He’s being very brave about it, but he’s going to have to bite the bullet – if he has any teeth left to bite it with.
While he wasn’t sleeping last night because of his aching molar, we discussed plans for the New Year’s holiday. Since I’m not going to Thailand, he and I will fly to Stavropol together for a family celebration with Andrei et al, then Zhorik will catch the train to St. Pete to visit his friend Peter, and I will return to Moscow to spend more time with Sasha, who will be here from Dec. 22 to Jan. 10.
O, Sole Mio! I’ve recently made a couple of extraordinary culinary discoveries, one of which you can do something with and the other you probably can’t.
My new 9 p.m. student, Andrey, gave me his recipe for the world’s best -- or at least damned near -- boiled shrimp. It’s for one kilogram (roughly two pounds) of medium sized (70-90 count) frozen shrimp.
Dump into a pot one quart of water, 1-1/2 tsp of salt, 2 tbsp sugar, ¼ cup of butter, 2 slices of lemon, 10 peppercorns, and a handful of chopped dill. Bring it to a boil and add the frozen shrimp. When it boils again, voila! Hot buttered shrimp! Peel and eat. Absolutely Scrumptious! The best I’ve ever eaten!
The one you probably can’t do anything about is the fish I’ve discovered that is sold here under the name “sea tongue.” It’s a flat fish fillet that I buy unpackaged and frozen for $ 5 a kilogram (about $ 2.50 a pound) in the local market. I simply thaw it, fry it -- adding nothing – and chomp down on the most elegant fish I’ve ever tasted. Impossible to describe.
I tried in vain for weeks to find out what “sea tongue” really is. Had I stumbled on a new taste sensation that none of the rest of the world knows anything about? Finally Masha found it! It turns out I’ve been dining on fillet of sole! At $ 2.50 a pound!
A postscript: One of the reasons I want to go to Stavropol for the New Year’s holiday is that, according to Andrei and Zhorik, you can buy Black Sea crabs there for about 40 cents apiece!
Sole and crab: two more very good reason to stay in Russia – with or without crucial Internet files!
Chapt. 173 – 2122 words
Columns :: Computer cutie turns files into “ex-files”!
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