Cherry juice and plain yogurt; an old sub pop promo I fished out of the free bin at record exchange something like 8 years ago and I’m pajama-pants wallowing about in this Sunday evening. Not to say I’ve lazed the week away. The nice weather and some sudden holes in my schedule have been quite handy in the free time to walk about department. Plus other odds and ends. I even finally made good on two food-related debt-promises to Maria; the first a quo-vadis sandwich (salmon, made by Julia, owed her on account of my blind insistence that Hans Christian Andersen was Dutch and not Danish) the second bliny at my new favorite Petersburg restaurant Russkie Bliny(the mushrooms are savory ecstasy, the chocolate and banana seals the deal).

In other culinary news, this has problem been the most gourmet week of my Russian life on account of my hosting 3 of Sabrina’s friends from Italy. We’ve made use of my biggest pot on three occasions now to make giant feed the family portions of delicious pasta. Also I refused to accept accommodation payment in anything but Parmesan cheese (I’m a rather stubborn host, I suppose); they brought me something like a kilo. They’re definitely the sweetest bunch of house guests: washing dishes, straightening up as well as giving exuberant thanks for the hospitality and profuse apologies for the inevitable and totally understandable second night in Russia vomiting.

On Saturday I drank some bitters with Ben, the crazy Englishman who’s the private English instructor to some construction oligarch (“I’m just, you know, cruising around in armored mercs all day”) which pretty much amounts to the cushiest English teaching anyone has ever heard of. After listening to his stories of the peripatetic, the vagrant, the criminal we ended up playing foosball (kicker, they call it here) against a Russian guy and girl. On account of Ben’s nonexistent Russian all taunts and gloats were in lovely, hilarious English (“You are the suck! What would suck be in Russian? It doesn’t work, I guess. What about you are a vacuum cleaner?!”). Needless to say we got schooled and I doubt it had much to do with their beverage choice of tea to our beer. They were rather sweet about it though and we had a jolly time until two American girls decided to snark/flirt at Ben and it was time to leave.

Some things that are nice: constellations in freckles and birth marks (I am the proud discoverer of the butterfly, the giraffe, the leaping horse and the happy lad), fuzzy am-radio voices, scarfs in warm weather, the canals of our city, disposable cameras with expired film, perfect omelet flipping. Also Kenneth Brannaugh, Harold Pinter, Michael Caine and Jude law all together in one swell little picture called the Sleuth. All the better as I didn’t have to watch it dubbed in Russian.

I went to the Ballet today and felt real classy. There were some neat jumps, some pretty ladies, a serious pile of corpses, and one real tortured Mongol Khan (I meant, that’s what you get for killing all those Hungarians). My favorite parts involved harps (both the real and prop varieties), some synchronized leaps, and parachute pants. The two Babushki sitting next to us were pretty much determined not to let the spectacle distract their gossip, snoozing. But we’re a good humored lot, and so fun/grand artistic catharsis was had all around.

Finally, I just took some Visa extension pictures that make me look like a serious hipster gangster: beard, tousled hair, wry but serious look. Here’s to you ministry of whatever!