Valentine's Day Special.

So there is this great market by my house. Everybody calls it the new market and it has a creepily ornate entrance on one side. The words “decadence” and, well “creepy” are brought to mind.

Also, I haven’t gone to bed yet, since 24 hrs ago so don’t mind me if this is a little disjointed.

Anyway this market is great. It’s a lot like the ones in south and north America except that everyone wears lots more clothes and gloves. I feel really guilty that I don’t go there more often, actually, but it just doesn’t seem economical when I have no idea of Russian. Ex: I can ask how much something costs but I cannot understand any of the answers. Even the numbers I “know” I don’t understand when they say them.

I like buying best from the asian ladies, because, hey, they’re foreign too. This morning I went, which felt nice. I haven’t been really awake and doing something at 7 or 8 in the morning in a long time. And the fact that I haven’t bee

n to bed yet means I just get to keep tallying my points on my points chart for today. I’m going to get a great score.

Okay, let me start again. So while I was typing this morning from about five thirty am to eight I saw it get light and was filled with happiness. Today is a beautiful day. I decided to go the market because yesterday I spent too long talking w/ the librarian and the two sashas (one male one female) at the lit. club so I didn’t have a chance to go to the market to look for project supplies. I resisted the call of bed and went out, and now feel refreshed from the cold air and ready to stay awake longer. So what did I do at this new market? I bought great yarn and some sequins and some needles (all words I had looked up and drew vocab for but didn’t end up using the words at all). Then I tried to buy a placemat, a gold placemat, but they wouldn’t break my fifty. So I walked the long way around the block (brain melting) and bought some cheese at the big grocery, обоже…something and they gave me change and I saw all the valentine’s day balloons and was reminded once again of the ridiculous use of plastic bags in this country.

Some of them they are dyign to get rid of. I bought cheese and it’s already wrapped in plastic, right? Then they put it in a small plastic bag. Then they ask you if you want a big plastic bag. They do this, normally, by saying “ пакет?” which is easy to remember. Sometimes they use different words so the first thing the cashier at a store asks you just know it will always be this question and say da or nyet depending on whether you desire a packet or not. If you say no they will still put whatever you are buying into a smaller, thinner plastic bag. If you say yes they will take out a big old bag to put over the small, thin plastic bag. Now, but the catch is if you buy a lot of groceries, for example 2 liters of juice, a jar of tomato sauce, two liters of milk, cereal, oats, a bread cake (that was bad by the way) and a big box of baking soda, oh and some onions and bananas and they are like, “пакет?” or more realistically they are like “афрщш ауршщзер фщывтащфзеруцзкцщш фыщшреыпа?” and you are like, ha, I know what you are aksing anyway and then you think, “This would be the time, right? cuase how will I carry all this such and not without some bags?” AH HA. But what she pulls out is ONE GIANT BAG. I think this must happen NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU BUY. So she proceeds to put the milk, juice, baking soda, tomato sauce, onions, bread cake etc etc and everything else into this giant bag and you like, “And what? I’m just going to sling this over my shoulder?” keeping your center of gravity while carrying this somewhere on the iciest streets ever invented- well. I guess that’s enough.

So anyway I was feeling guilty for never buying food at the new market as I wnet about buying these sequins (бёл…. I don’t remember) etc especially because I really do love pickled thigns and we don’t eat them that much at home. So I stopped to buy something but I played it safe by going to one of the asian ladies. I feel more comfortable buying from them because they use the more familiar social custom of looking at you and asking what your are going to buy (I love the security of someone assuming that you are buying something from the get-go) instead of ignoring you completely. So buy some pickled beet, which she even lets me try and it’s great, of course, but sketchier than a class of university artists but whatever. We’ll deal with that later. But as she’s telling me something else I notice that she has electric blue eyelashes! How impressive! I tell her they are kraseevaya and she’s totally unphased. Like yeah yeah. And I add that I will take some of the beets and she warms up a bit. She even shows me with her fingers the number of grivnas she si asking me for which makes me fall in love with her a little bit because suddenly her пять actually sounds like пять in my head. Anyway. So it was great.

Then walking back to my apartment I realized htat I had never walked down that street before noon before, nor in the sun. everything was so beautiful that I wanted to walk around more, but also wanted to get back here and unload my booty. Y’all ought to see the watercolor and acrylic painting I’m working on. They are not beautiful but they are exciting, I’m using some things I never have before, and they are going fast which is always pleasing. But I need a bigger watercolor brush.