Ya tuchka, tuchka, tuchka!

Privyet, moi amerikanskiye lyudi (hey, my American people),

I’ve never felt luckier to be an American in my entire life.  This is not so much because the Constitution grants me certain rights and freedoms which Russian law would not, but rather because I’ve learned that any given Russian bathroom is far more likely to produce a steaming hot bowl of borscht and sour cream than a roll of decent toilet paper. It’s a real issue. In the women’s bathrooms at Smolny, for example, there are no rolls of toilet paper in the individual stalls. Yes, you read that correctly. There are NO rolls of toilet paper in the individual stalls. Instead, the only available roll is outside the two stalls that make up the bathroom. It’s a lose-lose situation: if you’re standing in a line to use a stall, people will snicker if you take too much paper and then make assumptions about your intentions during your stay on the pot. If you forget to take paper and there’s a line, you’re then forced to leave the stall (your choice—pants-less or face the consequences) so you can hoard truly uncomfortable paper and THEN have people snicker at you. I know campaigns for human rights can take a long time, but I would think that the pursuit of good toilet paper would be a much more reasonable task for now. My dearest Medvedev, where’s the Charmin?

Today I saw a woman picking her nose at a bus stop, confirming my hypothesis that nose-picking is an international epidemic instead of an inherent part of the American human condition. Except here, each booger is the same size, gets picked in the same manner, lives in identical nasal passages and, on occasion, will land on a tissue in the shape of a hammer and sickle. My dearest Medvedev, where’s the Kleenex?

(I sincerely apologize if you just ate or are about to eat. And also for bearing with me and the second grade humor.)

Speaking of eating, last night I watched TV again with Tanja during dinner. We saw a show that advertised specific people as not being available for a date, but rather immediately for marriage. The program provided contact information for each featured person as well as a very brief description of him or her. For a country that actively encourages mail order bride websites, this seems like a fairly conservative approach.

On another note, would you believe me if I told you that Vasinka and I were now cuddled up together on my bed? Madness! Felis catus and Homo sapien co-existing on the same piece of furniture? Russian history has always been extraordinarily eventful, and I assume that trend won’t end today.

A tuchka is like a little rain cloud. When Vinnie–Puch, or the Russian Winnie the Pooh, wants to float up high in the sky with his balloon so he can fool the bees and get the honey he so desires, he says, “Ya tuchka, tuchka, tuchka!” Today it rained on and off. A Smolny professor asked me if my family lives in Russia, and I'm concerned that my phony-sad expression is now plastered on my face. I hope my frowning wasn’t the tuchka.

Ask of sign petitions for, need, free Russian people Charmin people cozy,

Даша/Dasha/Dana