mundane insanity

The closer I get to leaving, the more accustomed I find I am to the "peculiarities" of life in Russia. The other day, I was walking by a building that I always pass on my way to the subway. I noticed that a huge piece of masonry (several feet in diameter) had fallen off the facade of the crumbling structure. No one seemed to be paying it much notice, though if it had fallen on a person, it would have killed or least severely maimed them. No tort law here. I had a similarly blase reaction, and just crossed the street and stopped walking on that side. Today, it seemed another chunk had fallen. Although this time, I think it might have taken someone out, because the sidewalk was surrounded by police, blocked off with tape, and a clean-up crew had been called in. Ho hum. Just another morning commute.

On Friday night, I met up with a friend's in-laws who are visiting Russia as part of an intense family reunion (there are six of them!). Since they speak no Russian and were totally disoriented, having just arrived, I offered to take them to dinner and walk them around. This dinner--at an upscale place my friend had selected--was completely hysterical, at least for me. I think they were mostly shocked. First, the waiter informed us that although the menu was a good ten pages long, they didn't have nine pages worth of the advertised food, so our selection would be quite limited. Then, he disappeared for about an hour, and returned with everyone's appetizers, except for one person's potato salad, which he promised in "three minutes." (They soon learned that in Russia, that means--"never.") The wait staff then disappeared again for what seemed like hours on end. Just as they began bringing our food--two and a half hours after we arrived--a downpour began, and water started POURING through a visible hole in the roof several inches wide. The waiters stood around as the water got higher and higher; within a few minutes, we all had our feet up because we were sitting in several inches of water. They finally moved us to a table next to some men so drunk that they were literally throwing vodka around (missed the mug-sized shot glass again, oops) and loudly singing Komsomol chants about Lenin. The family were good sports, though, and said that this was the most memorable dinner that they'd ever had and that it would enter family reunion lore for sure.