Hoot

One of my ears is lower than the other by only a quarter of an inch. A smidge. Therefore, any reading glasses on my visage tilt as if I am straight from Woody Woodpeckerville, or a ladies' luncheon with punch. The solution is to buy inexpensive frames from the dollar store and bend them to fit my crooked little haid. This however, throws off the balance of the nose rests, and there I am, back at the beginning of the problem. So spinach, I say.

I have started this paragraph over five times, each subject less interesting than the other. All I can say is, send me your addresses and I will mail you a holiday card with a small, flat prize inside once the prizes arrive. Just ordered a gross of them from my new favorite store on Ebay, and they should be here in a week. No, no clues, you just have to wait and see.

You could send any addresses to my emergency backup email addy, cakebythelake@gmail.com. unless you have my homebase addy or send me a note via MySpace whose security I trust like Russians at KMart. I have basis for this.

When son Brian was in high school, American Field Service offered an exchange program with Russia, during the time Moscow was being invaded by tanks. Our American kids went there, and the Russian kids were to come the next year which they did with Irina, the adult chaperone. Apparently in Alexandria, all stores keep goods away from the customer, behind glass, out of reach. Here, everything is out in the open, which to the Russians seemed like sheer wide-eyed Amehrreekan stoopitness.

One portion of the field tripski was shopping at a locally giant mall, where Irina the adult sat on a bench with open shopping bags on either side of her. Instructions to the students were to steal anything they could lay their mitts on, and drop it in the bag. Sneakers, cameras, batteries, toiletries, it was holiday pillaging with Jingle Bells in the background. They were laughing at the naive Eenglees (English) while tossing Bic razors into Irina's loot bags, probably to later shave her chest, no lie.

They. Had. No. Idea. Regarding. Camera. Technology. and that they were on every security video channel while being followed by plainsclothesmen, detectives, security guards, ticked off store clerks, and K-9 dogs. Oh ho ho. Security surrounded Irina and told her to round up her gang, and the Cheektowaga police were called. All swag was returned to the stores, and all stores but one dropped charges. The one department store called their lawyers in NYC, and would have turned it into an In-ternational In-cident, except local authorities from American Field Service dissuaded that idea in a gesture of sanity.

"That eesint us'" spouted Irina as she watched the videotape. "And besites, noh bahddy beleef you, I vill deny effreetink" and she was correct. Communication was at the time so poor, that it took up to half an hour for a phone connection, and then you weren't sure who was on the other sputtering end. They could care less what the Rooskies stole from the Eenglees, more power to them.

In Russia, if you could get away with something, it was a badge of honor to hornswoggle the government. Same rules applied for them here, and the incident didn't stop a similar foray into KMart, where the Russians switched their old sneakers, walking out of the store wearing new.

It made some of our kids from the high school embarrassed and sad that the students they came to know in Russia would come over here and steal. But what was interesting was that none of it was high-end stuff. Like I said, the bulk of it was sneakers and toiletries like deodorant, make-up, soap, razors, and ointments, things that weren't easily gotten in Russia. When Bri lived with his foster family in Alexandria, there wasn't any dish soap for dishes, nor hot water in the apartment as the government hadn't turned it on yet. Just a rinse in cold water and that's it, for body and bowl.

Well there, plenty of paragraphs describing Chreesmoose cheer, let the balalaikas play.
I am going to start a list of things to do, and will cross off maybe six of them as reality slides into home plate. I talk to you tomorrow, my little hedgehogs, it is dark, the wind still whistles, and the last of fall blows down the street.

Good night, peaceful quiet.