Snippets, part 1

In this edition of snippets, we'll be covering the following items, deemed interesting enough to be blogged about, but not enough so as to merit their very own entry:

*Seryoga
*Drunk Lady, and my international song-writing debut
*On the importance of physical fitness

Seryoga

You don't have to speak Rusky to appreciate the hip hop-stylings of Seryoga, a young man who fancies himself the Eastern world's Slim Shady. There is something very special (yes, special, that's the word) about watching the music videos of a white Russian kid imitating a white trailer park kid imitating black hood kids imitating Italian mobsters.

As I sadly haven't succeeded in finding an online video clip for his latest hit, Vosli Doma Tvoyevo (Near Your House), I'll include a snippet of its lyrics here for your enjoyment:

I became just like Eminem
I became just like Eminem
I became just like Eminem

Where the hell's that Dr. Dre
Where the hell's that Dr. Dre
Where the hell's that Dr. Dre

When he just hears this gangster rap he will come and help me

Yes Seryoga, I'm sure he's on a plane right now.

www.seryoga.ru

Adventures with Drunk Lady

It was a cold and blustery winter day, things in the office were slow, and I was freezing my butt off. When Ari swang by my office for a visit, fetching a warming cup of tea seemed the perfect excuse to escape for a bit. We headed down the street to the conveniently-located Orange Cafe, a tiny place situated at a bus stop near both our offices with just a little bar and three tables inside. As we sat with our mugs and chatted, our English did not escape the notice of a young woman sitting at the next table over. She was about my age, and prominently didn't fit the MD woman mold, wearing a big 80s-style leather jacket, boots, and being on the larger side.
That, and raging drunk at 2pm.

"Aha, I see," she said, after we'd chatted a bit. "He's a business man, and you're his translator."

"No, no, we are both American volunteers. Have you heard of --"

"And he doesn't speak Russian, so you're his translator."

Conversation continued on in this pleasant, if somewhat repetitious, vein for several minutes, until our new friend felt nature's call. Ari and I shared a look of relief and began bundling ourselves back up for the trip outside, not noticing the male customer who had also headed off in the bathroom's direction.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

A shriek from the bathroom, the rapid retreat of the male customer to his stool, and our new friend rushing from the bathroom.

"Why you no knock!" She looked to us, her allies. "In America you knock, yes? I am in bathroom like this"--squatting here for emphasis--"and he open door, while I am making a pee pee!"

I caught the eye of our waitress doing her professional best not to collapse into laughter behind the bar. Our outraged victim, meanwhile, stomped her way over to the man, who suddenly appeared deeply engrossed in his beer.

"YOU!" she shouted in English, "Where is my sorry!"

Seizing an opportune moment to make our escape, Ari and I grabbed our things.

"Thank you," the waitress called as we approached the door, "please come again!"

**

Now it was a few weeks later, and I entered our local house of culture along with Ari and Alina, feeling very VIP with my free concert ticket in hand. New Balance, a local band Nic had been playing with, was opening for the headlining Ellis. What a night -- they were even giving out free soohareeky** at the door!

New Balance, a group of 16 year old boys doing their very best impression of Linkin Park, jumped around the stage in baggy jeans and black cuff bracelets singing about how no one understands them while in back Nic manned the drums in a dress shirt and tie, not having managed to change before the concert. The boys did a good job and I have to admit, through the course of watching their practices some of their songs have really grown on me. Good kids. I wonder if they know they named their band after a brand of athletic shoes?

We sat through one more act before the long-awaited Ellis -- a group of 40-ish men, very talented artists even if their music isn't my style -- came to the stage. They riffed their way through several tracks until, suddenly, I heard it: THE FAT CHICKS SONG!

A bit of background. I helped Nic pen this little masterpiece a couple of months before, during the long and bumpy rutierra ride taking our Odyssey of the Mind team to the national competition in Chisinau. Ellis had given him a CD of their music with the request that he write English lyrics for their songs, in hopes of expanding their potential audience. Some of the songs had no words yet, and for these it was easy enough to throw out lyrical nonsense. Others, though, had something that, while not lyrics per se, was certainly...something. Their song writer had spent some time in the US, enough time for him to pick up some English, though not enough for us to have any idea what he was saying.

We huddled over the headphones, straining to make something out of the syllables.

"Okay, here's one line...'I get built nine/how thin you are'...I don't know about this chorus, though."

To the best of our knowledge, this peppy tune featured a chorus of "you gotta tig in da bay, tig in da bay, you gotta tig it away". We mused over song themes, until suddenly inspiration struck.

"I've got it!" I said. "We'll make it a song about a guy whose woman is big...and he loves it! It would be the perfect message for a country where all the women are afraid to eat!"

We continued to plug away at the track for the rest of the drive, having quite a bit of fun with it, and then I promptly forgot all about it. Until, that is, I found myself with a front-row seat to Ellis' concert, and heard those opening notes.

I soon discovered that while the song's lyrics were born of the purest social change intentions, they didn't reach the stage before receiving Nic's own special touch.

"I'm gonna keep on bitchin/how thin you are/if i wanted a toothpick/i'd go to a bar

Don't ask questions/you don't want the answers to/do you look fat/well baby is the sky blue**"

The singer leaned forward dramatically into the audience. "I'm sending this song out to womeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen......." We all went wild, me jabbing Ari with my elbow and clapping madly, a reverie that was only broken when a sudden shout and commotion arose behind us.

"I'm 45 minutes late...start over please! Ha ha ha!"

Why, I'd know that big leather jacket and swagger anywhere....Drunk Lady, so we meet again!

_________________________________________________________________

[**Flavored croutons, a popular snack.]

[**I would like to note for the record that my original suggestion had been "well do monkeys throw poo".]

On the importance of physical fitness

I have been going to a "shaping" class at the local swimming pool for a month or so now. (Can I mention again how not disappointed I am to be living in a city and missing out on that authentic village experience?) I happened upon it when I was at the pool to swim one day and saw several ladies coming out of a room attached to the women's locker room. The trainer let me drop in on a class to see if I liked it and I was sold, though a bit baffled by the steady squeaking sound as we jogged in a circle during warm-up.

Shaping consists of 45 minutes of sweating to Ruskaya Radio, doing leg lifts and push ups and every exercise ever invented to torture your abs while the trainer shouts out the number of reps, urging you to go faster and kick those legs higher. Odeen! Dvah! Tree! Chehteeri! Afterward you cool down with a nice 45-minute swim in the adjoining pool, though on busy days it less resembles swimming than a new water sport I've dubbed Dodge the Baba, with lane after lane blocked by large bobbing women. Still, I and usually manage to squeeze a kilometer's worth of laps into each class, deterred neither by the human clogs nor my utter lack of technique. At first I felt a bit silly flailing around on my back while surrounded by people swimming a proper breast stroke and so on, but it has had the unexpected upside of getting me intimately acquainted with one poor young women who I have managed to bonk heads with, crash into, or grab the crotch of nearly every session.

When you buy your shaping pass for the month, the cashier directs you to the nurse's office next door. There you are asked to show your soap and sponge, which if you've forgotten she's happy to sell you for 5 lei -- you do want to get clean, don't you? -- before she asks you to show her the backs and palms of your hands, and to lift up your shirt for a stomach inspection. What she's checking for I don't know, but so far I've passed with flying colors.

After receiving your medical seal of approval, you go put your purse and shoes in coat check before padding off to the locker room in your slippers. In the locker room you change into your workout clothes, which for local fitness enthusiasts often means a turtleneck and tight jeans, but not before first wrapping your stomach, butt and thighs in plastic wrap. Under my peers' careful tutelage, I have learned that it is also not a bad idea to top the plastic wrap with a girdle before donning your turtleneck.

**

A couple weeks ago, a sweet girl I'd taken for the trainer's groupie due to her constantly staring moonily up at him came over to introduce herself to me.

"Hello, I am Elena. The teacher is my husband and he told me that there was a girl in class who spoke Russian badly but spoke English very well."

Yeah, I guess that's a fair enough description.

It's cool though. Last class we huffed and puffed side by side, and there was nice camaraderie in our exhausted eye rolling as our muscles were giving out on us toward the end of each exercise. And, bless her heart, she managed to squeeze in bits of conversation between those reps. Oof, oof, oof, so, what do you think of Moldovan wine?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I depend on distraction to get myself through a workout, whether it's surreptitiously watching male swimmers through my goggles as I do my laps, or rapping Salt-n-Pepa songs in my head. Maybe this is what got into me when I began to tease my new friend about having her own personal trainer and was suddenly seized by a mental picture of their, er, intimate life at home. Odeen! Dvah! Tree! Chehteeri! Luckily I managed to conceal my laughter with a particularly vigorous round of sit-ups.