I just ran into a door

Whenever we have guests over Alex always closes the bedroom door because the room is kind of a mess. The rest of the house is pretty clean most of the time, but we never use the bedroom so it has turned into the "place where we throw junk". (You see, we mostly sleep on the pull out couch in the living room. I have no idea why but we both like it better in there. The bedroom is sort of creepy.) Anyway, whenever we have guests over Alex closes the bedroom door and every single time after they leave I try to go into the bedroom (because all my stuff is in there) and I run smack into the door. I mean, it seriously happens a lot. I'm getting sick of it and considering buying glow-in-the-dark stickers for the door or something...

Anyway, life is pretty good 'round here. Yesterday Andrevich came over (he is one of my favorite people here even though he doesn't speak English) which was lovely. Whenever people visit in Ukraine they bring tons of stuff, even if it is just a "hey I'm going to stop by and say hello" sort of visit. Andre brought: Lviv Beer, cherry juice, corn muffins, pastries AND a beautiful purple potted flower for me because he felt bad that he didn't get me a flower on my birthday. Isn't he a sweetie? And single... any American girls looking for a nice SWM? I should start a dating service! Anyway Alex went out and bought a HUGE dried salted fish called "shchooka" not to be confused with "sooka" which is a bad word. I was confused because the words are only separated by one letter: shch (yeah, that's a letter) and s. So we ate the huge fish and drank beer and then the boys played Tavli and then we hung out and talked and generally it was a nice evening. And did I mention I love my flower?

This evening Vara and his sort-of-girlfriend (but don't worry girls, he's still mostly on the market...) came over for a bit. I had many awkward moments with the girl (Yula) when the boys were on the balcony smoking because she does not understand that for me to understand her when she speaks Russian requires A) a miracle (just kidding... sort of) and B) her to speak SLOWLY. (Or at least not really really fast.) Fortunately I have learned the word for "slow". For some reason I could always remember "fast" but never slow and would say something like "speak no fast" when someone spoke too fast which would confuse people because when it comes down to it, native speakers of any language tend to have a hard time understanding when someone fucks up their language grammatically. I even do it sometimes. Alex will pronounce a word in slightly the wrong way and I'll look at him like he's crazy. Anyway, Yula refuses to speak slowly and then doesn't understand why I can't understand her and it sucks because then I feel like my Russian is terrible which is not a good feeling when life seems to depend on your Russian NOT sucking. 

This is the rant-y-est post. I think I'll sign off now. Alex and I are watching "Yes Man" in a few minutes. We started to watch it a while ago but never finished and for a week whenever I said "no" Alex would point to me and a chant "no man! no man." If you've seen the movie, you'll get it. 

Peace, Love and Good Russian