You Reminded Me

While waiting for the bus, a little elderly lady turned to speak to me. She seemed very excited to chat with Melissa and I. Turns out she was from NYC, but has been living in San Fran since the 70’s. Good year to move, I said and she laughed. She would grab my elbow with excitement while the three of us chatted. It wasn’t creepy, just affectionate. This city is just so friendly. After asking what our majors were, she told me that she initially came over to tell me that I reminded her of Amy Goodman, with a Jewish-Buddhist monk air. I took the comparison as a huge compliment.

More Energy Healing, Russian-Style

Melissa and I decided that going to read in a park was going to be a great way to spend a morning/afternoon. Yes, I fly across the country to go read in a park with a friend. 

Laying around, eating grapes and scones, drinking lovely iced teas made by some friendly people, and drinking in the Vitamin D, I notice an older woman nearby speaking in Russian on the phone. Unlike Brooklyn, NY, Russian is a lot more rare in SF. She pauses to ask us a question in English, and I respond to her in Russian. I apologized for overhearing, but I asked if it would be easier for her to speak in our native language. She gets absurdly excited that I speak Russian, and then proceeds to tell me her life story, her medical issues, her daughter’s husband issues.. She also wants to read an article in her magazine to me. (Side story, every Russian granny seems to want to read articles from magazine to me. My own grannies in particular) The article was about the energy in one’s surroundings. Feng Shui, actually.

The article was unremarkable. Yet, she was the second person in a short amount of time to talk to me about energy healing….and ask if I was Georgian. Except she had good reason. She was Nina, a Russian Jew from Moscow, and I’m Yanina, a Russian Jew from Moscow. She was impressed by my dark facial features and pale skin. Although my family is pure Russian Jew. My maternal grandfather is the only one who isn’t. He’s a slavic-German-Christian…but now he’s an honorary Jew, and has been for quite some time. He was the first non-Russian-Jew to marry into my maternal grandmother’s bloodline. I’m amazed my brother and I came out without any diseases. Although, like most Jews, my brother and I suffer from being fucking crazy. 

She was rather nice. She threw out compliments to Melissa and I. She wished us well. She told us to go find ourselves. She told me that my soul knew the right thing to do.

I hope you’re right, lady.

Son of a Mongoose

I should probably be offended, but Russian meerkats are so fucking cute. Who knew?

Anyway, there is of course some people that say eeeeenteresting things on the internet. First, dude asks the question, “

Is the new advert for Meerkat.com racist?”

It already went downhill went the question poster clarified what he thought was the racist bit,

“Meerkats are African, the advert depicts them talking in a Russian accent.  This surely means that the advertisers are being anti African and therefore racist.”

Okay, so I already had a fit of giggles right there (pain medication and a lot of ice cream go straight to my head), because yes…the ad is being anti-African. Poor wildlife being forced …to speak with a Russian accent, oh the atrocity! All of Africa is insulted!

So the “best answer” award, most likely given by the question poster, went to someone who said, “Missing the point methinks. Meerkat is supposedly the way a russian would say market, hence compare the meerkat. No racism here mate.” No, no! No racism, why would stereotyping a Russian accent be racist? Ahaha, how silly, they will always be our enemies.

Other answers were as follows, and I swear this was the majority of answers: