8 November, 2008
This has been such an interesting day. First, I slept in until 10:00! Decadence indeed! Then I had a lovely breakfast of каша (porridge/oatmeal) and tea. Living with Lyudmila Sergeevna is a food lover’s dream. She makes something as boring as каша a treat, and her dinners are really something to write home about; (Hence their inclusion in this post) Пельмены (Russian dumplings – a bit like ravioli or wan tans), борщ (borsht), котлеты (breaded cutlets), салаты (homemade coleslaw), компот (“compote” this is like homemade juice from boiled apples and berries, only more wonderful). Yum! Even nasty things like mushrooms and pickles taste good under her hand.
After breakfast I puttered around, adding music to my computer, and uploading pictures from St. Petersburg and Karelia, etc. until noon. Then a bunch of my buddies and I went to see the new James Bond flick “Quantum of Solace” (Квант Милосердие). That was an interesting experience. I won’t tell you what happens, but it involved a lot of explosions, murder, betrayal, more explosions and murder, and too top it off a smattering of French and Spanish. (Ok also I am not entirely sure what all happened, since we watched the Russian version and a great deal of the dialog was lost on me.)
I met up with my friend Sasha after the movie (she is my “tutor” and a lot of fun). We had a marvelous time talking about nothing at all. We also showed each other what we know of origami. She showed me how to make a talking frog. Way cool. (Side note, in Russia, frogs say “Kva kva” not “ribbit” –and lots of other barnyard animal noises are different too. Horses, for example say “Ee-go-go” and dogs say “Gaff Gaff” My personal favorite is “hriyou hriyou” –which is what pigs say instead of “oink.” Hooray cultural exchange!)
Afterwards, I translated some beautiful English love songs of hers into Russian, and in the process we talked a lot about love. If you have never heard the song “Only Hope” by Mandy Moore I strongly recommend that you listen to it, it’s a keeper.
Later still I had an incredibly interesting discussion with a friend about another facet of love and how Love ties into one’s relationship with God. It lasted over an hour, so I won’t relate it all here, but one of the most interesting things that we agreed on is that the love (True Love that is) that we experience here on earth is only a fraction, a shadow of what Love truly is. Because Love= God, which is something that we as mortals can’t even begin to comprehend. This in turn brought us to the book of Ecclesiastes. I haven’t read much of this one, but there are some really cool lines in it. For instance:
Also every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God answers him in the joy of his heart. Ecclesiastes 5:19-20 That just about sums it up. All of our talents (spiritual riches) are true gifts of God, and to use these gifts to His glory, should be our highest goal, and should be a source of rejoicing as well. But “gifts” is a broad term- and I think that it includes every aspect of life. “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Life is Good. God is Great. Ice cream is Awesome. J
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