My typical day

Gave myself the pep talk of the century yesterday so I could get in the shower and wash my hair. I don't know about this kick I'm on where I refuse to use buckets of hot water, but man is it cold!!! Luckily I was the only one home, so the yelling, pumping myself up, etc was kept on the hush-hush.

Went to a service project with the youth today. We painted playground equipment at an orphanage 25 minutes outside of Moscow. Turned out really well and was a lot of fun! I definitely got some sun and paint, so I guess I'm not so white anymore.

I've recently become addicted (again) to 24. That Kiefer Sutherland--he's so hot right now. How can you not love Jack Bauer? I've watched 13 episodes of season 3 in about the last 3 days. I think I need help...

On the way back from service, I ended up sitting down in an open seat on the metro on the green line (I had just started a new episode of 24--season 3, episode 14) when this man next to me asked if he had gotten on the right metro to get to Voikovskaya stop. I told him yes, that we were on tverskaya, and that voikovskaya was third from the end. He thanked me and pointed to his cane and said that he was an invalid of the second type and had bad vision. He then proceeded to tell me about I'm not sure what for the next 20 minutes. I caught astronaut, he was born in Moscow--as were a host of other people he thought he should bring to my attention, and something about "youth today." I also caught something about people making food out of dogs. At first I thought this was just part of the dialogue I made up in my head while he was talking, and I even thought--wow, this is a weird one, even for me--only to realize that WAS what he was talking about. Yuck.

As he spoke about these various subjects, I sat and nodded my head and wondered what repsonse I could give that would be appropriate as I didn't understand exactly what he was saying (he didn't have any teeth, which made it difficult to pick out words--the woman across from me gave me an encouraging smile, like just go with it), and I tried to make faces like I was listening. I think he appreciated having someone to talk to, even if I couldn't add much to the conversation besides, "Oh, that's too bad," "uh huh," and, "really?" As Vokovskaya came up, I told him he'd reached his stop and helped him up out of his chair, and tried to put my hand on the door so they wouldn't close on him.

Then on my walk from the metro to my house, I saw this bigger dog start chasing this little dog, and I thought, oh no, he's going to eat that little dog. Gross, but I still watched to see what would happen. I heard a woman yell after him to stop, then she joked about how he was off chasing girls. The bigger dog did NOT eat the other one, it just followed her back to the owner. She said to him, "You naughty dog. I should hang you up in that tree." She was obviously joking and said it in a loving tone. And then the woman she was talking to good naturedly said, "You should be ashamed of yourself," to the dog, and then they kept on chatting.

So there is another typical day here off the Rechnoj Voksal stop at the top of the green line in Moscow.