“I have to laugh…” as Bill Murray famously said…

To set the stage… a few weeks ago my MIL was over at our house, and was hungry (as usual). I wasn’t here, so this comes to me via my wife – but because I keep thinking about it, and I chuckle each and every time – I figured I should share it with y’all.

Also, important to remember is the fact that my MIL speaks virtually no English. Meaning that she reads and writes none as well.

Anyhow… there was some leftover rice in the fridge. My wife said to Mom that she should just put some soy sauce on the warmed rice, and it’ll be a fine snack. Bear in mind, Ukrainians don’t really use soy sauce. So they aren’t overly familiar with the stuff. In fact, for the longest time we couldn’t find any at the market(s), and when we finally did, it was outrageously expensive. So, we brought a gallon from the USA about a year ago, and still have about half left.

I mention this because we refill our soy sauce bottle as needed from the plastic gallon jug. But of course, it’s not really a “soy sauce bottle,” because we bought the gallon size Costco-style jug. So we put it into an olive oil bottle, which just so happens to have a little plastic top on it – resembling (though not really) a typical soy sauce bottle top restrictor, so you don’t flood your rice/food with salty brew.

So here they are – the two bottles:

Fish and Soy - marriage made in heaven.

You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

You can kinda see where the old Sharpie text is on the label of the olive oil – saying “Soy Sauce.” Barely. But hey, it’s our kitchen, and we know which is which and what is what. Plus, we know what Soy Sauce looks and smells like. Doesn’t everyone?

Unfortunately my mother-in-law doesn’t. She can’t read English, so the “Fish Sauce” was “Greek” to her. My wife said to just sprinkle some soy on her warm rice, and it’ll be fine.

Wouldn’t you know it… she sprinkled the rice with Fish Sauce!!!  Well… more like doused.

The funniest part about this episode was that she knew it tasted funny. But she didn’t know why. And she figured that it must be “normal” tasting, because she has seen us do this many, many times. So… fine… (she said to herself)… I’m just gonna eat it.

And she did. The whole bowl. Nasty ass fish sauce poured all over her re-heated rice. Damn it man, it makes me want to vomit just writing this blog about it.

Do you all know what Fish Sauce smells like? Total fish puke, wrapped in fish skin, fermented in fish crap, and mixed with a little fish piss. No kidding. It’s hard for me to get close to the stuff.

And she ate a WHOLE BOWL of rice covered in Fish Sauce!

On top of it, even though she knew it tasted “funny,” she didn’t want to throw it away! So she kept going.  A bowl of rice – which costs pennies. I understand not wanting to waste anything, but seriously….

“Funny?”  There’s nothing funny about eating straight fish sauce. Damn it. I think I might just puke thinking about it. I’m laughing, but crying at the same time. Totally gnarly. Totally.

OK, actually, it is quite funny.

Can’t get it outta my head!!!

Best,

Snotty

I’ve been traveling a bit, and I’ve seen a restaurant (chain) in Ukraine. There aren’t a lot of them, but I’ve seen a couple. They are called:

CCCP

Now, I’ve always known this as “C” “C” “C” “P”. Yet, the funniest thing happened the other day, and I had an epiphany regarding the spelling (born out of my naivety about the spelling).

To the average English speaker this spelling appears perfectly “normal” (standard). But it just so happens that these are also standard Cyrillic letters. In the Russian alphabet there are 36 letters, and the majority (or at least it seems like the majority) of them look different to Latin characters. But in Cyrillic, “CCCP” actually transliterates to “SSSR” (Latin).

CCCP stands for “Союз Советских Социалистических Республик”

Again, when transliterated, it would look (in Latin) like SSSR. When translated, it turns into USSR due to it being the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

I guess I find it funny that I always thought of the Soviet Union as the U.S.S.R., and I always wondered why it had also been occasionally (in my part of the world) referred to as CCCP. I figured CCCP was Russian, but I didn’t know why or how it translated. I suppose I would have expected CCCP to LOOK different if it were written in Russian (Cyrillic letters)… but alas, it does not – and the characters look “normal” to me.

Are you seeing where I’m going, or am I losing you?

Anyhow… the funny part of this story is that I openly displayed my ignorance in front of some Ukrainians (this, after being here nearly 3 years): I said “How about we go to the “C” “C” “C” “P” Cafe for lunch. The Ukrainians looked at me — obviously, and COMPLETELY, confused. You could see in their eyes that this stimulated persistent signaling from one side of their brains to the other – like an Olympic ping pong match – over and over again: they just couldn’t figure out what in the world I was talking about. Literally 10-15 seconds later……….  someone finally put it together.

“Oh, you mean ‘SSSR’ Cafe.” And I said, “no, I mean ‘CCCP’.” Again they looked at me puzzled… and after about 5 seconds I realized my complete and utterly embarrassing blunder – I felt like a total idiot. You know… one of those frail moments that strikes usually capable individuals every now and again – and you realize you have just made a complete fool of yourself in front of people you would really rather have not done that in front of.

I didn’t put together that    CCCP = SSSR.

With good reason, this has turned into a long-standing joke, and even the Ukrainians for the rest of the ~2 week trip began referring to the Cafe as “CCCP”.  Each time they said it, they laughed, and then looked at me.

Fantastic. I love that feeling. A(nother) Stupid American in a [former] Soviet country – sounding like an idiot.

Ahhhhhh……….

I suppose everyone has silly moments. This was definitely one of mine…

I caught four random individuals standing in front of the CCCP Cafe

Well, it finally happened… I experienced my first dream in which I can remember – me – speaking in Russian!

Yes, I’m studying Russian. Not all the time, as my focus changes from week to week, and month to month. But, I have consistently been trying to actively improve my Russian language skills over time, and it’s one of my primary goals in living here in the Ukraine. Sure, I could have taken the “bull by the horns” and buried myself in the language… but alas, I’ve had other things to do, and other interests – even though a solid Russian language ability would likely have improved my experiences over the past 18 months. Blah, blah, blah – yadda, yadda, yuddah…  I’m doing it at my own pace.

Nevertheless, this morning I think I turned a proverbial corner. I dreamt that I was spaking in Russian! Funnily enough, I was sort of struggling to keep up with the conversation I was following (two others were talking while I was listening) –> but I was “catching the drift” of the conversation, and it was somewhat making sense. Then I chimed in with a “конечно,” during a pause in the action.

конечно means “of course” or “obviously.”

конечно is a word that is used all of the time in Russian.

It is pronounced like “konieshno.” (sort of)

Anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you, since I’m just now getting to bed, and I’m hoping to dream in Russian once again.

спокойной ночи  = good night!

Oh, and I found this link… and I thought it was interesting.