So, I just got back from this cool wine-’em-and-dine-’em conventiony user group thingy for Video Conferencing.

I had a fun fun time! And YES, I was working. It was a lot about tech stuff and strategies.

But the people that work for this company are so young and fun. Plus, everyone is having babies…
But that’s a different story.

I got back on Friday night, and the first thing that I took away from this conventiony thing was:
“I need new shoes. CUTE shoes.”

‘Cause those young fun females were all sporting their lacquered toes in hip little sandals. In PHILADELPHIA!
LA is even more of a naked toe environment.

I have been bashful to try these kinds of shoes. I admire them, and i do think I have attractive feet.

But I am of below average coordination.

FAR below average.

These ladies with their little teeny straps holding the shoe to their foot….I don’t think so.

I like something FIRMLY attached to my foot. I tend to be very absent minded. I am very likely to leave my shoe behind if it is not fully fastened.

And if you add HEELS to the equation-well…i fear for my ankles.

But what is practicality in the face of cute?

I went shopping.

I got some GREAT shoes. Some super high boots, with the new thin but wide heel. Very sexy, in a art deco macintosh pattern.

But these are not the CUTE shoes I am looking for. They are very hip and sophisticated, but not CUTE.

Perhaps I fear cute. I want to be taken seriously. But I want to be surprising, too.

Cute shoes. I must persevere to the cute.

There were some incredibly cute sandals for sale. They had beaded staps, and a big gem flower between the toes.

But I couldn’t decide which color. Hot pink? Electric Blue?

I chickened out.

Naked toes.

But there were some other sandals on sale. They were a comfortable black, but they were studded with red stones.

They were pretty.

But they only had one little piece of leather over my foot. And they were about 3 inches of heel.

scary.

I’m wearing them today. Cute feet at work. It’s a little difficult, trolloping around in my strappy shoes, trying to remember to walk in such a way as to keep my feet in my shoes.

I’m catching myself, just as I slip off the edge of the shoes, or teeter on the verge of snapping off my ankle.

Beauty is hard. I wish I were a little more coordinated.

Maybe there’s a class I can take.

But i still feel very cute.

Tamara Kobilkina, a dear friend from Mirnyy, had that certain turn of phrase. She spoke English very well, but there are ragged edges in the overlap of languages. One idea can be expressed beautifully in one language, perhaps because it is a concept widely understood by the culture. But that same idea is awkward in another language.

Tamara liked to ask me what my impressions of Russia were, what I thought of different things and places that I have seen.

I had forgotten about her “Impressions” question until I went to Germany with Chris. I was full of ideas and new sites, sounds and tastes. I turned to Chris, to ask him what he thought of everything.

I had to grope for the right phrase. “So what do you think?” did not adequately cover the ground.

“What are your impressions of this place?” is just right.

If I ever see Tamara again, I will thank her for that beautifully fitting question.

I have so many many many many impresssions.

I loved the trip. I have been LONGING to go to a foriegn country. I have been to the UK and to Ireland in the past decade. But they did not feel foriegn.

Because, you see, we speak the same language. How foriegn can we be?

And I remember the HIGHLY foriegn country that I spent a year and a half in.

Anyone that knows my family, not just one or two individuals, but my whole family, knows that some part of us is frozen, like Han Solo, around the impressions we got in Russia.

So, I wanted to try a new flavor of foriegn country. Russia was so tremendously exciting.

Tamara told me that I understood the Russian soul.

I don’t think so. Maybe just being impressionable is the Russian soul.

Right now, I am full to the brim of impressions of my trip to Germany. I am very sad to have left.

Yet, here I am talking about everything but Germany!

well, there is a lot to tell.

One of my huge impressions is of the contrast, how INCREDIBLY TERRIFYING my stay in Russia was.

and how incredibly ignorant I was. I did not even know enough to be afraid.

My mother told me that she was really scared to be in Russia.

To her, she said, Russia was the bad guys.

In school, she said, we were taught to drop under the desks to be safe if Russia dropped the bomb on us.

Well, I didn’t go to school. I had VERY little TV, or Movies to tell me who the bad guys were.

Because, you know, you have to be told.

It has been ten years since I lived in Russia. That’s pretty much the span of my adult life.

I’ve seen a lot of TV and Movies since then.

And most of those TV and movies pointed to the Germans as being the bad guys.

When I was in Germany there were a few moments of feeling illogically afraid.
I have more sympathy for my mom’s fears, now.

Yesterday, as i was riding the bus home early because I was coming home sick, a young man got on the bus. He handed the bus driver a ticket, and then made some gestures like he needed to say more.

After trying to understand him for a moment, the bus driver said, “I speak six languages, but I do not speak American Sign Language.”

The young man gave up and sat down.

He had been motioning that he wanted to write something down. But he didn’t have any paper. I happened to have a pad on me.

I took it out, and wrote down:

What do you need?

I handed him the pad and pen:

I told him that I did paid ticket at the metro rail transfer to bus should give me ticket is some

You want another transfer?

I gave him my ticket need to change a bus ticket. also i paid ticket at the metro rail machines

You need another tranfer or what? a ‘transfer’ is a ticket that lets you get on the next bus.

I need a ticket because my grammar isn’t good. but most of time I using on american sign laguage.

Well, if you need another bus pass, you need to pay for it. He will give you one.

I did gave him of my ticket. I was paid a ticket machine at the metro rail, can rail transfer to bus don’t need I another to pay a ticket just I gave him give me one a ticket. if I not paid only metro rail it mean i can’t get another a ticket

Do you need something else? You are riding the bus now

Just forgot about that I’ll pay other but I knew depend on the people force to the people to pay but i knew about rule MTA

Then it was time for him to get off the bus. He blew me a kiss and held his hands to his heart, mouthing the words ‘thank you.’

He was very nice, I thought. A nice deaf young man.
I really wish I could have understood what he meant.

All this, I write, to illustrate the
IMPORTANCE OF GRAMMAR

There are times when it is very important to be understood. Constructing sentences with subjects, objects, verbs and prepositions really helps out with being understood.

I wish that boy luck, but man, he needs to study his grammar.