Ya ne paneemah'yoo

That's how you say "I don't understand" in Russian. I am going to Russia for a couple of weeks. We are flying to St. Petersburg and will stay in a very nice hotel for a few days. Then we go on a cruise for about a week on a 200-passenger boat on a few rivers and lakes, including the Volga River. We'll stop at a few villages on the way. We visit a local family and a local school so we're supposed to bring gifts. We end up in Moscow in another nice hotel for a few more days.

I'm a little apprehensive, but I'm sure it will be an amazing experience. I wish the Russians used our alphabet. In Israel, at least the signs were all in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. I doubt there will be much in English in Russia. There are a few words in my abridged dictionary that are similar in both languages:

tooale't (toilet), leekyo'r (liquer), vee'skee (whiskey), vod'ka (vodka) and ro'stbeef (roast beef). I'll be fine, those are all the words I need.

The weather should be in the high 60's-low 70's during the day and in the low 50's at night. Sounds ideal for traveling. However, I'm bringing my newly-washed knit gloves just in case it gets cold at night.

I'm leaving on chetve'rk (Thursday). So, spasee'ba (thanks) to all of you, my bloggy friends and pray for no resurgence of the Cold War.

Puffy's List

• Go to http://procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf and move your cursor over the monitor to see some flowers much lovelier than those in my garden right now. But we do have buds popping up all over the place. We just planted some iceberg roses. They become lush, full bushes of beautiful fragrant roses. Sigh.
• We saw Dennis Prager, well-known, but horribly right-wing radio talk show host, speak on Saturday night. It was a fund-raiser and thankfully, he didn't mention politics. His topic was, "Happiness is a Serious Problem." Three things from the speech stand out in my mind. 1- "We are as happy as we decide to be. "2- "The only happy people I know are those I don't know well." This is sort of a "grass is always greener" statement, meaning we all have problems but we only share them with the people we know well. The ones we don't know well have problems, too, but we just don't know about them.
• We went to a Taste of the Town fund raiser. Hmmm, it seems like much of my money goes to fund raisers. About 50 local restaurants had booths and we pigged out, grazing from booth to booth. Yummy! I wore stretch jeans.
• Speaking of jeans, I got a couple of new pair of terrific, fit-me-perfectly-and-make-me-look-thin jeans. I wore a pair on Mother's Day. We took my mother-in-law to Marie Callender's restaurant for a buffet brunch. Mother's Day is normally a horrendous day to go out to eat, with hour-long waits. After a 5-minute wait, we were seated. Whee! I scooted over the seat on the booth and ripped my brand new fit-me-perfectly-and-make-me-look-thin jeans on a nail sticking out from seat. It was just a little hole and I'm getting it repaired. However, the manager gave me his card and told me to buy another pair and send him the bill. He asked what brand they were. I said, "Don't worry, they're not $100 jeans." OMG, when I looked for another pair, I saw $185 jeans. Whoa, not my kind of jeans. He got off easy; the ones I bought were on sale.
• Do any of you wash your knit gloves? I was getting out some gloves for my planned vacation at the end of the month (more about that in my next blog entry) and decided to wash them. I washed 2 pair, my only 2 pair. OMG, the water was black! I've never washed gloves before. Being from California and rarely wearing them, I had never thought about washing them. Of course, they were filthy. I wash my hands, don't I? (Don't answer that)
• I want Jordin to win American Idol. I want Apolo or Joey to win Dancing with the Stars. I can't decide. As long as we're on reality shows, I wanted the Beauty Queens to win TAR and I wanted Yau to win Survivor.
• I got a new pair of eyeglasses and I can't see. Everything is blurry. I waited 5 days to see if I could get used to them. I'm going back to the eye doctor today for advice. Why are eyeglasses so expensive?

Fun Anniversary/Birthday Card

A few years ago,I made this poster for my parents' anniversary. I've also made similar posters for birthdays. They're always fun and everyone loves them. This is what it says (with the candy bars and gum in caps):

The Puffy's parents' WHATCHAMACALIT CARD

LOOK! There's a RIESEN for this card. POP found Mom's CHARMS irresistible and proposed to his TOOTSIE, saying here's the SKOR. Although I'm not athletic, actually I'm a bit of a BUTTERFINGER, I graduated from HOLLYWOOD high school and I'm a CPA. Marry me and we'll have a CAREFREE life together. I'll make your every DREAM come true. Mom dumped MIKE AND IKE, took a look at Dad's CHECKBOOK, said you're a little CHUNKY, but "I do."

What a TEAR JERKER! Soon your two RUNTS were born. Alright, we were NERDS. But we gave you ZERO problems (except the TURTLES) in the bathtub incident. Sorry, but growing up, we sometimes wanted to send you to MARS.

Mom and Dad, U-NO how much we love you. As adults, sometimes we've had a ROCKY ROAD. You two have been LIFESAVERS to us. As a gift, we wanted to send you on a shopping SPREE on 5TH AVENUE in New YORK so you'd have moMENTOS of your 50th anniversary. We'd also like to give you a CUP O GOLD or MOUNDS of cash or send you on a SWEET ESCAPE because you're the best parents ever. However, we don't have 100 GRAND and we don't expect a huge PAYDAY soon. Besides, Mom, NOW OR LATER, you have Dad, your SUGAR DADDY. He's no CLARK Gable, but I hear he's GOOD N PLENTYand has kept your STARBURSTing for 50 years!

With lots of EXTRA love and KISSES,

The Puffy family.