![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Crazy Fucking Russians.
Feb. 15th, 2009 11:53 pmSo I may have mentioned, Nastyushka seems inordinately delighted that I'm back in the garage - or some utterly unrelated coincidence has made her slightly less talkative while I've been on stage. I suspect, actually, the latter - I'm pretty sure her baseline hasn't changed much, just that it's easier to talk in the garage. And while I was on stage she did beat me with a rolled up newspaper *and* a pair of drumsticks, which are signs of affection.
But tonight, she came and said "Why you no say me 'Happy Valentines Day' yesterday?". So I looked at her, and blinked, and said "Nastyushka, I'm a married man!". And she proceeded to beat me over the head with a pen and point out that if my wife doesn't mind that we go for drinks together after work, she's unlikely to mind if I say "Happy Valentine's Day". So I *think* beating me over the head with a pen *while* petulantly demanding an explanation for my lack of Valentine's Day wishes *and* justifying her own lack of such by saying she forgot is, by Crazy Fucking Russian standards, practically a proposal of marriage.
Or not. I'm completely confused. But remarkably OK with that.
Also: English words that are difficult to explain to the hot Russian acrobat you have a hell of a crush on include "intimate". I ... didn't even know where to start. And "Let me show you" seemed like a bad idea 3 feet away from a 30' drop.
jai.
.
But tonight, she came and said "Why you no say me 'Happy Valentines Day' yesterday?". So I looked at her, and blinked, and said "Nastyushka, I'm a married man!". And she proceeded to beat me over the head with a pen and point out that if my wife doesn't mind that we go for drinks together after work, she's unlikely to mind if I say "Happy Valentine's Day". So I *think* beating me over the head with a pen *while* petulantly demanding an explanation for my lack of Valentine's Day wishes *and* justifying her own lack of such by saying she forgot is, by Crazy Fucking Russian standards, practically a proposal of marriage.
Or not. I'm completely confused. But remarkably OK with that.
Also: English words that are difficult to explain to the hot Russian acrobat you have a hell of a crush on include "intimate". I ... didn't even know where to start. And "Let me show you" seemed like a bad idea 3 feet away from a 30' drop.
jai.
.
Days like these....
Jan. 30th, 2009 09:51 pmHome is: holding Romka in a headlock so Angelina can spank him. Angelina and Dennis, our lovely aerial bamboo/perch couple, have basically adopted Romka to keep him out of trouble. They're very sweet, and he's ... very young :) It's lovely to watch them playing at family.
Love is: hanging my trapeze in the grid (where I can't really use it) instead of the training room because the aerial frame is back in the show and the crazy Russians need it more than I do. And hopefully it'll impress Nastyushka.... I've worked out a technique for building a better trapeze with rope we have lying around, so it's not a huge sacrifice.
Family is: reducing an entire rigging crew to giggles by playing the Red Army Choir version of Land Down Under over the rigging comms on Australia Day.
Russian of the day: Pri krasnaya (при красная ?) - "It's a beautiful thing". Also, Spokoyne (спокоиня ?) - "Take it easy", said when someone is rushing or panicking over a job.
Life, it continues to be beautiful. Been on stage for 2 weeks, back to running the garage next week. Less Nastyushka, now that she's back on the frame, but more precious the moments with her, for that reason.
Also, happy new year. Not so many fireworks this year, but I let off a few strings of traditional crackers, for myself and for all of you.
Love is: hanging my trapeze in the grid (where I can't really use it) instead of the training room because the aerial frame is back in the show and the crazy Russians need it more than I do. And hopefully it'll impress Nastyushka.... I've worked out a technique for building a better trapeze with rope we have lying around, so it's not a huge sacrifice.
Family is: reducing an entire rigging crew to giggles by playing the Red Army Choir version of Land Down Under over the rigging comms on Australia Day.
Russian of the day: Pri krasnaya (при красная ?) - "It's a beautiful thing". Also, Spokoyne (спокоиня ?) - "Take it easy", said when someone is rushing or panicking over a job.
Life, it continues to be beautiful. Been on stage for 2 weeks, back to running the garage next week. Less Nastyushka, now that she's back on the frame, but more precious the moments with her, for that reason.
Also, happy new year. Not so many fireworks this year, but I let off a few strings of traditional crackers, for myself and for all of you.
These little things, they grow, they take on lives of their own. A while back, we nicknamed Olga and Nastya Белка and Стрелка after the Russian Space Dogs. Last week, Nastya dragged a chair into the corridor, where the light is better, so she could read between cues. So I stuck some tape on it and wrote космона́вт Стрелка on it. Which she loved. Today, someone has stuck pictures of Стрелка up on the door to that corridor.
This amuses me vastly. Someday we will all have left, and there will be an embroidered mission patch on the garage wall, and no-one will even know the story.
Anyway. There are more garage moments, but they are all variations on a theme, and that theme is me and Nastyushka, and that's boring to everyone else. But there will be stories over beer, oh yes, my droogs.
jai.
.
This amuses me vastly. Someday we will all have left, and there will be an embroidered mission patch on the garage wall, and no-one will even know the story.
Anyway. There are more garage moments, but they are all variations on a theme, and that theme is me and Nastyushka, and that's boring to everyone else. But there will be stories over beer, oh yes, my droogs.
jai.
.
Russian of the day.
Sep. 28th, 2008 12:25 amFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bunnikins - the girls in wardrobe have learned the very useful phrase "Nadem'shtani", meaning "Put your pants on". They need to learn "Put your shirt on" for Roman, the 19 year old straps artist, who will take his off at any opportunity. Not that they necessarily complain, given his physique. Personally, I'm unlikely ever to need "Nadem'shtani" without first having learned "Take your pants off". Or possibly "Nice lats, wanna fuck?". Mmm, aerialists.
My Russian of the day is more mundane - "Doz avtra", see you tomorrow.
In other poly-linguistic news, I found myself saying "Da, esta bom, merci". Which is "Yes" in russian, "That's good" in Portuguese, and "Thank you" in French. I'm assuming the person I was talking to spoke at least one of those.
Love is: making sure the littlest Russian gets the littlest umbrella for their flight out of the garage. Home is: hunting down a 6' beach umbrella and a 6" cocktail umbrella to mess with her head.
jai.
.
bunnikins - the girls in wardrobe have learned the very useful phrase "Nadem'shtani", meaning "Put your pants on". They need to learn "Put your shirt on" for Roman, the 19 year old straps artist, who will take his off at any opportunity. Not that they necessarily complain, given his physique. Personally, I'm unlikely ever to need "Nadem'shtani" without first having learned "Take your pants off". Or possibly "Nice lats, wanna fuck?". Mmm, aerialists.My Russian of the day is more mundane - "Doz avtra", see you tomorrow.
In other poly-linguistic news, I found myself saying "Da, esta bom, merci". Which is "Yes" in russian, "That's good" in Portuguese, and "Thank you" in French. I'm assuming the person I was talking to spoke at least one of those.
Love is: making sure the littlest Russian gets the littlest umbrella for their flight out of the garage. Home is: hunting down a 6' beach umbrella and a 6" cocktail umbrella to mess with her head.
jai.
.
Dear diary.
Sep. 24th, 2008 11:02 pmToday I got kicked in the balls by a tall bendy Russian woman. Also, a clown laughed at me. Strangely, this counts as a good day back on show crew.
ETA: Russian word of the day: Two today - both slang/casual.
Nu shto(m)? - What's up?
Zayi bis - "Chilling". They tell me you use this to answer "Kachdela" (or, I guess, nu shtom). It's, like, "Cool man", if the hip Russian kids still say cool. Romka taught it to us, and it made Shurik laugh, anyway.
Man, I really need to learn Cyrillic if I'm learning Russian. But I'm not sure I have time for that *and* an hour a day of "La voiture est blanche. La voiture blanche est vielle"
jai.
.
ETA: Russian word of the day: Two today - both slang/casual.
Nu shto(m)? - What's up?
Zayi bis - "Chilling". They tell me you use this to answer "Kachdela" (or, I guess, nu shtom). It's, like, "Cool man", if the hip Russian kids still say cool. Romka taught it to us, and it made Shurik laugh, anyway.
Man, I really need to learn Cyrillic if I'm learning Russian. But I'm not sure I have time for that *and* an hour a day of "La voiture est blanche. La voiture blanche est vielle"
jai.
.
Ohhh, *now* I get it....
Sep. 15th, 2008 11:35 amI am, I must admit, learning more French and Russian than I am learning Chinese, over here.
Because, of course, I spend 8-10 hours a day working with Quebecois and Russians. And the Quebecois mostly speak good English, but are happy to speak French to me. And the russians, of course, mostly pretend not to speak English at all.
So I've picked up a few phrases, and forgotten more, but now that I'm back on day crew, I'm working with Sasha[0], so I can get her to start really teaching me Russian. Which is one good way to remember - practice practice practice. But the other thing that helps, of course, is little mnemonics. The russian for "How are you?", for example, I can only remember because it sounds like "Cock delight". Except without the "t" sound at the end. "Cock Delah", kinda. I didn't say they were *great* mnemonics. but they work.
So today I learned the russian for "I'm fine". I already knew "normana", which is a generic "good", or "OK", but "Fine" is "horesha" (and all you Russian speakers are cringing at my transliterations, but a) I don't know the Cyrillic, and b) if I did, no-one else would get it anyway). So I was trying to come up with a mnemonic for "horesha", and it occurred to me, it kinda sounds like "horrorshow".
Lightbulb.
"Odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav propaganda. Subliminal penetration." If I have to explain, you wouldn't get it.
Next time I see Shurik, I'm going to call him Droog, and try not to laugh hysterically :)
jai.
.
[0]This Sasha is a female rigger. Sasha is the most popular short form of Alexander/Alexandra, which means a hell of a lot of Russians are called Sasha. Of the 5 catchers in the aerial act, 3 are called Sasha. Actually, 2 are called Sanyok and 1 is called Shurik [1], because otherwise they'd all be called Sasha, but they all answer to Sasha. Anastasya, of course, answers to Nastya. But then, she would.
[1] I'm not sure if everyone calls him Shurik. I do, and he answers, but it really does translate as "Little Sasha". And he's 6'6" and a fucking aerial catcher. He is not a small man. I called him Shurik at the Gala premier in front of the hot russian babes who seem to materialise out of thin air for these events, and they all giggled behind their hands a lot. Megan says Sasha[2] calls him Shurik too, but I don't know if they all adopted that because they find it hilarious that I call him Shurik, or if I lucked out and independently came up with the same joke.
[2] Both of them, probably.
Because, of course, I spend 8-10 hours a day working with Quebecois and Russians. And the Quebecois mostly speak good English, but are happy to speak French to me. And the russians, of course, mostly pretend not to speak English at all.
So I've picked up a few phrases, and forgotten more, but now that I'm back on day crew, I'm working with Sasha[0], so I can get her to start really teaching me Russian. Which is one good way to remember - practice practice practice. But the other thing that helps, of course, is little mnemonics. The russian for "How are you?", for example, I can only remember because it sounds like "Cock delight". Except without the "t" sound at the end. "Cock Delah", kinda. I didn't say they were *great* mnemonics. but they work.
So today I learned the russian for "I'm fine". I already knew "normana", which is a generic "good", or "OK", but "Fine" is "horesha" (and all you Russian speakers are cringing at my transliterations, but a) I don't know the Cyrillic, and b) if I did, no-one else would get it anyway). So I was trying to come up with a mnemonic for "horesha", and it occurred to me, it kinda sounds like "horrorshow".
Lightbulb.
"Odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav propaganda. Subliminal penetration." If I have to explain, you wouldn't get it.
Next time I see Shurik, I'm going to call him Droog, and try not to laugh hysterically :)
jai.
.
[0]This Sasha is a female rigger. Sasha is the most popular short form of Alexander/Alexandra, which means a hell of a lot of Russians are called Sasha. Of the 5 catchers in the aerial act, 3 are called Sasha. Actually, 2 are called Sanyok and 1 is called Shurik [1], because otherwise they'd all be called Sasha, but they all answer to Sasha. Anastasya, of course, answers to Nastya. But then, she would.
[1] I'm not sure if everyone calls him Shurik. I do, and he answers, but it really does translate as "Little Sasha". And he's 6'6" and a fucking aerial catcher. He is not a small man. I called him Shurik at the Gala premier in front of the hot russian babes who seem to materialise out of thin air for these events, and they all giggled behind their hands a lot. Megan says Sasha[2] calls him Shurik too, but I don't know if they all adopted that because they find it hilarious that I call him Shurik, or if I lucked out and independently came up with the same joke.
[2] Both of them, probably.