Fly By Night

03.29.07

Ukrainian flies are dumb.  I've never had a knack for killing flies, but here in Ukraine I deserve a black belt.  Even Hellen Keller could catch the flies here.  The ones that are fast- maybe 1 out of 100 are so dumb they kill themselves.

Proof #1:  It's been nice here so I've opened my windows to air out my flat.  Well, I didn't anticipate the number of roommates I would acquire.  The first day brought about 11 flies into my kitchen.  "Well, at least I'll have something to do" was my initial thought.  This will keep me busy for an hour or so.  Or so I thought.  Not so fast, Lauren.  The first fly was a goner in 30 seconds.  I thought it was a fluke.  So I continued after the second.  Boom! 15 seconds.  What the fuck!  "They can't be this dumb", I thought.  I decided to test their intelligence.  Weapon of choice: a one-inch long Russian match.  I killed 9 flies with this match in about 3 minutes; it only took that long because I wanted to see how slow I could come at them before they would fly away.  Conclusion: they don't.  It's almost as if they're begging to die.

Proof #2:  So, I sit down last night to reread my Newsweek for the third time, this time for the advertisements, when I hear an annoying zzzz...zzzz.  Here we go again.  So I get up to kill him remembering how dumb these flies are.  But, this one seems smarter than the average Dima.  I chase him around my apartment for 15 minutes (I'm easily entertained) when all of a sudden the fly does the weirdest thing.  He's on his back on the ceiling, flying in circles, like he can't figure out which way is up.  This continues for a good 2 minutes until he finally remembers how to fly again.  Then he flies directly down the hall into the living room, directly to the light and fries himself.  He literally landed right on the hot lightbulb and sat there screaming for some seconds.   And then I just saw a silhouette of him fall to the bottom of the light through the golden lampshade.   He killed himself.  WTF?

Cheap thrills.

Blitzkrieg by Turkeys

Some recent observations: 

1.  If you see an ear on the ground, it's real.  There are no fake ear gags here.

2.  The word for vacuum is pillosauce.  Coincidence?  Gross?

3.  You can never have enough florescent fake flowers or clocks set to the wrong time.  Or can you?

4.  If somebody asks you if you want some potatoes, they'll give you enough to feed the Red Army. I don't know how many potatoes they think a single girl can eat.

5.  If a tree is in the middle of the road, it's not growing there naturally.  It's a warning that the road is under construction.

6.  If you're a woman and you smoke, walk alone, or get a taxi, you are a prostitute.  Looks like I'm the dirtiest whore in town.

7.  Everyone knows what I eat because whatever I buy at the market is conversation the next day around town.

8.  Ukrainians love banana bread and mayonnaise with anything and everything.

9.  Example: a "shuba" (fur coat) salad- anchovies, beets, sour cream, cabbage, peas, egg, and mayonnaise.  Fucking NAST!  But they sure have a sense of humor.

10.  The rubbery lump in your soup is chicken heart.

11.  Trash cans?

12.  This is a tribute to my mother: She always said that it hurts to be beautiful, but does that include a blitzkrieg by turkeys?  Apparently the don't like red or magenta.  But, it's such a cute scarf.