Puzic and Popochka, Belly and Butt

Tanya and I have been together now over two years, and married 18 months last Monday 23rd. Together, not counting five months before and four months after our wedding on opposite sides of the pond. Our time together has been wonderful to say the least.

Our marriage is full of love and laughter. We tease each other mercilessly. We are never too busy for a kiss or a hug. “I Love You” in either language is promptly returned. I promised to keep her in roses, champagne and chocolate. Roses have been replaced with annuals and perennials for the garden and innumerable houseplants. We have dropped the champagne for Inkerman (Crimean) wine and she tells me I am better than chocolate. I don’t even care if she is lying.

The funny thing is that each of us loves the physical characteristic the other hates about themselves. Anyone who has seen a side profile of me knows I have Dunlop’s Disease. My broad mind and narrow waist changed places years back. I wear the same size pants “as I did in University” but no one has seen my belt buckle in decades. I hate it. Tanya says it is good for a man to have a Puzik (belly). (Tummy rumbles are called puzik muzik) She says it makes me look good and she pats it and calls it soft names in Russian.

On the other hand, she worries that her Popochka (butt) is too big. As far as I am concerned unless it is two axe handles, three cans of tomatoes and a plug of chewing tobacco wide, a good behind is never too big. She is about 1½ plugs of tobacco shy of two axe handles so I think hers is wonderful. I pat her popochka in public which makes her want to kill me.

So we are in Kansas Clothing Store in ZV to buy some summer clothes. They bring me a couple of shirts size 6X (European size). Buttoned and held out flat they look as wide as the mainsail on Captain Hornblower’s ship-of-the-line. When I put them on, they fit. Snug.

Tanya finds a pair of beige shorts she likes and wants to know if they have them in her size. I spot a rack of girls’ blue-jean shorts. The first pair has no leg at all. Cut off square with the seam. Young teenagers in this style look all legs, like a young foal. I ask the sales girl if she has those in Tanya’s size…