We'll just go hungry till the girls get here.

My wife is so cute.

The lady who cut my hair for the last two years went on holidays for a month in mid April to visit her aging parents.  She was back May 15 but we have not had time to go for haircuts.  My hair was very long so Tanya decided she would cut it herself and save $8.  She is cutting and cutting and cutting.  "Do I have any hair left?"  "You don't need hair, it is summer. . . you look like a little boy. . . oh, well, in five weeks it will grow back".  Comforting words. . . and a not bad haircut. . . for a little boy.

Yesterday Lena was here and cleaned the kitchen.  Rooms are being cleaned one by one in preparation for two of my daughters to come and visit. When Lena was finished it had never been so clean.  Tanya informed me that I was not allowed to cook.  In fact I was not allowed in the kitchen (in case I gave it a dirty look?).  Since we can't use the kitchen till the girls arrive, it is no longer urgent that the sink is plugged solid and doesn't respond to plunging or to a litre of declogging liquid.  There are no dishes to wash.

The story behind the orders to stay out of the kitchen goes back a couple days to when I found Tanya sitting on the couch watching TV with two piles on the coffee table - a rapidly diminishing pile of sunflower seeds and a rapidly increasing pile of hulls.  There were hulls everywhere.  The Russian defense reflex is always to find something you did wrong to excuse their wrong doing. "The kitchen is covered in tomato sauce and the floor with coffee spills".

Earlier in the week Lena was working on the living room.  Tanya was sitting in the big chair while Lena worked and they were discussing reorganization of the furniture. I said, "What, are you the Tsarina sitting on your throne giving orders?"  She picked up her feet to show me her legs.  She was a very unqueenly mud to the hocks.  Lena works in the house.  Tanya plays in her flower beds.

When Lena cleaned my office, one of the drapery rod mounts pulled out of the wall.  Roman and Sergei offered to fix it.  I got out of the way.  I could have done it but if something went wrong (IF??) then I would be in trouble.  The boys decided to drill a new hole in the wall in a more solid area as determined by knocking on the wall.  (Brief explanation here of wiring a masonry built house - grooves are ground into the wall and wires are mudded in place - very near the surface.) Yes, the boys severed a wire and knocked out four plug-ins including the ones our computers are hooked to.  Tanya was less than pleased when I told her.  The only part of the ensuing rapid fire monologue that I caught was something about "done by a man not by a woman". I kept my head down and tried not to laugh.

Yuri will be here tomorrow to fix the sink.  Dymr and Volodya on Sunday to fix the wiring. Life will return to normal.