Halloween et al.

Yesterday was Halloween and Mr. Irish and I threw a bash. There were, at one point in the evening, over 20 people crammed into our flat. It was a good mix of English teachers and Russians and, surprisingly, only the Russians showed up in costumes.

I had tried to get a costume together but for the life of me I couldn't find anything. Add the fact that I don't know where to look, I can't ask for help at the stores, and I don't get much time off work and I was pretty much out of luck. I attempted to fashion a toga out of a bed sheet but after thirty minutes of trying to figure it out I gave up. I did carve a jack-o-lantern and get pissed-up, however.

Yesterday it snowed in Moscow and the snow hasn't left the ground yet. It wasn't a big white blast, but it was enough to let us know that winter is coming. It was the wet and windy kind of snow that flutters down intermittently, like a preview of what's to come.

I also apparently have a Russian girlfriend, whom I'll call Katerina. I met this 100-lbs brunette through a Russian friend of mine. He had invited me out to a pub ("Beerokratia"...that's an awesome name for a pub) with some of his friends, and she was one of them. At first her flat stomach and great legs had stood out in my mind but the vast

majority of Russian women have those things going for them. The deal was clinched when she panted in my ear "I want to kiss you!". Needless to say I was game, and I've been out with her a few times. It's great having a Russian to navigate all the impossibilities of Moscow for me, and we're going to St. Petersburg next week. It's great having a girl, sitting on my lap at a party, who has two University degrees and has traveled parts of Europe and who actually looks like a model in a bikini. The best part is that I didn't have to do anything but show up at the bar!

Near the end of the Halloween party, around 4 am, the telephone rang and a new friend of mine, a hilarious Russian guy I'll call Medical Lobster (long story that I don't completely understand), answered. It was the attendant who sits in the "lobby" of our building and had called the militsia on us for noise violation.

Most of us foreigners, and most Russians for that matter, do everything they can to avoid the famed corrupt police of Russia, so as soon as Medical Lobster announced that the militsia were on the way people started looking at their mobile phone clocks and stating "Oh, look at the time. I have to be going!" Ten minutes after the call there were 5 people left (not including four people passed out in Mr. Irish's room, two random people passed out on my floor and Katerina passed out in my bed).

Together with four other survivors I stayed up drinking for another hour or so and vaguely remember somebody scrambling all our eggs in one big frying pan and somebody squatting on their haunches and telling jokes in an Irish accent. It might have been the same guy. I don't really remember.

I woke up this afternoon in my bed, fully clothed, next to Katerina. Somehow, somebody had broken our bathroom sink.

Halloween. Snow. Waking up next to a hot Russian brunette. People you've never met passed out on your floor. Broken bathroom. Russian police.

These are all signs of a great party!