My mother came to visit, adding a surreal touch to a trip already firmly rooted in the bizarre. Impressions, in very brief, as I battle against the constraints imposed on me by Lack of Time (TM):

-Firstly, the woman, at mumblety-mumble, has lost about 10 or 20 pounds, is doing Pilates, is all glowing because she just got back from Africa, and looks 30 and phenomenal. Either I have good genetic hopes, or... it's just depressing.

-Secondly, she hasn't heard a WORD of Russian in about 15 years, and on day two of her very truncated (yup, two days) stay here, she was back to nattering away like she'd never left. A few stumblings and misrecalled words, but nonetheless, perfection.

-Thirdly, seeing Petersburg (or Leningrad, as she persisted in calling it) through her eyes was a fantastical experience. She couldn't get over the advertisements and stores everywhere-- apparently back in her day, it was all propaganda slogans and scrambling around looking for food. My dad came over to Russia stocked with black market-ready blue jeans and American cigarettes, so they were rich by Russian standards of the time, but the question was still of what actually could be obtained with said rubles.

Anyway, she's gone, about which fact I am minorly sad, but right now the nice lady has told me that I have a minute left, and I have a hot date to watch the last twenty minutes of Kill Bill 2 and then pretentious French movies with a big group of boys, so I shall have to steel myself and carry on. Ahhhh... hard life.

And yes-- she has now gone on to Marienbad, nominally to look over her book and have alone time, but I know it's really just so she can start stories, "Well, last year at Marienbad..."