The first time I was in Moscow was in 1998. There were five of us living in an obshejitiye (dorm), and Jean got sick for a while.

There was also a cleaning lady for the building, because every square inch of Moscow had a cleaning lady.

One day while the rest of us were in class, Jean (whose Russian was the best out of all of us) got into a conversation with the cleaning lady. I don’t remember the details, so I may be making them up, but they went something like this: she lived with her daughter, her husband had died,* and, Jean told us, she often would do laundry for the students to make a little extra money.

Our showers worked like this: you’d turn on the tap that went directly into the bathtub. Then you’d turn the thing for the shower so you could take a shower. Only the shower head rested at waist level. So you’d take the shower head and wet yourself, soap up, freeze-dried, then rinse off. It was never a really good rinse, because you could only do it single-handedly. We were also in class every day and going to see shows every night. We learned that a shower every day was unnecessary**.

Laundry worked like this: when you needed to do laundry, you’d take a shower. You soaped up the clothes around the time you soaped up yourself, rinsed them off as best you could, and hung them on strings across the room. They usually turned out grayer than they had started, and very stiff. When we took them off the line, they had folded themselves.***

So when Jean told me our cleaning lady (I forget her name, which leads me to think that I never knew it correctly to begin with) wanted to do laundry on the side to make some extra money, I was sold. I had the money of a privileged American student! I hated and was terrible at laundry! It seemed perfect.

So the next time I saw her, I gave her my bag of mostly-base-layers laundry. I used my horribly broken Russian to indicate that she would wash them and I would pay her. She agreed. We had an arrangement! And she thanked me profusely. Profusely.****

For the next two weeks, whenever I saw her, I asked her about the return of my clothes. “Zaftra,” she would say every time: “Tomorrow.” A week in, I began to beg: “Ya nuzhno moe…this!” I would repeat, pointing and grabbing at my shirt, “Ya nuzhna!“***** “Da, da, da, zaftra!” she would smile, and I would sigh. Jean, of the high-school-level Russian asked her as well, and got the same answer.

And then, after not seeing her for about a week, I asked her one more time. She beamed, and launched into a long monologue that I couldn’t begin to understand. She pulled up her skirts****** and showed me what I thought might be my leggings.******

And at that point I came to terms with the fact that I had probably made, in Lorielle’s words, “a charitable donation.” And I thought, Well…if she needs my dirty underwear that badly, she’s welcome to it.

 

*all women outlive the men in Russia.

**We brought that lesson home with us for a while, before it wore off or we were shamed out of it, I don’t recall.

***In Russia, clothes fold you.

****Too profusely, actually.

*****”I need my [this]!”

******Plural. It was winter. You wore all the layers.

Poor Monday. It’s not Monday’s fault it’s followed by the rest of the workweek. Monday doesn’t want you to be sad. Monday doesn’t want you to work. But all it ever hears is “Oh no, it’s Monday.” “Mondays, amirite?” “I’ve got a case of the Mondays.” “Monday, the Steve of days.”

Monday doesn’t want to hear your shit.

Monday doesn’t want you to go to work. Monday wants you to barbecue with your friends out in the backyard. Monday will show up with chips and dip and urge you to continue your weekend. And yes—even in these sub zero temps. Because Monday parties hard.

Nobody ever takes Monday as their chosen day off. Why? Because five times a year, Monday is “Yeah! Three-day weekend!” This is Monday’s vibe.

Don’t forget, Monday is often the official start of your vacation. The summer. A whole week ahead of you. All the capitalists use Monday for their sick propaganda campaigns, when all Monday wants you to do is stay in bed with the animals and sleep it off.

So let’s be sluts for Mondays. Let’s celebrate this and every Monday by cracking open a handle of tequila and toasting to transitions.

There is a mouse in our house.

Possibly there are mice in our hice.

But we’ve seen no proof of them being plural.

And our hunting dog is no help. Miri, who rushes outside to chase squirrels, who lunges against her leash at little bunny rabbits on walks, heard a sound, went over to sniff at it, and wandered away.

So at the end of all this, when we are at the stage of the apocalypse where we don’t have to go to work anymore, and we’re huddled around fires in the woods, our backup plan worries me.

Honestly though, I’d keep it in a cage for the rest of the winter*, til it won’t freeze to death. I’ve only seen it streak by in a blur, but it’s a cute blur. I would have no problem with cohabiting with it if it were only house trained and didn’t eat my snacks.

 

*Adam said no.

Once upon a time, REI had a sale. And all the ladies in the land were invited. And they all brought their spouses and partners and significant others and sometimes just platonic friends. They all came on their pumpkin horses and bought ski equipment.

(Oh, and there was one land-lady that came alone, because she liked to go places alone. And that was ok.)

Pretty soon, all the skis and goggles and other ephemera were all gone. So they all migrated to the Moving Department. I mean shoes.

Some bought Salomon, many bought Merrill, two bought Teva, and Charlie the choo choo conductor bought Chacos.

But she found that when she stuck her toe into the big toe holder…she found that it was wanted for racketeering. And when the other toes slipped in-to place they were charged with abetting, and on the Discover card, no less.

So she was taken to jail, on account of her toes, and had to do hard labor at CPAC.

 

MORAL: MERRILL.

 

THE END

Well, howdy there, Stranger!

It’s been a while, Adam tells me.

This month, some Narrators Who Write (hey, that’s me!) are doing a challenge to write for 30 minutes every day in January. I think I’ve missed three days so far. I think it helps that I have a plethora of things to choose from: I’m back to hacking away at draft 2 of the novel I started in my 20s; I’m editing The Doctor’s Garden, nèe Chekhov’s Backyard; one day I wrote ideas of songs and the next day I wrote two songs from that list, and of course, here I am, writing here.

The Doctor’s Garden is going in two completely different directions: one draft is sharpening up the comprehension of the original by making the Doctor the narrator. The other is kind of a Chekhov fugue state, filled with dance, silent scenes with commentary, and other symbolistic dreamy scenes (or drenes….I’ll just see myself out, then).

But the habit is forming, and it feels good.