Fermented Mare's Milk

In the first installment of these Short Takes, oh so long ago, I mentioned that E and I find ourselves often baffled by someone known around the apartment as Yelling Guy. Multiple times a day he walks through the courtyard behind our apartment and, well, yells. For a while I thought it was a call to prayer, as it sounded something like the call to prayer (which begins with Allah akbar), but not exactly like the call to prayer. And while I've never heard him five times in a single day, I've heard him a few times and I'm not home all the time, so I could be missing something.

Turns out he's selling milk.

The Russian word for milk is mahliko. When yelled so that every vowel sound stretches to its limit like the grandstand vendors at Fenway with a tray full of popcorn or beer, mahliko can sound an awful lot like Allah akbar. Especially when you don't speak Russian too well.

I will now forever associate the call to prayer with milk. I don't know what that will mean in the long run.

***

As the above demonstrates in a sideways sort of way, E has not been eaten by wolves or been swept up in revolutionary fervor or even taken to hunting down Kyrgyz criminals who shoot people we know in the head. Nope, she's alive and well. And incredibly busy with the last leg of her dissertation research before we trade in the angry, debauched politics of Kyrgyzstan and flitter on back home to the angry, debauched politics of the US. If you don't want to take my word for it, head on over to her blog and see for yourself. She's taken a break from the madness long enough to post an update and say hello.

***

I have completely given up shaving cream. Not shaving, just shaving cream. Post-shower I walk my still warm and wet face over to the mirror and have at it. Better results, razor burn -- counter-intuitively -- a thing of the past, and, as a special bonus for the lazy OCD-sufferers among us, less clean-up. I'm totally smitten.

Thank you, McSweeney's Recommends.

***

Sitting at dinner the other night with E and Janika, I was asked, by Janika, what computer games I played as a child. I had drank my way through a half liter of Baltika 9 by then and was momentarily stumped. (Baltika, you see, the beer of choice in these parts, comes in brews of various alcohol content ranging from 0 to 9, with 0 being non-alcoholic, 6 being a porter, and 9 being flammable and something akin to bubbly grain alcohol. The rest all taste like Bud Light to me, with just a little bit more of that inexplicable formaldehyde flavor mixed in for fun.) While I battled to right my soggy brain cells and find the name of a game I played as a child, Janika threw out Maniac Mansion as one from her childhood. I got excited, as I too spent a good amount of time talking to green tentacles and meteors and searching out fuel for the chainsaw (damn you, LucasArts, and your clever ruse!). My Maniac Mansion fun mostly happened in the Flanders' basement, though. When it came to computerized geekery on the homefront, there was only one real answer: King's Quest.

When we got home, still reeling from the Baltika 9 and the giddy fun had explaining to Janika the wonders of mid-80's RPGs (what up, Oregon Trail!), I hopped on the computer and discovered, much to everyone's delight I'm sure, that one can now download the original King's Quest in an updated version. I highly recommend it. If you've got some free time. What I'm saying is: prepare to become obsessed.

***

It is about 75 degrees outside right now, a Friday afternoon, and I have a remarkably smooth face and comfy new shoes on my feet. In the words of my man Bobby Plant, it's time to ramble on. We'll chat on Monday. Until then: stay classy, Internet.