Anyone following me on ##socialmedia## these past weeks may
have noticed that I was recently on a mad tour of the Wild West.
For a majority
of the time, I was stranded in San Francisco until weather conditions improved
in NYC and allowed planes to actually land without fear of icy death. (Thus,
optimistically, until the month of May.)
Of course, there are many worse places to be stuck than Cali-for-ni-yay.
I enjoyed California’s delicious produce; its deeply-unironic array of
organic/locally-sourced/macrobiotic/vegan/raw/gluten-free foodstuffs; and, of
course, the amazingly snow-free NorCal life.
But more than anything else—I enjoyed co-existing with
California’s elusive and elite form of kooky-ass Slavs. Indeed: while in SF, I was a gleeful and
shameless cultural anthropologist of the many iterations of the endless-litany
that is Slavic life c/o my lovable SF family members.
One particularly uniquely-Slavic character that came to dominate my
week was my aunt’s Polish housekeeper, Ada.
Ada is something of a living legend in the family, mostly because she is truly and endlessly batshit cray.
Note: this is not Ada. This IS the Google Image result for "Angry Polish Grandma," however. Because, I mean. Same difference.
First: Hailing from the pre-WWII ethnically-ambiguous Poland/Ukraine
border, Ada grew up speaking what my
cousins refer to as “Slavic.” Her “Slavic” is an impressive mix of
Polish/Ukrainian/Russian, with a deep Polish lilt, delivered almost assuredly
by SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS.
I encountered a slew of vitriol and bellligerence, all day;
over a wide subject of evidently-infuriating topics that I + the rest of
the United States would not consider controversial.
I present them below to help all of you deal with your aunt’s
insane, elderly, secretly-very-strong 80-year-old housekeepers, after the jump:
Bare feet / wet hair
This fool does NOT know what she has coming i.e. ///DEATH///
Eastern European people believe that all illnesses, fatalities, and general misfortune in the world is brought on by
a wicked and eternal cold draft of air. In the minds of Slavic babushkas,
this cold draft is an opportunistic force of pure evil that attempts to
steal into the Slavic human body at every given moment.
Therefore, not
wearing socks and/or having wet hair for greater than 5 minutes = INEVITABLE DEATH
AT THE HANDS OF THE COLD DRAFT. @@The worst of all possible fates@@@
In photo: The direct, complete, & scientifically-accurate result of an individual existing outdoors with wet hair. FUN.
Unfortunately for me, I happen to have hair that takes 5
hours to dry since it’s so ~luscious~, thus my head was frequently the victim of
the purest of Ada belligerence. For instance: One morning, as I walked out the
door, I heard a loud and piercing shriek. “Ada!” I thought to myself. “Crap,
maybe she fell down or hurt herself or something?”
(Ed. Note: It should be easy to tell already that this was
my first day in SF, as I had not yet learned that Ada just shrieks all the time
for no real reason. Also, she is stronger than a stallion and likely incapable
of injury since she is so busy injuring others with her brute Polish force. But, I digress.)
Hearing Ada’s
shriek, I turned back to check if everything was okay, only to feel a
distinctly painful and exceptionally gruff force pull my head backwards. It was
Ada – holding a fistful of my hair. She was evidently screaming in FURY at the
sight of me attempting to exit the house with such a magnet for the cold
draft’s evil ways: my really-only-semi-damp,post-shower hair. I was then pulled
in (again, BY MY HAIR) to the bathroom and forced to endure the world’s most
violent, 80-year-old-Polish-lady blowout. Dream Dry it was not. i.e. I may have
a few bald spots as a result.
And thus on day 1 I learned: Do NOT mess with Ada.
My current career path
I had to work from the house one day
thanks to having been poisoned by some vegan food (= my eternal existence) the
night before. Ada had been eerily quiet all morning, allowing me to type away
and do my ~digital strategy werk~ in peace.
Pshaw! I should have known something was up then!!
Around noon, Ada plopped down next to me, and began a speech
that lasted ~45 minutes, with few pauses and certainly no interruptions. Clearly
she had been waiting all week to give me this talking to, and had been waiting
for the opportune moment when my aunt was out of the house to make her move.
Since this speech was in Polo-Slavic, I understood (at best)
70% of what was said in one moment and (at worst) 20% of what was said in another.
From what I could infer, her basic argument went like this:
- “Girls should not work with computers,”
- “Computer work is bad because every year computers change / and become smarter / and become closer to robots.”
- “Robot-based work is the direct result of the scheming of the devil”
- “Girls and robots do not mix, since only the bad girls with their bare legs / wet hair have the devil inside of them, while all robots auto-opt-in to the devil's work”
- “As a result, Girls that work with computer-robots will not only have the devil inside of them, but ALSO / more importantly / very key: will be too busy with computer-robots to find husbands.” (Note: Ada is most definitely 80 and not married herself, JUST SAYIN)
- “If you, Liza, continue to work with the computer-robots, you will never find a husband."
- “Finding a husband should be your #1 full-time job; not messing with computer-robots. Are you, Liza, aware these robots, they are from the devil?”
- "DID JESUS IN THE BIBLE EVER MENTION ROBOTS? He definitely mentioned husband-finding, it should be noted."
- “The only steady source of income in this modern world for a modern girl is a good old fashioned not-robot, not-devil, very very Christian husband.”
- “.... $%#$#%# YOU DID NOT FINISH YOUR SOUP. EAT MORE SOUP. %#$%@#%$@#”
Food consumption
I deeply love food and have no problems treating myself to some grub,
clearly.
However, I quickly realized that no matter how much/often I ate, Ada would
forever consider me to be deeply malnourished. & certainly she would NOT
let that shit fly.
Thursday evening, I came back from a beautiful run in Golden
Gate Park (!!!) and told my Aunt I was headed out to have dinner at a Burmese restaurant. I then went to go take a shower. Evidently in this brief, 20 minute period, Ada heard that I
was gong to a “strange Asian cafeteria,” flipped out entirely and truly (since she does not
consider non-Polish food to have nutritional content), and rushed to cook me an entire
turkey dinner. Again – in 20 minutes.
Completely unaware of what was occurring below me in the
kitchen, I rushed to get ready, as I was running a few minutes late. All of a
sudden, I heard Ada shriek my name. Fear filled my stomach, but I nevertheless
walked downstairs into the kitchen to see what was up. (The good Ukrainian
child in me! Bah! So illogical!)
Upon entering the kitchen, I felt Ada come up from behind, grab
both my arms and steer me into a seat at the dinner table while yelling at me,
“КУШАЙ! КУШАЙ!!! (EAT!
EAAAAAAAAT!!)” On the table, was a five course turkey dinner. There was even pie.
Ada could likely bench-press George W Bush and cook a turkey dinner at the same time. Let's not lie to ourselves.
I tried many words in Ukrainian/Russian/Polish to signify
that I was late, I needed to leave, I was going to a dinner, I was late to a
dinner, I was going to eat food at a place that I was late to, I needed to
leave in order to eat, etc etc etc.
Alas, my pleas were conveniently not-absorbed by
Ada, who literally force-fed me turkey and salad, while screaming over and over
again “КУШАЙ! КУШАЙ!!! (EAT EAT!!)"
But then: From the heavens, my cousin Paul suddenly appeared downstairs.
Glorious glorious distraction!!
As Ada shuffled over to force-feed him as well, I leaped from
my seat, grabbed my purse and tried to run out the door. Unfortunately, Ada was
much quicker than she looked, and she (somehow!) grabbed me by my coat and stopped me in
my tracks. I turned to Paul and whimpered, "I’m late to a dinner; she won’t
listen, help.”
I should note that Paul is very tall, an athlete and an
aspiring Football player, therefore the fact that – despite his best efforts –
he was not able to fully block Ada’s 80-year old force is truly impressive.
(#StrongestofSlavicWomen #BitchBeTerrifying)
Therefore, just as I thought I had made it out free, I was
pulled back in literally by my coat-tails at the hands of the never-shy Ada, who had a dinner fork
in hand. She then actually shoved a piece of turkey down my throat,
shrieking, “КУШАЙ МЯСОООО !! КУШАЙ МЯСОООО !! (EAT MEATTT; EAT
MEATTT).”
This vision will haunt my nightmares for years to come. Your friendly, neighborhood, cookie-baking grandma she is not.
Thankfully the bus arrived down the street, so I had a good
excuse to actually SPRINT AWAY from her as she waved the last remains of her
turkey-fork in the air, while (of course) screaming.
I assure you, as my fight-or-flight response kicked in / I escaped my octogenarian tormentor, one thought ran through my head, on a loop: "WHO THE EFF SAID IT WAS FUN BEING UKRAINIAN???"
Ooooh, Ada. Her spirit has more fire than the deepest core of
the Earth. I’d probably love her if she didn’t terrify any capability for love out of my body. ~It's fun being Ukrainian, y'all~
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