View From the Hammock brought to you by Purple Frog

“We are so b-o-o-o-o-red! The food is disgusting! The smell is horrific!” I didn’t blame our Russian teenagers for their desire to get out of the old American church building. They were having a severe case of cabin fever. They came to see America. Their money burned their fingers. Shopping was the most desirable activity on their to-do list. The local bank employees called me one morning from the bank, “Lydia, are those girls yours?” “What girls?” “I am afraid that those girls on the corner are Russians. We first thought they were local prostitutes that we see on our corner every day, until we saw that those girls were way too young to make money on the corner. We do not want to upset you, but this corner has a dark reputation. We do not want your girls to get hurt.”  I ran outside and I saw my Russian teenage girls from the Summer Camp standing on the corner of 10th and Central, in the heart of downtown Kansas City, Kansas. There they were in the...

“Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. From the movie “You’ve Got Mail”

“Tell me one good thing about socialism!” My friend George Hanson challenged me, and I was perplexed.  What could that one good thing be? That’s one question that is hard to answer for a fresh immigrant. I tried to fit in, temporarily developing amnesia in regard to my childhood memories - for a while, all you can see is the best of America and you start forgetting the good of your homeland. “Tell me one good thing about socialism!” This question isn’t asked often and when it is asked, it comes from men proficient in politics, or world travelers. George was both. He lived in Iran, Australia, England, and Wales. Shrugging my shoulders was my usual and only answer until now, but this time I proudly remembered, “Eureka! Here is one!” “Is it vodka?”

One of the amusing things I saw in America was a robe with the label, “One size fits all.” People are not of the same size.  That is why we have sizes S, M, L, XL, and so forth. That robe I tried in a store reminded me a story of a crocodile.

In America, everybody is in a hurry, and you can leave your house in the morning, go to Arby's, McDonald’s, or Wendy’s, and get a meal without getting out of the car. My first driving experience was connected with an observation of people chewing behind their wheels. The same people would do their banking without even having to take out a Big Mac or a Burrito out of their mouths. As for me, I needed to see the face of the cashier who takes my money. I didn’t trust an ATM machine yet and was hesitant to use a drive-through to get my food. One day, I decided to surprise my son–for God’s sake, his mother is a modern woma n. I saw many times how people placed orders at McDonald’s, so I followed the “Enter” sign and approached the first dark container. I rolled down the window and said, “One cheeseburger, one hamburger, two drinks, and an apple pie.” Silence. I saw a line behind me in the rearview mirror. I said louder, “One cheeseburger, one hamburger, two drink...

            A few years after I started my new life in America, my father finally got his visa to come to see us. Knowing how much my Dad likes to see new things, I got on the road. Driving once on I-70 with a decent speed through the downtown area, I didn’t pay too much attention to my father’s gestures. He was thrilled as a kid, looking to the left and to the right. “What is this, what is that?” I’ve heard him asking. I was unable to answer, because my eyes caught a sight of something wild: the man in the next car pointed his middle finger at me. I pushed on the gas, leaving his ugly finger far behind. “What have I done?” No one has ever pointed a middle finger at me before.  I was just so proud of my driving to impress my father! “What is that?” My Dad was already looking at something else.  Luckily, he was too busy to notice what was going on outside the car.  I wouldn’t b...

Christmas time was around the corner, and I got busy shopping. My father came to Kansas City from Russia for his first visit; he was ecstatic, finally seeing me on both feet.  “Christmas is coming. What do we cook?” My father was talking unusually fast and loud; it was his first Christmas in America.

Kansas City seduced my virgin ears with the sound of jazz. I was not aware yet how gigantic the music world of Kansas City was right outside of church walls. I was not surprised when soon I naturally felt the urge to sing jazz. Kansas City intoxicated my soul with fantastic chords and sultry voices. But the groove was not coming to me, until my jazz professor, Rich Hill, jumped out of his chair one day, throwing his arms up into the air and yelling, “It will never w-o-o-o-rk!!!” Of course, it wouldn’t work - he removed the sheet music from under my nose. Classicaly trained, how do I know what to play without it? Rich would sigh and go back to the board with a piece of chalk to teach me a circle of fifth or go back to the piano to encourage me to play with him. That was the scariest part to jump into the unfamiliar tune and be expected to come up with chord inversions without thinking. I couldn’t get it, until I compared Jazz to...

 In America, I learned to like stew. In Russia we have a similar soup that is called BORSCH. It has one critical ingredient: beets that make the soup red. 

      Sometimes, banal sinus infection can mess up not just your equilibrium, but your whole day.