I haven't gotten an email for an hour.

I haven't gotten an email for an hour.

: angstzeit; March 12th, 2006

Almost feels lonely. The outpouring of the uchasnegi has been exciting, interesting and to be honest, a bit overwhelming. Thank you for all the kind comments.

In other news,

hexeldorf and I took the insulation off our basement heating pipes yesterday. It wasn't quite as exciting because she found out it wasn't illegal in Cook county to remove your own asbestos in a building with less than four units. We took probably more precautions than necessary but better safe than sorry. Since there was several different types of insulation, I'm not sure it all (or even much) had asbestos in it but again, better safe than sorry.
Now it is time to contact heating contractors to look into a new boiler and some sort of domestic hot water that is more efficient and doesn't use the chimney. Also on the list is radiant floor heat at least to the downstairs bathroom and possibly to the kitchen for the possible removal of the kitchen radiator, which is large and taking up space in an already difficultly laid out kitchen. Then there's separately zoning the upstairs from the downstairs and maybe putting two zones upstairs. So there will be lots to discuss and price out. I'm sure it won't be cheap. Not to mention this needs to happen somewhat soon so the roofers can come in and take out the chimney and re-roof the place.

ETA Seems I misunderstood. It IS illeagal in Cook County to remove your own asbestos but not in the rest of Illinois. I think. So now it seems much more fun.

( 50 comments — Leave a comment )

milyaga

2006-03-12 08:01 pm (UTC)

No big deal... I can solve it. I'm solving it right now, actually.

milyaga

2006-03-12 08:03 pm (UTC)

Fuck! Almost forgotten PREVED. Now it's finally proper. You have your preved and preved has you, as it should be.

suejc3dogs

2006-03-12 11:36 pm (UTC)

PREVED!!
Glad you're back. I thought perhaps you had been shanghaied.
I scored one very friendly and informative new LJ friend who sent me some of his music and two others, so the uchasnegi outpouring of greeting and education for us pendosegi and general banter was a good and profitable for me. Thank you for inviting Moscow and environs to visit you at your journal.

Frankly, the whole thing struck me as a wild party. I could almost see the vodka bottles being passed and tipped.

angstzeit

2006-03-13 12:45 am (UTC)

Preved. It was indeed a wacky happening. Interestingly, I found the post on

ru_preved that brought the crowd to

the_coliseum and here. I popped it through Babelfish and noted that it seems initial reaction may not have been completely friendly. My easily being mistaken for a stupid pendosegi. However, my embracing the people and their sacred medved turned the tide in my favor. Most everyone has been pleasant.
I did learn, however, that a member of

the_coliseum "Has always disliked me and all my posts." He thinks I deleted one of his comments once because I didn't like it. Don't know what happened but I didn't do it. But he seems pretty dead set against me. I generally prefer not to be disliked and if I am I'd like it to be for something I'm actually to blame for. Oh well. Only one of the hazards of communicating in a limited medium.

You certainly took to this like a duck to water. I'm not as socially daring as you. But hopefully we've convinced a few Russians that not ALL Americans are bad.

Uh oh, I've remembered a story...
Back as an undergraduate I lived in an apartment building for some reason called the pyramids (no physical resemblence). Anyway, students from many different countries lived in the building with the roaches and me. One day a very simple incident happened. I was coming up to the steps to the front door as a muslim (I assume from style of dress) guy was walking out talking to a friend and he was laughing and then looked at me, who was smiling, 'cause it's hard not to when someone is laughing and there was that instant of connection. We were different people from different countries and cultures but for that instant we were simply two humans knowing that we shared basic human emotions. It definitely stuck with me. It is too bad not to experience more moment's like that.

suejc3dogs

2006-03-13 01:22 am (UTC)

It helps to live around a mixture of people. I've always relished getting to know people from all over - as far back as kindergarten I was rushing home to make special welcome cards for kids who arrived from abroad - I especially remember a Chinese boy named Mun Wai who spoke no English - I fixed a card of folded typing paper with a lollipop in it and writing and explanations and the word tree, and he wrote a chinese character for me - 'twas really cool.

Three months later, of course, once he learned all of the English that there ever was to know and was gallavanting around like one of the rest of us I was summarily ditched for "the guys". Same with a kid named Jose Lopez.

I find that usually if someone takes offense cross culturally, which I have found to be exceedingly rare, it's not so much about culture as about the mind-set of the individual in question.

I've noticed a tendency, for example, in people of lower socioeconomic backgrounds here American on American, English on English, (and once or twice I've caught myself doing it) to use the term "chewed my ass out," or "I got in deep shit," in reference to a minor incident in which, for example, he was shown the proper place to set the stapler when finished using it as opposed to on the break-room table.

As a very unhappy and short-lived supervisor I would find that saying to a subordinate, "You might want to consider next time..."was frequently related among the person's assumed peers as "the bitch jumped all over me for"

Some folks is jumpy, especially when they believe that the person with whom they are interacting assumes them to be inferior. It's that world-view power-paranoia thing.

Maybe.

Anyway, I've had a ball. I've got long conversations on a couple of my threads now, but with one individual. Fascinating and fun.

So, Kravcheg, have a nice evening.

angstzeit

2006-03-13 02:32 pm (UTC)

Now you're reminding me of other stories. I was very popular with the two Iranian students at my high school. Mainly because this was during the hostage crisis and I was nice to them while most Americans were painting Iranians with a very broad brush.
I also became friends with an Egyptian at my high school when he first arrived. But he abandoned me after he gained enough social status to realise I was a loser.

I also became friends with a gorgeous Iranian woman in chemistry class in college. Firuzeh. We studied together. She being a bit annoyed at how much easier chemistry was to me (I'd taken advanced chem in high school).
All in all my experience of Iranians shows them to be kind, charming, sophisticated people. Though obviously there's a bunch of lunatics over there too.

angstzeit

Uh, some stuff

Ya know, like, stuff