A Dog, A Coat And A Near-Death Experience

This is a picture of Sully. Actually the dog's name is more like sally but pronounced S-AH-lly if I write sally you'll mentally pronounce it sally so I'm going to spell it Sully. Sully is the dog. Why haven't I mentioned Sully before? Because he/she/it (I'm not sure which I think she but I'm just going to say he for the sake of clarity) has only recently come to live with us (I guess this is a regular event)He was with my Russian grandparents up until a day or two ago. The reason that Sully is even worth mentioning is because I dislike him. The first day he was here, I came home from lunch and he followed me around the house. Literally. Also the whole time I was eating lunch he sat and stared at me. No lie. I found out later it's because he's used to getting bits of meat from the table, but still how would you feel if you are trying to relax and eat lunch and a little grey poodle is just sitting there staring at you. I think he's planning something. Seriously. I think he's going to overthrow the Yakutian government or something.

Sully is Raisa's dog. He literally waits all day for her to come home and then he follows her around the house. When I'm here with him alone, he makes me nervous. Mostly because he follows me around the house and every few seconds he sits up and listens to see if Raisa is unlocking the door. Honestly I think the thing needs a tranquilizer, or maybe a chew toy or something. Other than his nervous temperament, I dislike the fact that you can't pet him. When Raisa brought him home, I leaned over to have him sniff my hand and then maybe pet him and Raisa goes "Don't! He'll eat you!" And made a biting motion on her finger. Great a dog that's not only planning world domination, but also planning on treating me like Hansel and Gretel. That makes me feel Real great.

We went to the "market" today, again. Market is in "" because the one we went to yesterday to try on coats, and today to buy a coat is actually more like a mall. I'm planning on going back and heading for the fourth floor because the food court on the fourth floor is the only place in town I know of that you can get a hamburger and fries. Oh I miss McDonald's! Yakutsk is too small to have one. That's what Raisa told me once, that the bigger cities like Vladivostock have McDonald's but not Yakutsk. Anyway, we went to Akvarium which is the name of the "market" and we bought a winter coat for me. Actually I bought a winter coat for me. It was on sale too! Only six thousand rubles! Now that might sound like a lot and it is, even in Rubles, but when you think about how the Shubi which are the nice fur coats that people sometimes wear in winter run upwards of 20 000 rubles, 6000 isn't so bad. Not really. Anyway, I love my new coat. It's light blue and has some fur like stuff around the hood but not enough that it's going to irritate me. I had Raisa help me take a picture so I could show it too you.

After Akvarium, we went to the Chinese market because I'd heard that stuff there was cheaper. It was, but the whole place was overwhelming because if you try to just look at stuff the chinese people attack you and try to get you to buy. Plus, some of them don't speak Russian real well so that makes it difficult.

We were really tired so we looked at the market and then headed home. On the way, Raisa said that she needed to get gas for the car. I was like okay. So Raisa gets out and I'm sitting in the car jamming to the radio and...wait...the radio? Yes, All of a sudden I realize that the radio is still on. "Oh my word! Did she leave the car on? I think so. Should I turn it off? No, she already has the gas cap open." I reached out and put my hand on the dash in front of me and velt vibration. "Chort! she did leave the car on" It was then that I started praying for all I was worth. "Oh please, oh please oh please don't let me die right here. Please, please please" Was going through my head as I tried not to think of the whole SUV exploding in a fiery ball of death. What would they tell my parents? That line from zoolander kept popping into my head for some reason. The one about the tragic gasoline fight accident.

It felt like Raisa was pumping that gas for eternity. And I thought about how in America they have those little warnings on the gas pumps and the first one is "Turn off Car," They even put that one before "no smoking." Finally after I'd sat there praying my heart out, Raisa gets back in the car. I'm expecting her to reach for the ignition to turn the car on and realize she'd forgotten to turn it off, but when she gets in the car she reaches right for the gear shift. SHE LEFT IT ON ON PURPOSE. Now that really freaked me out!