Skimas

My lil bro has created a new holiday. Since we're a family of athiests/agnostics, he decided we needed a non-xtian holiday to celebrate on the 25th. He propped his snowboard up next to the christmas tree and pronounced that this day would henceforth be named Skimas. No matter what you call it, it was really neat to have my family open the presents I've collected for them from my various travels this year. The best part was that the little harem slippers I got for my mom from Uzbekistan actually fit!!! She wore them around the house all day yesterday saying that she's a genie in a bottle - hah!

As soon as we finished opening presents my whole family at some lunch and trundled off to the mountain to go skiing in a blizzard. It was pretty amazing - the wind was stroung and bitter and it was colder than I've ever felt it here, but the conditions were pretty sweet (except where the wind blew the powder off to expose ICE). I took some trails I've never taken before and felt confident on them. Everyone agreed that it was the best Christmas, er, Skimas ever.

Tatu again

oh and the Tatu saga continues. We were at the movie theater early to see Two Towers (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and the pre-movie music was icky gospel choir singing a jazzed up version of "our god is an awesome god." No sooner had I made a snarky comment when casey casem started introducing a new song from the controversial Russian group T A T U (he spelled it out rather than saying tatu). They then played the English version of ya suma soshla which is called "All the things she said." I noticed that the lesbianism was not emphasized on the radio show. Still it looks like this group will be bursting onto the American pop scene. It will be interesting and good paper fodder to examine how it is marketed and received in this country.