Life in Remont

I really like the title of this post, because it seems like it could be the title of a story about someone who lives in Russia whose home is being worked on (remont translates roughly to the noun repairs) but who is also having some kind of emotional trial unrelated to the strains of living in an apartment where the appliances don't work well. Maybe an injury should be involved as well; I did, after all, teach Hemingway half of last year.

Well, I am living in an apartment which is undergoing a serious repair process. Fortunately the mental and semi-metaphorical physical injuries are non-existent. I have, though, spent a parts of a week without hot water (5 days), gas (4 days), electricity (3 days) or a toilet (2 days), and the last, I assure you, has been enormously strenuous, because Russia is notorious for not having decent (or any) public restrooms free or pay.

However, I think the worst part has been the bathing aspect. Now, I'm not a shower snob; I'll take cold showers, even enjoy them, because sometimes the knowledge that a worldwide lesbian conspiracy exists is too much even for me. The shower doesn't work at all though, and my attempt to boil water in an electric tea kettle for a bath was ended in the electricity dying. In fact, after a week in hot, dusty Rostov, sweating buckets while riding public transport, I thought about entitling this post "Smell-o-gram" instead. Basically, I smell like someone who has been working at the Quaker Oats factory in Cedar Rapids all day, ran a few miles down a dirt road behind line of cars picking up dirt the whole way and then tried to cover it up by rolling deodorant all over his body. I bet the real Old Spice Man smells like me, only fishier.