1) Home-made haircuts are OUT. MG has lost his mad skilz. Or perhaps he never actually had any and was just deluding himself/never looking at the back of his head. It's been known to happen.
As luck would have it, though, there is a basement parikmakherskaya just around the corner from my woodland hut that charges 100 rubles* for a haircut, doesn't rush you or question how short and implicitly unfeminine the desired haircut happens to be, does not cause any bleeding of fingers or ears throughout the duration of the haircut, and asks you whether you are indeed Natalie Portman, the person in the picture you brought with you for reference. It was bar none and hands down the most enjoyable (not to mention most decent, and I'm not just eating up the flattery) haircut I've ever received. And whilst I waited, I got to watch some of the most impressive back-combing outside of Memphis happening all around me, for free. Gulia will be seeing me again rel'soon.
Question: how/how much do you tip a stylist on a 100 ruble haircut? Is it kosher to give the receptionist 100 rubles and the stylist 500? Or is that insulting?
*That's $2.90, people.
2) This is a sparrow hawk.
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I think these are his eggs.
They are now in this gote's tum tum.ETA: Okay, okay, okay, maybe not literally his eggs, and maybe not literally captured from the air by yours truly. But maybe his:
Or at least certainly captured by this king of Russky Produkt and at in turn by MasterGote? Or, can we at least agree that shopping in Russia is a kind of hunting? And MG did cunningly find this medal winner in his local cooler section. Enh? Ennnnh?
7 comments:
Powerful Gote plucks birds from air and eggstracts a meal?!
Worship the Gote.
Kiss the Gote.
(To the tune of: http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/lordbelial/kissthegoat.html#7)
OMG, MG! That parikhmakerskaya sounds amazing. I kid you not - literally 5 minutes ago, I was thinking "How am I gonna get my hair cut cheaply in Moscow?" And then the shining light of your wisdom came down upon me in glorious rays. Plus, a walk in Fili park is always a nice outing.
And yeah - how in the world did you get that bird's eggs? Is that you holding it? Also -- HIS eggs? Can we ascertain paternity?
On tipping - no idea. But I'm thinking that 500 might actually be insulting somehow. May be tip an extra one hundred and bring her a box of chocolates next time? As a belated March 8 gift. (Since with new haircut provided by uncaring stylist who doesn't question your judgment, you can totally pass for a man ;))
Finally - back in August, 100 rubles was $4. Good thing you're not getting your funding in rubles :).
I always overtip. Maybe things are more equitable in Moscow, but any kind of tipped employee in the U.S. is underpaid in most cases. Always tip in cash, even if you're paying with a credit card--employers can see what you're paid on a credit card and skim some of it, according to the NYT. If there's a gratuity added because you're a party of six or whatever, add a little bit of cash. The restaurant will take part of the "gratuity" as a kind of "we provided the space for you to make this money and now you owe us" kind of payment. If a haircutter does a good job (and I think that has to include making dykey, short-hair-wanting, non-product-using feel hip and comfortable), big tips are warranted. I tip my haircutter 25 percent. A 500 percent tip--I don't know about that.
"His eggs"?
CQ: Yes, but a 500 percent tip on $2.90 is still way less than what I pay those snooty jerks in Brooklyn...I am still conflicted. I once tipped a cab in Novgorod 10 rubles on a 100 ruble cab ride and he nearly spat at me, judging from the look on his face. I think I may have broken some kind of unspoken code.
Clearly, the best course of action is just for her to poach me as a customer and bring her shears to my apartment around the corner from the underground hair salon. But again, MG's powers of speaking charmingly to strangers may not be up to this task...
Not to be nit-picky, but are you sure that those eggs come from a sparrow hawk? Am I missing something? (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%BB)
wow, hawk eggs. you don't mess around when it comes to breakfast. I respect that in a gote.
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