Purple, I am in Moscow and let me tell you, compared to Germans, Canadians, and Americans Russians are by far the craziest one along at least one axis - their beliefs as those. Beliefs manifest themselves in everyday life. It is not that I did not know it many years ago, but I thought that this particular craziness was limited to my late mom and other people of the older generation. Nope, young people are equally insane. Ninety nine percent of people are insane in the same way my mother was insane, one percent of people are insane in exactly the opposite way and I am the only person with a logical miind. That is my conclusion.

I think this particular brand of craziness is a specific Russian attribute, at least I have not seen it anywhere else - not in Germany and not in North America. No, I did see a Russiian immigrant in Texas, and old lady, microwave her cereals with milk until hot but she was an immigrant and she was old. D microwaves cereals with milk for his mother until the milk boils with large bubbles (recalling it makes me want to puke) and he was surpriised that I pour COLD milk on my cereals.
My mother would THAW icecream for me because she was afraid I would catch a cold from normal icecream. But my mother was seriuosly crazy and until today I thought that that explained thawed icecream. Well... today bff's H bought icecream for the New Year bash and forgot to put it in the freezer. Bff said that it is OK, it is even bettter because now it can be given to the children. And poor children had to eat the disgusting sweet frothy liquid. One would have thought that ICEcream is called ICEcream for a reason, but Russian people including relatively young ones (bff is 43) THAW it. No, really, thawed icecream. When when several days ago I ate some icecream from the freezer (I do not buy icecream in America because of the sugar content and because it tastes blah, but Moscow has the best icecream in the world so I made an exception), bff asked why I was eating icecream while having a cold. Well, it is called a cold but in reality it was a virus, a bug, and eating cold icecream is absolutely fine - it does not exacerbate symptoms and you cannot catch a cold from frozen icecream. What a weird belief, but it is so widespread. By the way I am done fighting the virus successfully and am very glad.

When bff came home from visiting her grandparents today (I babysat the children)