RW'isms

[robobond]

Anyone have some input into phrases/words that RW use in their agency bios that AM might find confusing?

These pop up for me all the time & I should start making a list of them. A few common examples that come to mind:

1. 48 yr.old RW w/ a 28 yr. old son: looking "to start a family together" - are we talking new babies OR Jr. is part of the moving package OR does starting a family mean something else?

2. Hobbies: "..., sport,..." - does she play football OR watch it on TV or what"?

3. Here's a recent one: "I would not mind my partner be an invalid if only he was my friend and devoted husband." Is this a couch potato or maybe a wheel chair bound person, for example?

4 [more to come]on new thread labled "RW'isms"

[robobond]

... in response to RW'isms, posted by robobond on Oct 21, 2002

(55 yr. old w/ no children) "My dream to have a loving family... I dream of is to meet a man who is dermined to get married and create a family." (I'm 55 - she's 55. How we gonna get married and create a family? Isn't it a little late for us to start?)

"He should have at least college education and be rather wealthy.  His profession is of no importance." (It's ok to be a paperboy if you're rich?)

"You must be a normal person for a normal relationship." (No animals or threesomes or kinky stuff?)

I am: (various traits) Faithful - (Ans.) “usually” (She's faithful part of the time?)

[robobond]

... in response to More, posted by robobond on Oct 22, 2002

thx guys

[don1]

... in response to More, posted by robobond on Oct 22, 2002

'create a family ' = get married

[KenC]

... in response to More, posted by robobond on Oct 22, 2002

Robo,
My wife regularly refers to having a great "family".  There is only two of us.
KenC

[robobond]

... in response to Re: More, posted by KenC on Oct 22, 2002

ken, that's nice.  as a warm aside, do you ever wonder how these folks ever multiplied so much?...  I gotta luv em!...

my ex was an american-german gestapo b_tch who busted my kahunas bad because we never had children... or if it was tuesday... or because I used up too much air on the planet earth... we were not a family in her mind until i died and she had all my money - then she would cherish me and put my picture up on the mantel

I think I love you wife.

[Pordzhik]

... in response to RW'isms, posted by robobond on Oct 21, 2002

what "Splendid Forms" means?

[LP]

... in response to Who can guess, posted by Pordzhik on Oct 21, 2002

...the K1 visa paperwork. ;-)

[robobond]

... in response to That would be..., posted by LP on Oct 21, 2002

[LP]

... in response to RW'isms, posted by robobond on Oct 21, 2002

...of them out quickly. Clever, cozy, sport (means anything from aerobics for her to school sports if she's talking about her kid.) I also found that "interesting" often means handsome. But for real head scratching their attempts at English can't be beat. (And these were not computer translations either.)

When queried as to her TV viewing habits, I had one girl tell me she like to watch interesting films and "congnitive transfers". (What the heck are those, something on the Discovery channel?) Had another tell me she worked in the vicinity of the "micro air builders". I never did figure that one out.

[robobond]

... in response to I figured most..., posted by LP on Oct 21, 2002

"Sport" seems to be used for just about anything from lying on the sofa clicking TV channels to personal participation.  Every RW seems to swim as a hobby - yet I didn't see any swimming pools in Volgograd and it's not exactly in the banana belt....  I just read about a 28 yr. old supermodel type (not at all rugged) who listed the usual swimming and then followed with tennis, boxing, and motor racing...

[Zink]

... in response to Re: I figured most..., posted by robobond on Oct 21, 2002

There are pools in Volgograd. The one I saw was indoors and even open in the winter. They also went swimming in the river a lot that I saw. Not all that often right at the city but up and down stream and on the eastern shore. It's interesting how the east bank of the Volga is miles of sand beaches and the west side is a steep, grassy slope. The girls I know from Volgograd can all swim like fish. I spent way too much time(over 2 months) in that city but I would still like to go back to the Mamaev Kurgan and Panorama Museum again. I lost most of my photos from there when my girlfriend and I broke up.

[robobond]

... in response to Re: Re: I figured most..., posted by Zink on Oct 21, 2002

Zink,

Me too, I logged in 5 weeks total - but 3 of that was bad-ass winter (thru xmas & new yr. holidays) weather and so we didn't do as much site seeing that trip.  It got down to -25c (-13f).  I could have spent a lot more hours in the Panorama Museum but it was closing & we had to leave.  The Battle of Stalingrad is a major history story in itself.  She told me that it got down to -40c (same as -40f) that winter.  The troops had no modern insulating materials back then - wool was it.  The Russians were on home turf but the Germans finally couldn't handle that damn cold and their supplies were running out.  After 6 mos. of brutal fighting they were forced into retreat.  So, boys and girls, one of the worst winters on record caused the Eastern Front turning point of WWII.  Can you imagine being a foot soldier in that mess?  

[I think I just went on a mini-rant there... sorry.]

Anyway, I took hi-tech, heavy duty hooded coat, boots, & gloves, but could have used thermal pants.  As it was I looked like a penguin waddling through the snow.  Each trip outside I lost feeling in the exposed part of my face after about 20 minutes - toes after about 45 minutes.  It really wasn't much colder than a place like Minnesota in winter but the Russians do a LOT of walking & mass transit vs. driving.  Even with the buses, trollies, vans, etc. the simplest errand required walking 1.5-2 miles round trip in the snow & cold.  Thus I thought 'swimming' was a once or twice thing in the summer vs. a hobby.

She took me everywhere the previous summer so I'm sure I saw the "Mamaev Kurgan" but you're using the Russian name which is drawing a blank to me.  Please refresh my memory in English.

I never did see a good map of the City but it's very long and narrow and (I thought) bordering the river on the west side.  If the east bank has all the sandy beaches how does everyone swim there?  (i.e.,) I saw no completed bridges crossing the river - only one under construction which probably never will be completed.  Unfinished construction projects complete with rusted equipment seem to be more abundant than war memorials in Volgograd.  It's like the whistle blew, everyone went home to eat, and no one came back.  ...but that's a another story!

Bob

[Zink]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: I figured most..., posted by robobond on Oct 22, 2002

I've done some major studying about WW2's eastern front in the last couple of years. Everywhere I went I was looking around imagining how it would have been to be there in '42. The Russians new how to use the winter. But it still had to be hell on the troops.

I'm Canadian and the weather here is usually just a hair colder than Volgograd on average. Actually Volgograd is pretty much the same latitude as my home. I was there in January 2001. That was a freak year with almost no winter. Most of the time it was sunny or raining. It only froze a couple of days on that trip. My other trips were in June and October last year.

The walking does take some getting used to. I'm in decent shape but around here we'll drive 10 times around the block so that we don't have to walk 50 yards. Volgograd seemed to be pretty sprawling. I think I saw it almost end to end but I'm not sure. I haven't seen a modern map but I do have some from my books about the war. Long and narrow alright.

Mamaev Kurgan is the big hill with the statue of mother Russia and all the other memorials. Man is that ever an impressive sight. I had the curator of the Panarama museum give me a guided tour. She was very excited to speak English with me. She said that a lot of German's came there but not many English speaking people. She let me take pictures of all the displays too. But I only have part of those. I wished I had the ones I took of the Panorama painting.

I'm not positive how the people got to the far side. But there were a lot of them there on weekends. You've seen the bridge then? I heard that they plan to start work on it again. I've been to 4 Russian cities. They all have a totally different character. Rust and unfinished projects does describe Volgograd. I was getting tired of the endless miles of the exact same apartment buildings. Still I had some pretty good times there.

[robobond]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Re: I figured most..., posted by Zink on Oct 22, 2002

"I was there in January 2001. That was a freak year with almost no winter."

[So was I (late Dec./early Jan.)- it was warming up about when I left.  Also, we come from different perspectives - I live a bit east of Portland, OR.  It's a Seattle type climate - wet & drizzly w/ very moderate winter temps.  I worked in downtown Portland for years and my winter coat was a London Fog w/ no liner!]

"around here we'll drive 10 times around the block so that we don't have to walk 50 yards."

[LOL! 2" of snow w/ +25f temp and I sprint 25 ft. to my car, start it up with heater on hi, turn the seat heaters on, sprint back to the house, have a cup of hot tea, sprint back to the car, & go to the store. If I don't get a front row parking spot, I either park in a handicap zone (those people have no business being out in cold weather anyway) or leave the car in the fire lane with the motor running. 30 ft. is max. In Volgograd you walk 1/2 mile in the snow to the transit stop working up a good sweat under your clothes while the tip of your nose freezes, hop on a trolley where your packed in like vertical sardines, heavy breathing & melting snow cause the humidity to soar, then 80 people try to get off at a stop where 80 other people simultaneously try to board because Russians don't seem to believe in organized lines and instead prefer "cluster f___'s".  If this is not done with a certain degree of unspoken precision which I never did figure out AND the weather is cold enough, all 160 people can stick together like wet fudgecicles thrown into a freezer.  This is what they call a "traffic jam".  In America we do it in heated cars that have special cupholders to hold our lattes that we just bought at the drive-in window at Starbucks.  Stop me if I begin to rant.]

"I haven't seen a modern map but I do have some from my books about the war"

[How about picking out 1 or 2 of your best books about the Battle of Stalingrad(Volgograd) and shooting me the titles -I'll follow up on the reading.  I'm not a history buff per se but I like to travel and then really get into stuff if it interests me.  I spent a few days at Pearl Harbor, got moved by it, bought a huge book about the battle, and devoured it.  It was millions of pages in length and it took me longer to read than the battle lasted.  I visited Glacier Park in Montana, signed up for one of those 2-3 hour van tours, lucked out because the driver was an educated Blackfoot Indian who taught oral history to kids at the reservation school.  He was so interesting (and the scenery so awesome) that after the other passengers got off, I paid him again just to drive me and my ex around and learn more.  Came home with a small library of historical books about Indian Culture and the tribes of that area. Went to Russia a couple of times, came home, subscribed to 'RUSSIAN LIFE' Magazine, read a little more on the Battle of Stalingrad, found this forum and now I'd like to see Ekaterinburg and Vladivostok and do the Trans-Siberian Railway trip. Stop me if I begin to ramble.]

"Mamaev Kurgan is the big hill with the statue of mother Russia and all the other memorials. Man is that ever an impressive sight."

[Ahhhh..... that thing.  My lady friend and her entire family took me up there - we spent a whole summer's day - a very special place and a very special day.  They laughingly called the Mother Russia Statue "Big Mother" and I laughingly called her "Big Mama" and they really got off on that.  They're probably still calling her Big Mama.  I only know "Yes", "No", & "Happy New Year" in Russian.  She was at most a Level I in English, her mom, daughter & son-in-law knew zip in English, and we're all up there a laughing and a scratching and having a ball crawling all over that hillside and it's memorials. Good time.  I found her people to be very happy, very jovial, very gregarious.  Between the levity I WAS in total wonderment of the magnitude and beauty and meaning behind it all.  Let's face it, Volgograd is basically industrial and ugly, but Big Mama is up there with our Mall in Washington D.C. - or our Statue of Liberty - well not quite - but you know what I mean.  Besides being laid out with tremendous architectural beauty, I could feel the history and emotion of that battle pounding in my chest.

"I was getting tired of the endless miles of the exact same apartment buildings. Still I had some pretty good times there."
[Same-o and same-o.  Try this on: I got the distinct feeling that while I was there, I was one of only four foreign visitors, and the only English speaking one, and it didn't matter because I'd never meet the other three anyway.]

Zink, you sure sound like a WOVO person. And you sure caught the true feel of Volgograd.  I don't think one gets that by cruising into town for an extended red hot weekend, establishing your bachelor digs on the basis of its proximity to the most happening disco's, fine tuning your schedule on your palm pilot, confirming your appointments with 22 women in 168 hours factoring in eating, and sleeping time estimating that you will actually sleep 14% less with the 42% of those you boff after the first date, 6% less with the 29% of those that you boff within the first two days, 12% less with the 7% of those that jump your bones within the first 20 minutes of entering your apartment and 5% less with the 4% of those that do you in the cab leaving the airport.   I gotta pause here lest I go on a rant.  I also gotta check my math because I think I just confused myself.

I think WOVO is my style too and I don't think I'll ever get dead ended because my backup plan is having no backup plan, and getting dead ended is the most fun of this whole damn thing because for me that's where the adventure is.  Maybe I like the journey too much and maybe I will never find a bride but I'm gonna have an interesting time looking around! And if I find her, she'll be a lady that is comfortable with all that.  And that 'time' thing?... what is it anyway?  It's a biggy.  It's all you really ever have. You only have so much of it and you can't acquire any more.  At 55 I'm now happier spending more of mine on the trip vs. the destination.  Is that the best way?  Damned if I know.  But its my way for right now.  At 25 I knew everything there was to know -- at 55 I'm not so sure.  But I do know one thing - in the Book of Life the answers aren't in the back.  Thank you and goodnight.

Bob

more to Zink:

"I'm not positive how the people got to the far side..."
[I'm not either but I like it there and I LOVE the cartoons!]

BFG