This is my favorite cocktail they serve here: raspberry mint lemonade. It’s like a non-alcoholic mojito. We are improving the image of Russian-speakers everywhere by showing very scarce interest towards alcohol.

When I first started dating a Russian person, a friend of mine asked me what he drank.

“He never drinks alcohol,” I said.

“Oh, I get it, he’s in AA,” my friend immediately responded. The idea of a Russian person who doesn’t drink simply because he doesn’t feel like it was alien to him.

Since today N. and I are celebrating our anniversary, I want to share one of many funny stories that happened to us over the years.

Once, we went to Chicago for a conference in N.’s car. A valet met us at the hotel’s doors.

“Are you staying with us?” he inquired.

“Yes, we are here for a one-night stand,” N. announced brightly.

He meant a one-night stay, of course.

I was leafing through Kindle Sunshine Deals and was surprised to discover how many sequels, prequels and rewritings of Jane Austen’s middling-quality novel Pride and Prejudice keep appearing on a regular basis. This author has written much better stuff, but it’s Pride and Prejudice that keeps getting rewritten and filmed obsessively. Can anybody explain this to me? The whole point of the book is that an intelligent, sensitive woman falls in love with a man she used to detest after she gets to see his big, beautiful, impressive, huge, desirable. . . house. What’s so inspiring about that?

I love Jane Austen but this particular novel always made me cringe because of the sheer shamelessness of the female protagonist who just sells herself so easily and unapologetically.

As usual, the beach is completely empty in the morning. People will show up when the sun is especially nasty. I saw people baking themselves right under the cruel 2 pm sun yesterday. Even looking at them was scary.