(no subject)

[kittydesade]

There was once a young Hunter who went boldly into the forest. He had a merry and light heart, and as he was whistling along there came an ugly old woman who said to him, "Good day, dear hunter! You are very merry and contented, but I suffer hunger and thirst, so give me a trifle."

The hunter felt sorry for the poor old woman, and he felt in his pocket and gave her all he could spare. He was going on, then, but the old woman stopped him and said, "Listen, dear hunter, to what I say. Because of your kind heart I will make you a present. Go on your way, and in a short time you will come to a tree on which sit nine birds who have a cloak in their claws and are quarrelling over it. Then take aim with your gun and shoot in the middle of them; they will let the cloak fall, but one of the birds will be hit and will drop down dead. Take the cloak with you; it is a wishing-cloak, and when you throw it on your shoulders you have only to wish yourself at a certain place, and in the twinkling of an eye you are there. Take the heart out of the dead bird and swallow it whole, and early every morning when you get up you will find a gold piece under your pillow."

The hunter thanked the wise woman, and thought to himself. "These are splendid things she has promised me, if only they come to pass!"

Давным-давно жил-был молодой охотник, кто в лес жирнно [find the proper adverbial form] пошёл. У его было сердце весёлое и лёгкое, и за [something. verb in progressive?] пошла уродливая бабушка, которая ему сказала

-Добрый день, дорогой охотник. Вы очень весёлый и доволный, но я испываю голод и жажду, поэтому давай мне капельку.

Охотнику бедную бабушку жалко, и обшарил свои кармани и давал все лишние вещи. Он продолжался идти, а бабушка его останавила и сказала...

-Выслушай меня, дорогой охотник. Из-за твоего любезное сердце я даю подарок. Идти по свое дороге, и через краткое время ты приходишь к дереву на котором девять птицы сидят, у них коготи мантия и они ссорятся из-за неё. Прицелься и стреляй серди них. Они будут ронять мантию, но которая-то из птицы будет ударена и падать мёртвая. Бери мантию с тобой. Ето мантия желания и когда набросишь на твои плечи, надо только поежлать себя в некоторый где-то и в мгновение ока, ты там. Сними сердце на мёртвую птицу и проглоти залпом, и каждое утро* когда вставаeшь ты найтишь одна золотая монета (?) под твоей подушкой.

Охотник выразил благодарность бабушку, у думал себя - Эти замечательные события они мне обещала, если случают. All the side-eye for translating that stupid turn of phrase. All of it.

* Note that 'every morning' is singular in Russian, too, not the 'all the mornings' structure.


Oh, hey, look who finally managed to memorize the language keyboard switch shortcut on purpose. No, seriously, I keep toggling it by accident. Now I actually know by heart what it is and can toggle on purpose! Not that this will stop me from doing it by accident anyway. Sigh.

I've definitely hit that place where my Russian is for crap woe is me, but German? Pfft. Pshaw. Fine. Only the weird thing is, every time I'm called upon to actually use it there's still a moment of habitual panic of I can barely string two words together in German and you're asking me to do what? But that's coming along so much better and my Russian constantly has errors in it, all of which are jumping up and down on my confidence and going You'll never do this because you suck. Not helpful. I suppose it's true and I am level grinding, and it always takes so much more XP to get from 15th to 16th. (Or, what, I'm in Epic levels now, 20th to 21st?) But this stage of incompetence feels interminable. Argh.

I shouldn't bitch so much. I speak around seven languages with varying degrees of facility. Which is six more than most Americans speak, and probably four more than most people in the world speak. Three more? Not sure. And I'm doing this almost entirely by myself (with a little help from my friends! so not entirely by myself) and still managing to achieve some facility with languages, so I shouldn't bitch. It's like everything else. It feels like this period of floundering is never-fucking-ending.

Went by the house today and talked to the contractor, worked out kitchen lighting which was pretty much "I have no particular idea what I want, what's good? Is that energy efficient? Can I get to it to change the bulbs? How often will I have to change the bulbs?" and then nodding and smiling and that was done. The roof repairs turned out to be way less of a deal than expected, which was very nice indeed. The wall got painted and looks way nicer now, it'll peel again later but fuckit, as long as it stays nice till the bank's done signing off on it, the boy wants to do a brick facade on the house anyway. Another layer of brick to go over all the rest of the brick! This'll be fun. The only snag is going to be the heating guy, which is pretty much a problem of it's now October and everyone and their daughter is shrieking that they need their heating worked on. Fuck you, I was here first. But then once that goes in it'll all be copacetic. Except for the goddamn walls that need sanded and refinished. And the drywall in the garage we're going to tear down and replace. And a frillion other smaller things. Repainting the bedrooms. All of them. Cosmetic things, though, all the structural work will be done! Done done done.

I am so tired I'm losing track of what I was going to do from one minute to the next. This is not a good thing. So, I guess it's adding even the small fiddly things to my to-do list as I think of them today, so that I don't lose track of it all. I need a good night's fucking sleep. I don't know when I'm getting it.

And GODDAMMIT MIRA FURLAN. Stop making me cry at work.