Nyet. Da. Da. Shto?

Named as secretary of the new board of directors in a secret meeting reminiscent of the kinds held by party bosses in the 30s and 40s, I had yet to see any responsibility. That all changed with the announcement of our first building meeting last night, held at 7 PM in the boiler room in the basement, with only 7 seating surfaces (not chairs) for 10 people. My first duty was to take notes at the meeting. What follows is excerpts from my notes of the meeting:

6/18/08 7:25 PM
8 people present....9. 10. 10 people present

1. New Board of Directors
Alex = President
Anna = "I will continue to be treasurer"
Larry = Secretary (of Defense)
After announcement there was silence, before one person said ok. Sounds unanimous to me.

2. Water bill has increased due to possible prostitution ring upstairs.
Alex and I discuss merits of letting prettier girls do whatever they want. Much arguing.

3. Bylaws. There are no sponsors any longer. (Shouldn't the bylaws be mentioned and then voted on, rather than just agreed that there is such a thing as "bylaws" in the world? Oh well.)

4, 5, 6, whatever...No construction early in the morning or late at night, no working in your storage room, keep plants inside balcony so they don't drip on merry bbq'ers below, no hate crimes, etc. Damn I'm hungry.

7. Why did Alex just use the word "emergency" in a Russian filled statement? Be sure to find out why there's no Russian word for emergency. You'd kind of figure there would be.

8. Common charges should be raised to...(oh hell, I didn't catch that and now everything is in Russian. Should I loudly yell out Nyet, das vidanya? Might not make sense).

9. Who cares anymore? I'm totally bored and I think we're all still arguing about the water bill and raising charges in Russian. Well, everyone but me. Now I'm being asked to chime in and yell at the guy they're all picking on, but I don't understand, and I don't wanna. I don't! They can't make me. Ha, now one of the guys is getting really pissy, comically so, about replacing the lock for 200 dollars. Haha, this is getting good. Oh, it's over? Only 1.5 hours later? Well that was well worth my time. Can't wait for the next one. The End.

Looking back, I think they may have made a mistake asking the only non-Russian speaker in the building to take notes at a meeting in which English was only used by mistake.