Crazy Russian Ladies and Cherry Trees

Today when I got back from the store there was a bedraggled looking Russian lady in our front yard, setting up a little foot ladder and looking completely ready to pick our cherries. When she saw me coming in the front door, she shot me a little deer-in-the-headlights look. Assuming that she was a crazy homeless lady, but not knowing if she was possibly a family friend, I said hello and nodded courteously. I then went inside and told the dad that he had a friend out there picking his cherries, whereupon he told me that she was a crazy homeless lady. :P Well, not exactly homeless. I asked Farangiz about her, and she said she lives with her son and his wife but they don’t take care of her, they steal money and stuff and she’s a little off her rocker so she just wanders around, I guess. She’s come before, apparently the family’s really good to her. Once she came right in to the house, just as Farangiz was waking up, scared her half to death. And asked if she could pick some cherries. Another time the dad set up a really high ladder for her to use to pick cherries (what a good family, huh? I wonder if our family would do that for a crazy homeless lady. I like to think so. Just wait for what comes next though -) and then she proceeded to strip down to her underwear and then climb up to the top of the ladder to pick cherries (and she was boasting about how she used to be a sportswoman and stuff, eek). Why?!? was my question. Because she’s Russian, was the answer. Apparently, and this has come from a variety of sources, the Russian women here often swim naked, so apparently climbing trees half-naked is the phase that comes between that and walking the streets mostly clothed.