How can a woman understand that she is loved?

How can a woman know that she is loved? How can a woman know that she is loved? I used to think that love was like in the movies. She said to him, “Hanny, I love you; please give me a Russian Fox fur coat and also a beautiful stone in 585-carat aurum,” and he said to her, “Yes, my sweet bubblegum! I’ll run right now for the oak fur coat, and I’ll grab some yakhonts on the way back.”

Here it is, I think, love! Real love! “I call her Sanyushka, and she calls me Mityunyushka!” (c)  Gifts! Fur coats! Aurum! The Heart of the Ocean diamond for the Eighth of March!  But no. No, friends. They called the wrong country Honduras.

Today at half past two in the morning, I had a craving for buckwheat porridge. I wanted some anti-crisis buckwheat. With butter and milk. I just feel like I really need it. There’s buckwheat, there’s milk, there’s even salt and sugar (I stocked up in case of war, am I the worst?), but there’s no butter. Well, there’s none at all, not even a piece of paper from it. And my husband is already asleep, of course.

I quietly wake him up and whisper in his ear, “Tyomushka, I want some porridge.”  Tyomushka says to me in his sleep: “Well, cook yourself some porridge; otherwise, if you don’t eat it at night, you won’t fall asleep.”

I told him, “Temushka, there’s no butter!”

And he said to me, “Well, eat it without butter.”

And I said to him, “I can’t live without butter! This isn’t porridge; it’s some kind of crap. Tyomushka, go to the store, okay? Buy a pot of butter. And mineral water. And some milk, too. And some cream—for my coffee in the morning. And…”

“And go to hell, Lida,” Tyomushka replied, but woke up. “It’s half past two in the morning. I have to get up for work at seven. Are you kidding me?”

I sobbed: “I’d like some porridge, Tyomushka. A little bit of porridge. Just a little bit. And some butter. Pleaseeeeeeee!”

Tyomushka stood up and went to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator. He studied the contents. Then he asked, “Wouldn’t olive oil work? Or mayonnaise? And the lard here is still good—wouldn’t that work? And look! There’s caviar butter! Wouldn’t that work either?”

I made a sad face and sadly smacked my lip.

Tyomushka closed the refrigerator, went to get dressed, and at the door turned around and asked, “So what else do I need to take, besides the butter?”

This is love. Butter at half past two in the morning—this is love!

And about oak fur coats, there was an old Russian folk song that sang: “You wore squirrel fur coats, crocodile skins… And get a feather for it!”

I don’t need fur coats. I don’t need anything. I have everything; thank you, Lord.  And butter. That’s the most important thing. And butter.