Matchmaker, Matchmaker - Los Angeles Edition

Last year, I spoke with two US Embassy officials who each day interview a slew of visa applicants from a certain Eastern European country. They were the first to tell me about the idea of "piggy-back immigration," through which one person, already admitted to the United States, goes back to his or her former country and brings another person over, either an immediate or close family member or a new spouse. I don't see anything wrong with the idea; on the contrary, it's a time-honored tradition to bring the Old World to the New, to have no limits placed on your life, to hold as many rights as the next man or woman in the Ten Items or Less line.

And now I'm here to play my part in this process. My wife has a friend, a beautiful young woman in the South of Russia, recently estranged from her long-term boyfriend. She's intelligent, a good cook, she cleans and sews, and she's very feminine, my wife says. What she isn't is actively looking for an American husband. But my wife believes she'd be willing to listen if the right man came calling.

Could she listen right now? Not entirely, not without some help or hesitation, maybe a good dictionary between the two of you, as her English language skills have slipped since leaving college and taking an administrative job with the gas company. "But it's not like she doesn't know it at all," my wife said. "She just forgot it. She had an 'A' in college."

And yes, before I go on too far, that is her in the picture, up there on the top left, the one that will be much larger if you click it. The photo is taken on the day of my wedding. The girl in the foreground is Anya. A friend of animals, especially cats, a petite twenty-six year-old who wants children and prizes the idea of having a family.

"I think she's the nicest person I've ever met," my wife said. "She's my nicest friend."

And that, dear reader, is why we're here today. My wife would like to see her friend in her life again, so if you're in California, preferably Southern California, and most especially Los Angeles, perhaps you'd like to make yourself known. Would others be considered? Perhaps. But if you're from Saskatchewan, you have to ask yourself: which is easier to get to from LAX? Moscow, or Saskatoon?

Interested? Then find a picture of yourself, write a few words about who you are, how you live, and if you're ready to make a lifetime commitment to borsch, and then send it all off to this email address. My wife will consider the responses, and we'll proceed appropriately from there.

A word of clarification. This isn't The Bachelor or Joe Millionaire. We won't be inviting fourteen of you to Russia, and then sending one of you home each week. Nor will we follow you around with a camera here, capturing the reactions of friends and family (to say nothing of a few awkward confessions). We're just trying to heed the call, however faint, that's been sent from a friend in Russia, a call you might have also heard in that film The Fiddler on the Roof:

Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match
Find me a find, catch me a catch
Matchmaker, matchmaker look through your book
And make me a perfect match

Or some such.