Of Work and Other Things

Well, what can I say? This post is pretty late, sorry, real life took over me. From now on, I won't have enough time to write the post one day, edit it on the second day and spend much time on the pictures. And, by the way, my camera broke down, so we'll have series of picturless posts for several weeks. I usually publish pics that I take, but if the camera isn't resurected, I will start stealing them from the net.
So, this is an amorphous post, concerning all the stuff happening around me. No order, no spell check, no common sense.
Worse of times, definetely worse of times. Cause things just happen around me. And I only have 15 minutes to list them.
Well, like the internally dispalced people chased away from their homes. That is just plain ugly. One women even set herself on fire. Massive hysteria.
What else? Oh, the vetarans prostest meeting by the Abkhazia war memorial. Meeting was broken up, shall we say, not gently?
What else? Trying to figure out how to do house chores when I get home at 7. Not that I do that much at work that I am exhausted (well, not yet), but being somewhere, doing something from 9:30 till 6:30 makes you want to spend your free time watching trashy reality TV, not do the dishes.
And what about nails, hair, shaving my legs? What about picking up outfits and ironing clothes?
When are women doing that?Respect to you, working women with nice nails!
You know how I always claim that being a housewive is lame? Well, it is certainly a lot more relaxing.
Let's see...TLG teachers being fired when they thougth they're gone on a vacation...imagine, you leave your things here, go visit your family in the States, you haven't said good-byes, you haven't written down e-mails and phone numbers, you haven't brought souvenier wine...if anyone still wants our wine...and they let you know that you can't come back anymore. This is how American teachers got fired--while being on vacation, without any prior notice. Great! Let's spread the tales of our hospitality across the oceans!
Oh, and my break is over.
Truly, this is an exceptional country!

The Old Carpet

The carpet is made of tiny strings, and all of them splash red, orange, brown multitude of colors. The pomegranate is red, and it bleeds. The lace can be white or it can be black. The lace can hide face, can hide eyes, can reveal feelings. The carpet can be colorful, can hang on the wall, can lie on the ground, can be covered with the pomegranates. And people can remember and people can forget, but some do remember.

Today, the carpet woke up in a dusty room. It was brought out. It was spread. It was covered with many, many pomegranates. The carpet was humble, and it minded the cameras. The carpet was humble, but it held many, many pomegranates.

Six years ago I decided that the more strings I weave, the more colorful carpet I’ll get. So, along with the university, I started taking lessons in Spanish, volunteered for the FLEX activities, continued my creative writing and debates, went to a modeling school and took some photography classes. One day, our photography teacher took us to watch how he was shooting a film. During the breaks, for the first time, he started discussing film and film photography with us. He said, Parajanov is genius, what he does in one shot, he only shows Chiaureli’s face with the white lace and it is the most beautiful shot in the film history.

This week, it was Parajanov's birthday. The day before, I watched “the Color of the Pomegranates”. Next day, I spent almost 30 minutes picking out the perfect pomegranate. I bought three different ones in three different markets. I wore red. I wore black gloves. I was no Chiaureli, but still, I wanted to feel special. I wanted to buy lace and wrap my pomegranate in it, but I spent so much time selecting the fruit that I couldn't. I had to hurry. 6 P.M., Bambis rigi, Parajanov’s monument.

There are people in this world that care about things. No, not me. People that actually do something. Those people want to have Parajanov's street in Tbilisi. They want to have a museum. They asked us to gather by his monument that evening and bring a pomegranate. They provided his pictures. They screened a film. They cared.

And then, TV cameras danced their little dance and the journalists mentioned everyone important. You know, the ministries and such.

The carpet was humble, and it minded the cameras. The carpet was humble, but it held many, many pomegranates. And after it was over, they took away the pomegranates and the carpet was put back in the dusty room. It was just an old rug, nothing fancy.

Rain Man…and Boys and Girls

The only place where you don’t want to see any rain is the rainiest place in whole Georgia. The irony of life has never been so obvious.

Last New Year’s Eve we spent in NY; this January the 31^st, we were conquering new heights, the Georgian Barcelona: Batumi.

We arrived at 7 A.M., --IT WAS RAINING—and were showed a seemingly decent “hotel”. My husband had hypoglycemia, dehydration, acetaldehyde intoxication, and glutamine rebound—more commonly known as a hangover. So he spent most of the day sleeping and rest of the day arguing with a waitress—he craved soup. “No Soup”, she declared. “Beer?” he hoped. “We don’t import beer on holidays (?!?!!?!?!)”, she answered, determined to deny any attempts of money coming into her restaurant. “Tea with lemon”, asked my desperate husband. “We don’t make tea”, was her answer. IT WAS RAINING.

After getting some warmth and alcohol, we went to the free concert, with Bocelli, Cirque Du Soleil and other fun stuff. Or so I was told. Cause I’d be damned, if I saw anything. Sandwiched between somebody’s armpits and chests, I longed to catch a glimpse of the concert. I couldn’t hear a note cause some stupid girls kept screaming behind me “oh I don’t like operas, oh, I think I broke my heels, oh…” I take this opportunity to say: I hate you, screaming girls who come to free concerts without even knowing who Bocelli is! Let the all of your heels be broken from now on! AND DID I MENTION THAT IT STILL KEPT RAINING?

At 11:50 we decide that this is lame and spend the next ten minutes sprinting towards the sea. We don’t make it; instead, we jump into the fountain (at this point we are so wet, we don’t care), pose for a pic with champagne. It was supposed to burst out, joyfully splashing us with bubbles. It absolutely refused to do so, no matter how much we shook it and even banged it against the concrete. Then, we wanted to light the cheap Chinese excuse for fireworks, but instead of exploding, the little balls of fire kinda limped through the air, with the saddest sound. Finally, we went up to the sea and decided to fire a rocket thingy. The lighter broke down. AND, ALL THIS TIME, IT IS STILL RAINING.

We went home. Four of our friends were not with us during this whole getting- into- the- fountain- on- 12 o’clock adventure. We thought that they just stayed to watch the concert. Two of them did. In fact, those two people were the only ones, out of all twelve of us, who saw the concert. However, the other two had an unforgettable experience. When we ran to the fountains, they ran to the “hotel”, only to discover that we locked all the doors. Wet and angry, they tried getting into cafes—but were turned down, due to no reservations. Finally, they were admitted to some smelly restaurant, full of men, no females whatsoever. All the food was already served to men and a waitress, feeling sorry for the two wet girls, brought them whatever she found in the kitchen—two pieces of bread and two pieces of cheese! Battling the drunken men who tried to dance with them and munching on stale bread, they greeted the year 2011. AND OF COURSE IT WAS STILL RAINING.

I won’t bore you, how the lights went off in our hotel, leaving us heatless, how we wore each others relatively dry clothes, shoes and socks, how we had an argument with the “hotel” owner and how many empty bottles we left behind—this post is too long already. When we finally got on the train, the night of the January 1^st, we discovered that a lady at the train station back in Tbilisi sold us the wrong tickets. We were in fact, proud holders of tickets route Tbilisi-Batumi, not the return tickets Batumi-Tbilisi. My name was yelled out several times “ Pasumonok, get off the train now!”, while my husband tried to obtain relevant tickets.

And you know what? When the train started leaving Batumi, THE RAIN STOPPED! Only, now we did not care.

the pics: us trying to open the damn champagne. Us trying to launch the rocket thingy