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Saturday, June 30, 2012

When Ur Husband is Smarter than U

when your husband is smarter than you...you either turn into a jealous bitch or support him and his team and become their groupie. Or you can just be irrelevant bu that sucks. Let me explain. We're playing quiz game team called "what when where". We actually have a wonderful team. Additionally to our team, hubby is on another team that plays this game on TV.
 So now we have two celebrities in my house-hubby and Gaia the cat. Hubby-cause he is on Tv, Gaia--cause she is cool.
 After endless assembling in my house to practice answering questions, eating potato chips and scaring the hell out of Gaia with their arguing, the TV team got on screen for the first time. The dress code for the TV game is formal evening wear and guys looked ridiculous in tuxes. I rented a black lace dress and for the first time ever used red lipstick. Turned out-you can draw fuller lips with red lipstick, and lie that your mouth looks prettier than in real life!
 The almost lost (the score was 3:5 and the game is over after 6 points), but finally, correctly answered three questions, making it 4:5 , then 5:5 and finally winning with the score of 6:5! Damn it, it was painful to watch!

 So, all those evening of cleaning up crumbs from my carpet after their practices paid off! They won and last Wednesday, we all gathered to watch the show air and made fun of their faces.
 We have another practice today, not with the celebrity TV people, but our real team, cause tomorrow is tournament of Georgia, and we should end up in top 5 teams, damn it, no matter how many kilos of potato chips it takes!
 When your husband is smarter than you, you stuff him with carbs and hope he gets fat.
 the pic: hubby celebrating his win after the show

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Sairme Getaway


Summer time and the living is easy, or so we want to think, and I forced my husband to work less last Saturday (to make him quit working is impossible; damn you cell phones with internet).  After finding out that Lake Lopota resort in Kakheti costs more than staying in the center of Istambul, I called reasonably-priced Sairme resort and booked a room with a balcony—it’s always nice to have a balcony.
Under rampant sounds of Gogol Bordello, we made a detour to Kutaisi, to visit my favorite road-side restoraunt, Khutorok. It is owned and operated by local Ukrainians. Everything I’ve tasted there is delicious and cheap. Salads cost up to 5 Lari and the most expensive meat entrĂ©e is around 10-15 lari. If you are order lunch for two, it will cost probably 15 Lari for both appetizers and entrees.  “Khutorok” is the king of my favorite restoraunts – hole in the wall places that look cheap, but serve  tasty food made form natural ingredients…the sour cream they brought us, itwas so dense, twe stuck a spoon in the middle and it did not fall...yum.
We left Kutaisi full and happy and went back to Bagdadi, where we saw poet Mayakovski’s house, and hubby even read his poem on the deck.  Mayakovski was cool. Once, he was talking to his readers and stated : “I feel Russian among Russian people and Georgian among Georgian people”, someone from the audience yelled: “and among stupid people?”, to which he replied “and among the stupid people, I find myself for the first time”.
Back on the road, which suddenly got so pretty. Trees were trying to hold branches and extended over the road, reaching towards each other, this one river criss-crossed bridges beneath us, every turn seemed curvier than the one before, our stomachs were desprate, our eyes—content; The lords of the road, brown and Dzen cows, chillaxed in the middle of the way, calmly looking at cars honking at them, probably thinking: “only fools hurry, why are these people in cars upsetting the perfect peace of the universe?” and refusing to move; someone spread white sheets to dry between the pines in the forest, like some commercial of Tide Alpine Freshness... Once we got to Sairme, I made it my priority to breathe deep and breathe a lot, cause the air smelled like trees. It just did. 
Doorman opened doors for us and brought our backpacks upstairs and I tipped him 2 Lari, feeling very uncomfortable and proud at the same time--I did something I’ve only seen in movies. The room was O.K., remodeled soviet hotel, with two beds apart  ( I broke one of them trying to put two beds together and we had to fix it and sleep separately). We walked in the park, we sat on the benches, hubby drank healthy mineral water, we went to the spa, hubby had  massage, then we dipped ourselves in the tub of mineral water, then we ate the most boring, dietary dinner provided by the hotel (it is actually a sanatorium, meaning  people stay there to improve their health so we were fed carrots and oatmeal), then we kissed in the forest like we were still teenagers that can’t find a place to make out, since they do not have room of their own, and we remembered how we met and got all sentimental.  Cue to hurried exit to our hotel (because, now we had a room of our own), and afterwards hubby lounging himself on the balcony (see, balconies are cool!), and smoking a cigar, ruining the effect of tree air and healthy dinner. 
We left the next morning and headed to this city full of smoke and of cars and of work and of all things boring and usual and un-Sairmean.
P.S. pic: forest in sairme

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Tests

(Next passage was written two weeks ago) As I was administering SAT tests today, looking at the poor kids sweating through the hours of math and chemistry, I thought how long has it been since I've taken a test, read research or article, wrote an academic paper. Recently, I wrote an article for Identity mag (which no one read) and due to no time and the fact that I haven't written a paper in, let's see, 5 years, I failed to produce good work. Do you sometimes feel like college gives you some info and then you loose it, bit by bit, as you walk through your career? On the other hand, when you are in academic environment, you are forced to think, write, consider and reconsider. I almost want to take an SAT test, I almost want to take any test, to get good scores, to feel successful again, like I felt in school, in college, to feel that I am doing good,that I am doing really good, that I am not just a stupid assistant in a stupid project, that I am not replaceable. Damn, I need to take an online course or something! (next passage was written one week ago) after a week of this rant, the foreign coordinators of my project visited Tbilisi. I informed them that I was going to leave as soon as the current project is over. The next day they have requested a private talk with me. They offered me to be a partner to my manager, in salary and in position, for the next project. I was very flattered and uterly surprised (honestly, I thought they would offer me small raise and ask me to stay where I am ) and I requested for some time to think and explore the market. Thus, in nearest future I might stop being an assistant and I will have my own assistant :-) On the other hand, I don't want to stay here, political stuff, civil service, rules, stupid ways of doing things and making decisions, overall policy. I want to start afresh with new people, prove new points, show my long-lost sides,motivation, creativity. Also, if I stay in project administration now, most likely, I would not be able to change career, do something practical (once upon a time my M.A. diploma proclaimed that I was a neurpsychologist). I will be stuck managing projects and will have no real profession. But I don't know. I might get sold. After all, I was offered more than double of my current pay. I have time till October. New and exiting, or same old, only further on the career ladder? Just when I have decided that I am tired of it all, I have to rethink everything. I guess this is the test I have been asking. And I guess I passed the pre-test--I got the promotion offer. (Nest passage is being written now) Looks like I am whining and then bragging. Really, I am just lost. Oh, and I have to take care of this blog. No pics for two weeks, irregular length of posts, my other blog not updated...gotta get back to writing!