My Blog List

Monday, March 18, 2013

The Women Degradation Month


This March is Women Degradation Month. Why is it that all the sudden everybody decided to let their inner sexism out?  Probably sexists were reminded of female existence via the March 3d and 8th useless holidays. Maybe they were going about their business and, all the sudden, they got a brilliant insight: “oh, tomorrow is March 8th. Need to buy flowers for the females. Oh by the way, while we’re at it, need to humiliate, degrade and ridicule them!”
Hereby I present to you the plethora of activities planned and implemented in the frames of the Women Degradation Month 2013.
March 8th. Originally, proclaimed to “promote equal rights, including suffrage, for women”, adopted by Lenin as a public holiday and reinforced by the Soviet government to commemorate women’s patriotism and strength during the WW2, this holiday gradually transformed into a day of celebrating "the weak sex", emphasizing women’s beauty and saintliness. Basically, we took a day that celebrated strong women and turned it into day of celebrating trophy wives. There’s a Russian joke “shut up woman, your holiday is March 8th!”. Give them one day a year and choke them with it. A FB group that decided to celebrate March 8th for what it initially was, got virtually attacked by all kinds of people and accused of exaggeration.
The What When Where Female Team Game. I guess the game producers reasoned that because women are different kind of animals, because they think differently (you know, all women use intuition versus mental operations and such) and because it is such an unusual thing for women to actually participate in intellectual games, they need a separate all-female team, because god forbid they actually mingle with the men. Though I believed that this idea is sexist, I am guilty of auditioning for this game. We didn’t know for sure, if they would finally form such team, we could potentially play in other teams and finally, I just really wanted to try and that was the only way. I did not make it but several pretty talented girls did. Now, time after time, the game host does have sexist jokes but nothing too unusual. However, this game was unbelievably misogynist. I did not expect it. I mean, I knew there would be some jokes and shit, but the whole game was full of questions about cooking, getting married, who is smarter in the family, how often do girls use intuition, and such! One sponsor declared that girls play as well as men. Oh really? So they actually measure up to the Male Standard of Excellency? How splendid! The cherry on the top was pretty vulgar question about male promiscuity being normal and female promiscuity being abnormal and the answer to that question pretty much was that the symbols the question involved stood for one penis and six vaginas and one vagina and six penises. Poor girls were so lost, they did not even allow for such answer to be true. They received help from the audience which delivered it in a politer way (they claimed it was about polygamous and monogamous marriage). Anyway, the promo alone was crown jewel of female degradation: Kartli’s Deda is watching you, ladies! OMG! Not the Kartlis Deda!!! Think of the pressure?! I am deeply embarrassed to be associated with this club. I am sorry that my friends had to sit through humiliation. They still managed to play very well. You know, because they are smart and educated.
March of Brides. Rustaveli witnessed an amazing walk this week: women dressed in white dresses flooded the streets in order to support Foundation of Georgian Demographic Restoration, or some bullshit of the same kind. Thus they walked and promoted their uteruses that could produce many, many healthy Georgian babies, who would repopulate this blessed land and spread their seed all over its valleys and hills.
Hence, all the activities were extremely effective in making women feel worthless, weak, pretty objects that are useful only for birthing and flower-receiving purposes. This year’s Women Degradation Month proved to be successful and sustainable. Mission accomplished.
The pic:  the flowers for the ladies...

Monday, March 11, 2013

Anniversary


The weather gods decided to punish me for the sins of my last life, and rained and rained on my head, while I was frantically running all over the town with hand-made posters, forcing friends to hold them. Friends were told that if they refuse to take part in my project, they would be excommunicated forever; they would never receive gifts for their birthdays, or allowed to drink in my apartment. I condemned them to eternal life of sorrow and regret. So, they humbly followed, held posters that made no sense individually and posed with bored faces.
            It’s our fifth wedding anniversary and I tried to make a special gift for hubby. I wrote down the lyrics of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, forced friends to film these words and made a video for hubby. It’s on my FB, if you feel like romance.
            Right now, I am sitting in Batumi Sheraton; just had a relaxing spa day; I am waiting for tomorrow to dawn. I have wrapped a memory stick with the video on it and will wake him up via phone call tomorrow morning. I will hide behind the curtains and watch him open the wrapping and plug in the memory stick. I wonder if he falls off the bed or what.
            Also, life is good at Sheraton. They have Turkish hamam, steam room, sauna and a swimming pool. We have nice view of the sea. I’ll be damned if I get out of the hotel this weekend. Usually, when we travel, there’s so much to do and see that we never take time to enjoy the services and amenities. Actually, we don’t usually stay in such nice hotels with services and amenities. So this time, I will pretend that I am rich and famous and I will spa my ass off.
            On the way here, hubby and I talked about crossing the border and maybe going to Trapzon, maybe closer, doing something, but…not gonna happen! Swimming, sauna, books and films and good food, that’s it. Let’s not to do something once in our life. Let’s just to be lazy. But technically, we already did an activity: we toured Prometeous cave and it was so cool! It’s all lit in different colors and you can see all the stalag/mites/tites, and take a boat ride in a cave river! The only downfall was the tour guide girl who clearly hated caves, cave formations, mineral deposits, geological events and such and walked around with a sour face.
            Are you all wondering why the hell am I writing this instead of relaxing? Well, my hubby IS WORKING , and while I understand that if he does not work, we won’t have the funds to stay in any hotel, let alone a nice one, it makes me mad and restless that instead of dining out (I am sitting in a dress and a full make-up), he is fidgeting with some numbers and graphs. I want to start doing nothing already!
            Finally, thanx friends for your help in the making of the epic epic video. You guys are great.
The pic. Hubby working.
           

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Let the Games Begin


For the second time now, we boarded our loyal metal stallion and headed towards rocky kingdom of Armenia. Anything different from my mundane life is good, hence the first part of our trip, when we passed by haunting, monster-like rocks, scary, unlit tunnels, abandoned houses and post-apocalyptic factories is way more interesting than watching this f***in rain muddying Tbilisi.  So we galloped to Dilijan, a cute pine-covered town, to compete with Armenian and several Georgian teams for the title of the most intellectual group of six nerds that have nothing better to do in their lives, but sit through two days of non-stop questions, surrounded with obsessed people. The Dilijan tournament of “What When Where”, sprinkled with Jeopardy and other quiz games was as fun as two days filled with non-stop questions and obsessed people can be.
My morally corrupt teammates bought the whole duty free shop at the border (by the way, we found Armenian border transported into the modern times. My guess is that Tardis was involved). Inevitably, we trashed a very nice hotel room. Thank goodness I had my own room with my own morally corrupt husband. At least I could sleep before the game. Or so I thought.
As I was desperately trying to ignore the snoring, desensitized pile of human tissue that used to be my husband, the voices from the lobby haunted my troubled sleep. I heard piano. I heard swearing. I heard arguing. I finally stormed the lobby in my PJs, ready to tear the enemy apart, only to discover three of my teammates producing all kinds of noises. That night, my honest drunk friends told the Armenians that 1. That Baku was better than Erevan 2. That people who destroyed the gay bar in Erevan sucked (turned out, those were present in the lobby). 3. That Ataturk was a great politician and role model. Unbelievably, nobody beat the crap out of my teammates. I guess our hosts abstained from annihilating Georgian guests and causing an international scandal. Imagine the headlines: GROUP OF GEORGIAN INTELLECTUALS MURDERED BY ARMENIAN “WHAT WHEN WHERE” TEAMS DUE TO THE POLITICAL DISPUTE. CORPSES FOUND IN THE LOCAL RIVER.
Sleepless (me), sick (our captain) and hung over (the rest of the team), we managed to answer some questions the next day. In the end, we placed 4th and even received a complementary trophy. It feels weird to take an undeserved prize, received mainly for showing up (though we did better than some), but hey, it looks cool on my FB. Also, it’s our first trophy, complimentary or not. Ask and ye shall receive.
In the same spirit of wasting our lives, this weekend we went to Bakuriani for a Georgian tournament. Man, Bakuriani looks so depressing with no snow. Trash everywhere and a post-apocalyptic setting of rusty swings and horses with clinical depression. Lately, everywhere I go, it feels like I am visiting remnants of the atomic winter that have been recently rebuilt. That’s the soviet heritage for you.
The level of alcohol went down this time, due to several reasons I am not at liberty to reveal here, we just had this one annoying drunk person with us, who kept bugging people and fell asleep at inappropriate places…my hubby. He managed to piss off other players, make me mad, binge on our food and at the same time, take some amazing pics of night sky. This person can’t walk around straight sometimes, but he can take high-quality pics. Human brain is still a mystery to me.
As for the game, we played really well the first day, I think on the verge of our capacity, yes we could play better, but not much better. We felt like a team and everyone contributed. Second day....nah. No idea what place we have, I believe it’s 15th out of 50, but hey. If that’s what we’re worth, than that’s what we’re worth. We did well. We guessed pretty hard stuff. I am sick of elaborating why can’t we climb higher.
As it always happens, I feel blue next Monday and wish I was away from the raining Tbilisi. All by myself, I don’t wanna be, all by myself…
P.S. The trophy from Armenia. Received for drinking.