Soft and Fluffy LOVE

Hey there everybody, tell me, have you ever been in love?! Can't hear you! I said in love!!!

This is the seventh time I am typing a sentence. I keep typing and deleting. typing and deleting. I don't want to write a Hallmark post. But dammit, I am going to write about love and I don't care if it sounds cheesy!

So, you, in love, remember? SMS-ing all night? Coming up with clever things to say... dressing up carefully (I want to look nice, but I don't want him to think that I put an effort into it). Love letters, love poems, dates, kisses, hugs, more kisses, movies, walking, walking, walking.

Two things we did most: we walked and we drank juice/coffee/tea. Because what else can you do on a date, in Tbilisi, without paying a fortune? I mean sure, we did stuff like sneaking into the zoo at night, we watched sleeping zebra roll around in the sand, we picked spring flowers in the forest and he even serenaded me with a guitar (neighbors were amused), but very , very often we: drank juice/coffee/tea in cafe, we kissed in the park, or we walked and walked and walked. and talked and talked and talked.

Do you remember that time? Look outside! Do you see them walking? Do you see them holding hands? Are they happy? They have to be happy! Everybody has to be happy! You have to be happy, because it is there! I swear it is there and I know it! Love is there and it is soft and fluffy, like my husband.

...And so it happened that exactly 6 years and 6 months ago he kissed me for the first time and we've been doing that (well, not only that) since then!

Have you noticed that I haven't written about him on this blog? Because this is a complaining blog! He is left out by default!

How about joy for a change? Are you people with me? Let's laugh and love and feel sentimental!

Giga!!!!!!!!!!!

I always kept wondering when will this go away, what's the expiration date? People say 5 years of dating...others say 2 years of marriage...others say it's not possible altogether. But darn it, we've passed those expiration dates and you still look/taste/smell fresh! Sure, I've got cellulites now and you've gained a belly, but we also have our own home, we've paid off the credit for our bed and we've acquired a cat along the way!

Hey, everyone, the whole world! It is there, I swear, I swear, it is there, the love, the Love, Love, Love, Love, Love, it is there and it is soft and fluffy like my Giga!

On Comments and Language

People have complained…hmm... answered my complains about them not commenting...that it is impossible to leave comments to my posts. I’ll sketch a short tutorial on commenting. I bless you to debate and swear at each other on this blog, cause now, roughly 1 out of 8 visitors comments here. And out of the 7 that don’t, 5 can’t figure out how to do it. Because Blogspot sucks!

Follow me!

So, when you read the post, you click on comments, and voila, you see all the comments! Then, write your thing and click on “comment as” button.

You will encounter next options:

GoogleAccount

LiveJournal

WordPress

TypePad

AIM

Open ID

Name/URL

Anonymous

Obviously, if you have LiveJournal or other blog accounts, you know how to comment using your blog account. If you don’t have a blog account, you might still have a Google account. You might be using it for your mail (Gmail), for example. So choose GoogleAccount and proceed to sign in with your Google account and your name will appear next to your comment.

If you don’t have a Google account, try using other electronic accounts. For example, I tried using my Yahoo! account and it worked. Choose Open ID and proceed to sign in.

Finally, Name/URL option allows you to sign in from your Facebook.

If you don’t want to be known, just choose Anonymous and that’s it. I don’t moderate the comments and never will. If I hate what you’re saying, I’ll yell back at you right here on the blog J

And lastly, should I quit blogging in English and switch to Georgian? Do I come across as pretentious because of my English blog?

Is Climate change a MUTH?

For the first day of climate change week in Tbilisi, we were asked by my friend to march from Philarmonia to Parliament. She said that lots of people are coming and that we would stop the cars and make a statement. That everyone will see us marching and realize how polluted our air is. That Georgians will start recycling, stop using so much plastic bags, will start riding bikes and throw away their cigarettes. O.K. she did not say that but all of these statements have one thing in common—they are utopic!

We arrived at ten in the morning, sleepy and complaining. We expected a crowd—nobody showed up. Apparently, there is a new trend amongst Georgian people: promising to come and leaving you waiting in vain.

We were supposed to rally with the kids on bikes. They passed by, without stopping. So, we courageously started marching in the middle of the street, with cars honking at us angrily. Some environmentalists gave us booklets made of cut-down trees. Last time they gave us water in plastic bottles.

We carried a poster, stating: “Travel Smarter, Live Better”. It was confusing to the spectators and they probably thought that this was a demonstration of marshrutka drivers.

I noticed that many of the environmentalist girls rallied in high heels. It is beyond me how people can’t understand what counts as an appropriate attire for such occasions. It is a freakin environmentalist march! We are walking! And holding flags! And drinking water out of the plastic bottles! And giving out paper booklets! Put on some bio-degradable fabrics dammit!

Some important foreign guy walked along with us. Had something to do with integrating us in NATO or EU. In your dreams, Tbilisi!

Our dear mayor was waiting at the parliament. He said several sweet words about how important environment is and rode a bike afterwards. I missed that part because husband and I got tired of his talk and sprinted to the café Entree, where we sipped our coffees and ate our croissants, and lied to ourselves that we’re in a civilized city where people consume these things for breakfast. The lie was unsuccessful though, as the table was wobbly and we ended up spilling hot coffee on ourselves.

I do care about the environment. I love cute little animals and enjoy camping. I can’t do much, but I do what I can: I have a grocery bag that I use instead of plastic bags, I re-use my water bottle, I don’t litter. I will raise my kid the same way, making sure she does not throw garbage all over the place and does not abuse our cat Gaia. That’s all I can do in Tbilisi. I feel really sad for people who can contribute more, but end up rallying with no purpose. Like my friend, who wants to be an environmental lawyer, though such word combination does not exist in Georgia.

P.S. I opened the booklet. It said: “Climate change…it is not a muth, it is reality”. Sadly, it is.

Learning Abroad=Monster Georgian

Just recently church has spread the info that studying abroad is a bad thing to do. The reasons are plenty, for example " a 16-19 year-old young person is very sensitive towards the his/her environment, he/she is still unprepared. This is why it is dangerous to live abroad. There have been cases of psychological diseases" and " God has created you in Georgia and this is why you should live in Georgia"1.

I am not even going to refute this arguments, they are self- refutable in their essence. That was just the example of the logic why should Georgians stay where they are and never evolve professionally, psychologically, or culturally. I would like to address more tangible issue: one does not need to leave the country to study well. While I believe that this statement is partially true and that indeed, our country has many specialists that have never left their homes, this claim is not valid for the most of the students.

I have studied in two universities, Georgian and American. Both had flaws, but in the Georgian university, I felt more and more powerless with every semester. From inability to control what subjects I need to pass to get a diploma ( I had a B.A. from a university in America. Why the hell did I need to pass a test in English language in Georgia?!) to everyday classroom situations. For example, classes often started late. Or, we couldn't choose our classes. Or we did not have any textbooks in Georgian. So yes, I wanted to learn, and yes, I did all I could, and yes, I had great teachers, and but to this day I keep wondering, how much more would I have gotten out of it. Thus, when people try to feed me bullshit about how good our universities are, I just want to yell at them. Hello! Wake up! Isn't this all around us the result of our education?! Do we like what we see?! No?! Then why should we stay and keep repeating the same mistakes?! OR ARE WE JUST AFRAID TO GET EDUCATED, OPEN-MINDED AND CRITICALLY THINKING YOUTH? Is that it?! Then cut the crap about "cases of psychological diseases" and admit that we want a theocratic society! That would make us what, honest? At least, in that case, the likes of me will shut up and run far, far away from this country.

1. Tsitskishvili, D. Father. "Two Thoughts". Liberali. October 11-17th, 2010. pg. 8.

Fall Blues

I took my winter clothing out today. It is the beginning of that horrid time of the year, when you know what’s coming, and you know it ain’t pretty.

It’s officially here. The fall. The yellow leaves and last bits of sunshine. I never found it romantic, melancholic or whatever. Everyday you know that tomorrow is going to be colder, until it gets so cold that you need five blankets to stay warm at night. You turn on electric and gas devices. Your “Karma”, your “pechi” and your “radiatori” have as many people sticking to them, as moths to light bulbs in a summerhouse. You feel more comfortable outside, because you can wear a coat and you either move around or are heated up by the collective breathing of squeezed together marshrutka riders. You hang out your laundry only to discover that instead of drying up, the water has turned into ice-crystals; so you thaw your sweater by the radiator; and you put a “tazik” underneath, to save your floor. People constantly tell you that you got fat BECAUSE YOU ARE WEARING 5 LAYERS OF CLOTHING UNDERNEATH IT ALL! You hate it all and you want the sun back. That’s what’s coming. This is the preview of winter.

I took out my winter clothing today. It all looks grey and big. It’s 6 P.M. and dark as hell. My kitty lays curled up. Brown (yellow?) Tbilisi leaves get stomped into the mud by chilled pedestrians. The birds are flying away and taking summer with them. I’m cold, alone and jobless. Too bad I can’t play a guitar.

Give Us Our Daily Bread or Kali Kuxnashi

There are many pleasures in life and eating is one of them. Simply put, there are two approaches to eating, you either eat because you have to, or because you want to.

I was never the one who wanted to eat. When I was little, my mother had to remind me and even force me to eat. This attitude changed 2.5 years ago. I got married and my husband and I had to produce our own food. Otherwise we would starve.

The very first dinner that I cooked was fried chicken. I did not even know where to buy it (my friends told me that frozen chickens are sold in practically any store and I was very surprised, as I have never paid attention to any fridges but the ice-cream ones), I did not know how to defrost it (my microwave had a defrost button and I pushed it) or how to fry it (basically, if the fire does not consume it, it turns out edible). But I fried it anyway and my husband ate it. And he did not die.

Giga was very supportive, ate everything--whether he like it or not--and complimented my every meal. Soon, he got involved in cooking and we started coming up with dishes or re-creating hard-core, need-to-cook-for-two days kind of French-Chinese-Russian-Georgian-Italian dishes. All of the food in the pics were cooked by us ( except sushi pic, though I have made sushi too). And when we start missing food that we can't get here--we just cook it. Speaking of...when was the last time you had chocolate chip cookies? Maybe I will bake them when I am finished with this post.

Knowledge empowers. Even culinary knowledge.

P.S. the dishes are as follows: BEEF AND BEEN TACOS; SUSHI; TOMATO THAT I GREW ON MY BALCONY; CHICKEN SMOTHERED IN HERBS AND MAYONNAISE AND CORN BAKED IN CHICKEN JUICE; JULIA CHILD'S BEEF BOURGUIGNON ( TOOK ME A DAY AND HALF TO COOK).