The Easter Tales

This Easter was full of many surprises, good and bad. Here’s what happened:

Wednesday evening they told us that Thursday was a holiday. Naturally, I still had to work, since no one bothered to let is know beforehand, you know, so that we could make plans…

I read a hilarious article in the magazine “Tabula”. People asked priests if they were allowed to take showers this Friday and if throwing away colored eggs’ skins was a sin. This was followed by a long discussion on FB, where my friend argued that questions like these indicate brain atrophy and his opponent kept posting arguments with lots of exclamation points. In the end, the other guy just deleted all of his comments. Thus, my friend looked like he was arguing with himself. Very mature.

My hubby and I went to the Church on Easter. It was nice. We got wet though. I guess rain is my destiny for this year.

Keeping up with the theme, hubby and I watched Pasolini’s “Gospel by Matthew” and really enjoyed it.

By the power of karma, I was denied shower privileges for about a week. 1^st, there was no hot water, due to no gas. Then, the weather was windy (I can’t turn on the gas heater in the wind). Later, the water stopped running. And this is why I became one of those stinky marshrutka riders I described in my previous post.

Yesterday, I discovered that I can eat three whole medium Paskas in one day.

That might be the reason why I woke up in the middle of the night with abdominal pain and cried until Giga got me medicine. I can’t stand any physical pain and that is not good. I was lucky to escape major injuries, surgeries and toothaches till now, but who knows what the future holds for me.

I spent lots of time with my family.

I slept during daytime twice, also not good.

I worked a bit, though I had planned to work more. I still have stuff to do tonight.

I’ve got to reach my ultimate goal for these holidays—washing all the laundry. Interestingly, that has sparked a whole housewify discussion on FB as well.

Apparently, I spent lots of time on FB.

Dreadful things happened on “The Celebrity Apprentice”.

Hubby and I started watching the second season of “Community”. So far, it is not as funny as the first one.

And finally,

Just right now I watched an interview of Georgian men, ridiculing Georgian laws that allow fathers to take a leave when their babies are born. Answers like: “that is a maternity leave! Women take it!” and “there is a Georgian saying: a grandma by the cradle, a grandpa with another woman (rhymes in Georgian)” were uttered not only by our fellow stupid men in the street, but also by our non-fellow stupid politicians, not in the streets, but in the parliament, a place where likes of them actually approved this leave.

On this “positive” note, Happy Easter everybody, whether Easter means a colored egg, a fluffy bunny or a Paska to you!

Abusing bunnies is a sin!

P.S. pic: eggs that I colored.

Why Do We Stink?

The sun is back. I can finally wear my super cool, white Armani Express coat. I am not that obsessed with brands, but this thing really looks like Armani and I wish I had more time to wear it in Spring/Fall season. Alas, the sun will burn us before we know it and soon we will get glued to marshrutka seats and smart kids like me will seek a refuge in subway.

The problem is that no matter what transport you choose, you will encounter stinky riders. I guess the aroma is present all year long, but in summer it gets bigger than life. Let’ ask: why do we (o.k. they, not me) smell?

When I was in school, I had this horrible soviet biology book. Hygiene chapter gave following advice: do not grow long nails, since bacteria like to nest there (made me mad, I already had long nails), wash your hair once a week, washing your hair too often dries it out, washing your skin often dries up your epidermis…

Was it that Soviets made rough, primitive products that really did destroy human’s outer shell? Was it that the Union did not make enough soaps and shampoos and discouraged people from using it? What’s up with these standards?

Of course, now we have all the soap we can afford, from cheap Turkish stuff to fancy Yves Rocher bars, priced more than an I-pod. We have hot water. We are bombarded with soap/shampoo ads. Is it that the habits of not washing-- since we had no water/gas/electricity in 1990s-- are hard to overcome? Kinda like people that lived through great depression and kept diluting milk with water even in better times?

Is it education? That we don’t have health classes that would stress the importance of being bacteriafree, hence pleasant to smell?

Are we too lazy to take a shower? Especially, if some of us live in countryside and spend all day working and sweating on land. Maybe such person does not see any point in getting a shower if he has to go back to sweat and dirt the next morning? And keeps ignoring water and soap, unless a special occasion?

Or maybe we just don’t think that smelling nice is a priority?

These reasons would make sense, if all of us stank. But usually, it’s one or two people in marshrutka. The rest of us are bothered by it. So what, why?

I have a list of things I would change, if I had a magic wand. Some issues are really important and sound like interview answers of a beauty pageant contestant: no more street children, no more homeless animals, peace in our country…but along those grand, never-to-be-fulfilled dreams, I have these small dreametts…like being able to sit in a marshrutka in summer, without being forced to stick my head out of the window and consequently walking around with a hairdo of a small lion meets Cyndi Lauper.

I wanna breathe free!

P.S. the pic: my very nice-smelling hubby.

Could Enrique Iglesias Beat Up Justin Bieber?

Yesterday, one of my friends asked me to show her a Justin Bieber video, since she hasn’t seen one yet (how is that possible?). We laughed and giggled and suddenly I felt like an old grandma, judging the young generation and claiming that Beatles need haircut, lamenting about the woeful time and loss of taste. Was the pop music of my generation that much better?

When I was a teenager, I was in love with Enrique Iglesias; I knew all of his songs by heart! He was the reason why I understood words like “love”, “tears”, “loneliness” and “hope” in Spanish (amor, lagrimas, soledad and esperanza). My whole room was covered in posters of Enrique. I had a box full of magazine articles about him. I would hunt for headlines that mentioned him. I would pay for Internet café to join fan pages and write to fellow Enrique fans around the world, and I really mean around the world: one was from Mexico, one was form U.S. and one was from Malaysia (!).

At some point I grew up and let him go. Plus, dating a real boy was better than dreaming of Enrique, no matter how sexy he was.

Accordingly, I do understand why people go crazy about likes of Justin Bieber. Nevertheless, I still feel like the product quality went down. First of all, the age of the performers is lot lower and it bothers me to see Miley Cyrus in her reveling shirt, on her bed, singing something stupid about “who owns my heart, is it love or is it art...I can't tell if it is beat or sparks?”— (really? Art? Art?!?!?!). Second, I truly think that lyrics are deteriorating year after year. Yes, pop song does not require a Shakespeare sonnet, but something along the lines of “Today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday, then comes Sunday” belongs in a Sesame Street song not on MTV! And lastly, it all just seems…cheap? Low-quality? Underdone?

It is hard to judge pop music in general, since all of it seems like crap to me, but even compared to my first love, Enrique Iglesias…oh the casual but sexy outfits…the trembling voice “Follow on the wings of desire, now the rhythm is taking you higher, no one can stop us from havin' it all, You are my heart......you are my soul…”, I used to rewind that part from the “Rhythm Divine” over and over on my cassette player…the manly shoulders, the backdrop decorations, the stare, the pose, the voice, the videos with some scenario…definitely better. At least it was a song. Good or bad, very, very cheesy, but a song. Compare to young Justine here: “Baby, baby, baby…And there really are no words in this song except…baby, baby, baby…and again…baby, baby, baby”.

Hey, let’s all turn on some ridiculous songs we loved when we were teenagers and listen to them. Lets’ see if we still like them!

P.S.I just did that. I watched Rhythm Divine. You know what?! Yes, Enrique is ridiculous and cheesy and corny but God, does he look hot in those old videos! At least he is not wearing diapers and drinking milk from the baby bottle!

P.S. the pic: my cat Gaia is in shock: "What?! this shit on my TV again?". Bieber is in the background.