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.

Snobby Traveling

It is an Earth day today. We were asked to turn off the lights and I am using this dark hour to make fun of the travelling Georgians.

Two weeks ago, I was going to Gudauri. A woman climbed up and tried to secure marshrutka seats for herself and her “children”. Loudly, she demanded “lots of space. I have many bags, BECAUSE I AM GOING TO STAY IN GUDAURI—which, as you all know, is insanely expensive, hint, hint”. She mentioned: “I am travelling with 3 children” 5 times. I bit my nails, imagining a three-hour trip with small kids, when I saw a grown-ass teenage girls elbowing their way to the seats.

We got caught in the snow and we were forced to endure 1. Crappy, angry driver 2. The same 3 songs by “Blue” that the driver played for 5 hours 3. The “svetski” woman and her “svetski” “children”. During the whole trip, I rolled my eyes so much that I almost saw my cerebellum.

And how fun it is to travel with Georgians that are flying home! Once, they thought my friend was a foreigner and held the following conversation in front of him: “When we go back to Tbilisi, let’s say we stayed in a very nice hotel”, “Yes, let’s say that it was a 4 star, not a 2 star hotel!” “Let’s say we had caviar for lunch!” “Let’s say we had a Jacuzzi in our suite!” Then, they saw my friend’s Georgian passport…

Last year, I got stuck in the air/airport for more than 70 hours. I tried to hang out with my American and German co-flyers. Why?

--at the Trabzon airport, I sat down on the floor and got lectured about my ovaries

--at the Istanbul airport, bunch of overdressed ladies complained about “horrible service” and “awful airport”. Being completely satisfied with both (especially compared to Tbilisi Airport) I asked the ladies where were they flying from. They answered “Monaco” and put their noses up. I moved back to my German friend.

--at the Munich airport, a Georgian-looking group of girls in high heels and black dresses wandered aimlessly, until I explained to them how to register for flight. Then, one of them asked me “an intimate question”. She wanted to know if there is a bathroom in the airport. I told her that signs with a man and a woman on them usually signify a bathroom. She disappeared in one of them to put more lipstick on.

Georgian travelers are stuck-up, snobby, disrespectful and just intolerable. You’ll see men spending their last money on worthless duty-free items, just to buy more than their friend did; you’ll see women in fancy evening attire; you’ll see Ministers’ mothers coming back from Monaco; you’ll see drinking, yelling, loud men; you’ll see people criticizing everyone and everybody around them. But if you’re like me, if you do not blend in with the Georgian crowd, cause of your looks, your outfit, your manners, you can take your laptop, watch “the apprentice” and freeze your ovaries off on the cold floors of the airport…and snootily feel superior...

Hour’s up! Time to use electricity again!

pic: me in a Bangkok airport

About Japan and about Faith

I woke up determined to write a fun post. But as I scanned through news, I just lost it. I am at work, all alone; I came early to do some catching up. It is actually very weird, how silent it is here.

Japan is facing nuclear crisis. At the same time, those amazing people remain civilized, remain human. There is no rape, no stolen TVs, no fighting for food and water. It was reported that a queue was formed for governmental aid, right by a supermarket with shattered windows. Japanese stood in line, patiently waiting for the food from the government, and none of them, none of them thought of taking supplies from the unguarded supermarket!

Truly, that culture is fascinating and sometimes puzzling for me. How can people stay so well-mannered in time of crises? I couldn’t.

Direct opposite of “civilized” happened in Tbilisi. Some orthodox priest preached about angry and almighty God that punishes people for evil. You know, the God of Old Testament, who supposedly sits on a cloud and kills people he dislikes—because he is merciful like that. Who sends earthquakes in Japan, where, as the priest said, girls are selling their bodies to save money for marriage—because he is merciful like that. Who creates big waves of water to kill those perverted men and women that sunbathe naked--because he is merciful like that! And he will keep punishing everyone around us, except us, because we don’t have prostitutes, because we are saints, because we are bearers of great culture, because we are St. Mary’s country, because we never sin and perhaps, because we don’t live in an active seismic zone!

Something very deep broke inside me. I know that you shouldn’t judge the whole community just by one member. I know that all those brainwashed people that commented positively on that preacher’s speech do not represent every orthodox Christian in Georgia. But the fact that nobody reprimanded that priest, that he is still leading a church, affects me very much. This sermon is a lot more serious matter than stuff like priests attacking Halloween and banning Harry Potter. Cause this time, it is not about ignorance. It concerns people. It is about compassion.

This was the last straw. If being Orthodox Christian means saying that Japan got what it deserved, than I am not Orthodox anymore.

My co-workers start coming. I need to stop typing now.

pic: White is symbol of grief in Japan.

Conformity and Silence

I like to be liked and that’s a problem. Cause at the same time I am stubborn, opinionated and honest. Even if I didn’t believe that people should defend their values, I am too impulsive to shut up.

Today, I found myself torn between these two thoughts: should I behave like an average Georgian conformist or should I speak up and anger my boss? The case is, I was blamed for some minor thing—the other party lied—and when I tried to defend myself, my very important boss told me: “and you, you don’t say anything. I don’t like when people contradict me”. She left the room. I sat in shock. My coworkers stared at me. After conferring with my supervisor (who, as I found out, had already discussed the issue with our boss and confirmed my side of the story, but couldn’t reason with her either), I decided to let it go.

I really do not want stressful work setting. I don’t like conflicts. Generally, I find people to be reasonable, so why fight? I do engage in numerous debates and confrontations, because people usually are capable of talking with you without hating you!

My supervisor claims that if I bring up the issues, my boss will start yelling and will personally insult me. This could lead me to two options: 1. be yelled at and feel humiliated 2. Defend my self-esteem, swear at my boss and leave the job.

Have I mentioned that the girl before me resigned to save her dignity?

Further in my day, I got another proof that my rational explanation would be fruitless.

The result: I remain falsely accused; I feel sad, helpless and mad at myself. My boss is convinced that I am dishonest and possibly dumb. On the other hand, she’d think that no matter what I said.

Let’s see, what can I do? I know, I can complain on my blog and achieve nothing. Except maybe bore the readers. Oh well, now you can like me less. Cause I am a coward .

P.S. this really does not matter that much. But now I understand why most people in Georgia remain silent. Just…it never feels right to be like the most people in Georgia…

pic: me hiding and thinking

Disappointment

How can it be that every month, every single month, every 28th day of my cycle, I discover that I haven’t been drinking, have been eating healthy, have been fucking writing down my ovulation days on a cute calendar with kittens, to no avail?!
Why is that some woman get pregnant while being on pills, while using condoms, after having sex just once and I can’t get pregnant for 6 months?!
Planned parenthood my ass.
As you can see, I am mad.
Actually, I was going to write about marshrutkas, but I’ll just pout for a day or two and get back to you.