In the midst of my marginalization-Day 6
While I'm being marginalized in my own home...the last place that I can truly be home and part of myself and my culture...I'm beginning to see a few interesting things about my family here.
First, I should point out that they have moved in with me for a few months during the completion and renovation of their new apartment. Yes, I was adamantly against this from the start. I'm not only a man (territorial by nature), but I'm also an American, which means that I value my independence and my privacy--something that a house full of women robs a man of very fast.
And now some of my observations from the margin (basically, the corner of my home that I've been reduced to during this marginalization process):
My kitchen is in disorder and needs to be re-arranged. Of course, this isn't my suggestion or belief. My kitchen was organized in roughly the same manner when I moved it (as this is a furnished apartment). We did re-arrange a few things but some of that is placed where it is due to the fact that it's a small place and there is no other space. Our current arrangement suits us well as we know where everything is and don't plan to live her forever, but things have gone quite well for us for the last 2 years (and some months). The last time things were re-arranged...it didn't last long. I came home from Sweden to find that my g/f's mother had re-arranged several things in my kitchen to accommodate her...and I get angry when I'm cooking and can't find proper utensils and proper spices for a dish that's already in progress. I pointed out my disapproval...but I did it in the wrong manner. I tell my g/f (who is in charge of telling me) and then it has to go through her. These have become the diplomatic channels as she wants us to play a game of diplomacy so that there will be less problems.
[Today's Lesson #1: State the issue that needs to be addressed. If you don't address your problem, then there will often be an ignorance of the problem in the relationship and thus no solution. (My nature is to be diplomatic at all times...however, I need to act and I need to express or I will be marginalized even faster. By giving someone else your voice, you allow yourself to be marginalized.)]
Next, I have noticed that I got the best woman of the group by far!
There are certain things that I find pointless. Medicine for a headache that is harmful or ineffective--and not strong enough anyway--is useless. Herbal medicine for the same headache is just as, if not more, useless. My body has a headache because of simple factors: tension (stress or otherwise), strain, pressure, or some natural internal healing mechanism. They hurt, but they go away. If they don't, then ice, banging my head against a wall, alcohol, or a slight possibility of codeine may, in fact, be useful...but I prefer sleep if I can get it. Don't bug me, wake me up, insist that I go eat while it's hot (which is like asking me to have a rabid, frothing at the mouth, explosive frenzy in the first place), or continue asking each other if I'm alright (as if the third person--ME--can't hear or understand, which, for some reason, I can when I'm sick).
Another useless and pointless project is to "save" food in your refrigerator without some sort of container or seal. I thought it was common knowledge that milk and many milk products will absorb the smell and taste of certain pungent or otherwise general odors from other foods within a closed space--most often a refrigerator. Well, it should at least be somewhat covered to prevent such things as...well, eating sweat tvorog that has been visited by the odor of an onion.(Tvorog / Творог is similar to a cottage cheese mass, often sweet unlike cottage cheese--view a pathetic and sick recipe version here and let me know if it tastes like the real thing, be smart, add raisins or dried apricots and maybe a little sugar in the early mix because that recipe doesn't look quite right.)
OK, I've regressed. Anyway, I'm just about tempted to move an onion into the open area of the refrigerator. People who don't learn from advice often learn from experience. :-) [Yes, sometimes I'm not just spiteful...but down right evil.]
Speaking of these things that I consider uncouth, I went to put some honey that was sitting on the table away and found that my hand had become the hive's honey comb honey distribution unit. I was a bit perturbed. I pointed this out to my girlfriend asking how it's possible to get more honey on the outside of a container than in one's mouth. Her reply was, "Ann is a pig, Honey, haven't you already noticed that?" Such a pet name suddenly took on a new meaning for me...so I went to wash my arm so that I could eat my dinner. [I tend to like dark honeys, this one is called "forest honey" and is quite sweet and still a little bee stinger acidic. My usual choice is 'mountain honey', but we only get these slightly more expensive and 'designer' honeys if we go to the market ourselves. Otherwise someone brings us lipa honey (this translates as lime tree honey, but it's a bad translation), which is light and not quite as sweet as the clover honey that we usually had in America.]
And so, as everything in my refrigerator is not own it's own distinct plate and left out of it's bags, I will be needing to either just leave it the way it is, or protect the food from those less educated on kitchen design. (Russia has survival courses in school...I would have loved that. I had home economics...now I wish they had had that here.)
Ah...and one more thing. I'm wondering where my girlfriend learned to do all of these simple things like putting food away in a hygienic and preserving manner, eat with utensils and find her mouth, and ....where did she learn manners?
[Her mother does have good manners...but sometimes lacking in comparison.]
I didn't teach her that. In fact, while I have my kitchen etiquette and practices and I know she has picked up some from me, I'm very sure that she was doing many if not most of these things when we started living together. (I also pointed out that I'm quite specific about some little habits in the kitchen and my computer...my two sacred domains).
How long does it take YOUR house guests to take over?
[6 days and counting...we've almost lost control already.]
First, I should point out that they have moved in with me for a few months during the completion and renovation of their new apartment. Yes, I was adamantly against this from the start. I'm not only a man (territorial by nature), but I'm also an American, which means that I value my independence and my privacy--something that a house full of women robs a man of very fast.
And now some of my observations from the margin (basically, the corner of my home that I've been reduced to during this marginalization process):
My kitchen is in disorder and needs to be re-arranged. Of course, this isn't my suggestion or belief. My kitchen was organized in roughly the same manner when I moved it (as this is a furnished apartment). We did re-arrange a few things but some of that is placed where it is due to the fact that it's a small place and there is no other space. Our current arrangement suits us well as we know where everything is and don't plan to live her forever, but things have gone quite well for us for the last 2 years (and some months). The last time things were re-arranged...it didn't last long. I came home from Sweden to find that my g/f's mother had re-arranged several things in my kitchen to accommodate her...and I get angry when I'm cooking and can't find proper utensils and proper spices for a dish that's already in progress. I pointed out my disapproval...but I did it in the wrong manner. I tell my g/f (who is in charge of telling me) and then it has to go through her. These have become the diplomatic channels as she wants us to play a game of diplomacy so that there will be less problems.
[Today's Lesson #1: State the issue that needs to be addressed. If you don't address your problem, then there will often be an ignorance of the problem in the relationship and thus no solution. (My nature is to be diplomatic at all times...however, I need to act and I need to express or I will be marginalized even faster. By giving someone else your voice, you allow yourself to be marginalized.)]
Next, I have noticed that I got the best woman of the group by far!
There are certain things that I find pointless. Medicine for a headache that is harmful or ineffective--and not strong enough anyway--is useless. Herbal medicine for the same headache is just as, if not more, useless. My body has a headache because of simple factors: tension (stress or otherwise), strain, pressure, or some natural internal healing mechanism. They hurt, but they go away. If they don't, then ice, banging my head against a wall, alcohol, or a slight possibility of codeine may, in fact, be useful...but I prefer sleep if I can get it. Don't bug me, wake me up, insist that I go eat while it's hot (which is like asking me to have a rabid, frothing at the mouth, explosive frenzy in the first place), or continue asking each other if I'm alright (as if the third person--ME--can't hear or understand, which, for some reason, I can when I'm sick).
Another useless and pointless project is to "save" food in your refrigerator without some sort of container or seal. I thought it was common knowledge that milk and many milk products will absorb the smell and taste of certain pungent or otherwise general odors from other foods within a closed space--most often a refrigerator. Well, it should at least be somewhat covered to prevent such things as...well, eating sweat tvorog that has been visited by the odor of an onion.(Tvorog / Творог is similar to a cottage cheese mass, often sweet unlike cottage cheese--view a pathetic and sick recipe version here and let me know if it tastes like the real thing, be smart, add raisins or dried apricots and maybe a little sugar in the early mix because that recipe doesn't look quite right.)
OK, I've regressed. Anyway, I'm just about tempted to move an onion into the open area of the refrigerator. People who don't learn from advice often learn from experience. :-) [Yes, sometimes I'm not just spiteful...but down right evil.]
Speaking of these things that I consider uncouth, I went to put some honey that was sitting on the table away and found that my hand had become the hive's honey comb honey distribution unit. I was a bit perturbed. I pointed this out to my girlfriend asking how it's possible to get more honey on the outside of a container than in one's mouth. Her reply was, "Ann is a pig, Honey, haven't you already noticed that?" Such a pet name suddenly took on a new meaning for me...so I went to wash my arm so that I could eat my dinner. [I tend to like dark honeys, this one is called "forest honey" and is quite sweet and still a little bee stinger acidic. My usual choice is 'mountain honey', but we only get these slightly more expensive and 'designer' honeys if we go to the market ourselves. Otherwise someone brings us lipa honey (this translates as lime tree honey, but it's a bad translation), which is light and not quite as sweet as the clover honey that we usually had in America.]
And so, as everything in my refrigerator is not own it's own distinct plate and left out of it's bags, I will be needing to either just leave it the way it is, or protect the food from those less educated on kitchen design. (Russia has survival courses in school...I would have loved that. I had home economics...now I wish they had had that here.)
Ah...and one more thing. I'm wondering where my girlfriend learned to do all of these simple things like putting food away in a hygienic and preserving manner, eat with utensils and find her mouth, and ....where did she learn manners?
[Her mother does have good manners...but sometimes lacking in comparison.]
I didn't teach her that. In fact, while I have my kitchen etiquette and practices and I know she has picked up some from me, I'm very sure that she was doing many if not most of these things when we started living together. (I also pointed out that I'm quite specific about some little habits in the kitchen and my computer...my two sacred domains).
How long does it take YOUR house guests to take over?
[6 days and counting...we've almost lost control already.]