weekend post

The forecast promised sunny weekends, so I invited the guy to have a walk in one of my favourite suburbs. He had never been there before, so we had a tour around the park and the palace wondering how inconvenient living there would be.

The guy pictured how complicated it would be to run around the house palace if the bedrooms were in the left wing of the building, the kitchen were in the right one and the living-room -somewhere in the middle. He would watch football and ask me nicely to get him a beer from a fridge. I tried to explain that the match would have been over by the time I fetched a beer from the kitchen. To that he promised to buy a bicycle so that I could go around the place faster.
What a nice guy, you'd think.

Anyway, we walked down the park paths, skated on the frozen lake and had a lovely dinner later in the evening. All weekend long the song "Strangers In The Night" was playing in my head...

It was just one of those days to remember.

weekend post

The beauty of freelancing is flexible working hours and an opportunity to flee any time. That was what I did last Friday. I got a return ticket to the capital and gone to see my friends.

On Saturday we visited a well-known picture gallery to look at the paintings of late 19th and early 20th centuries. The canvases took me in the past and I had a walk down lovely Paris streets, New York broadways and tiny Moscow alleyways. We also spent a couple of hours at impressionism halls, as I'm a huge admirer of this art movement. I love impressionists' boisterous and lively painings, because they are full of life and sunshine. I always feel a little happier after visiting these exhibitions.

On Sunday I managed to see almost all my friends. We went to my favourite blues bar "Road House" to listen to the most outstanding bluesmen and sing a few songs along. I performed "Wild Thing" right at the stage. It was a blast! What a wonderful night it was.

On Monday we just walked around the city, skated at a local park and talked and talked until my train left at 10 PM.

I'm going to miss my friends.

a weekend post

Saturday night was not the lonliest one of the week. I persuaded one of my former college friends to go out.

We went to one of the best bars in the neighbourhood called "Liverpool", had a few mojitos, lots of chatting and even met a couple of nice guys. The guys were rather drunk and burst into songs from time to time. I liked one of the songs so much that decided to find out its title to download an original version later. My friend just shook her head, she knew it was not only the song that I liked.

The following day one of those guys and me had a lovely walk down the river recollecting countless jokes and anecdotes, talking about the differences between cultures of our countries. Speaking of the differences. The guy told me the following story:

An American and a Russian farmer had a few shots at a bar and started to boast.
The American farmer said: "My farm is so big that it takes a day to drive around it by car".
The Russian farmer responded: "Yeah, our cars are as bad as yours".

I just loved this example of cross-culture communication.

weekend post

Valentine’s was very nice. I woke up late to greet a snowy sunny day.

It started with a phone call from the man of my dreams (What a surprise!) who congratulated me swiftly and then talked for 25 minutes about his recent activities. I tried to response for the first few minutes, but he was so eager to speak that ignored any comments. He didn’t even suggest sex on the phone! That’s why I just put him on the loud speaker and took up polishing nails mumbling on the cell: “hm.. wow… I see” .

In 25 minutes he said that it was nice to have a chat and hung off. Well, at least my nails had been perfectly pink by that time. Besides my beloved siblings presented two huge dark chocolates accompanied with a CD of 24 beautiful love songs performed by a famous Philharmonic Orchestra. So I totally forgot about the guy.

Later the family got together and we had a delicious dinner followed by wild dancing. I have to admit, that a lot of Tom Jones’ music and red wine works much better that sex on the phone.

The conclusion of the day was that I have to find another man of my dreams in the neighbourhood, because long distance doesn’t intensify love at all. It destroys it and turns into indifference.

P.S. Here's some sweet love story about long distance. It may have a happier end than my and the man of my dream's one.

week-end post

Saturday was great, as a friend called on and brought an amazing Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life". The story of finding enough bravery to keep on going when times get rough. James Stewart and Henry Travers were wonderful and the film aroused a lot of contradictory emotions. I was laughing and crying and wanted to hug the whole world. A perfect film, indeed.

Sunday was cool as we headed to a punk rock holiday party and listened to some famous songs in a funky music arrangement. The music was weird and merry. I enjoyed it and Jack Daniels on rocks a lot.

The rest of the evening was spent on explaining to my Granny how to use Photoshop. This one was tough, but Granny is a bright pupil, she can now use brushes, text options and resize pictures!

Smell in the kitchen

The old-fashioned holiday spirit has got to me finally and I felt an urge to do something for my family. I invited them for a dinner.

“Oh, - you’d say - big deal”. Well, it is, as I haven’t invited anyone at my place for several years and I’m a lame cook. So the deal was BIG for me. Anyway.

By the afternoon I grew slightly nervous and had a creepy thought to cancel the dinner. Luckily, I was brave enough not to do it. I left the office, did some last-minute shopping and headed home.

The next our was a rush. My grandparents arrived earlier to watch their must-see TV-show before the dinner. That could have been fine, but for granny who entered the kitchen every commercial break to ask how it was going. It was actually going not bad.

I did ruin one frying pan, as didn’t notice that the ring under it was hot. When I poured water in it, the frying-pan burst into hissing, bowling and crackling. The kitchen filled with smog and I heard a voice somewhere in the doorway: “Do I detect a fire in the kitchen?” It’s nothing, - I lied trying to get rid of a smelly, crackling frying pan. I pushed the voice owner from the doorway, closed the door and opened the window. In several minutes the mushrooms and potatoes were braising peacefully in another frying pan and I was making salad to “Surviver” song.

Soon the family were sitting at the table chatting gaily and eating the meals that I had cooked (rather well). Could be better of course, but I’m still proud of myself.

weekend post

A whole weekend on my own was something I'd been longing for awhile.

So I walked in one of the most beautiful parks of Oranienbaum, fed fat happy ducks and took photos of picturesque lanscapes, which reminded me of some fantasy stories about magicians, princesses and evil knights.

In the evening I dined at a nice little cafe, and then joined my friends at a beauty shop. It was a funny hen-party: we chatted a lot, had manicure and hair done and then headed to my appartment to get a couple of mojitos.

a weekend post

Thanks to a national holiday we had four days-off instead of two. If only there always were four-day weekends. So I got a chance to sleep a lot, meet friends and watch the movie Sex In The City finally. It reminded me that it's time to get some new clothes, which will keep me both warm and happy.

I also got a chance to read the book "Pharaoh" by Boleslaw Prus to the very end. It's an amazing book about the daily routine of Ancient Egypt and its mysteries. I was surprised to find a lot of similarities between the modern and the ancient worlds.

The novel is set in the Egypt of 1087–1085 BCE as that country experiences internal stresses and external threats that will culminate in the fall of its Twentieth Dynasty and New Kingdom. As events unfold, the protagonist Ramses learns that those who would challenge the powers that be are vulnerable to cooption, seduction, subornation, defamation, intimidation and assassination. Perhaps the chief lesson, belatedly absorbed by Ramses as pharaoh, is the importance of power of knowledge.

weekend post

One more movie weekend is over.
I watched "Beauty and the Beast" - one of the greatest cartoons America has ever produced.

"Hairspray", a colourful light-hearted musical about the swinging 60ies. I just love John Travolta's wonderful dancing.

And "Wedding Crashers". The movie disappointed me so much that even Christopher Walker didn't save the day.

I also had my very first professional photography session at a studio. That was an amazing experience and I did feel like a movie star. As soon as the pictures're ready I'll post a couple of them here.

a week-end post

This weekend was girlie like :)

Saturday evening I was too tired after work, so I hit one of my favourite youtube channels looking for updates. Singing along with Katharine McPhee I found the "The Barbie Daries" video, which made me so curious that I watched the whole cartoon the next day. The story is rather simple: Barbie's character would like to be recognised by other school kids and does her best to become popular. And of course, she succeeds in the end.

Later that Sunday I put my favourite pink dress and went to visit a friend, who was so taken aback by my pink outfit and the song "Connecting" blasting from headphones ( I'm a rock-n-roll babe after all) that insisted on watching the film. By pure accident it had been downloaded to my Ipod, so I spent one more hour watching the "Barbie's diaries".

After severals hours of discussing if that's stupid or awfully stupid to watch teen movies at our age, we decided to get down to a more complicated video "Atonement".

I heard a lot about it, however "Atonement" appeared to be so breathtaking and spectacular that left both my friend and me speechless. The storyline is perfect, the emotions are performed delicatelly and scrupulously, the set is stunning, - it is a masterpiece of modern cinematography.

'Atonemet' is going to become a precious pearl in my small movies collection.

a week-end post

Birthday-parties time has come, as almost all my friends were born in Autumn.

So this Sunday my former college-mate and colleague organised a nice little cook-out party, where I met plenty of college friends, whom I hadn't seen for ages.

The atmosphere, we created, reminded of binges we used to have: lots of chatting, gossiping, wild dancing, scary karaoke, a stripper and the tv-show "Beverly Hills 90210". We even put on our college uniforms :) What a night it was!

I can hardly believe that being a serious business lady I'm still capable of going that far and becoming that insane.

a week-end post

From now on I'll have to work on Saturday, that leaves only one day off, and it just cannot be wasted. So I called a couple of friends and we headed to my favourite bowling club, which very much resembles the bowling from "Across The Universe" movie. I wish Joe and Jim had played with us and had sang a little. Unfortunatelly, they were somewhere across the ocean, so we had to entertain ourselves.

The game rocked as none of us were actually good at bowling but we cheered and support each other really loud: we sang, danced, applauded... It was really crazy. The ball hit the side grooves at first, than we managed to knock down a skittle or two and finally I had a strike and seemed to become an Olympic champion. What a feeling!

In the end we drank to our sport achievements and parted.

At home an e-mail was waiting for me to discover Band From TV. The Band is a group of tv show actors and actresses, who sing and play the most popular songs for the sake of charity. Though, I'd call it - the tv stars' fooling around and having fun :)
They rock, anyway!

a peaceful week-end

... and what a peaceful week-end it was! The cute little cat below symbolises it completely. There was no jet flights, many-hours walks or binges. I enjoyed idleness lying around the sofa, listening to music, chatting to pals online and reading the most tiresome and at the same time the most exciting author William Somerset Maugham.

I'm reading his Theatre. The plot of which I found really boring back in college, where we were supposed to read it, analyse it and write numerous essays. The storyline still doesn't impress me, but I'm absolutely enchanted with the language: the choice of words is amasing, the punctuation is perfect, the narration flows smoothly due to syntax. I'm simply in love with Mr. Maugham manner of writing and is now really eager to read more of his works.

W. Somerset Maugham once observed: When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me. And today I have to admit, there is something about his books that I'd like to become part of me.

Work overload

The last three days were like a merry-go-round on loose. Can I say that in English?

On Friday night a friend invited me for a drink. Two mojitos, a cosmopolitain, stuffy room, wild music and endless chatter with strangers clouded my mind so much that by midnight my friend and me found ourselves in a gorgeous appartment somewhere in the centre, where the party continued with hip-hop dancing, a stripper (or was it me??) and karaoke singing. Later at night we sailed a boat down the river photographing, screaming and drinking again. I'm wondering if anyone believes that I was only on cherry juice by that time.

Anyway, by 7Am I got home just to realise that I have courses at 11Am. I remeber going to the coursed but they were blur as another friend picked me up after them and in an hour I was flying in a plane.

The party continued in the capital. We spend the day at a little lake not far from the city bathing and sleeping(yes, i needed it so much), then got home to spruce up and headed to a pirate club where the amount of alcohol in blood increased. More dances and more karaoke singing came. I won a bottle of champagne for performing "Old Devil Moon" on the stage of the club, must have sung really well!

Early in the morning I left to have a little nap at my childhood friend's appartment. She never let me rest enough, because she intended to go shopping on Sunday. And since I flew in there the whole way from St.Petersburg I was to join her. So I dragged myself to the shower, applied some mascara and lipgloss and we set off around noon.

Beautiful discounts and new accessory collection brought me back to life, or was it several coffees I had in a row. In the evening I changed in the brand-new clothes and headed to the airport to get a ticket, they didn't have any. Fortunatelly, an acquaintance of a friend of a friend had a extra train ticket, which I gratefully accepted and hurried to the railwaystation. The minute I got in the train it left.

I stretched out on my train cot looking forward to an eight-hour sleep on the way home, but there were really noisy tourists, who felt like telling me about their trip around Russia. So I listened untill they fell asleep and so did I.

The train arrived at 6Am, so I had a couple of hours to get home, take a shower, grab my suitcase and run to the office. What a week-end!

Monday was an extremely long day, I had a hangover and a lot of paperwork. Today's much shorter, though I still have a headache

P.S. about a celebrity party animal