Women’s Day

It is well known that 8th of March is the International Day of all the Women.


Because my son attends the kindergarten in a village 175 km away from the city where I drag my existence, I decided to be present (as a good mom should) and listen live the poem he will dedicate me at the festivity they will keep there.


Well, I do have a son and, yes, I am a woman and a mom, but I do not have a car (for the reasons mentioned in a previous blog short-story) and this 8th of March happened to be in the middle of the week, so I could not ask to anyone to join me in that country zone. Actually, I could not dare to ask anyone, because during this endless winter all the roads there are impracticable and destroyed almost completely, so any reasonable car would suffer serious damages.


What to do? Let’s shoot two (instead of one) of my annual leave days and be there on 7th of March afternoon just to be fresh on the morning of 8th.


Said and done.


I left the city in glory and I managed to get there without any particular events. On the contrary, all the buses were half empty (we were during the work week after all) and I was in the mood of reading (and finishing) a book I recently bought: “I’ll kill myself some other time”/ ”Ma sinucid alta data” by Kerstin Gier. Despite the title, it is a hilarious book and it succeeded to change my mind who lately was obstinately flirting with these sinful and baseless ideas.


So, I came down from the last bus shiny and happy, heading for my final destination: the isolated house from the forest, dancing on the ice, diving into the snow, swimming throw the mud and finally meeting my son … Kisses and hugs, hugs and kisses.


He told me with incredible speed all the wishes he has on his waiting list:


1. A dinosaur cosplay costume (a Spinosaurus, the one with a sail-like structure, you know) that he is sure it exists because this type of dino stands on his back feet and uses the front ones as hands, so it should be ok. And it is a huge one bigger than Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus and it is carnivorous.
2. A car that should listen to his verbal commands and take him wherever he orders. For this, we have to go together by plane to Japan, at TOYOTA factory, and I should speak with those people, because I can speak Japanese (he believes so) and he will only listen to us negotiating and eventually he will only pick the color.
3. A baby little sister whose name will have be Alexia. He knows that this will take me some time but I could at least start to make some phone calls to some guys who are living on their own, without other girls or any children, and this should do the work. And I could also invite one of them to start living with us and he will help me with everything I need, especially with taking care of the baby girl while I’ll be at work making money.
4. Four wishes-stars. For this, we have to wait for a clear blue sky during the night and find these super-lucky stars. One is not enough. He has to find four because he has four wishes to fulfill. I did not dare to ask which one is the fourth wish because even the third one was beyond impossible for me compared with the second one. Most probably he inserted the wish itself of finding the lucky stars into the list itself. Such an honest kid. And modest. I wonder from who he took this?!?


Well, debating the above mentioned issues, watching cartoons and reading comics took us to the bed time.

As expected, due to the excitement (his mom came to town) he continued to speak form now and then in the sleep. I have to mention that I’ve been blessed with an extremely sensible sleep (a quality that in my family belongs to me only) and even a ticking from a clock is enough to wake me up. My kid’s jabbering was nothing compared with my dad snoring and my mom’s productive coughing. At these ingredients let’s add my frequent going out to the toilet (it happened to be in those days of the month) and my dad going out, not for the same reason (daaah!), but for taking woods to nourish the stove.

While going out I couldn’t avoid noticing how many stars were on the sky that night and how incredible clear it was. Maybe it has to do something with being in an unpolluted isolated area and in a glacial nippy night. I wondered if some lucky stars were among them but the extremely low temperature (lower than minus 10 degree Celsius) pushed me back in the house not allowing me to find any.


At 3.30 a.m. when my head was covered with all the possible pillows from the house and killing & suicidal ideas became more appealing than ever, my dad entered into the room switching on the blinding lights (while I was thinking: “For your sake, I hope it’s a good one this time!”) screaming: “I guess the goat gave birth, cause I can hear some noises out there!!!“.


OMG.


That was sure a very long phrase coming from my father who barely talks and definitely it was a good one. That night itself the lady goat became a mom and it was the perfect reason not to sleep. Both my parents rushed outside with flashlights and brought back inside two goat lings. They were twin baby girls and they were almost frozen. We rubbed them with some towels and put them in a carton near the stove. Even Luka woke up and watched live the whole event not believing his eyes.


Just before the crack of dawn everybody felt asleep deeply, twins included.


At the kindergarten I had to attend kind of a parents-meeting like session kept with all the present parents of all the kids from that institution (up to the 8th grade) and listened to their potential problems (alcohol, drugs, sex, so on and so forth) and half sleeping (thanks God) I could not properly replay to all the well intended moms that were encouraging me (knowing that I am a single mom): “It will be so tough for you! Just wait and see! It will be so incredible difficult! I just know!” I was able only to smile in a sleepy manner and say with half mouth (the other half was smiling): “Well, we’ll see about that! I just have to reach the future, isn’t it? I’ll see then, huh?!?”


Luka’s poem was flawless and touching and the paper flower he hand-made for me was truly unique. Both of us were shamelessly happy despite the problems everybody else happened to see except us. It also shocked me the teachers and children inclination for sad and tragic poems and songs. They seemed to me like they are really enjoying the victim image and were genuinely proud of it. And I wanted to kill myself for being unreasonably happy.


We (me and Luka) left the building gloriously hurrying back home to take the lunch and I prepared myself for leaving. There was still plenty of time until my one-day-only-bus was passing by heading to the closest main village. My mom offered me a tiny glass of red wine which I accepted preparing myself for the chilling trip back to town.


Big mistake! Cause I put my head on a pillow and fall asleep, missing by 3 minutes the long awaited bus. So, I had to walk by feet at least 5 km, until my dad coughed me and gave me a lift.
While walking in the middle of nowhere at the low temperature I was thinking with a frozen smile on my frozen face, watching the frozen landscape: “Life is surely unexpected but definitely worth on living it just out of curiosity, to see what is out there for you to come. Hey, I should be happy: today is my day! I am a woman and a mom.” True: a frozen one. :)


P.S.


Just before entering my block I check my mobile phone for any missing calls. Among others which I returned there was one from a guy I used to droll after, who probably intended to call me out of courtesy to wish me Happy Women’s Day. He is that kind of guy, who does things just because they look good on him. So after a couple of long minutes I decided to return this last missed call just out of courtesy. But the call left me a bitter taste … after the first 30 seconds of pure courtesy conversation he underlined the fact that he IS eating.
Ups, sorry! Ma mistake, man! … For returning the call!