Saiga's Notes

 That spring was full of dreams about the coming summer and making splendid plans. By mid-August, I realized that I’d lost the summer, spending it on job tasks and meaningless housework. In fact, it happens each time a new season comes. Psyche’s got inertia, different at each of us. Some people don’t bother because they’re flexible enough. Not me. There was a snowless winter once; for several days I chomped at the bit to ski before it struck me that wintertime is full of amuzements requiring not snow. Such moments empower and encourage us on changes like it happened to me that miserable summer. I put off all other tasks and spared some time thinking how I can get the most out of my seasons. First, I made short notes on each season. Then, I started doing a simple ritual each time a new season comes. It starts with a memo ringing on my Google Tasks – I’ve got four of them, one per each season, scheduled on the last days of an ending season and set to repeat annually. That’s a reminde...

Applied the “glad game” to my hard feelings about my wife spending life reading fanfics. So why can I be glad? - I earn enough for my spouse to live the life of an old days’ aristocratic dame. - My darling feels safe behind my back. - She ploughs mountains of stuff to sniff the rare sparks of really talented authors and prompt them to keep going. Her hobby is very intellectual and she’s in the thick of real, alive, raw literature. 

When you embark on a mental practice to replace the old negative beliefs and behavioral patterns with new positive ones, anxiety, doubts and fear rush in as tsunami, forcing you to abandon the practice. Does it ring any bell? Know this from personal experience, just like many other improvement seekers. Just yesterday, I have nearly put aside visualization of some useful daily habits needed to improve my productivity as a professional writer. From the first glance, that resistance of a psyche is a weird joke of nature; irrational obstacle for changes meant to benefit us. But it's a fact. So all we can do is explore it, allow and find a way to overcome. In this relation, I love this place in Bible, John 11:25: "Even if he dies, will live". Bible is a cute book. When taking it from the theological perspective, things just don't come together. However, when perceiving it as a metaphorical psychological guide, lose ends meet. In relation to the subject, resurrection is a g...

Not long before age 15, my cat got tired of living. Her daily activities shrinked to eat / sleep / piss / sometimes groom. She lost affinity to playing and galloping around as before. Instead, she dragged along, a pale shadow of her lively self, skinny, uneven thin fur. Once or twice a year, a hormone rush turned her into a restless noisy creature with insatiable hunger for being caressed so that my wife dubbed her Scratchbelly. I was much worried and sought a solution. Through thinking, reading and conversations I finally found a fresh look on the life that we gave to our cat. She lived in a flat, always indoor. Never gave birth to kittens, serving as a walking decoration and an amusement for humans. In her dwelling, nothing stayed unexplored or unfamiliar. All games been played, all corners been sniffed. Sick of chasing balls and feathers. I was determined to get my pet out of that hole and my wife supported me. So we embarked on a plan to change the life of the cat... and us. Since ...

We met at the airport, a Brasilian and two Russians. Shook hands. One of us looked at his watch: “Two hours to departure. Mind if we wait in a cafe?” When we were seated, I explained to a waitress that I ate only fruits and vegetables and asked what on the menu was suitable. Both my companions, Russian and Brasilian, looked at me with refreshed curiosity and one asked: “So you're a vegan?” “Actually, I am,” I replied, “albeit usually I prefer not to use the word.” “Why?” both looked intrigued. Why indeed? Simply put, telling people that you’re a vegan is risky for relationship. I recall being assigned to work with a new teammate. He was a nice bloke until lunch, then I mentioned being a vegan and he had turned into a troll. The change was so immediate as if I cast a spell on him by saying the word ‘vegan’. Of course, most people keep being fine and corteous. Yet, it’s easy to notice how they get hold together as if they were whispered in the ear: “Nevermind. Usually, he’s not dange...

I think it's this: It’s not my job to pass the exit examination, let the child care about it. My job is to give him skills useful throughout life. Supervising my son’s education, I remind this wisdom to myself again and again. I also remind it to my wife.  Want a free bonus? Catch an add-on for the mantra:  Even if his/her current academic grades are far from perfect.

As it's been Indian summer since the end of August, I jogged each morning to the bank of the Volga to do morning fitness. Lots of rubbish alongside the river is making me sad. Today, I took a dirty plastic bag lying on the sand, filled it with empty bottles and cups, cigarette packages and carried to the waste collector on the way back home. If I jog again tomorrow, gonna pick another bag and collect some more waste. Nobody sees me. I don't set a model. Don't try to change the world. Just feel happier that way.

“Short hand!” a voice came from behind when the ball hit the rim. A granny passing by the court smiled with sarcastic triumph. Lots of folks cross this court in our yard, many tempted to comment on us (me and my son Archie) playing. Some praise (“It’s so amazing seeing you two working out every day!”), most banter. Jokes simple as rocks – one or another cliché regarding us missing shoots, typically. And I have always been buying it with a thought jumping in my head “Show me your shot”. I seen that granny a hundred times - a ball with a walking stick who had nothing common with whatever type of fitness or healthy living for the last fifty years or so. Yet, something’s changed today. It occurred to me that I really missed the shot. She was right, I was a short hand indeed. Ten minutes before, I was a sniper, shooting five straight baskets. I was both. In fact, every short hand has his/her noble reason to be it. And it had nothing to do with the question if she could shoot. That moment, I...

I was walking up the stairs in a kindergarten, watching a new collection of historic photos hanging on the wall, when this one nailed my stare. Beluga or great sturgeon, 1930s. Staggering is the fact that it was taken not somewhere in the Amazon River or other exotic places but in the middle of Europe, near the place on the link below, somewhen in 1920s or 1930s. This photo is a reminder that hydroelectricity may not be as sustainable as it's touted. "Migrating fish was suddenly meeting a concrete wall on its way and, gathering in this bag, was swarming on water surface," citing memoirs of Pavel Malenyov, a journalist and political activist, who was a teenager living in that region through the 1940s and 1950s and witnessed construction of the Gorky hydroelectric power station. According to Malenyov, three years after the dam was built, fish migration exhausted. Great sturgeons are critically endangered now and you definitely can't see them in Volga anymore. Convention...

Pets and children are small and don't have the power, an adult's privilege. Yet, both are skilled manipulators thanks to well-developed intuition. My cat Shakira uses the family members to get what she wants. The other day she was messing about with my ankles demanding her supper. But I was busy and didn't pay attention. Then, she sat right in the middle of the gateway leading to the kitchen, the bathroom and the toilet. She was sitting there a few yards away from me quietly and patiently. It was brilliant. Soon, my wife stumbled upon her and immediately shared her surprise with me: "Watch the cat! Why is she sitting here?" Chalk up a point to the pet. But I was busy still. After waiting a little longer, the cat walked to the bathroom door and sat in front of it, her tail and back to the door. That was my son who called out: "Look, the cat’s a bathroom guardian!" Two points. I capitulated and fed the cat ahead of other work. Such ingenuity just has to be...

Archie was desperately afraid of fires. The fear petrified the son immediately at the idea of lighting a stove. All attempts to teach him how to cook came to a dead end at the gas stove. Guess how his brutal father reacted? One of either two things: forcing the kid to try to overcome the fear or blaming for absence of courage.  My hysteria was only to fuel the child’s resistance and fear. So, finally, I put it off for the better time to try again. Motivation first We suddenly faced the issue again at a lesson dedicated to self-learning methods. My son is a homeschooler so we his parents started teaching him about managing self-education as early as primary school. That day, I offered the son to write down his goal and break his plan into feasible steps.  “Let me see,” I asked when he finished.  ‘Cooking pasta’ in the Goal line while the first step was “not to fear fire”. I scrabbed my chin. The son looked upset. How can I get through this first step, the little face showe...

I’m a jerk.  When the quarantine situation was in the very beginning of the trend to reverse back to normal life, I had to visit a dentist. Don’t forget you mask and gloves, the receptionist said when making an appointment for me by phone. “What are the gloves needed for?” I asked. “You’ve got that hand desinfection gel at the entrance.” “Yes, you also must use gel,” answered the receptionist. “And wear gloves over desinfected hands?” I put some sarcasm. “Exactly.” “I don’t get the logic here. So the gel doesn’t work?” “It does.”  “Then I can go without gloves?” “I’m sorry but that’s the law,” she answered apologetically. I gave up. At the office, I was cocky. I couldn’t help grumbling at the receptionist and didn’t wear gloves. She was restrained and polite to the end and pretended not noticing my hands were bare. Seeing me so unusually uptight (I’m a calm disciplined person normally), my dentist asked empathetically, «You don’t like all this, do you?» “Radically,” I answered...

Five hours in a row, I watched six-year-old Archie’s getting ever more exhausted and headstrong. He half-lay on the park bench twice with eyes closed just to bounce up hearing the dad’s soft voice asking if he wanted to sleep. I could remember the other day last year when he got stuck in песочнице until he peed twice in his pants, desperately chilled but kept playing on and on.  I tried reasoning that tomorrow we’d come again, that other kids were gone and he got bored. Proposals of cartoons, drinks, food were sharply set aside. Did he want to pee? “No” again. I didn’t feel like taking him home by force. My wife and I had put so much efforts in coping with his reluctance to go outdoors. It’s for the first time after the winter that he took his bicycle with him and immediately got so crazy about that. And now me going back? No way! The fifth hour was coming to an end when finally I could make it right. “Archie, will you tell mom how your time out was?” He shook his head: “It wasn't ...

I sat down on the sand and said, “Let's tell funny stories by turns.” Three turns later, it seemed like Archie was ready.  “Ok pal, rules change. Let's both stand in the shallow water and step forward with each new story.” I started telling my next story and took a step, sinking ankle-deep. But it wouldn't work. The river talked louder. Its language was acutely chill streams and sudden touches of gravel, plants and snails, all hidden by the gleaming surface. The fear gained power with Archie’s every step until it overwhelmed when waist-deep. Watching him, anger was stirring inside of me. Why, the kid's kidding me, it can't be that scary, he's pretending in order to shun a difficult task! I wanted to press on him, to shout... but that moment I looked into the face I loved and saw fear in his big brown eyes. He didn't pretend. It was not fear but the Fear.  It broke the spell I was under. The anger blew away, remorse and relief taking its place. He's just ...

My kei car fools everybody about the size of its cargo compartment. Once the three of us, my wife, son and I, picked up a TV set from friends, quite a fair-sized 21'' device in a box. The son inspected the box and remarked: “It must be put on the roof bars.” He was somewhere else when I was loading the TV set - not onto the bars but into the luggage section. Time to leave, he comes in and sees that there's nothing on the roof. “Uh-oh, we forgot the thing!” “Dad'd put it in the luggage compartment,” mom explains. “Nuh-uh, it's big, it won't never fit inside.” “Yes it's big but the car's bigger so it did.” He puts up with the fact, gets into the car, clicks the belt buckle and draws the line below: “The TV set is not on the roof, it's inside the car. The car’s GROWN BIGGER.”

Introverts feel awesome when homeschooling, but kids of that kind are also most prone to self-isolation. Enjoying the quiet world of theirs, they feel constant temptation to shun even the necessary minimum of socializing – for instance, to report about work done or even to get support. Communicating to people comes with risk of tension and conflicts, acutely painful for introvertial kids. They avoid it by all means and this is a downward spiral because a lack of practice is making them ever worse communicators. That's my son Archie. Choosing not the most efficient but the most individual approaches. Browsing in the Web instead of asking mom. Twisting away from regular reporting on progress. Insulting me with pessimistic remarks “no sense in all of that” or going hysterical when I apply parent's authority to force him into reporting. He doesn't do this on purpose, just acts on the subconscious getaway program.  All the while, he was always understanding being wrong, blamed h...

Thanks to a charismatic yet ill-mannered older relative, my son has taken to annoy people with uncalled-for thoughtless categorical remarks. That stuff had stuck in him so deeply that he didn't realize doing this, just couldn't keep in. Often, we his parents couldn't help getting mad trying to discuss something important with him. We're not so bad at adapting to different personalities but with this issue, he always took us aback, coming to this mood out of the blue as if he'd got up on the wrong side of the bed. Understanding came too late, after the wrong words has already been said. That day, he started squabbling while we were working on his study plan. Whatever I said, was met with penny arguments. “Look, you just object to everything I say and it doesn't get us nowhere,” I said, feeling ready to burst out with anger. “No I don't.” “Yes you do. Right now you're inhaling and your mouth is open to give another argument.” He realized that he was in...

A good rain can’t spoil a good mushroom hunting. My wife and I were all wet after getting caught in the shower on a far bike trip in the forests, our backpacks full of porcinis, russulas, and parasols. She was leading the way, pushing pedals hard, evidently focused on a soon shower… a different shower, without pants on… and then dry clothes. I was dreaming of the same but when passing a convenience store, pushed the brakes and let her go farther alone. I recalled that this morning my darling mentioned how much she missed citruses, absent in our kitchen for a string of days – she loves them dearly. And I love surprises as much so I had a plan. I was waiting in line, imagining how I’d put three oranges on the nicest dish and handle it to her when an annoyed voice broke into the dream: „You didn’t count money before leaving home, did you?“ A little girl before me did not have enough cash to pay for two icecreams. The ticket was issued already so the cashier took a phone to call the mana...

Working at my standing desk, I hear voices of my wife and son through the open door. We live in a very compact apartment where privacy is a scarce luxury so I got used to this background noise just like tickling of a clock or humming of a vent. Murmuring goes up and down, colors of voices swing from warm to cold and back to warm, now and then out breaks of laughter or tears happen at difficult or funny tasks. This time, though, I notice voices grow louder making me lose concentration, air smells with anger. Both the teacher and pupil are rapidly losing temper and a major storm of quarrel is coming. My sweet curator Looks like time for a weatherman to step in. I close the netbook's lid and walk into the “classroom”. Sitting silently on the couch and watching the scene, I choose among several peacemaking plans. Mint tea probably? Yeah, that’ll work. I lit gas under the kettle and, while it’s hissing, sit down on the couch again to observe more. According to an old reliable...

In the first year of my journo career I was welcomed by a fitness glossy editor to pitch in some article ideas. So I did, and she replied with, Your angle is quite enticing so I commission you this article. Being a novice in journalism, I jumped with joy as a puppy. In the following days the editor regularly dropped me letters showing interest in the work. Finally I pitched in the article and an immediate answer was, Having read the material I’m about to say that readers will gain nothing from it. What’s more, it all looks like a non-systematic fact list, compiled through a two-minute search on the Web. No interpretation, nor systematization, nor fact checking provided. The magazine is not interested in such an article. Thank you. I felt dizzy to loss of orientation. Ten minutes later I had restored ability to think and feel, and anger came. For all my hard work I now receive this??? Fine, I’m gonna sell the damn article to some other edition and through with this lady! But I m...