Buzz

It's International Women's Day today. Some countries take this seriously, some don't. The US does not. Armenia does. It's a no-kidding holiday: shops closed, no school. Men are supposed to turn up with small gifts -- chocolate, flowers. So yesterday the streets were full of flower sellers. Don't know where they came from, but there were daffodils and cut roses everywhere. And I saw my first bees of the season, buzzing sleepily, still dopy with the cold, over the bouquets. I'd forgotten about the bees. April is a month of blossoms here, and the bees go wild. A few more weeks, and all the trees in our back yard will be bent down under masses of blossoms, and each will be surrounded by a humming halo of busy bees. I'm looking forward to that. But also: today, after lunch, I took the boys out for a long walk. I wanted to get them out the door quickly, so Claudia could take a nap while the baby slept. So I didn't clear lunch off the table. And when I got back, a single, solitary fly was buzzing slow circles in the air above the dirty plates. The flies are a curse here in summer. I'd forgotten that. By August there'll be hundreds of the filthy things in the house -- more coming in every time the door opens -- and the kitchen a perpetual battlefield. Still: spring. I can't feel bad about it.

Comments

[Will Baird]

The amusing thing is that because of that fact that my wife is from a nation that DOES take it seriously, it means that *I* have to take the whole day seriously. She also takes V Day seriously too.

There IS an international man's day. It was, if recall my wife correctly, on February 23rd. It's my day to give her a hard time, ok just a little, because she doesn't do anything: Ukrainians don't celebrate this at all anymore.

So, tonight is dinner out for Lyuda and flowers. Avrora's here at work with me. I took her out for breakfast.

[Syd Wbb]

International Women's Day was yesterday in progressive Australia, albeit still on the 8th of March.

My boss was wearing green, purple and white; the colours of IWD. She asked me, "As a historian[1] do you know the significance of the 8th of March?" Having read a long piece on IWD earlier in the week in the on-line, in-house magazine I was able to answer correctly and opine how much we[2] had come along in the last thirty years.

After a long summer and what seems like 50 days of 30'C+ days we in Canberra are finally falling into autumn - days in the mid 20s and cool nights. It's a blessed relief.[3]

[1] IANAH

[2] 'We' kimosabe?

[3] A Hotmail address who doesn't like the heat. Whodathunk?

[RS]

As an american in Montreal, I was unaware of IWD until just about 50% of the men I met today asked me if I had bought something for my significant other. Not big here, but I guess it's catching on.

Flys in summer are a curse here too. Planning on buying a small army of flycatchers.

[Jussi Jalonen]

The first time that I actually heard of the origins of the date in question was this week, when my (West) Ukrainian female contact referred to it as "Dzie Klary i Ry".

I figured out who the "Klara" and "Ra" were easily enough, but it took me a while to realize that this was _not_ some weird communist holiday she was talking about, but instead the same exact International Women's Day.

Anyway. She described it rather dismissively as "one of the remains of the Soviet times". Incidentally, I also have this one old Finnish female friend who is a radical feminist and actively boycotts the celebration specifically because she sees it as an anti-feminist holiday which mitigates women by raising them on a pedestal.

Cheers,
Jalonen