LITMIR.BIZ

      Around ten o’clock friends-neighbors begin to come on the smells in the apartment. Grandma doesn’t lock the door – everyone comes in without knocking: “Nikolavna, are you home?” And it is clear without a question, that she is at home. Neighbors sit down on a sofa or stools. Grandma finishes cooking dinner and begins to work on the preserving food for the winter. Cans, basins, buckets of cucumbers and tomatoes begin to appear from somewhere. She washes, boils all of this, manages to treat guests to borscht and talks to them on various topics. And the neighbors eat and praise the food, and then ask for something and leave. Then new ones come – and so on until lunch.

      We have lunch at a large table in the living room. Grandma delivers meal herself. Each dish is greeted with a happy “mmm, how it smells!” and everything is eaten. “Plates like cleanliness!” grandmother say. After lunch, we go to our rooms to lie down. Grandma also lies down for half an hour, and then begins to gather in the garden and calls grandfather. They leave – grandma cheerfully, grandfather reluctantly. The apartment is silent, except for the measured ticking of an old clock.

      The whole garden is on my grandmother. She weeds, collects, and waters. The grandfather only brings water and fertilizers and digs up where the grandmother needs. The grandmother manages to prepare some “as at home” meal in the garden house. Smell go neighbors from other sites.

      In the evening, grandma does the laundry, cooks supper, again welcomes some old ladies and manages to talk to us and them…

      It would seem that after such a Saturday, grandma will sleep until noon. Where there! As soon as the sun came up, my grandmother shakes my grandfather: “Start the engine, we’re going for mushrooms.” Grandfather can’t refuse grandmother. We also get up and plop sleepily into the Moskvich2. Baskets and bags with provisions are loaded into the trunk. Grandma sits in the front seat and commands: “Let’s go!” Neighbors in the house or garden, who have cars, usually go with us in one or two cars. They like to ride with my grandmother. They know that there will always be mushrooms and a great picnic.

      In the evening, the whole family is engaged in processing mushrooms: washing, cleaning. Grandmother directs and does most of all herself. Neighbors come in unlocked door – there are again conversations-conversations, a long supper, preserving mushrooms…

      “Grandma, how do you manage to do a hundred things at once?” I ask.

      She shrugs: “I don’t even know.”

      I don’t let up, I think there must be some secret here. I ask my grandfather:

      “How does grandma do this?”

      “Years of training,” laughs my grandfather.

      “Did she go to some section?”

      “Yes,” says the grandfather and smiles again, “this section is called responsible approach to family life!”

      I think my grandfather is joking.

      “No, really, how does she manage to do so many things, sometimes at the same time, and always well?”

      “When your grandmother and I met, she only knew how to cook some kind of soup and constantly she didn’t add some ingredients, or she added something more than normal. And I mended shirts better than she did. But day after day, year after year was on constant cooking, washing, Ironing, darning – and here is the result. And in addition, our grandmother likes her work – although she is retired, but she works part-time. When she retires completely – she’ll think of something else. She’s so energetic.”