Of Wheelie Bags

This post will have no over-arching theme, as I only have 6 days left until I go visit America, and during that brief interval there are many unimportant topics I wish to cover.

1) The departure of my host siblings to English-speaking nations

Well, this one's kind of important. As I mentioned, my host brother Irakli left to go study at a EFL school in London until September. I can only assume this has resulted in extreme separation anxiety for my host mother, since they've been in Tbilisi since he left and I haven't seen them in nearly two weeks. Given what he's told me about the location of his dorm (central London) and his roommates (2 Spanish, 1 Italian, 1 Brazilian-- all women), I think he'll do fine.

And then comes today, where my former host sister Lela leaves for America! She's quite the brave soul, seeing as she's a 15-year-old who grew up in a village and who's going to go live with a host family in Texas for a year. The scarier part for me is that she'll be in an American high school. I remember high school. Lela may not be half the nerd I was, but there's always the possibility that there exists a Texas doppleganger of a Laura Wright or a Tony whatshisfacewhoIgotarrestedha. But those were middle school, anyway... perhaps Texas high schoolers are more mature and friendly. I wrote her a note recommending that she try mint chocolate chip ice cream and that she wear her clothes straight out of the dryer at least once.

2) Why can't I even make frozen khinkali?

The instructions go something like this: Boil water. Put frozen khinkali in water. Remove and enjoy. I've even seen my host mother utilize her cooking mastery to make these things. For your edification, khinkali are meat dumplings with soup inside, which they say provided the Chinese with the inspiration for their dumplings. I can't think of any comment relating to that which the censor won't make me take down.


So khinkali should look like this. You sprinkle them with pepper, and then despite the fact that they come to your table straight off the sun, you must eat them with your hands or else you'll lose the juice inside and your honor as a Georgian. Some Georgians put sour cream on their khinkali, which may sound gross but is actually amazing. It may have something to do with the fact that Georgian sour cream is actually a food here, and not some kind of cold tasteless fluffy thing, like in the US. Not that I partake in eating sour cream straight from the jar like my host family does.


Here's a delightful dish I made, which I affectionately call khinkali entrails. This is what happens when the freezer loses power and your frozen khinkali thaw and then refreeze, firmly grasping each other with as much surface area of noodle as they can. Next, you try to separate them so you don't have to make all 20 at once, but all you manage to do is tear open a few. You decide to cut your losses and slice the pile in half, making due with the loss of the ones you've maimed. Throw this slab into boiling water, and watch as pieces of meat float freely to the top. You may also try to separate them again once they've been cooking for five minutes, though you'll notice that they are now sticky instead of stuck, and you succeed in tearing open half of the remaining whole khinkali. The boiling water turns the color of the meat juice, and squares of meat and noodle bob along in the pot. When you manage to pry out the wad of 6-7 whole khinkali, the weight proves too much for the spatula you're inexplicably using, and three of those khinkali tear and fall back into the water. You end up straining the solids into a red bowl and taking a picture for posterity.


You try to salvage the loss of flavor by adding a dollop of sour cream on top, though the only sour cream you have is the tub you mixed with Lipton onion soup mix to make vegetable dip. Fortunately, this is not so bad on khinkali. You also remember to liberally sprinkle the free chunks of meat with pepper, though apparently you even fail at pepper-sprinkling because the entire packet empties itself onto your pathetic excuse for a dinner.

Bon apetit!

3) I'll see you in hell, wheelie bag...

Lastly but not leastly, the wheelie bag. Being a sturdy Land's End bag, it came in quite handy in New York, wheeling its way down the lovely even sidewalks and well-paved thoroughfares. It had an occasional habit of wobbling at its exact resonant frequency until it toppled, which I should have noted as an omen of doom.


I can't describe how much I despise this bag now. It still wobbles, for starts. The bag handle and I engage in a battle of wills... will I let it flip and then flip it back, or will I hold the thing even to the horizon with a death grip? It nips at my heels as I walk. Its spacious interior lures me to pack too much. And not to mention... there are no roads outside Tbilisi on which the wheels provide any sort of convenience. I could claim that I knew that before I came and that I intended to use the bag for other purposes, but then I would have brought a backpack with me too. Sans backpack, I've had to take this Godforsaken wheelie bag to places as diverse as Gudauri, Chiatura, and Turkey, wobbling all the way. Wobbling and flipping and nipping and being carried with one arm because there's nothing but pot holes for miles.

I want nothing but slow painful death for this wheelie bag. It has one last trip left in its life: I'm gonna use it as a carry-on for my trip to America, and then I'm going to LEAVE IT THERE. Wait... if I use it as a carry-on, then I have to drag it through Amsterdam for ten hours (and into coffee shops?). So what I'm actually going to do is fill it with Georgian souveniers and then check it. But then the souveniers will squish because this bag has no frame. Maybe I'll just empty it out and shove it inside the other, better bag. And then take it out to drop it over the Atlantic.