I'm all kinds of crazy, but I try not to show it

So we have doo-ra Tennessee representative Stacy Campfield pushing a bill that would grant death certificates to aborted fetuses, despite the fact that they were never legally alive. Yes, I realize that some states give them for miscarried babies, but that seems more ceremonial than legal, honestly. I also realize that every right winger who is against abortion thinks life starts at conception. If life started at conception the little parasites would be able to survive outside their human host, wouldn't they? Regardless, the notion of such a bill is ridiculous, and can only lead to an extreme lack of privacy on the part of all women who have abortions.

There is also an initiative some nutjob organization (oops. see my note below) is trying to get on the ballot in Washington state that would require heterosexual couples to have children within three years of marriage or have their marriage annulled. So basically, only people willing or able to have children would be allowed to be married, and thus reap all the benefits marriage have to offer (because, you know, there are so many). Obviously, such an initiative, even if by some freak force of backwards nature it was passed, would eventually be struck down as unconstitutional (as any law disallowing homosexual marriage should be struck down, but that is beside the point here), but what are these people thinking? Fine, if you want to start a church that will only marry people under such conditions, fine, but excuse the hell out of me if I can't or won't have children.

Now I realize sentiments such as the two cases I presented here are rampant among some people. I know they have such discussions amongst their own kind and speak of many things that would limit the rights and freedoms of people they don't agree with, but that doesn't mean you should speak these things aloud. I mean sure, I talk with my liberal friends all the time about laws that would require that every anti-abortion activist in America has to adopt a child that they prevented from being aborted, but I wouldn't put such initiatives out there in public or anything. People, you've got to keep your crazy to yourselves. Otherwise everything you do and say just sounds like a big joke. And if people are laughing at you chances are they won't vote for you or your insane initiatives. If Hitler had kept his nutter opinions to himself he might still be alive today, along with several million Jews and thousands of soldiers. There is a fine line between crazy and fascism, as soon as y'all learn that, we'll be ok.

NOTE: I stand corrected on one point, it seems. The Washington organization started their initiative to help prove how nutty some of these laws are, their intent seems to be similar to the point I am making. Good thing they are in a state like Washington, though, because an initiative like that might actually pass in the bible belt. But, you gotta wonder what kind of con law the judges of the Washington Supreme Court studied:

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance seeks to defend equal marriage in this state by challenging the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling on Andersen v. King County. This decision, given in July 2006, declared that a “legitimate state interest” allows the Legislature to limit marriage to those couples able to have and raise children together. Because of this “legitimate state interest,” it is permissible to bar same-sex couples from legal marriage.

Kitty for sale

For sale, one cat. Very handsome, low maintenance, requires minimal food. Always obedient, will never stand on your nightstand and watch you sleep, slowly sucking away at your soul. Does not have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Forever a perfect angel, he never turns into...

THE DEMON CAT FROM HELL!!!

15 cents, firm offer. Schedule II drugs not included.

Life imitates art, or rather, imitates video games

So my husband got a bug up his butt to play The Sims 2, a game he bought me a couple of Christmases ago, long since deleted to make room for bigger and better games. Awhile after he started playing his newly created character, I asked him if his sim had found gainful employment yet.

What career track had he chosen for his sim?

The medical profession.

Honestly, who chooses the same career for their sim as their real life?

The day the language died

Recently I’ve seen a spate of articles about kids using netspeak/IMspeak in their school papers, including this recent one on CNN.com. On top of that, a text message only novel has been published in Finland. I’ve often been a proponent of netspeak, and did a paper for my college History of the English Language class about the phenomenon. I find it fascinating that this pidgin and abbreviated English has been created, understood by people of different languages all over the world, allowing us to communicate with one another, albeit a very basic form of communication.

However, there is a great difference between chatting online or in text messages and writing a paper for a class or an entire novel. I’ve written before about my dismay at the idea of condensing classic works of fiction into textspeak, despite my interest in the new “language” our world of communication devices has developed. There is no substitute for our real languages, whether they be English or Finnish or German or French or Chinese. Yet advocates of the new “tech language” insist our children should be heralded for inventing this new language, not punished for it. Many educators say the propensity for students to accidentally use the abbreviated language fades by the time they get to college, and studies in the UK claim there is no link between constant texting and poor use of the English language, although there is some doubt as whether cell phone shorthand impairs learning for students who are already having trouble with the language. The writer of the Finnish texting novel notes he has just written a book in a vernacular, like Mark Twain used in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I see his point, and perhaps his book has a sort of curious appeal for our culture, but I don’t really see it as comparative to the works of Mark Twain. We are talking an abbreviated language here, not a full language. As fascinating as it is, I’d really prefer such forms of communication limited themselves to computers and cell phones instead of creeping their way into everyday language.

I know the world is moving faster. I know you have to be quick to stay on top of things. But we shouldn’t have to sacrifice our real language to keep up with the herd. If we do, then I’ll be happy to stay behind, reading my classics from beginning to end and writing real letters, using real words.

Romeo and Juliet

I suppose there are worse ways to die than in the arms of a loved one.

Sign of the apocalypse

Astronauts used to be our heroes. Maybe they weren't above reproach, but they had a veneer of gold - all the hopes and dreams of the future and what might be. Now, an astronaut has been charged with attempted murder, all in the name of ill forsaken love.

Our world is fading, little by little.

February sky, Thessaloniki

Hephaestos, rendered lame by an accident of childhood (poor mother, he was yours alone, wretched Zeus is to blame for your weakened state), passed the time on his lonely island as a master craftsman. He took for his wife the lovely Aphrodite, and for their wedding he created a majestic bed, and for her pillows he took the clouds. She would soon betray him for the strong-armed god of war, yet the clouds remain, a subtle reminder of what love won, and lost.

Super Bowl Monday Morning

So the Super Bowl happens today, with the Colts and the Bears going head to head. Since it will be aired here live at 1:25 am, I won't be watching. Now, if the Titans had made it I might have made the effort to watch, but since the Colts have long since deserted my beloved Baltimore I can't say I give a damn.

It is nice that they show the Super Bowl here, at least. We get most of the basketball championships too, including college hoops. But baseball is still a whisper in the wind here - an unknown entity only a few of us seem to appreciate. With something like nine sports channels showing every possible sport known to man I keep hoping that someday, from some far corner of the world, they will show a baseball game. I'd be happy to watch the bad news Bears at this point in my baseball jones.

As for the Super Bowl, may the best team win, although I hear the odds are on the Colts.

All the king's men

There is a bit of an upset in Greek politics right now. It seems the opposition doesn’t think the ruling government is doing a good job. Now, they aren’t accusing anyone of any criminal wrongdoing, but in general they don’t think the government is serving in Greece’s best interests. So the leader of the main opposition party has called for a vote of confidence in Parliament and for early elections.*

I’m not sure whether I should be disgusted or surprised by such a blatant show of democracy in the modern world. I mean really, how can one be expected to govern if your opposition peers can call you out on all your bullshit and ::gasp:: call for early elections?

Can you imagine if such a thing happened in America? If instead of pissing around and hedging on backing more troops in Iraq, Congress would just censure Bush and his Cabinet for all the crap they’ve done wrong and call for new elections right now? But no, in America, to get Congress on your back you have to do something really wrong, like have sex with an intern and lie about it. Not something like spending billions of dollars on an ambiguous, never ending war. That isn’t wrong, it is American.

Still, I can’t help but watch what is going on in the Greek Parliament and dream of the same thing happening in Congress. Not that an early election would solve many problems, but it would sure get that monkey Dubya off our backs.

*I’m not taking sides here. Of course there are multiple sides to be taken when it comes to Greek government, since there are multiple parties in Parliament. But to me, both of the main parties in Greece are just different shades of socialism, and they both generally seem to be idiots disguised as politicians, just like in America. That is what politics is, after all, isn’t it?

Occam's razor

In college, I worked as a dispatcher in our campus security department. Most of the guys there made fun of my intellect and propensity for reading and studying, but we got along amiably – usually. One day, a friend of mine had passed along a funny poster that started along the lines of “In the women’s bathroom of the Music building, a man armed with Occam’s razor approached a woman…” I can’t remember the whole thing or the exact wording, but it was like a security report, only obviously fake. I thought it was amusing, and thought the staff at the security department would appreciate the humor, so I posted it on the bulletin board. Big mistake.

The next day when I arrived to work the office was bustling and everyone was in a panic. One of the officers asked if I posted the report on the board, and why I hadn’t contacted an officer to talk to the victim and file a real report. I’m sure the silence that proceeded this question lasted a long time, because I honestly thought he was kidding. So I laughed and walked away. He followed and asked again, and then the director of security and a couple of other officers approached me and I was surrounded by people who apparently did not understand the meaning of Occam’s razor. I explained what it meant and how it was a joke, and was promptly reprimanded for posting it. Funny thing, being reprimanded for someone else’s ignorance – not to mention they all knew I would have called an officer if something had actually happened anyway.

The incident in Boston over the Cartoon Network signs reminded me of that experience, since the circumstances are similar, although the scale of the situation is much, much larger. Instead of the city government apologizing for the uproar and admitting they made a mistake, they have arrested two people (for what? Advertising? Because I don’t see how the charges of “placing a hoax device” and “disorderly conduct” are going to stick) and are pursing action against one of the largest media corporations in America.

OK, let’s look at the situation for a minute. So these signs are electronic and a bit distracting. Do they really look like bombs? And seriously, who places bombs in plain sight for everyone to see? The signs have been in nine other major media markets across the U.S. for weeks without any problems, so what, are Bostonians overly sensitive or something?

I realize in this post-9/11 world you can’t be too careful. But common sense goes a long way here. Maybe this will teach us that we are getting a bit too out of control with our fear, which, unfortunately, pretty much means the terrorists have won. They can sit back and laugh at the Americans blowing up devices advertising cartoons, and be satisfied with the fact that they don’t have to do the work anymore. Americans are terrorizing themselves with their own fear.

Greek television execs are lazy

Recently I've noticed a new show on Greek television called Ugly Maria, which just happens to be the exact same premise as America's Ugly Betty. Now I'm sure they got permission to use the premise for the show, because such a blatant disregard of intellectual property would be typical for Greeks unheard of here. I realize that it isn't uncommon for shows to cross countries and cultures (The Office being one of the most famous of late), but Greece has had a whole spate of copy shows, from a Sex and the City type thing (don't know how well it did, haven't seen it around in awhile) to a Friends type show. Since I am generally disillusioned with most original Greek shows (NET can't even make a decent show out of one of the most popular Greek movies of all time), I should be happy that from time to time they copy American formats, but somehow it just doesn't seem to work. Sure, these shows end up popular with Greeks, but I'd prefer to see shows that highlight Greek culture and idiosyncrasies, not to mention shows capitalizing on Greece's famous history. Some shows make attempts, but they all seem forced and soap opera like.

Am I expecting too much from Greek television? Probably. But I think there is a whole lot here that could make truly great T.V. instead of mediocre serials. Come on Greek television execs, come up with a show that dazzles!

Duelling remotes

My husband and I splurge on NOVA, one of the satellite TV options available here in Greece. I say splurge in honor of my mother, who never thought we should pay for television and therefore never had cable TV. Sure, we don’t need satellite TV (cable isn’t a option here in Greece), but by Zeus we want satellite TV.

Anyway, because I never read that article about marriage that says “don’t have a TV in the bedroom” we have a TV in our bedroom. It is also hooked up to our satellite box, and out of sheer laziness (since the bedroom is right next to the TV room) we got one of those odd little devices that allows you to use a remote on equipment in a different room, because Zeus forbid I have to get out of bed to change the channel.

This little setup worked like a charm until a week or so ago, when our satellite box suddenly started turning on and off and switching channels of its own apparent will. I have heard of a ghost in the machine, but this was flippin’ ridiculous. At first it was a bit amusing, but then things got out of hand. We couldn’t watch anything without the channels suddenly changing at a breakneck speed. After a couple of days of this errant behavior, we decided it was because one of our neighbors must have recently got hooked up with NOVA and thus was able to change our channels through our odd little channel changing device.

Although we cannot tell what channels the neighbor is surfing, we are able to discern some things about him or her. For one, they must work an evening shift, because they always turn on their box around 2 or 3am and then turn it off around 6am (yes, I’m a night owl that watches too much TV sometimes). We also know that this person is some kind of freak of nature, because he or she changes channels so quickly there isn’t even time to read what is on the information display bar or see what is on, and if they are heading to a particular channel, obviously they are way too stupid to realize you can just put the channel number in the remote and go directly to your desired channel with a great deal of ease. This would also annoy us less, obviously, because it would be quicker for us to just change our channel back to what we were watching without having to go back five thousand times because the person is speed clicking through 100 channels.

Finally, we have resorted to unplugging the odd little device, because it just isn’t worth battling with the crazy channel changing neighbor anymore. I really can’t believe the damn signal works through apartments, as I would assume the walls between apartments are thicker than the walls within the apartments. Hell, sometimes even the damn device won’t even work for me through one little stupid wall. How is it working across apartments for surfer Giannis?

I’m glad that in the next year we will be moving to our own little house, up high on a mountain, far from the big city. Then I’ll be queen of my remote control once again.

When in Greece

I am one of those individuals who regards other people dubiously and with great hesitation, sort of a misanthrope, I guess. It isn’t that I don’t care about people, I am greatly saddened by all the hatred and suffering in the world. It is just that I prefer to do my caring from a distance, with a checkbook, instead of up close and personal. I generally demand at least a five foot perimeter around me at all times and am quite distressed when people breach it. Honestly, I am barely able to be affectionate with my family and the best of my friends, let alone reaching out to other people.

My peculiarities with other people extend to food consumption, sharing, and disposal. I never could share food or drink with another person, even as a child, except under the most extreme circumstances. I couldn’t even stand to clear the table of the remains of other people’s food without gagging a few times. My food is my food – no one else gets to touch it, taste it, or even smell it. Obviously I belong in the animal kingdom, I seem barely human with my inability to deal with other people.

Yet, I’ve found myself changing since I moved to Greece. Bit by bit things that were previously way unacceptable have become tolerated and even habit. Obviously, having a husband requires a modicum of affection now and then, and I don’t shirk from him at all. That is actually how I knew he was the right man for me. What I wasn’t prepared for was the open affection shared between family and friends – even acquaintances – here in Greece. That European hug and two cheek kiss greeting is impossible to dodge. I’ve probably affectionately greeted more people in the four years I’ve been in Greece than in the thirty-three years before my arrival.

As far as food goes, I was absolutely shocked by the Greek way of sharing meals at tavernas. Sure, it is one thing to share a bunch of dishes between family members at the dinner table, but sharing a bunch of food with friends and acquaintances is downright uncivilized. I began to wonder what sort of heathen hinterland I had ventured in to here. It was like my worst nightmare coming true.

Four years later, I find myself surprised by my own actions. I go out to tavernas with friends, my husband’s colleagues, whoever, and find myself readily sharing a plethora of dishes with them without a second thought. I have accepted the physical greeting with my in-laws and expect it. Admittedly, I still grimace a bit with people outside my husband’s immediate family, and for god’s sake, on New Year’s Eve I could totally do without kissing thirty some odd extended family members and friends. Seriously, you can get bad rashes from doing that.

At least I still continue to keep my distance from the general public, I haven’t totally lost all my misanthropic ways. But who knows, some day I might squeeze in and push and shove with the best of them. Apparently the phrase “when in Rome, do as the Romans” applies not only consciously but subconsciously. I am constantly amazed at how expat life changes me – but hopefully, I won’t change so much I won’t recognize myself.

The Cretan conspiracy

Last night I went out with my husband and five of his colleagues. I was a bit leery of going since the wives of the others bowed out, but it isn't like I can't be social unless other doctor's wives are there. I'm not going to be one of those women.

Aside from a McCarthian fear of losing my American citizenship by fraternizing with two Communists and a general trepidation of eating at a Cretan restaurant filled with people who were all obviously part of the "family", passing along secret messages in some sort of freakish Cretan sign language that must have been something along the lines of "we must kill the American!"* I had a good time. The only real problem was the fact that these five psychiatric residents can hold their liquor (and apparently, so can my husband). So when the Cretan of the group asked me if I wanted to try some ρακή (raki - a Cretan liquor that resembles moonshine but in its marketed form is only about 50% alcohol) I said sure. Because we all know you can't say no to a Cretan any more than you can say no to a Sicilian. Considering I almost never drink alcohol of any kind anymore - no wine, no beer, no nothing - this was a bit of a stretch for me. I managed two and a half shots of the stuff before I was two sheets to the wind and feeling pretty damn proud of myself.

That is, I felt proud of myself until about 5am, when my stomach and my head conspired against me, surely punishing me for a night spent with Cretans and Communists.

Now I remember why I don't drink anymore. Ah, to be young again, when it took at least five very strong Long Island Iced Teas before I puked off the front porch right in front of the pizza delivery guy. And now I can't even handle two and a half shots of ρακή. Poor me.


*Seriously, I'm just joking about Cretans. Sure, they have a reputation of being the mob bosses of Greece and yea, so they do scare me just a bit. But they are also interesting people with fiery spirits, great food, and wonderful music.

Oscar who?

For the first time in my life I can say I have not seen one movie that has been nominated for an Academy Award. There are movies on the list that we intended to see, but movies can come and go here so fast we usually miss out. Not to mention that anything filmed in a language other than English is out for me because I don't have a large enough Greek vocabulary.

I had been waiting forever for An Inconvenient Truth to be released here - if it was, it came and went in a week and I totally missed it. Oh well. At least we have a DVD rental place right around the corner and a movie channel that is pretty good about showing award winning movies as soon as they can get their hot little hands on them.

Still, it is pretty weird not being able to have any opinion at all about Oscar nominees. Definitely a first for me, even though I'd been growing increasingly lukewarm about them in the last few years.
Oscar definitely ain't what he used to be.

Blog for Choice

A single woman in her late 30’s starts to feel the pressure of her ticking biological clock. The woman is raped, and finds herself pregnant. Despite her desire to have a baby, after days of anguished thought she realizes she can’t bear to have a rapist’s child. We are grateful she had a choice.

A happily married couple is overjoyed to be expecting their first child. But the woman has a chronic illness, and despite all the careful medical care and preparation for the pregnancy, her health quickly begins to fail. The couple must make a hard decision. Thank goodness they have a choice.

A 12-year-old girl becomes pregnant after years molestation by her father. Luckily, she lives in a state that does not require parental consent for an abortion. It is fortunate she has a choice.

A woman learns she is pregnant with her second child. Her husband has been abusing her and their first child for years. She has tried to leave him repeatedly, but he manages to find her and woo her back every time. She is too afraid to file charges against him, and too afraid to bring another child into the situation. Spousal notification on abortion is not required in her state. At least she has a choice.

These are just a few situations thousands of women across the U.S. face when trying to make a decision regarding having an abortion. These women must continue to have a choice.

I know that it is difficult to accept a pro-choice position if you are a Christian. Abortion is considered murder to many Christians, and murder is immoral. Yet I have to wonder, in light of everything Jesus says in the New Testament, if it is not more immoral to keep these women from having a choice when faced with a difficult pregnancy under harsh circumstances. Is it not immoral to force desperate women to maul themselves with coat hangers or other, equally dangerous methods of ending their pregnancies?

There is one thing that many pro-lifers don’t seem to know or understand: rarely is it easy for any woman to make a decision to have an abortion. It isn’t a game. It isn’t a source of joy. It doesn’t bring pleasure. If you could release the collective grief of all the women in the world who have had abortions, the sadness would be more than the world could bear. It is a choice rarely made lightly. But at least there is a choice.

We must keep abortion safe and legal.

We must always allow women the choice.

Thanks to the folks at BushvsChoice for the blogging effort.

A story in six words

DeviousDiva posted this fun little meme she got from Vegankid and I thought I'd give it a whirl. A story in six words? Well, it came a bit too easily...

Ah, crap. I've lost my way.

Speak no evil

Teachers censored for speaking their mind.

A filmmaker assassinated.

A Russian journalist murdered.

And now, a Turkish-Armenian journalist has been shot dead.

These are but a few incidents in a world of increasing intolerance for freedom of speech and expression.

Their viewpoints may have been incendiary. Their words may have induced hatred among some. Even so, do we really want to live in a world where artists can’t speak their mind without the threat of violence?

Whether the Armenian slaughter was genocide or not, a man should be able to walk the streets of his country without being gunned down for his words.

Hrant Dink has become another martyr for freedom of speech. We don’t need anymore.

Article 16

Greece is a country that loves to strike and protest anything and everything, no matter how big or small. While I applaud the verve of Greeks to stand up for what they believe in, there are a few issues – some of the most incendiary, in fact – that my big, fat American belief system calls into question.

Since summer, one of the hot button issues in Greece has been the potential revision of Article 16 of the Greek Constitution, which guarantees a free education at all levels for Greek citizens, along with a cost-of-living subsidy for those in need. One of the revisions calls for the allowance of private universities, which many students and teachers in Greece seem to think would be detrimental competition to the free education Greek students get at public universities. One argument, I suppose, is that economically challenged students wouldn’t have the advantage of paying for a fancy private university, and so they would be at a disadvantage when it comes to job placement because a public university education won’t match that of a private one.

There are a couple of things wrong with this argument. For one, it is basically admitting that public universities here in Greece are crap. They might be, but who is at fault? The students who never attend their classes? The professors, knee deep in a comfortable tenure, that don’t give a damn? If university students want to protest holy hell in the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki, why didn’t they start a long time ago by demanding that their public education was better? More challenging? More competitive in the international job market? I’m all for the gusto of the student protests, but why the hell haven’t they been protesting for what really matters, instead of waiting until the zero hour to protest something that wouldn’t be a problem had they been on top of securing the best university education for themselves at the beginning?

Secondly, and along the same lines, it doesn’t have to be fact that private universities are better than public ones. I know plenty of private institutions in America that aren’t that great, and plenty of state schools that are considered among the best in certain fields. Again, this is something that the students and teachers can change. Students can demand more of their professors, and professors can demand more of their students. Together they can make state education highly competitive and desirable. But you have to really want it to make it work. You have to want a competitive education. You have to attend classes. You have to study hard. You have to rise above a standard of mediocrity. For all the passion the students show in their protests against revisions to Article 16, I don’t know if I believe they really want a competitive education. I think they want the status quo to remain the status quo. And that does no one any good.

The educational system in Greece (as well as most of the rest of the world, including America) needs a major rewrite from top to bottom. Blocking private universities isn’t going to solve any problems. If you want your public education to be better, make it better. But don’t pretend that swimming in the mediocrity is going to achieve anything. Students here deserve better. They just have to want it.

The hidden dangers of global warming

We've been enjoying some moderate temperatures here in Northern Greece the past few days, but it seems that some female ostriches are not finding the warmer weather a welcoming sign. Apparently, male ostriches are getting a bit randy due to the warmer weather and trying to hump the females against their will - two months before their normal mating cycle begins. While some females are successfully staving off the advances, some have actually produced eggs. 2007 might just be a bumper year for baby ostriches.

Homemade terrorism

My need to sleep off the remaining sickness has really impaired my ability to keep up with the news here and abroad, including the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Athens this morning. In the Greek press at least, there still seems to be some speculation on whether the attack was of a domestic or foreign variety, as apparently the claims of responsibility by 17th November wannabe group Revolutionary Struggle are still in question.

Targeting American interests is nothing new in Greece, although in the past couple of years it seemed to be regulated more to pipe bombing a McDonald's here and there and protests - not "act of war" activities like shooting missiles at a U.S. Embassy from across the street. Considering that the street the U.S. Embassy is on is littered with embassies of many nations, you gotta wonder how someone could have pulled this off.

I realize that embassies make good targets because it sends a message, but in the end I don't think much is accomplished by such activities aside from a lot of diplomatic and political posturing. For the most part, injuries are done to people who have absolutely no control over U.S. policy, and nothing changes aside from stepped up security and a general sense of fear. As if such a thing would make the U.S. government would stop doing what they are doing. And I think terrorists who do such things already know that. Kill for the love of kill - if terrorists would just start admitting that is why they do what they do instead of some blathering bs about virtue or religion or whatever the hell they like to pretend they are fighting for it might be easier to figure them all out.

On the upside, it is nice to know there is a steady supply of ancient Russian rocket launchers and god knows what else out there floating around. Terrorists might be homegrown, but the industry seems to get support from the world.

Hypochondria

Nothing is more fun than being holed up for three days with a high fever only to have your spouse start with the same thing midway through your own suffering. Yes, things have been pretty sickly in this household for the past few days and they aren’t much better yet, although my fever has finally broken.

By far the best thing you can do when you find yourself in this situation is to watch a show on the Discovery Channel about virii, bacterium, and parasites. During the hour-long program I managed to successfully diagnose myself with most of the diseases they discussed, no matter how rare or unlikely.

“Yes, I probably do have the plague! I’m sure of it, an infected rat could have crawled into our pipe system and died and the fleas came out and infected me. Look right there, that’s a black spot on my leg! Oh wait, no, that’s a bruise.”

“I don’t have strep throat but I’m certain I’ve got flesh eating bacteria! Look at that rash on my leg! Oh, wait, no, I was just scratching there, that’s why it is red.”

“Ebola, oh, I definitely have that. I realize I don’t have any symptoms aside from the fever but I have it.”

After that I was so sure I was dying from about twelve different diseases I exhausted myself and fell asleep. When I awoke, the fever had broken and I had no symptoms aside from a terrible cough and dizziness. Hmm, it could be tuberculosis…

On a clear day you can see forever

Epiphany

Finding my way

For expatriates the notion of home seems transitive and uncertain. I’ve seen many expats expound upon this idea of home and what it means to them – and we all seem to be torn between wanting to call our former lives home and considering our new existence to be home. I’ve referred to home generally – if I talk about visiting the U.S. I call it home, but I find it difficult to define it further.

Home can’t really be with my parents, since they live in a place where I have never lived, and while I am of course welcome there, I don’t feel like it is home except in the sense of being with my family. Is home with relatives in Maryland who have lived in the same places as long as I can remember? I certainly always felt at home there, but I never actually lived there. Is Nashville my home? It is the place where I lived for 21 years until I moved to Greece. But I don’t have any property there, only a spate of friends. I suppose the U.S. government might consider Nashville my home, since I still vote in my district there. It still feels like home, in some ways, although technically I don’t belong there anymore. Is home where I live now? I’ve lived in four different cities/villages since I’ve been in Greece, so that has made the question even more difficult. Thessaloniki is my husband’s home, filled with friends and family. I certainly like it here. Not to mention, this is where all my stuff is, and we all know how important stuff can be. My three cats definitely seem to consider it home. But in a sense I don’t feel like I own this place, that it is my city, my home. It feels more like a borrowed place. A temporary place. But it isn’t. Is Greece my home?

There are stretches of road along the Ethniki Odos (National Highway) that are ensconced by rows and rows of cornfields, which is reminiscent of the rural roads I’ve traveled often in Maryland. Heading towards Mt. Olympus, as the long road winds its way up the mountain, the air begins to change and there is greenery all around, which reminds me of being in Beersheba. Walking along the Thessaloniki harbor with the smell of the sea blanketing my senses, I experience a brief flashback of being in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. One of the main roads through Thessaloniki reminds me so vividly of Briley Parkway I sometimes expect Opryland (or rather, Opry Mills) to appear suddenly before me – a giant beacon of misdirected capitalism and stagnant consumerism. Once I come to my senses there is always a sadness of what I miss, but there is also a sense of completion – a binder that weaves my past with my present, joining all these places together in my head and my heart. And it is at that moment I realize that home is not any one thing, it has become the sum of my experiences, my memories, all the places I have lived and hold dear.

I am home.

Ethical questions

Is it wrong to use the zoom on your digital camera to get a better look at what game the neighbor across the street is playing on his computer?

I thought so.

When all is lost

Phew!

We can all rest easier. The goat has survived this holiday season. Congrats to the people of Gavle for keeping him (mostly) free from harm this year!

For a glance at the palaces of the past

While we all waited for St. Vassilis...

St. Vassilis is the Greek version of Santa Claus, and technically speaking, he doesn't come until January 1st, which happens to be his name day. We gathered with family to enjoy the festive night in anticipation of the new year, and generally we ate, drank, and were merry.

A few of us staged a fierce economic battle over strategic cities in Europe by playing Euro Monopoly.

Finally 2007 arrived, and in short order the vassilopita was cut, with great excitement over who would be rewarded with the coin. My mother-in-law was the lucky one, which I am sure means good fortune to those she gave birth to, which means my husband and I should do well this year, despite spending enormous amounts of wealth on new kitchens.


A glorious time was had by all, although everyone over the age of 30 was tired by 2am.

Auld Lang Syne

Another year has come and gone, quicker and quicker each time. Somehow, 2007 sounds weird, but I guess we all bear the odd years with the same chutzpah as the even ones.

Bearing witness to the execution of a despotic Middle Eastern leader sure gets you into the party mood. Could 2006 have ended more oddly?

As my husband and I head out for our New Years Eve party, we want to wish you all a safe and happy new year and the best for 2007.

Who knew?

Kitchen shopping is the most inane, boring, time sucking consumer activity I have ever participated in. I honestly believe that when Oedipus poked out his eyes he was debating cupboard choices at Neoset instead of agonizing over his illicit love affair with his mother, because the former is obviously far worse.

In theory, it seems like it would be fun. A whole, empty kitchen to design. Cupboards and counters at your choosing. Colors and countertops and sinks of all varieties. But after all the looking and dreaming you sit down with the salesperson, blueprints in hand and then it starts. The math. Not only math, but some sort of complicated math that seems to be best used in hell. Measurements and drawings, all to figure out exactly how everything you want fits in the space you have. Nothing is left to chance, and this is when all the questions start. What size cupboards? How many compartments? If you want drawers, how deep? Which handles? Do you want glass on any of the doors? How high? How low? By the time we were finished, I was ready to confess to crimes I had never committed if only I could crawl into one of the corner cabinets on the showroom floor and go to sleep and never have to think of kitchens ever again.

Believe me, I get the point. The measurements have to be accurate. I want to be sure that I get the kitchen I want, no mistakes. But when what seems like the realization of a dream turns into a two hour interrogation of facts, figures, and choices, you quickly begin to not care about whether or not you have the perfect handles for your cabinet doors. And when you realize at the end of it all that it will take a second appointment to have a computerized design and price quote ready, for a brief moment you think hell with it all, I’ll just have a spigot and a table in the room with my appliances.

I’m sure by the time it is all done and we have found the right kitchen at the right price and we are finally living in our house with my dream kitchen (not my husband’s dream kitchen, because he doesn’t get a say) it will all seem worth it. But for now, I’ll suffer the agony of Greek tragedy, just to make it so.

Christmas in the hood

In the city center you can find several bedecked balconies with lights and displays of all kinds. Unfortunately, our street seems to be rather lacking, as there are only a few balconies shining with Christmas cheer.

This display, by far, is my favorite, mostly because I love the Santa climbing the ladder (that red blob in the bottom center of the picture). Ok, so maybe it is a bit overdone, but it is tasteful enough. I like looking at it, at least.

That same balcony, when your camera has dropped a couple of doses of LSD:

The same balcony when your camera has gone completely schizo:


I keep meaning to take some pictures about town, but everytime we go out it is either too early or for purposes that exclude the practicality of carrying the camera with us. Hopefully, we'll get some before all the Christmas displays are gone.

I never quit when ahead

Still basking in the afterglow of my Oatmeal Scotchie success, on Christmas Eve I decided to attempt to bake another type of cookie. Theoretically, it shouldn’t have been difficult. I chose a recipe that I had grown up helping my mother bake and made several times by myself to great approbation. Spritz (this is the newer recipe, I use a slightly different older one) – a simple butter cookie – is an easy recipe. The biggest challenges are egg separation and using a cookie press, both of which I have pretty much mastered (ok, maybe not mastered, but I know what I’m doing).

With my husband in tow as assistant I started. Right off I dropped an egg. No big deal. I got all the ingredients into the mixer (ah, laziness) and let her rip. So far, so good. When it was done, I noticed the dough had an odd consistency, and the flavor was not quite right. My husband looked at our bottle of almond extract and thought maybe the French on the bottle said it needed to be diluted. No matter, so they’d be heavy with the almond flavoring. Not so bad, right? I affixed the camel stencil to the cookie press and shoved a big chunk of dough inside.

As I prepared to press the first camel onto the cookie sheet, my husband had a look of sheer delight and curiosity in his eyes. He had never come across such a device as a cookie press before and wanted to see how it worked. Imagine my surprise when I squeezed out the first camel and it resembled something more akin to a microbe than a desert dwelling pack animal. In all his expectancy, my husband certainly wasn’t prepared for that, and he let out a peal of laughter that I am certain found its way into orbit around the earth. Camel after camel kept appearing equally deformed, and his laughter didn’t stop.

I was not amused.

Since the dough seemed too buttery, my husband suggested adding more flour, and so he graciously kneaded flour into the batter, a half cup at a time, working towards a more normal consistency. By the time it seemed right, we had already almost doubled the amount of flour the recipe called for. Not a good sign. Now, I realize that most logical human beings at this point in time might have realized the dough is completely wrong and perhaps the whole mess should be trashed. But I had already invested some time in the process and by god I wanted my camel and Christmas tree cookies. So I refilled the cookie press and tried again, with the hoped for results of perfect camels.

While I worked on the camels I gave my husband a chunk of dough to work with. His sole job was to use the blue and yellow food coloring to make the dough green, for the Christmas trees. By the time he was finished, the dough looked like a giant blob of toxic waste and his entire body was covered with food coloring. Since there was no way he was going to get the dough any lighter, we decided to go along with toxic sludge colored Christmas trees. Why not? At least it was green.

At this point the first batch of camels came out of the oven. They looked ok, pretty normal in fact. But as I began to remove them from the cookie sheet I realized they were quite brittle. I was decapitating camels left and right, limbs were coming off, it was an ugly scene. When all the camels had finished, we had a couple dozen healthy looking camels and a giant graveyard of camel parts. It was from these that we taste tested our work. They weren’t awful, but they sure didn’t taste like Spritz. They actually tasted more like a shortbread. Ah well. They would still be presentable.

By the time we were done, the kitchen appeared as if it had been the site of a horrible industrial accident. There were dishes and utensils everywhere, and little spots of toxic green dough spattered all about. We filled the tin with the cookies we would take to my in-laws and left the remains behind.

I was still bothered by what had gone wrong. It was a recipe I knew, a recipe I usually excelled at. Yet they had turned into a disaster. Why? I kept going over the recipe in my head, trying to think if I had left anything off. Finally I had a horrible sinking feeling. The butter. I had done the cups to grams conversion wrong, and used twice as much butter as the recipe called for! That certainly explained the weird dough consistency and the fact that it needed nearly twice as much flour to be normal.

Stupid metric system. When we first learned about it in the third grade I had a funny feeling it would come bite me in the ass someday. And I was right.

O Holy Night

Merry Christmas!

Well, the eve has come and gone, and yet again our cats did not speak at midnight. Maybe there is a specific time zone to that myth. There might be animals talking somewhere, but not in Eastern European Time.

Christmas Day will be spent with the in-laws but without my hardworking husband, who scored a 24 hour shift. I guess we've been lucky, this is the first Christmas we've spent apart in 6 years. We'll get New Year's Day together instead, and celebrate the coming of St. Vassilis instead of Mr. Claus.

To everyone who celebrates Christmas - have a safe and happy holiday. To those who don't, have a safe and happy day anyway. We all deserve that every day, after all.

Getting back to my old self

For the first time in over ten years, I made cookies for Christmas. Sure, it is only one kind of cookie when I used to make five or six, but this is a great improvement. I don't know exactly what got me off the baking bandwagon, a combination of things I guess - from a new found fear of burning myself (where did that come from?) to the lack of a decent oven.

I'm also not exactly sure what got me off my arse this year. I'm thinking a cross between having a halfway decent oven and the sheer frustration of lack of dessert choices at Christmas dinner. I tell you one thing, having only two (TWO!) small cookie sheets gets old fast in the cookie making process. It seems that Greek households aren't known for their proliferate cooking baking, because I'll be damned if I can find a cookie sheet anywhere. I suppose I’ll survive, for now. But when I’m ready to make more varieties, I hope I can find more cookie sheets.

These were made with special thanks to my parents, who sent me some butterscotch morsels.

The return of the light

Rejoice today in the return of the light, as the shortest day is at hand.

May your Winter Solstice be blessed with the happiest wishes of all that is to come.

Christianity for teh win

I don't know, but when two factions of monks start a brawl over living quarters it doesn't seem to be a shining day for Christianity.

Hey, I'm not even going to pretend I know anything about the background of this "rogue" set of monks who aren't recognized by the powers that be, or about the background of any and all tension on Mt. Athos. But to think that any monks, recognized or not, could actively get in an imbroglio with other monks and cause enough damage to one another to send a few to the hospital doesn't seem to be the pinnacle of Christian monk-like behavior. I also don't think it is very Christian of the legitimate monks to force another set of monks, recognized or not, out of a habitable living situation.

The story seems to change depending on which side is telling it, but honestly guys, you are both supposed to be on the same damn side. Not only that, you should also be setting an example. How am I ever going to find my faith when behavior like this is going on?

Sunset in Thessaloniki, Mid-December

My favorite Christmas present

Does it really trump the digital camera we bought ourselves (yea, we can't really take a picture of the camera with the camera, duh)? It does to me, because hubby has always made fun of the show, and he bought it so we could watch it together. Honestly, I think the fact that he has been quite impressed with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip so far might have won him over. At any rate, I'm happy!

Thank you dear husband. Some day I'll buy you a Breguet pocket watch.

As Ouranos said to the clouds...

...I am still blue underneath.

I thought the Mediterranean climate was good for health

I'd always thought of Greece as a country where people in the 1920's fled to for good health in a good climate. You are always reading tales of American writers, their wives and friends taking Mediterranean vacations for their well-being, both somatic and psychological, and technically speaking, Greece does seem to be a good place for that, what with its overwhelming days of sun and warm weather.

Yet for some reason, ever since I've moved here - whether we lived in the big cities or the islands or the mountains - I have managed to get colds and/or the flu multiple times in the fall and winter months. In Nashville I had a sort of schedule for these illnesses - once in the summer, once in the winter, and once in the spring - which wasn't really surprising considering I have a "challenged" immune system. But here in Greece I seem to get upwards of a half dozen colds, right on top of another, between October and February. I'm now working on my third cold of the season, which started a week after I had been fully recovered from the last one.

I would understand this if it had been cold and wet for the last couple of months, but the temperatures have been relatively warm for winter and the days have been quite sunny. Why does Greece make me sick? Do Greece and I not get along? Do we have a bad relationship? I really don't think so. I've become quite fond of Greece since I've been living here and I like to think Greece has become fond of me. So why the sickness? Why does Greece seem to be a breeding ground for infectious microbes this time of year? And why, oh why, do I have to get sick so many damned times?

At first I blamed it on my husband working in a hospital - but when we were on Kos and in Litochoro he worked at the Army camps, not the hospital. I don't think I interact more with the world here than I did in Nashville, but I guess I do spend a lot of time at cafes. Still, I didn't really start doing that a lot until we moved to Thessaloniki. I just want to know why I keep getting sick. Why that scratchy, itchy, painful glut in my throat rears its ugly head so often. Why my nose is filled with concrete. Why I can't stop coughing.

Somehow, I think there is some type of Murphy's Law at play here. Leave it to me to move someplace that is supposed to have a healthy climate and get sick so often. For now, all I can do is take my decongestants, drink my tea, suck on my cough drops, and pray. At least I get one thing out of it - my husband waits on me hand and foot. Hmm, maybe my constant sickness is psychological...

You call this cold?

Mid-December in Greece and temperatures are still what I’d call moderate – low to mid 50’s and sunny during the day, high 30’s/low 40’s at night. We haven’t had any real weather shocks aside from a brief cold snap in mid-October, and that was brief and not too extreme. The temperature has dropped slowly and steadily since then with a small disparity between highs and lows. I don’t think we’ve even hit freezing yet here so far. This is one of the many things I love about Greece – this gradual decline from fall into winter. It is something I almost never experienced in Nashville, a place where in December it could be 70 degrees one day and 30 degrees the next. You just never know what weather you are going to get in the winter in Middle Tennessee, but as a Nashvillian you learn to accept it as easily as you accept night and day.

Greeks, on the other hand, only seem to acknowledge and accept one type of weather – sunny, with temperatures of 70 degrees or higher. The hotter, the better, as many Greeks would say, although personally I think anyone who loves temperatures in excess of 95 degrees should be declared legally insane. With the Greek love for warm weather, it comes as no surprise that as soon as the temperature dips lower than subtropical, Greeks do not emerge outside without full Eskimo arctic gear, struggling along the city streets in their puffy coats, big hoods, and gloves that could handle dry ice. It is pretty obvious that Greek blood doesn’t tolerate the cold but at all.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my husband and I were out for our stroll on a slightly chilly but sunny 50 degree day and found scores upon scores of shops and cafes with their doors WIDE open. What in the name of all that is warm and fuzzy was going on there? My husband, in true Greek spirit, was in absolute shock. Why oh why would warm weather loving Greeks have their shops and cafes open in such weather?

As we approached the next open door, we drew closer, and a heavy, slightly malodorous burst of extremely hot hair punched us in the face. It wasn’t long before we realized that these places had the heat up so high, they had to open the door. Now, I’m not one for reason and logic, but wouldn’t it be better to lower the heat and close the door? Obviously, if Greeks are getting too hot, it is too damn hot. I suspect another ten degree drop or so will render no doors open, heat too high or not. In fact, in a month or so it will be so cold they’ll probably be using radioactive material to heat their shops. For now, I can walk down the street in my light jacket and chuckle at the frozen Greeks, wondering how they’d handle the Nashville climate. My guess is not too well. Not too well at all.

A fly on the wall

Nicole over in London turned me on to the Mayfly Project. I thought it was intriguing, and wondered if I could come up with 24 words to sum up my year perfectly. It is tricky, because even in a year when very little happened in my life, summing up without overstating any one thing is difficult. Of course, brevity has never been my strong suit.

Without further delay, here is what I came up with. Nicole’s is more interesting.

Can’t write thesis. Read. Overthink. Read again.
Stress too much. Get homesick. Discover Thessaloniki.
Love it. Miss working. No job this year. Maybe next.

Greeting card paranoia

My husband is convinced that my parents are trying to send him a message via the greeting cards they send us. Twice now the header has read something to the effect of:

For a Special Daughter and "Son"

He thinks the son in quotation marks has a hidden meaning, as in

"we'll-say-it-in-quotations-because-you-can-be-easily-replaced" OR "we-have-our-eyes-on-you-buddy" OR "we-know-you-aren't-really-our-son-and-we'll-treat-you-in-kind"

What he doesn't know is that my parents aren't really the evil nemeses of superheroes who think things on such elaborate levels. My mother was probably just trying to pick out a card that acknowledges us both on a not-so-annoying level.

For now, however, I'll keep feeding his paranoia. It's more fun that way.

That's Mr. Smith to you

Me to husband: Hey, check out this search that ended up at the blog: What was the god* Achilles' last name?

Husband, not missing a beat: Papadopoulous!**





*To the person who was searching, Achilles was not a god, he was born of a demi-goddess and a mortal human. His mother tried to make him immortal by putting him in the fire but she held him by the heel, thus leaving that part of his body unblessed and rendering him mortal.

**For those of you not familiar with Greek last names, Papadopoulous is one of the most common surnames in Greece

Nope, I don't have a light, and I'm not lying

I’ve complained before - Greece is a country of ten million people, all of them smokers (ok not all, but we are looking at a pretty damn large percentage here). A non-smoker in Greece immediately takes on a heretic status – most people assume you smoke, and are aghast if you don’t.

So, to the woman and her man who were sitting next to me on the bench outside Plaisio, both with unlit cigarettes in their hand, I apologize. You just happened to ask the only non-smoker in Greece if they had a light. I realize you probably didn't believe me, but it is the truth. Luckily, you were able to snag one from a passerby about one second later, with whom you had a fabulously long-winded conversation about cigarettes.

I knew I should have gone into Plaisio with my husband.

Public Service Announcement

I have been getting a lot of hits recently for people searching for the meaning of the Greek flag. Since I don't think I've discussed it before, I'll make it short and simple for the folks that are actually looking for an answer.

The stripes represent the syllables in the phrase "Eleftheria i Thanatos" (Freedom or Death), which was a morale boosting chant during the Ottoman occupation. The colors represent the beautiful sea surrounding Greece, and the cross is in honor of the Orthodox Church. In short, a lovely flag for a lovely country. The only thing that would have made it better in my eyes is if it was purple and blue instead of white and blue. When I have my own country, maybe I can design an all purple/blue/black flag. We can nickname it "the black eye".

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Just an ordinary Sunday

Comfort food:


The only Phoebe-approved show - Dr. G Medical Examiner (hey, at least it wasn't Animal Planet, in my husband's point of view):

I'm dashing

Just a bit of fun while I'm spending all day updating an old laptop hard drive, since the newer one went crash and burn on me.

You Are Dasher

You're an independent minded reindeer who never plays by the rules. Why You're Naughty: That little coup you tried to stage against Santa last year Why You're Nice: You secretly give naughty children presents.

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

The amazing new elevator of claustrophobia

Our new elevator is finally finished, after weeks of agonizing stair climbing. As you can see, the outer door doesn't look so nice, but it will be painted so it will hopefully look better.

This is what you see when you close the inside doors that must be closed in order for the coffin elevator to move. The elevator is quite small, and you can't see anything from inside, so all you have to ponder is your plunging death. It is definitely NOT a good place for people who are claustrophobic, and even if you aren't, you might develop the phobia after a few rides in this puppy.

The panel is nice and flashy, and the elevator is automatic, which makes for fun times when you get in and don't hit the ground floor button fast enough so someone on another floor calls the elevator before you are done with it. Since there is only room enough for two people in the thing, it doesn't really work for it to stop at multiple floors on the way down.

The inside view, pretty standard for new, Greek elevators.

I wish I had the camera in time to take pictures of the ancient, scary elevator, but alas, those images are left to my memories. I'm a bit sad that I can't whine about the prehistoric moving box o' death anymore, but the new one is fast, sleek, and keeps me from climbing six flights of stairs. You can't beat that!

I'm no Martha Stewart

This is the extent of our Christmas decorating this year (yea, I know the tree looks like crap, but you can't see the lights with the flash on)


and this:


I'm still not brave enough to risk a whole tree with cats running around. We'll see how long this tree lasts before it gets knocked over.

And now your international moment of zen

Ahhhhhhhhhhh........................

Five weird things

Tim, my Tennessee friend living life up in the frozen North has done the honor of tagging me. Now I realize I have not yet answered my tag by Flubberwinkle and Kassandra on the "about the blog" meme, but this one is much simpler and requires less thought than that one. Five weird things about myself, when I'm not even that weird! Piece of cake!

1 I bite and pull my fingernails. This seems rather common, I know, but there is a twist: I only bite and pull at the fingernails on my ring fingers on both hands. The other nails I leave alone, although I have to file them down frequently, because my ring fingers actually make me look like I’ve been tortured with some kind of fingernail pulling device.

2 Whenever I eat something in a wrapper (a candy bar, tsurekakia, potato chips, etc.) I fold the wrapper into a tiny square and sit on it. I have no idea why I do this, although it seems to go along with my whole need to consolidate trash.

3 When I was ten years old, my best friend and I got in a dog poo fight with her big sister, who was a real twat. If you want to know what exactly a dog poo fight entails, think of snow ball fight but with a smelly, brown substance. I did not have a predisposition for using dog poo as an instrument of violence, I actually thought it was quite disgusting, but these are the things that childhood ire can drive you to do. Not to mention, it was the big sister who started it. Of course, now as an adult I feel the need to question why their basement was literally filled to the brim with dog poo.

4 I scare myself awake about every other night. It seems to be some kind of weird, hallucinogenic type dream/vision that does it, maybe I am not fully asleep yet when it happens. It is usually linked to something I think I see or feel in reality, like an earthquake or a giant half bug/half frog creature crawling on the wall. The rush of adrenaline is insane, I just hope I don’t give myself a heart attack one of these nights.

5 I have a history of odd celebrity crushes. It started when I was five with Tony Randall, continued with Peter Sellers, Carl Sagan, David Bowie, and Boy George. By the time I hit my 20’s I guess I stopped looking for humor, intelligence, and weirdness in my celebrity crushes and started the Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, etc. phase. Then I had the celebrity couples phase (David Duchovny and Tea Leoni) and now I don’t really have a current celebrity crush, as my obsession with Michael Vartan finally passed. Hmm, I need a new celebrity crush!

See, I’m not weird at all!

I tag everyone and no one. A lot of Nashville folks have recently done this one, and since I don’t typically tag (I don’t play nice) if you feel like doing it, or want to leave weird things about yourself in the comments knock yourselves out.

Live goat cam!

The Gavle Goat cam in Sweden. Will the poor goat be burned down this year? They've got the bugger pretty secure! At least if it burns, we can see it via web cam.

Long night's moon

It is a brittle season Hades made dear, though a seed might trick us all. The Hellenes suffer silently the cold winter days in a land that was meant for the warmth of the sun. But Helios does not favor them – if ever in word or deed they had pleased him, Demeter’s maternal grief demands the chill of winter overtake us all.

The streets are filled with people wrapped like mummies against the bitter wind. Darkness comes early, a velvet covered hand clasped tightly at their throats. People move mechanically, sadly, bereft of the joy of kalokairi, their solemn faces a sober reflection of the dark skies around them. Fate has spared none.

So in this season we wait lugubriously with Demeter, her frozen tears blanketing us with melancholia until the sweet warm breath of a lost daughter frees us from the gloomy cold.

Let the soft, plushy toy speak for you

I suppose this is one way to let your lover(s) know you have a venereal disease. Fun and informative at the same time! I've always wanted to know my microbes better, and now I can!

Ominous Nashville

The weirdest things make me homesick these days, like this brilliant picture of lightning striking behind the "Bat" building in Nashville. It is like a punch in the stomach, seeing something so recognizable in the Nashville skyline, and knowing I can't see that building any old time I want to anymore (not that I ever looked at that building on purpose, I definitely took it, and everything else about Nashville, for granted). The pictures make me feel so close to home I can almost touch it, before it fades away like a puff of smoke in my memories.

I guess the answer to the question "how long before you realized you were really homesick after moving abroad?" is 4 years.

Seeing Red

Today is World AIDS Day. Pass out the condoms and go RED!