Guess who got an iPod?!

I'm sorry, were you saying something? I was too busy listening to my new iPod. I kid you not that it hasn't left my side since I got it, although I generally keep it hidden from Eph's nieces and nephews for fear of an iPod tragedy. High fives to Eph for such a sweet, sweet Christmas gift! This sort of ups the ante for his birthday in July. Better start planning now.

Ask me what I see in this inkblot. Go ahead, ask me. All right, I'll tell you: this is a fairly elaborate scene of me at the Delta counter of the Athens airport. The ticket agent has announced that they will not be allowing any more standby passengers onto today's flight to New York, I have lept over the shoulder-high (on me) desk in a single, enraged bound, and I am flinging computers, baggage, luggage tags and yes, even the ticket agent's Delta-issue blue blazer onto the floor. The luggage conveyer belt has been ripped to shreds. The contents of the gate agent's 4-pack of Mentos have been scattered across the desk, some of the pieces jammed into various nooks and crannies. Under my foot, I am crushing the walkie-talkie they have been incessantly using regardless of its eardrum-piercing static. Passersby have gathered in a crowd, mothers shielding their childrens' eyes, and Eph stands helplessly by, unable to contain me. Security personnel are on the periphery, waiting for the signal to converge, but I seize a wheeled office chair and hold it over my head, threatening to let it fly if anyone comes closer. Unaware of the presence of the gate manager, who is behind me having returned from a smoking break out back behind the dumpster, I demand to be given a seat on the very next flight. Alas, the Delta manager tackles me. I am then trussed like a Christmas goose with their "Caution: Fragile" tape and carted away, handcuffed to a stretcher.

In the unlikely event that you don't understand the above, let me clarify: Eph and I were supposed to go home to the States today for a two-week Christmas visit, but we were unable to go standby. We will try again tomorrow, because I am desperate to be home for what's really important, namely my birthday, which is on Thursday. (Email me and I'll send you the address where you can mail me my presents.) Wish us luck.

Lord of the Dorks

We have had some pretty sweet movies come on TV this week, including Lord of the Dorks I mean, Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Best line, which my brother Tom does perfectly, complete with the delivery over the shoulder: "Do they Gandalf? Do they?" What's Eating Gilbert Grape? was also on, so it's pretty much been a banner week.

Speaking of which (and also in reference to the title), on Tuesday, Eph delivered a practice talk for a paper he's giving at a conference in January. He was one of four people presenting, and I know I'm partial, but he DOMINATED . The entire event was fraught with technical difficulties, and by that I mean "operator error" and/or "general incompetence"--the theater/lecture hall at the American School is about a year old, but clearly no one has mastered or even looked at the audio-visual elements yet. Only one guy (the school director, no less--that's why they pay him the big bucks!) was even able to dim the lights, so projecting Powerpoint was obviously way beyond anyone's grasp. The guys who were supposedly in charge finally brought over a free-standing projector, and finally each person got up to present. After three mind-numbingly boring lectures on, let's face it, God knows what, Eph got up on the stage with his Mac and realized that, unlike his PC-loving predecessors, they did not have the right cable to project his Powerpoint. So, he was left with no choice but to run over to a completely different, non-adjacent building to try to find the right cable while the entire audience of ~70 or so people waited for him. I almost passed out at this point, I was so nervous for him. Ten minutes later, he made a triumphant return with the cable in hand but was so out of breath and sweaty that he had to take his sweater off. Of course, this move totally messed up his collar and shirt-tails, but he launched into his talk with his shirt completely untucked and one side of his collar sticking straight up. Sweating profusely and breathing heavily, he then delivered a truly amazing paper about tuna fishing in the Hellenistic Aegean. I was so proud at the end that I had to restrain myself from standing up and slow-clapping, but we did celebrate by going out for sushi afterwards. High fives all around!

Who Am I to Blow Against the Wind?

Let me begin this little epistle with the following disclaimer: I am not, not the kind of person who usually sings in public. It takes a special (read: annoying) human being to walk down the street, belting her heart out, and honestly, I avoid it at pretty much all costs.

That said, as we were getting ready to leave our apartment about half an hour ago, Eph said jokingly that I was "all right in a sort of a limited way for an off-night," so naturally, we launched into a rousing, circular rendition of Paul Simon's "I Know What I Know." (Go ahead, start humming it, you know you want to. I can only remember the first two verses, but the third one has escaped me.) Singing loudly in nowhere near the same key, Eph and I gathered up our wallets, jackets, etc. and went down to the front door of our building.

We were just reaching the climactic "Who am I to blow against the wind?/Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo..." part of the chorus when I felt some resistance as I pushed on the door handle. I shoved harder and the door swung open to reveal one of our Greek neighbors, keys in hand, staring at us with a look at once pitying and sort of annoyed. Of course, in my mind I was thinking, "Abort! Abort! Stop singing!" but we were really into the song at that point, and you can't just halt that sort of thing on the spot. So, I think I said, "Yeia sas," but then immediately went back to the song. Yeah, that's right. There's no good way to recover from that kind of total vulnerability, so my little brain just said, "Play it cool! Act casual! I guess just keep on going!" We kind of mumbled the rest of the lines as she passed us, growing progressively quieter until she had gone into the building. However, I believe that Eph was still singing as he held the door for her.

And we laaaaaaughed...

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the other day I caught an episode about Manuel Noriega on "Biography," which they sometimes show on Greek TV (the voiceover is in Greek, and the interviews are usually in English--standard documentary format). Anyway, this one guy who worked for the CIA in Panama said that the General had a formal "receiving area" in his official residence where he met with visiting dignitaries and VIPs. He would stand at the top of a ~15-step flight of stairs and people would walk up to shake his hand. However, the penultimate step was slightly lower than all the other stairs, so each person meeting Noriega for the first time would, inevitably, stumble, and in the CIA dude's case, fall flat on his face before being presented to Noriega. Horrific human rights abuses aside, that's pretty funny.

Greek Architecture 101: Structures of December 2005 AD

Last week after Josie and I had pretty much exhausted all of Athens' tourist sights both ancient and modern, there was obviously nothing left for us to do but make gingerbread houses. However, we arrived at the same idea separately (seriously!): edible structures that gave the nod to our historical surroundings. And so, we present to you a Byzantine church (courtesy of yours truly) and, the grand masterpiece, a gingerbread recreation of the Parthenon (Josie's fine, fine handiwork).

The Byzantine church was heavily influenced by Josie's and my trip to the Benaki Museum where we discovered that Ottoman art is freaking fantastic. I have always liked Islamic-influenced design and whatnot, but the Turkish furniture, jewelry and room decors in the Benaki are unreal, and I am now really, really into it. Byzantine architechture in Greece has some of the more watered-down qualities from Asia Minor that I dig, hence the church.






Now, Josie went where no one has gone before and made a bunch of columns and supports for an elaborately constructed temple. More importantly, please take note of the Elgin Marbles, newly returned from the British Museum in London! Josie is now a hero with the Greeks, who are, we have found, really pissed about those marbles being taken.

Sadly, since Josie's departure from Athens, the Persians have ransacked the temple (and here, by "Persians" I mean "humidity in our apartment"). Also, cough, some of the unembellished Elgin Marbles seem to have made their way back to London via my mouth. (Sorry, Josie.)

Here's an aerial view of the destruction. Absolutely horrific. (Forgive the blurry photo, the helicopter was bouncing all over the place.)





For those of you wondering about our building materials, the walls and columns are obviously gingerbread, and the cement is royal icing. Now, we sort of ate our first bag of gumdrops that were going to serve as the candy decorations, so we were left with no choice but to construct embellishments from marzipan (which, by the way, is also very, very tasty). There is a real dearth of food coloring in the greater Athens metropolitan area, so we tinted our marzipan with turmeric, cayenne, dried herbs and, naturally, toothpaste. Here's what we learned from the whole process:

1) You can achieve anything with marzipan, some spices, and a dream.
2) Marzipan colored with cayenne is spicy. Eye-burning, in fact.
3) We are not cut out to be architects.

Dog Day Afternoon

You've probably realized a pattern by now: I like dogs, all right? Until recently, I was never really an ardent animal lover, but I think that could be traced back to my childhood. The only pets we had growing up were Violet and Hazel, two rabbits. Violet was only nice one day in her life, and that, believe it or not, was the very day she crossed the dark river. (Anyone catching these Watership Down references? I'm laying them on pretty thick...). At the time, I believed my mom's "Oh, she knew she was leaving and she wanted to let you know how much she loved you before she died," logic, but now I'm pretty sure she was too sick and weak to resist the advances of four small children. Hazel, on the other hand, was much, much nicer, but after a couple of years she just got really fat sitting in her cage. Excitement in her life was relegated to the times when she would chew through the wires of my dad's shop machinery (worked like a charm!) and the numerous times that she ran underneath our barn and, you guessed it, my dad had to crawl under after her. Hazel met an unfortunate end one hot summer day when heatstroke (or, just the loss of will to live) struck her down. RIP, Violet and Hazel.

However, now that the Poochimus Maximus (Suki, the dog with the blog) has joined me, I have a much deeper appreciation for the canine race. Which is why last Friday was so funny:

Josie, Staci and I were walking up to Lykavitos Hill here in Athens, and we rounded a corner to come upon this dog. Sitting on this car. We don't know how, we don't know why. There were several people taking his picture and he was like, "What? What's going on?"

Then, we got up on top of Lykavitos, and this dog wanted to make sure we felt welcome. And boy, you can see how welcome I feel. In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, he knew how to shake and obeyed the command in English, not Greek. It's a very tourist-friendly country I live in.

After we descended from the hill, we went to the grocery store for some tyrokafteri (whipped feta with hot peppers, the name is literally "burning cheese"), and this noble pooch decided to follow us home for about half a mile (uphill, no less!) for a snack.

It's like that scene from "Resevoir Dogs," right? Only with a real dog! Yeah? Yeah? N-no? No. Okay.





My mom and moms around the world will be glad to know that this dog was not allowed in my apartment, though he made a valient effort to sort of casually slip through the door with us. I did, however, throw him a piece of bread off the balcony, but as you can see, he doesn't eat wheat. These Greek dogs are pick-y pick-y.

And...scene.

First We Take the Acropolis, Then We Take Berlin

Just what you've all been waiting for...the requisite Parthenon photo. Voila! (And no, I did not get this off Google Images, thanks.)




My very good friends, bridesmaids and former college roommates came to visit me for Thanksgiving, and we had a grand old time. Loyal "Party in Pangrati" readers will already know Josie, the hot strawberry blonde, but the stunning brunette (seriously, look at that hair!) is Staci, a.k.a. Staca, a.k.a. the mastermind behind another blog favorite, Once Again, Fortune Has Humped My Leg. In this photo, they are trying to locate the "on" button for Staci's camera--kidding! They are really not going to like me for posting this picture. Heh.

Speaking of stunning folk, we met some young men doing what could only be called "modeling" atop the Acropolis. This is a post-shoot photo (note the leaning, legs crossed...very couture), but they were really going to town. You can see that the guy being photographed is actually putting clothes back on, ovbviously indicating that he had been instructed to remove garments in order to achieve that carefree summer look. (By the by, it was about 39 degrees Fahrenheit and windy as all get out up there.) We actually came upon them in a semi-secluded location later, and while I was excitedly pawing through my purse for my camera to capture their moment for myself, I dropped my entire bag into a 3-foot-deep crevice bewteen two blocks of Acropolis marble. Josie fished the purse and its contents out for me (Josie, you have done me yet another solid--I owe you, bigtime), and we took that as a sign that God really, really frowns upon mockery through digital images. Point taken, Yaweh, point taken.

Staci did, however, have a completely serious and constructive suggestion for a pose. Like Tyra, she can look pretty darn fierce.