TWWW's First (Annual?) Ghetto-Que

by Cathy & Patti

How many years have we known each other? Seven.
How many times have we marveled at the fact that we live parallel lives? Lots.

Aside from having girls the same age that could probably pass for sisters, we are both married to stubborn, strong-willed Latin men. And considering all of this, how many times have we planned family get togethers? Let's just say you could count them on one hand. How ridiculous is that?

Don't get us wrong - it's not that we don't want to, it's just that we never think about that. Why? Because we met while us moms were taking our daughters to ballet class, and it slowly became this "girl" day thing every Saturday; coffee chat while the girls pirouetted and twirled in dance class, followed by lunch chat and perhaps a mall excursion. It was a win-win!

We began having more frequent get-togethers at each other's houses but again, those were usually planned when one of our husbands was working late or out of town. Thus, husbands never fully got integrated into the scene except for a few rare occasions, where they indeed hit it off. Amazingly. So it would make sense that we would get together as families, right? But we really hadn't. This realization came as a shock to us one day several weeks ago when we were Gmail-chatting and the topic came up. WHY haven't we gotten the whole family together sooner?

Amazed at how shockingly ridiculous this was, we promptly agreed on a date and time right then and there that day on G-chat. We penciled it in, and by God we were going to get our families together. So was scheduled, the first ever Barbeque de Familia de TWWW, or as we lovingly refer to it as - Ghettoque.

Cathy
Of course we didn't intend for it to turn into a Ghettoque - 'cuz ya know, we strive to always be all klassy and shiat. Everything was very nice and proper from the minute we set foot into Patti and M's backyard. The patio table sat prepared with beautiful tableware, the shiny new umbrella sat tilted just so to protect us from the blazing sun and the meat was marinating in some yummy Argentinian concoction. The girls immediately took to their basement and the four of us spent the afternoon chatting, sipping and stuffing our faces with choripan, chicken, steak and Greek salad...until...the girls came out for air.

The day was hot and humid and since we didn't have the luxury of traipsing around the backyard with our bathing suits on like the girls, we had to sweat it out. While enjoying 95 degrees in the shade of the table umbrella, the girls began using the garden hose to fill up water balloons. If you've ever tried to fill up water balloons, you'll know that the only problem with that was that the hose can become a slippery little sucker when trying to fill those teeny tiny balloons. So guess where most of that water was ending up? You guessed it. All over us. After several scoldings by the Latino dads to basta! and cientate! they had enough. Into the garage they went to plan their revenge...


Patti
...suddenly, the menfolk burst out of the garage - completely wrapped in thick, black Glad bags. M had MacGyvered protective warrior gear for Joe and himself, cutting arm and head holes at lighting speed into the trash bags with who-knows-what-tool he pulled off the shelves in there. They were ready for water. Water war. Upon seeing their dads, the girls shu-RIEKED at decibels that caused the neighborhood dogs to bark themselves into a frenzy.

Note my newly-purchased beach ball in the corner. 

But let me rewind for a moment. (Cue the scratching of a record.)

When I informed M that Cathy and her family would be coming over for a long-time-comin' barbeque, at first he was confused. "Her WHOLE family?" Cathy is Greek. He pictured her parents, her sister and brother-in-law, and other assembled loud Greeks crashing our shack. I explained that I meant Cathy's family - as in: Husband? Kids? Relief flooded his anti-social face, and plans were miraculously cemented.

M likes to act all tough and macho, but underneath is a lil' pussycat who actually truly cares about making an impression. He diced and sliced and chopped up his homemade chimichurri, prepared the flan for postre, and scrubbed a wall or two for good measure.Since he cares so much about being a good host, I nearly gasped at the level of ghetto that was bedazzling our tree in the backyard when I stepped outside to prepare the patio. "What the - What IS that?" There, dangling with absolutely not a modecum of shame from that tree, was our old, green garden hose. And it was spraying water in a trailer park-y way all over the grass.

"It's a sprinkler," he said, AS IF IT WAS.
"No, it's not!" I retorted. "It's a HOSE twisted around a tree!"
Since we hadn't gotten around to buying a sprinkler attachment for the hose, and it was a scorchingly hot day, M thought he would create a "sprinkler" by wrapping our old garden hose a few times around the thickest branches of our half-chopped tree, and fashioning it into a shower head of sorts. "The girls will love it!"
"This has GOT to go!" I said, and I began to undo the monstrosity that was spewing water everywhere. I then promptly ran to CVS and bought a beach ball sprinkler, and felt instantly more civilzed. "I don't know why you spent that money," M scolded when he saw me return with the monster ball, "my idea was perfect!"

That whole incident set the entire tone for the water fight that was to be. And boy, did it be. Back to the present, as the menfolk ripped through the yard donned in black plastic, I couldn't help but wonder, at well, the wonder of it all.

Here were our husbands, practically two ships passing in the night for seven years, in complete and total solidarity against the girls who had brought us moms together so long ago:

And they were ALL screaming up a storm - even our "macho" men. Those screams combined with the flying water, the black plastic garbage bag get-ups, the neighbor's barking dog, and the chain link fence -- I mean, M might as well have left that twisted, rubbery, green "sprinkler" dangling from the tree. Indeed, our little Sunday afternoon barbeque had very quickly been taken down a few notches from  fashionable to Ghet. To.

And you know what? We wouldn't have had it any other way.

So, Here's My Schedule...Let's Plan This, Maybe?

by Cathy


I was sitting in KFC (don't ask...another lunch-on-the-run kind of day) with the girls last week for a forced sit-down lunch amidst a slew of errands for the day that ranged from buying new gymshoes for volleyball camp to driving to Niles for Bella's new middle school uniform fitting. Yes, for us school is still about a month away but preparations are in full swing.

All the while, I was on my phone texting, emailing, facebooking and calling no less than six different people to set up the following:

- Playdates (should I hang with the other mom or do I dump-and-run?)
- Family get-togethers (let's plan that trip to the waterpark but let's schedule it last minute so we can make sure the weather cooperates)
- Guitar lessons (can we reschedule? It conflicts with the nice weather day and we need to go to a waterpark)
- Swimming class (are we still on for this week or is it cancelled again?)
- Babysitting (will we be back home in time from errands so a friend can drop off her kid?)
- Kid counseling session (I know this is important but can we squeeze it in between the waterpark and gymshoe shopping?)

"THIS IS CRAZY!" I screamed at my phone. Yes. I had a meltdown in KFC. (Don't pretend this has never happened to you, okay?)

Instead of getting the usual, "Mom, what's wrong?!" from my kids, Bella decided to take make light of the situation. Apparently, my outburst reminded her of this summer's tween anthem by Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe". (And let's not pretend that you have never heard of this song, either, okay? Because like me, I'm sure you hear it in your sleep.)

Laughing at her approach, she smiles at me and I can't help but smile back. As we all broke out into a fit of giggles, it hit me! We can use the Jepsen hit song to create our own mommy anthem - the anthem of overscheduled, overburdened, overtired, over-erranded moms! How fitting.

So here, for your entertainment, is what we came up with:

(Sung to the tune of, well, you know what song...)

I threw a fit in the car

Don’t ask, we were pretty far

I looked insane as I yelled

And now it’s me who’s nuts

I’d trade my phone for a wish

Pennies and dimes for a spa

I wasn’t looking for this

But in a bind again

My stare was holdin’

Hair ripped out, madness showin’

Hot mess, this was blowin’

Where should I be going, baby?

Hey, I just scheduled this

I’m going crazy

Can we do it next week?

I feel so shady

It’s hard to keep things

Flowing like gravy

Got another conflict

Let's still plan this, maybe?

And all the other moms

Try to call me

I changed my number

They’re drivin’ me crazy

You took your time to call back

And threw my plans outta whack

You gave me no time or sign 

But still I worked things out

I beg, borrow and steal

To have some free time, for real

Don’t really know how that feels
Now I'm in planning hell 

My stare was holdin’

Hair ripped out, madness showin’

Hot mess, this was blowin’
How much more can I take, baby?

Hey, I know we scheduled this

But things got crazy

Can we reschedule?

Next Monday, maybe?

It's hard to deal with
This juggling, baby
This is my schedule
Just call me crazy

Happy Birthday, Friend

by Patti

“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” 
― William Shakespeare

It's no secret Cathy and I did not become friend immediately. After all, I kissed her husband. And I had a waist. And I was far too perky to be allowed to live.

But seven years later, here we are. Friends. Really, really good friends.

On this day, my really, really good friend's birthday, I want to not only celebrate the fact that she has been granted another year on this earth - one with a few extra grays and maybe a new line or two, but another year nonetheless - I also want to celebrate who she is as a friend.

Because Cathy is a good friend; a true friend.

She not only makes you laugh, but she will also laugh at your jokes and your ways and make you feel like the funniest person alive.

She will listen to you, offer gentle advice if asked, and, if needed, help you see things differently - without making you feel like you are wrong about it.

She will lend you a helping hand when you need it - sometimes literally.

She will tear up when you are sad, because she really feels what you are feeling.

She will light up when things go right for you, because she is really happy for you.

Yes, Cathy is a good friend; a true friend.

She is also a wife and a mother; a daughter and a sister; a cousin and an aunt - one who deeply loves her husband, her daughters, her parents, her sister, her cousins, her niece.

She is fiercely independent, yet cannot live without her family; without her friends.

Cathy with her (from left) husband, sister, and brother-in-law

Beloved daughters

A night out with some friends

She is who she is, and on this day, her birthday, I'm glad for it.

Happy Birthday, Beeyotch!

Love,
Your Friend

Restroom Reading

by Cathy

We are a family of readers. I have my books near my nightstand, the girls have a huge library in their bedroom to choose from for bedtime stories and Joe has his stack of reading material mainly in the restroom. Yeah, you heard right. Well, to be fair, we all have our fair share of reading materials in our restrooms.

Yes, I know it's called a "rest" room for a reason (it's also called a bathroom but we do more in there than bathe and it's also called a washroom but we do more in there than wash...you catch my drift) but who wants to sit there twiddling their thumbs impatiently waiting for nature to take its course? There's no time for resting or twiddling; we got shit to do (no pun, really). So, naturally, we placed magazine racks in each of our two bathrooms to appease our boredom. The pros: this promotes good reading habits and keeps our productivity momentum going. The cons: the bathrooms can be occupied for looooong stretches of time and we all know that's not good for our bottoms.

The other day as I turned a corner in our hallway, I stopped in my tracks at the sight through the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. There stood Bella, pants around her knees, little moon shining, hunched over the magazine rack which sits right below the toilet paper holder. Thinking that she was fidgeting with changing the roll, I asked her if everything was okay and did she need any help?

"Do we have any real magazines in here?" she sighed in exasperation as she plopped a pile of magazines back down into the rack that is conveniently wedged next to the toilet.

"What do you mean, real magazines?" I said. "Aren't all of those real magazines?"

"Um..." began Bella as she lifted them one by one and presented them to me. "Wine Enthusiast...Bev Net...Bon Appetit...Imbibe....INC.....Wine Spectator....Fast Company...a Uline catalog...really?!?"

I laughed out loud. Yes, our bathroom library is pretty boring, even for me since it's basically Joe's stash.  Every so often, I'll throw in a "real" magazine but for the most part, it's these magazines and the occasional Reader.

"I mean, do we have any good magazines? You know, like Us Weekly, Glamour, InStyle, you know, something interesting?!" She sat back on the toilet in a huff.

"I don't think so, honey," I said sympathetically. (Sidenote: this is why I just bring my phone into the bathroom. But I don't like to promote this with my kids because the last time that happened, Bella's iPod fell into the toilet.)

"You can try digging through that whole stack and see what you find buried below, but I don't think you'll find those."

"I don't care, even if they're old! I just want to read something interesting!" she yelled, her voice trailing after me down the hallway.

"Why didn't you just go to your bathroom?" I asked.

"Because this was closer and I really had to go!"

Now their bathroom (the girls' bathroom) has a magazine rack that is stuffed with reading material more their speed. PB Teen and American Girl catalogs, Teen Vogue, Discovery Girls, the Pinkalicious and Whimpy Kid book series, etc.

Now at least Bella can muddle through and find something that can appease her reading appetite while she's in there doing her business. Ari? Cannot possibly read anything that is already in her bathroom, because she loooooves to make special requests - once she has already sat down to do her thing - about what she wants to read.

"Moooom! Can you bring me a book? Ooooh how about My Sweet Friends? And not..." she goes on to name all the books she doesn't want, as if I know them all. So I choose the first book I find and bring it in to her.

"Noooo! Not that one! Can you bring me Madeline? Or Eloise?"
 "Ari, really?!? No. If you want to read, you'll just have to read that one. I don't have time to be your personal bathroom book butler," I say as I walk off. The nerve! And she does that every. single. time.

So depending on which bathroom one chooses, they'll never be satisfied with the reading options in each. But one thing is for sure. No matter which bathroom I decide to use, I basically still need to bring my phone. If I don't, I'm pretty much left staring at the walls or redecorating the bathrooms in my head - and leaving women with that much time to think about that kind of stuff is a dangerous thing. Regardless,  I make a mental note to myself to pick up a home decorating magazine next time I'm out. Oh, and maybe a "real" magazine or two like In Touch or Star.

All Growed Up

by Patti

As of this morning I am officially the mother of a junior high kid. I know I've talked about it several times on this blog. I've lamented its impending doom; the fact that my baby is now a young lady; the complicated emotions surrounding this bittersweet milestone. But now? It's here. It's really, really here. And at this very moment, she is boarding a school bus, her backpack dangerously heavy with notebooks and pencils and expandable 13-pocket folders, and her father is waving goodbye to her. And she is turned away from the window, talking to her friends, even though every fiber of her 11-year old being wants to press her nose against the glass and wave back.

A few days ago, S sat down on a stool in our kitchen and got ready for a haircut. M, the family hairdresser, tried to talk her out of the choppy layers she begged for him to cut into her hair, explaining that her curly hair - the very hair that he curses every morning as he tames it back with a dollop of gel - was not the best candidate for the style she wanted. "But I'm not a kid anymore, papi! I want something cool! Pleeease?"

Moments before, when S was still in the shower, I had prepared M for this conversation. I reminded him that, as much as he adored her ridiculously gorgeous, long locks, they were not his."You need to let her choose her own style. She wants to experiment." He didn't like it, but he did it. His scissors reluctantly went into action, and inches and inches of curls floated to the floor.

He finally finished, and I clapped with excitement. "Oh, honey! It looks GREAT!" She looked immediately more mature - more "edgy". She ran to the bathroom, and her voice carried her approval through the house. "I LOVE IT!" She ran back into the kitchen, a grin eating her face whole. "Thanks, Papi!" She hugged him tightly, smiling into his chest.

The next morning she woke up and walked into my bathroom, where I was getting ready for the day. Her hair? Was a disaster. The curls puffed to the heavens and corked widly out to the sides. "Mom?" Her eyes begged me to help her. I immediately swung into action, weilding a comb and cream and explaining to her how she could fix her hair in the morning, promising her that once it got "used to" the new cut, it wouldn't be so hard to tame. Within minutes, her hair was back to its golden crown of glory; the curls fat and defined, the layers giving them a style meant for one going into junior high.

Last night, as I lugged laundry out of the basement, I noticed writing on S's whiteboard. I moved in closer, and saw that she had written herself a note - a guide, of sorts:

Frow = Fro

I chuckled to myself, but at the same time, I felt my throat tighten with emotion. A few days before, there had been a different message scrawled on her whiteboard. It had read, "6th grade is probably scary." She had worried about starting middle school all summer, and that worry had worked its way in red marker onto her whiteboard - her mind's voice reflecting right back to her. But now, that message had been replaced with a step-by-step guide to ensure the warding off of any hair trauma. After all, no way was she going to go into sixth grade with a "FROW", for crying out loud. Unacceptable!

I went upstairs to her room, where she was already asleep, her newly layered hair in lion-like tangles around her face. I leaned in to kiss her, and for one moment, her mouth moved just as it did when she was a baby - when she dreamed of milk or pacifiers. "You'll do great," I whispered into her hair. And then I turned off her light and went to bed, my baby's new journey just one sleep away.

The IKEA Effect

by Patti

My mom recently embarked on a new chapter in her life, and part of that chapter meant downsizing from a 3-bedroom to a spectacularly tiny 1-bedroom. This of course meant she had to sell much of her furniture and replace it with furniture better-suited for spectacularly tiny spaces. Enter: IKEA. Those clever little Swedes - not only have they cornered the market on good skin and blonde hair, they have also certainly figured out how to maximize space, haven't they?

If you've never been to IKEA, you can't know the feeling that overcomes you as you near the bright blue and yellow building - at first a beacon in the distance; a glowing structure of glass questionably sturdy pre-fab-ness - and as you draw nearer, you are overcome with a sense of growing anticipation; that feeling that something is about to change. You see the simple block letters that spell out possibilities and fresh beginnings, and you actually might just get a little jittery with glee. You will circle the parking lot for some time, because you might foolishly believe that you will actually find a spot near the front. But no, don't bother. Just park the 3,925 miles away from the entrance and know that you will arrive; you'll just have to walk to get there.

But once you are inside; oh, once you are inside...

The day I accompanied my mom on her IKEA journey, S came along for the ride. She had never been to IKEA before, and though we were there for my mom, she couldn't help but be infected by IKEA FevAH. It began with the expected "WOAH!" as we pulled into the parking lot. "THIS WHOLE THING IS ONE PLACE?" Once inside, she looked up into the three stories of glass and escalators and Sunday shoppers stuffing their giant IKEA bags full of trinkets and glorious uselessness that, for some reason, the moment you step into an IKEA is suddenly very, very necessary. "MOM! Can we re-do my room?" I yanked her toward the escalator and led her and my mom to the second floor, where the goal was to find a couch. All the way up S yammered on. "I SO need a new room, Mom! Something more teenager-y. Can we get a new bed? Ooh! Can I get a couch in my room? Something cool where me and my friends can hang out? PLEEEASE?"

Once we reached the second floor, I expertly guided S away from the danger zone: The kids' bedrooms. We immediately found the couches - the first one we crossed was a turquoise number.

 "OH MY GAWD! MOM! THIS IS IT!" I steered her away, reminding her that we were here for her Nono, and to please focus on finding a couch for her. One that was not turquoise. We plopped down on a few and within 15 minutes actually found "The One". I whipped out my cell phone and snapped a pic of the item number, and we headed to find a dining room table. On the way, we snaked through countless aisles of magical goods: fairy-like lighting, colorful lampshades, room after room of fabulously decorated, yet suspiciously spotless, kitchens. "Okay, MOM? THIS is the kind of kitchen I want when I have my own place!" She pointed to an all-white kitchen - one that had no dirty dishes in the sink  or pizza hand prints on the counter tops. "NO WAIT! THIS ONE!" This time she pointed to a cherry kitchen. I hesitated. I needed this kitchen. 

We finally found the dining room tables, and were able to find one almost instantly. I snapped another pic, and started the treacherous journey through the remaining lands of quirky shower curtains, fluffy down comforters, jewel toned plates, decorative mirrors and picture frames, and then - the squeal.
"NO WAY! LOOK AT THIS ROOM!"

S ran into a red and pink bedroom and twirled in it, pretending it was hers. "THIS is how I want my room, Mom!" Never mind that the room was 5 times bigger than her room and included a pink couch and a flat screen TV. Clearly, it needed to be her room. We spent the next half hour pretend-living in various bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens. "Mom? Wouldn't it be cool if we could just live in IKEA and then, whenever we get bored of a room, we could just move into another style?"

I looked around at all of the expertly decorated rooms, and as much as I told S to be happy with what she had, I couldn't help but compare them to my own house: Suddenly, it seemed dated, messy, BORING. It took everything I had not to snatch up all of the prefabricated, boxed-up goodness for my very own, and reassemble my house into something that would make me squeal.

Instead, we left, loaded down with my mom's prefabricated goodness, and, after spending the rest of my Sunday in IKEA-assembling-hell, I headed back to my non-IKEA, non-creative, fingerprint-y, dog hair-y, maybe boring, but somehow? Always comfortable home. As I sank into my non-IKEA couch, I slowly felt the IKEA Effect wearing off. I no longer felt inadequate or driven to to splash red onto my walls in some never-before-attempted, clever way. I marveled at the temporary insanity I had allowed to own my brain, and sunk deeper into the couch, remote in hand. "MOM! LOOK!" S ran into the room waving a magazine in her hand. "It's the IKEA catalog!"

Hjälp!

Greece is the Way I Am Feeling

by Cathy

“Happy is the man...who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek  

Navagio Beach in Zakynthos

“I want to see the Parthenon by moonlight."
― Daphne du Maurier, Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories 

Every summer about this time, it happens. My mind starts wandering...traveling thousands of miles across the Atlantic to my other home, the land of my ancestry, the land where I've left the other half of my heart. Greece.


Things are different there.

Blues and whites in every shade and hue imaginable are mirrored from water to sky to the domed steeples of island churches. The air I breathe smells different, from the incensed holiness within ancient monasteries to the gritty smog of Athens to the bougainvillea overflowing onto the rooftops of pristine whitewashed homes and into the cobblestone streets of small towns and island neighborhoods. Heck, even my skin smells different, kissed by the Aegean sun and lapped by the Mediterranean.

The food tastes like the vegetables and fruits are plucked straight from the fields, the bread tastes like it's baked fresh every hour, the olive oil tastes like it was just pressed from the olives in the groves, the seafood tastes like it was just pulled from the sea and the wine tastes like it was just harvested  - probably because they all were.

This is the land of myths, where the scenery consistently delivers an eyeful - from the gritty mix of concrete jungle and ancient ruins of Athens and the Acropolis to the hills, valleys, mountain ranges, beaches, fishing villages and 2,000+ islands that pepper the coasts of the mainland. It is said that anywhere one digs in Greece, specifically in the bigger cities, they are bound to find ancient ruins. The city of Athens pretty much sits on layers and layers of ruins, some of which were found while digging to build the underground rail systems for the Olympic Games in 2004 and are now on display in the main subway station in Syntagma Square.


The people there are uninhibited, lively and spirited. They enjoy laughing, loving and living life; they just live life differently there - where having coffee has nothing to do with coffee and when getting together with friends has nothing to do with going out.

Since 1993, when the house my parents built there was officially done, I have gone to Greece practically every summer - I've traveled the islands with my friends (times that will never be forgotten), embarked on roadtrips with my parents that gave me historical lessons I will never find in textbooks, and spent time with family whose company and stories I treasure the most, as I have spent the least amount of my lifetime with them.

I take in all they have to share with me. I have visited the now crumbling house where my father and his three siblings grew up, saw where they hid from the disciplinary actions of their parents or where they climbed up to sneak some homemade marmalade when they shouldn't have. I saw the spot where the Germans hoisted a tree limb to keep the roof of their house from falling in during World War II (the tree limb is still there) while they were there to demand a home-cooked meal by my grandmother on a cold night. I saw the rock on which my mother sat out in front of her house to watch my now father ride by on his motorcycle and glance at her sideways. I saw the backyard of my grandmother's house which is now roped off because of the ancient ruins found and exhibited there, and on and unbelievably on.


Every time I visit Greece, I find out or experience something new. I want my children to feel the same way about Greece as I do; I want them to experience it through my eyes and the eyes of their grandparents and one surviving great-grandparent, for little do my daughters know that there is a whole lot there that they wish to share with them and little precious time to do so. I want them to not only experience, but really feel and understand the culture of a people who dance when they are sad, who are passionate in everything they say and do, who are inherently religious and believe in miracles with the same voracity they believe in the evil eye and who have the privilege of descending from an ancient people who created civilization, democracy and higher knowledge in everything from medicine to astrology. I want them to feel the nostalgia and the family history when they hopefully return year after year. Bella has traveled there three times in her 11 years and Ari, just once.


My father has often told me that if he could go back in time now, he would not have made the decision to leave his homeland and immigrate to the United States.
"Even though life here has afforded us the ability to go to college? To live a more secure life?" I respond almost incredulously.
"Yes, even though," he tells me, wearily. "To belong to two countries...to have one foot in each and not fully belonging to either, it's very difficult," he tells me. "Yes, we had many opportunities in America, but..." his voice trails off. That's okay, dad. I know. I understand.

Tomorrow is August 15th, one of the holiest of days in Greek Orthodoxy, the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. My mind, tomorrow, will be at the thousand-year old church named after the Virgin Mary (Panagia) that's near enough to our house that we can walk to, and the candles that will be lit and the offerings that will be made; my mind will be on the week-long celebration in honor of this holiday that will bring people from all over the world to the fields surrounding that church near our house to sell goods they have made with the dying crafts they still hone and herbs and teas they have grown and picked from mountainsides and fields, to see traditional dances in traditional costumes from various regions of Greece, to savor spit-roasted pig, souvlakia and Greek beer as you dance the night away to the clarinet and bouzouki laden songs, whose sounds are carried through the mountain air and can be heard all the way to my house while I drift off to sleep at night. I will think about the family gatherings and the good times that will be had there. And I will wish that, if there was one time of the year that I would want to be in Greece, it would be now.

As I browse through the statuses of my Facebook friends this summer, one side of me is overjoyed at the number of Greek acquaintances and their families that have decisively planned to visit the homeland this year - a year of political instability, a questionable future and economic despair. But the country itself is just as bountiful and gorgeous as it has ever been and the people, at their very heart, are still the same. The other part of me is sad that I cannot be there this summer to support my "motherland" and to selfishly, have a little fun while I'm at it.

However, my heart and my mind will be there - as they always do and as they always have. And I am counting on personally being there next summer - as I always do. As I always have.

Santorini and the volcano - some believe this to be site of the lost city of Atlantis

“The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece

  Where burning Sappho loved and sung

  Where grew the arts of war and peace

  Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung

  Eternal summer gilds them yet

  But all, except their sun, is set.”

 - Lord Byron

The Shoemaker's Wife

by Patti

Look around the room. If I'm in it, you'll see that I pretty much have the worst hair in that room. Which, considering that my husband is a HAIRDRESSER, is pretty sad. When people ask me what M does for a living, I say, "He's a hairdresser don't look at my hair." Just like that. I do this for two reasons: People have this misconception that just because I am married to hairdresser, I am somehow privvy to hairdressing services 24/7. No, M does not wake up with me at 5:45 a.m. to lovingly give me a blowout. EVER. If it's a special occasion, and I BEG, he will do something fun with my hair. Otherwise, I'm on my own. Which brings me to the second reason I answer the question about what my husband does for a living with a run on sentence: My hair looks like crap. Always. And I guess that disclaimer is my wifely way of letting people know that even though my hair looks like crap, my husband is actually a pretty talented guy.

Let's face it: I'm lazy. I love clothes, shoes, and makeup, and I love looking "cute". I just hate the work that goes into it. I blow dry my hair only in the winter, and even then, I don't blow dry it with any purpose or stylistic intentions. If I do it, it's purely for purposes of avoiding icicles in my hair when I leave the house. I simply cannot understand why one would want to rise one hour sooner than necessary to blowdry and flat iron the hair. Probably because it looks good?

Don't get me wrong, M cuts my hair. In fact, I haven't been to a hairdresser for a hair cut more than two times in the 23 years M and I have been together. The first time I went out of spite. You see, he is willing to cut my hair, but he gets all attitude-y and drag-ass-y about it sometimes. So one time, just because I wanted to "get him back" for giving me an attitude and making me wait longer than is humane, I went to Super Cuts. Take that. you selfish bastard! Now, I have nothing against Super Cuts - it's affordable and quick, and they actually did a decent job. But the purpose was to GET HIM BACK. Did my plan work? Uh, no. The second time I went outside The Circle was because I had admired a friend's cut. "Go see my hairdresser! She's Korean and doesn't speak English, but she is really good!" So I went, and before I could even attempt to tell her what I wanted, she efficiently shoved me into her chair, whipped a cape around my shocked shoulders, and began snipping, razoring, and fluffing me into probably one of the best haircuts I'd ever gotten.

I never went back. Why, you ask? I told you: I'm lazy. And why buy the cow when I can get the milk for free?

But that's the problem, the milk only comes in spurts. I've often resorted to trimming my own bangs, coloring my own hair, and even getting desperately funky and adding in my own layers. Then, when M feels generous and brings home his tools and blesses me with a professional haircut, he scolds me for the uneven disasters I have created upon my head. "WELL!" I shout out defensively. "If you'd do my hair once in a while!" He tells me that not even the best haircut in the world will look good if the person owning it doesn't actually style it. Oh.

So, all of M's clients - who adore him and are apparently not lazy at all and willing to sacrifice sleep for good hair - have glossy, stylish, masterfully colored hair, while mine is frizzy, two-toned and grown-out. "You treat your clients better than you treat your own wife!" I sometimes complain in fits of self-pitying pout.
"They pay me."
"I've been paying you by BEING WITH YOU for 23 years! I demand good service!"

Sure, the shoemaker's wife has shitty shoes, but I bet she has fabulous hair. So, the other day, fed up with looking like this:

Note the faded, yellow hair and literally fly-aways

I raged my way to a bottle of hair color I hadn't tried before, coherced M into chopping some layers into my hair, and came up with this:

Note the deep auburn hue and flowing layers, and the dreamy, pensive expression on my face.
Also, note the Jay Leno-esque chin.

It's still a work-in-progress, but isn't everything in life? Now, all I need is a new pair of shoes!

Microbursts and Power Outages

by Cathy

Last Saturday afternoon, we got hit with a "storm" or a "microburst" as some of my neighbors put it, that lasted about eight seconds. The damage it did? Well, four days later, it's still being cleaned up.

It began with the sky darkening, you know that ominous darkness that Mother Nature shrouds us with when something big is looming? So I braced myself for some serious downpour, but instead, as we lay relaxing in our living room, everything outside shifted. Literally, a burst of what seemed like all four winds hit at once and swayed the trees much further than by nature, they are meant to sway. This wind was LOUD. Then, we heard a series of thumps, cracks and thuds. And for the finale...with a faint click, all the lights went out. Then silence. Just like that, it was over. Eight seconds was all this took. Drizzle was now starting to set in.

"WHOA!" screamed my kids, their faces now plastered to our living room windows. Bella was busily Instagraming pictures of a large tree branch that was now splayed all over our front lawn.

"Yeah, that was craaaaaazy!" I marveled looking out onto the street. The only thing I saw was that branch and thanked God that no other parts of that tree had landed in our living room. Even Joe was snorted awake out of his afternoon nap to assess the damage. Luckily, it wasn't that bad. Or so we thought.

"Mom! How am I going to go the birthday party in this rain!" said Bella, looking out at the now flood-type rain coming down.
"Honey, we'll just have to wait it out," I said, busily searching for candles and a flashlight.

Ari started running around like a chicken with her head cut off, half out of excitement to light candles and hold the flashlight and half out of fear that we had no lights.

When the rain stopped, Joe was ready to drive Bella to the birthday party and Ari wanted to go along for the ride. I waved goodbye as they shuffled through puddles on our deck as they headed downstairs towards the garage. A few minutes later, I heard voices out back. I looked out and saw Joe and the girls huddled under an umbrella in the alley talking to some neighbors who were walking their dog. Then more neighbors joined in and there was a lot of pointing and gawking being done.
"What the....?"
I slipped on my flip-flops and headed downstairs to join them. On the way through the garage, I had to step over a giant outdoor rug that had flown from someone's deck onto our lawn and lay crumpled like a sad, magic carpet at the entrance of our garage door.
"What's going on?" 
"Mommy!" screamed the girls in unison. "Come and see this! You have to come and see this!"

My next-door neighbor's SUV buried under a mangle of live electric wires and a snapped tree from two doors down

"Holy..." I didn't know what to say.
"Luckily he wasn't in it," said one of the dog-walking dudes.
"This is quite something," I managed to say. "Obviously, this is why our power went out?"
"Yeah," said dog-walking dude #2. "And it's just our area here. These guys on this side of the alley still have power. It's just our corner here," he pointed out.
"Have you seen the front damage?" piped up dog-walking dude #1.
"Front damage?!"

We walked around to the front of our street, being joined along the way by yet more neighbors in pairs, arm in arm, with their their dogs, kids, wagons, strollers, all emerging like ants out of the shelter of their anthill, ready to assess the damage.

There are two cars behind this one; the second car's windshield was smashed to smithereens

"All of this damage from an eight-second storm?!?" I mused out loud.
"A microburst," he corrected me.
"B-b-but that's like a mini tornado," I said.
"Can you believe it?" said the neighbor whose property withstood the most amount of damage. "The tops of the trees shifted and then snapped off, shot upwards and landed here," he said pointing to the massive limbs laying in the street, on cars and in his back yard. "I had never seen anything like it before."
Shit, me neither! Well, braid my pigtails and call me Dorothy; I had never been in a tornado before.

An hour later, there was a fire truck out front, coming to assess the danger those lives wires were posing out back. Turns out they were touching the wooden deck of the nearby building and since the transformer was popping sporadically, the threat of fire was a possibility. An hour after that, a police car came out back, parked in our alley, turned on the flashing blue lights and held vigil around the downed wires, preventing people from walking by around it and cars driving past it.

"How much longer until Com Ed arrives?" we asked Officer Bored disrupting his video gaming for the umpteenth time to get a handle on the timing.
"No ETA yet," he repeated himself.
"Are you going to hang out all night?" we asked him politely.
"Until ComEd gets here," he said.
"But people who have been calling in have said that they may not be out here for two or three DAYS," I informed him, rather concerned about the food in my fridge and meat in my freezer. (This is what Greeks worry about - food.)
"Well, let's hope not," he said with a chuckle.

Knowing that they would be hanging out and prioritizing our downed live wire situation made me feel a lot better that ComEd would be out here sooner rather than later. Sure enough, in the dead of the dark night with the blue strobe lights of the police car piercing our eyeballs in the blackness, I heard the droning engines of trucks followed by the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP due to the reversing of said trucks. ComEd must be here!! I squealed as I jumped out of my half-ass sleep to check out back. More flashing lights, yellow this time, and men in coal miners hats and jumpsuits were scurrying about.

What time is it? I was thankful I had a manual wristwatch and in between flashes through the kitchen blinds, I tried to check  the time with one eye half shut. 3:40a.m. I got back into bed, now thinking that should the lights come back on, this place will light up like a Christmas tree. Sure enough, around 5am I was awoken by a bright light, thinking it was morning. I found the lights lit full on in our living room and up and down our hallway, right outside my bedroom door. I got up to see Joe snoring through all the hooplah on the living room couch since Ari insisted on sleeping in the Big Bed with me and a lit flashlight.

"Pssst! Joe!" I loudly whispered in excitement.
He overdramatically, as usual, snorted awake, jumped to his feet and asked "What's wrong!?!?" all in 2.5 seconds. I should nickname him microburst.
"The lights are back on!"
"You woke me up to tell me that?!"
"Yes, you were totally out in a fully lit room! Boy, you must be tired," I said, half pissed that he had been sleeping like a rock all night while I was up monitoring candles, kids and ComEd.
"Ya think?!" he said as he settled back down to sleep.

I shut off the now imposing lights and headed off to bed. Tomorrow, we will all see things in a different light.

Back to School?

by Patti

In 12 days, S goes back to school - as a SIXTH GRADER.  Yes, I have already mostly managed to work through the fact that my baby - the one I fed from my bosom for far too long; the one that cried out for me night after night after night after night after... you get the sleepless picture; the one whose legs would go into a frenzied, happy delirium whenever I simply walked into a room; the one who asked me to read her just one more story; the one who still holds my heart unlike any other human being has ever managed to do. Yes, that  one. And I guess, in my struggle to work through all of the emotions that come with having a real, live middle-schooler, I kind of forgot to buy school supplies.

S has been begging me since she graduated fifth grade two and a half months ago to please, oh please, buy her those school supplies. "You always wait 'til the last minute, Mom!" And though it pains me to admit it: I do. So after several weeks of prodding and poking and nagging, and whined-out-loud fears that she would be the only kid in 6th grade with no school supplies, I finally MOM made the trek today to do the deed I dreaded all summer.  As of now and a mere $100 later, her school supplies are neatly unpacked, labeled, and repacked into little take-to-school bags, ready to be carried through the halls and into the lockers and desks of junior high. The thing I've wondered since I started buying school supplies is this: How on earth are paper towels, Kleenex, and plastic sandwich bags school supplies?  I mean, the fact that I had to buy a calculator and $15 13-pocket FOLDERS for crying out loud is bad enough. But I also have to stock the classroom with Kleenex? As wallet-busting as it is, I've learned to accept this fact about school supply shopping, and though it seems suspicious to me that a sixth grader would need 48 #2 pencils, I just buy the stuff. And buy the stuff I did:

Take out a second mortgage and get your school supplies!

S now feels secure that she can embark on her junior high career fully-stocked. The only problem is, I also kind of forgot to register her for the school bus. And school.

I'VE BEEN BUSY.

So I went online to register and was happily amazed that I actually found S's user name and password to log on. But when I got into the ever-so-convenient online registration system, I received an error message telling me that "online registration is not available at this time." I called the school, and was informed that I would have to leave a message for the "computer guy", but that I should be aware that the "computer guy is very busy" and that he "might not" get back to me - but that I should leave him a message anyway. I asked the school lady if I could just pay her over the phone for the bus and school fees, and she told me I should do it online. You know, the ONLINE THAT IS BROKEN. So I asked if I should just come in person to register S, and she told me the office hours, which OF COURSE are only during my work hours. I thought about asking M to handle all of the registration paperwork, but we are talking about a man who can't even remember his mother's name, so there went that option.

12 days away from the start of school, I have $100 in school supplies, and no school in which to use them. I have the feeling S will be very, very annoyed with me if she bounds into school on the first day, her backpack loaded down with expensive calculators and 13-pocket folders, and she is turned away for crimes of procrastination.  But first, she will have to work her way onto the school bus, since she is not on the list. 

Kid, you're in junior high now. Time to get resourceful.