Our Doings

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I’ve been too busy writing my book to keep up my blog as well as I might…anyway, here’s the latest.

Sunday morning I woke up dizzy. Not dizzy as in lightheaded. There was no danger of passing out. But dizzy as in the room wouldn’t stop moving. In other words, it was the inner-ear kind of dizziness rather than the low blood pressure kind. (No, I had not had anything to drink the night before!) It lasted all morning, but by holding onto Demetrios, I managed to get to church, albeit late, and to make it through the (rest of the) service. Then it went away.

In the afternoon we were invited to dinner with the petheres ("PETH-er-es) of Elpida. Elpida is Mena’s and Kostas’ daughter. She is engaged to Panteleimon, and his parents are her petheres, parents-in-law. They are already considered that, even though the marriage has not taken place. (Here, being engaged is in many ways -- too many, actually -- considered virtually the equivalent of being married.)

Panteleimon lives on the diagonally opposite corner of the block we live on. He and his brother Nick and his sister Natassa live in one apartment; their parents and their aunt live together in another apartment directly below. We gathered in Panteleimon’s apartment, which I took special care to observe, on account of his being an interior decorator.

It was a very bright, corner room, with big windows on two sides. Three of the four walls were painted charcoal grey, with the merest hint of blue. Charcoal gray! Now that’s creative. I had never seen that before. In this room, it worked to soften the bright light. On one wall was an original work of art by Panteleimon himself. It was a large canvas filled with rectangles in white, pearl gray, and shiny gold, all with texture. I didn’t like it; it just looked messy to me.

An oval table meant to seat 8 was in the middle of the room, with 11 chairs around it. That worked fine, no problem.

The meal was another real feast. I counted the dishes (just for you!) and there were 12, not counting the bread. Oh, but only five of them were entrees, Elpida protested. The rest were “just salates.” Salads count, too, I said. The entrees included some delicious fish fillets, herbed and baked, two different dishes featuring shrimp so big I was not sure at first they were shrimp, beans somewhat like limas in a thick tomato sauce, and, yes, some kind of red meat that looked like chuck roast. Half of it was gone, too, by the end of the meal, although I did not notice who ate it. For dessert, there was baked quince, baked apple, and Mena’s “oven-hot, caramel-flavored Jello,” as I call her halvah.

I learned from these ladies the suggested proportion of quince to sugar. For every 2kilos of quince, a kilo and a half of sugar, 1.5 cups each of water and sherry or cognac, plus cinnamon and cloves. YUM. I love the stuff. The apples baked in the same pan, same recipe, were just as good, though.

Mena bakes her quince on low heat (100 - 150 C) for three hours.

After the meal, it was like the interlude between acts of a play, when the stagehands rush out onto the stage and re-arrange it all, and by the second act it is a completely different scene. The dishes and tablecloth disappeared, the table leaves were removed and lowered into a shallow storage box built right into the table. The table was carried to a corner of the room and the easy chairs were moved from that corner into the main part of the room. The extra chairs were put in the kitchen. Out came the coffee table from its niche under a low shelf of the syntheto (wall unit), and there you have it, a dining room transformed into a living room. I learned something. Flexibility is one key to the use of small spaces. That and clever storage.

(So we are going to try to be clever and when our new sofa arrives, we are going to use our futon for seating in the kitchen instead of some of the chairs. That way, we can put the table to one side and sleep a third guest here.)

Panteleimon’s mother is a hairdresser. Mena and I are going to go to her on Wednesday. I badly need a cut and perm. Since Soula does her hair just the way I want mine done, and hers looks very good, I have a certain degree of confidence mine will turn out well.

We were invited to Mena’s and Kostas’ in the evening. Ioannis, the lawyer was coming at 7:30 , and I did want to see him. We came home to catch some badly needed sleep first, however, saying we would come around 9:00. Well, I didn’t wake up until 10:15, and Demetrios had of course gone without me. Just as well; I couldn’t have made it.

“Did Ioannis tease Mena?” I asked when Demetrios got home, at almost midnight.

“No, not tonight.”

“Did he sing?”

“Heh-heh. Well, yes, he backed up every point of his arguments with snatches of Psalms, and snippets of Byzantine chant…”

As always! I am sorry to have missed that.

Tomorrow morning, Ianna and I are going Christmas shopping together, downtown.

Hints from Helen:

Never buy more than four days of food at a time. That will last you a week. Or if it does not, you can always get more, and get it fresh.

Never buy a whole kilo of fresh spinach just because it only costs one Euro.