Now We Are Starting to Have Fun

Bright Tuesday
April 21, 2009

Again, I felt exhausted by this bug that his me in its grip. I rested most of the day in order to scrounge up enough willpower to go to Elpida’s and Pantelis’ house in the evening. Elipda is Kostas and Mena’s younger daughter; she and Pantelis were married in September. We were doubly interested to see what their new apartment looks like, given that Pantelis is an interior designer.

So what does this interior designer’s own apartment look like? Well, it looks like the interior of a statue, that’s what. All the shapes are rectangular. The kitchen has one wall of tall, vertical slabs, all whiteexcept for the stainless steel slab that is the refrigerator door. The other slabs are doors to a pantry, dishwasher, built-in-oven, and such. The kitchen’s opposite wall is all horizontal slabs: countertop, stovetop above the countertop, a lower countertop that serves as a table.

The whole house is black and white and shades of gray or silver. There are no other colors. The floor is of ceramic tile, but it looks like stone. It’s dark gray with random streaks of glittery, silver flecks. In the “salon,” as it’s called here, the sofa is two shades of silver; the rug is white; the chair and coffee table are black, the curtains are black.

The bathroom is very cool, because you could, in theory have three people in their, each doing his/her own thing with a great deal of privacy. First thing you come to is a sink, a squared white bowl sitting atop the black counter. Wind around a corner or two and you pass the shower. It has no need of doors or a shower curtain because of the way it’s arranged. You could walk right past it and not see the person showering inside it. Turn another angle and you’re at the toilet, again, secluded.

Elpida showed us the wedding photos, which had just arrived and aren’t even in an album yet. We were very sorry to have missed the wedding, after we had promised bride and groom to be there. Elpida looked like a figure on an antique, Greek vase. She has that classic Greek profile, and was wearing a classic Greek dress.

And Pantelis? He looks pretty much as you’d expect a Greek interior designer to look. I don’t know; perhaps there are industry standards to uphold? Stereotypes to live up to?

Kostas and Mena came, too, and their friends, Eriphili and Spiros, he who had cooked the Paschal lamb to perfection. I learned tonight from Eriphili that Spiros has Parkinson’s. I gave her a bighug and kiss at the end of the evening and said, “So I can see you have a difficult time ahead of you, but just remember, for the other person, it is not at all difficult.” Please pray for Eriphili and her mother, who has dementia, and Spiros.

Bright Wednesday
April 22, 2009
Our kitchen drawers are falling apart. The cabinetry itself is good quality, but the drawers are all shoddy and flimsy, and two of them have already become useless and we’ve had to remove them, making the kitchen unsightly.

Today, Demetrios found a carpenter to rebuild kitchen drawers and to plane the bottom of the bathroom door, allowing it to close properly. We are going to discuss with him building us a custom bookcase, too, as we have an odd little alcove in one wall that used to contain a radiator but no longer does, and we don’t know what else to do with it.

Matter of fact, I have long list of things I could have a carpenter do around here, but can’t tackle them all at once.

In the evening, we were invited to Ianna’s and Leonidas’ house. I couldn’t speak, as my voice has by now given out entirely, but other than that, I felt pretty good, and it’s always nice to be with them. They are both fluent in German, so I could actually have conversed with them, if I’d had a voice.

Ianna served us chicken with rice, pork somethings, two kinds of salads, leeks and carrots in cream sauce, fruit jello, and chocolates. Yum!

She is feeling good, has decided to proceed with radiotherapy, to begin in May, but no chemo.

Leonidas drove us home (we had come by taxi) and we were there before midnight.