It's All Greek to Me

Yesterday Nigel and I went out to lunch at a new Greek restaurant in town. I had heard that it was run by actual Greek people, so I was pretty excited. (The other night we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and there wasn't a SINGLE Chinese person in the place. Not one! No Chinese people eating, working or cooking. With over 1.3 billion Chinese people in the world, I don't even see how that's statistically possible)

Sure enough, the men working there were very Greek, there were Greek flags everywhere (though they neglected to take the Bavarian cuckoo clock from off the wall from the prior restaurant's decor), and the food was delicious.

The best part? This was listed on the menu:

SIDE OF HOMOS & PITA 4.25

I could just see myself saying, "Why yes, I would like a side of homos with my pita." This is probably the first time in my life I wish I had one those camera phones.

You've got to understand, I love things like that. Maybe it's because of the girl in my high school from Taiwan who had her "Charlie Brown & Spoopy" book bag. Or maybe my Japanese roommate in college and her "Happy New York" sweater. Or my neighbor from Brazil and her son's "Winnie The Puff" teddy bear. Or my husband's tres leches birthday cake from the Mexican market down the street that said "Hoppy Birthdoy."

I think it brings me such joy because I am SOOOOO terrible at other languages. I'm in awe of anyone that can come to a different country and learn another language. I have taken years of French, German, Japanese and Chinese and I can't say a word in any of these languages. I come from a long line of people who can't speak another language. Case in point: many years ago my parents went to Germany to visit my brother in the military. They even took German language classes in preparation for their trip. Once there, they were at a shop counting out their money and my father went from counting in German to Spanish to English to APACHE! Yes, Dad, when you can't remember your German, go for Apache! That's the universal language ALL Europeans understand!

I just hope that the Greek restaurant doesn't change their menu. I think it's perfect just the way it is and will certainly bring me back for more (food and smiles).

Ode to Ardale

(post coming soon -- still working on it)

Ode to Dot

H is for happy -- Dot is always happy, laughing and has a smile on her face.
A is for Albert Einstein -- she has a letter from the esteemed scientist. Not one that she bought at an auction, but an actual letter that he wrote to her!
P is for prison -- where she served as a stake missionary in her younger days.
P is for piano -- she plays beautifully and has been giving lessons for years.
Y is for youngsters -- she must love them because she had nine!

M is for mission to England with her husband, Ardale.
O is for organ -- Dot's infamous playing of "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning" on the organ while the church was burning down.
T is for turtle sandbox -- it was right smack in the middle of our front lawn during my teenage years (so embarrassing).
H is for hospitality -- she welcomed everyone into her home (foster children, foreign exchange students, family friends, day-care kids, even a soccer team that she found stranded at the airport).
E is for elementary education -- her major in college and she loved teaching.
R is for roof -- of course, the perfect place to grow corn on!
'S is for shed -- the scary building in our backyard that she raised guinea pigs in (I must admit that I have never stepped foot in it).

D is for doctors -- she hates them and NEVER goes to them (which is quite ironic because now she works for them!).
A is for albatross -- while other mothers were reading Dr. Seuss to their kids, Dot was reading Samuel Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to us.
Y is for yelling -- I don't ever remember her yelling. She was one of those old-school mothers who could put the fear of God in you with just one look.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you! You're the best!

"Milk Duds!"

I love Gremlins. Not the little creatures that turn evil if you feed them after midnight, but the cars. My friend's brother had a Gremlin (OK, it was actually a Pacer). Such a groovy 1970s space mobile. The huge window in the back, the curvy lines, awesome.

I love weird cars. You know, the kinds of cars that would make my sister, Rena, duck in embarrassment for fear one of her cheerleader teammates might spy her.

My mother, Dot, would purchase her cars based on how many bags of manure she could fit in the back (you know, for growing corn on the roof of our house), so she always had a huge station wagon. Her station wagon could seat 12 -- for dinner. It was gigantic!

My father, Ardale, would purchase a variety of cars, but they were always decked out with so many Ham radio antennas that it was sheer terror driving under a bridge or into a parking garage (remember the infamous Westside Pavillion experience, Rena?).

Since we never pay more than $1.00 for our cars, they tend to have fun personality quarks such as only being able to turn right or the fact that you can only enter though one door and exit through a different door. I keep trying to get Nigel to hand paint our car, but he hasn't done it yet.

I must admit that I always smile when I see an old beater car that's two-tone rust and held together with duct tape. Now that's some people I want to meet! Even more so if they're driving a Gremlin.

A Christmas Movie: Take Two

When I look back on the old Christmas movies that my family did every year, I notice a pattern.

Besides filming us hanging up our stockings, my dad also filmed us on Christmas day getting our filled stockings and opening our presents. When we were really little, you could see my brother, J.D., secretly stealing candy from the other kids' stockings. As the years went by and we all got older, one thing would not change. EVERY film showed J.D. stealing candy from people's stockings! He'd be in his 30s and still stealing candy!

I shouldn't be surprised. This was the same brother who would steal food off my plate during the prayer at dinner and he would hold a fork to my side to keep me quiet while he did it.

But no one could ever hate him. No matter how mean he was to us (including cutting off Rena's hair with a pair of toenail clippers), we still loved and adored him.

Though I should warn his wife and son to hide their candy this Christmas.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

Back in the early 50s, my father worked in TV. Even though he soon left that job to work as an electrical engineer, he still had some of that movie magic running through his veins.

It started with a Super-8 camera taking simple films of his growing family hanging up their stockings every Christmas eve. As the years went by, we couldn't just hang up our stockings, we had to have ever more elaborate skits that went with the hanging of the stockings. Regular lamps weren't good enough, my dad had these super bright spot lights that would blind us all as he would yell, "Open up your eyes!"

Lorna's husband, Jorge, proclaimed ours "The Cecil B. DeMille Christmases." Just like real film making, we had to wait forever for the lighting to be just right, we'd finally get our skit perfect and my dad would realize that he had the lens cap still on (or no film in the camera), and it would always go over time and over budget. I would half expect to see a couple of grips eating at the Crafts Services table in our living room with the way these productions would play out.

Then in the early '80s, we were introduced to video tape. SOUND. Just like the old silent movie era actors, we were kind of hesitant and some of our skits were still done with no sound. After a year or so, we used this new medium to showcase J.D.'s band or Rena's vocal lessons. Soon, all the neighborhood kids were also involved in our movies.

My favorite Christmas film was when the entire family was struck down with the stomach flu, but we still went on with the show -- with all the kids carrying pots around for barfing in.

Another good one was when Ardale went on and on about how proud he was of Spence and how much we miss him while he's on his mission. Then we hear Spence in the background say, "Don't you mean Henry?" Oh, you should've seen my dad's face on that one.

Just like in real life, we try our best to plan things out and control everything. And just like in real life, our favorite memories consist of the times when everything goes wrong.

Small Joys III: The Last Crusade

This is the last post in my month of gratitude. What a joy it has been to sit back and reflect on all the things I'm thankful for. It's been surprising how many simple things bring a smile to my face. One of my favorites are the small phrases that become part of my every day vocabulary because of people I've met or situations I've experienced. Here are a few:

ALL MY MAKEUP FELL IN THE TOILET THIS MORNING -- code for "I'm going to change the subject." This comes from a friend of a friend who could never keep up with the topic of conversation and would just say the strangest out of the blue things. This is especially comical because Nigel says it all the time (much to the shock of people who don't know what it means).

PLEASE PASS THE RIPLEY and WHAT DO YOU MEAN DID YOU WIN THOSE CLOTHES? -- code for "I misunderstood what you said." "Please pass the Ripley" comes from my brother, Spence, who misunderstood when his son said "Please pass the syrup, please" (we also now refer to syrup as "Ripley"). The other phrase comes from when I misunderstood my father asking "Are the windows closed" to my mother and I thought he said, "Did you win those clothes?"

SPACKY HAND -- referring to when your hand suddenly spazzes out and you drop something or accidentally hit something. This comes from Sister Spackman who had an unfortunate arm-to-industrial scone mixer encounter and would occasionally lose control of her hand (which was great because she was the ward organist and we would wait in anticipation for a "Spacky Hand" moment).

DO YOU THINK I CAN TOUCH MY KNEE TO THE CEILING? -- said before doing something very stupid that's sure to result in bodily harm. This comes from my sister, Rena, who was jumping on the bed and touching various body parts to the ceiling -- her head, her ear, her tongue, etc. Then she had the bright idea of touching her knee to the ceiling. She jumped as hard as she could and unfortunately didn't realize that her head would impact the ceiling way before her knee would.

HAPPY NEW YORK -- code for any English phrase horribly mangled on a consumer product because it was made overseas. This includes "Spoopy" book bags and "Winnie The Puff" stuffed animals.

Small Joys II: Attack of the Clones

I'm grateful for people who aren't homogenized Americans (you know, we all talk the same, look the same, dress the same, etc.) and still use local phrases and pronunciations.

I love that Nigel says ta-BLOID when referring to those trashy newspapers.

I love those that still say "fark" for fork.

I love people who say EYE-talian (you know, the ones with the yummy pasta).

I love that my mother-in-law talks like a character in the movie "Fargo" (don't you know).

I love that my father says "rut" beer.

Thankful for Wrinkles?

I love that as I get older I get the "Ardale" wrinkles. These aren't cute little laugh lines or distinguished crow's feet. These are deep furrows that run from my eyes all the way down to my jawline. I love them because they make me look like my Aunt Viv.

Aunt Viv is hilarious. She always has funny stories -- mostly about losing her glass eye. "And then my eye fell down the kitchen drain!" or "So I'm chasing after my eye as it rolls down the hallway at church!" You always want to sit at Viv's table at family reunions.

The funniest was at a wedding reception and just out of the blue Viv blurts out, "I love a good fire." She doesn't mean going camping and roasting marshmallows, she's talking about when a house or school burns down!

The best part was when my Aunt Glynnis (on Dot's side of the family) said that she also "loves a good fire." She related a story about her son-in-law coming home from a SCA party (he was in full suit of armor regalia) late at night saying that there was a good fire going on. Glynnis ran out of the house in just her nightgown and they drove up to the local "make-out spot" so they could get a good view of the fire down in the valley. Of course, a cop showed up. I could just imagine what was going through his mind when he saw this woman in her nightgown, a man dressed as a knight, at the local "lover's lane" watching a house burn down.

Oh, aren't you thankful for crazy old aunts?

"I'm Boiling a Tongue"

Disclaimer: My mother, Dot, is actually a very good cook -- in fact, she makes the best scrambled eggs ever -- but sometimes she has some SCARY food ideas. Here are just three:

We always dreaded a special occasion, because these inevitable words would come out of my mother's mouth, "Dad got a raise, so I'm boiling a tongue." You could smell it a block away. Not only would there be a huge cow's tongue coiled inside of a pot of boiling water, but she would stud it with cloves. CLOVES! I still can't go near those orange pomander balls at Christmas time. Actually, tongue is very delicious, but it's best eaten with your eyes closed.

Dot is anemic, so we ate a LOT of liver. I loved the onions that went with it, but it was hard choking down that liver. We ate so much liver that we used to collect the "liver lids" and use them to make home-made "Shrinky-Dinks" (for those of you who don't eat organ meat, liver comes in a little tub with a clear plastic lid).

My mother is best known for her "butter sandwiches." After making school lunches for nine kids and five foster kids every day, you can quickly figure out why. The sandwiches consisted of two pieces of white bread and one pat of butter (Butter? Who am I kidding? It was margarine, or "Oleo" as Dot likes to say). The margarine was always straight out of the fridge, so it couldn't be spread at all. It was just a square of solidified vegetable oil in the middle of the bread. So lunch time usually went something like this -- bite bread, bite bread, bite bread, bite a HUGE CHUNK OF MARGARINE, gag, try not to throw up, bite bread, bite bread, bite bread. Needless to say, I quickly got a job in the school cafeteria and ate school lunch everyday.

"No, But My Cat Can"

This is a favorite family story. I wasn't there when this happened, so hopefully I have all the details correct:

Late one night, my parents, Dot and Ardale, were sound asleep. A loud KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK came to the door. Dot and Ardale cautiously opened the door to find police officers on the porch asking if they were OK. My parents said that they were all right and asked the police what this was about. The police replied that they had received a 911 call from this address and were here to check it out. Neither Dot nor Ardale had called.

"Is there anyone else in the house?" asked the police officer.

"Just our son, J.D." answered Ardale.

The police and my parents went up to J.D.'s room. Sure enough, they could see that the long extension cord that connects to the upstairs phone was in his bedroom, but the door was closed. Dot and Ardale were starting to panic, wondering what kind of danger their son was in. The police motioned that they had to enter the room first.

The police kicked open the door and swarmed into J.D.'s bedroom. Of course, J.D. wakes up freaked out of his mind to see himself surrounded by police. They soon realized they he was OK and hadn't called 911.

Ardale finally asked, "Are you sure you have the right house? What phone number did the call come from?"

The police told him the number and they realized that this was the other phone line located in Ardale's office in a small building in the backyard. Now my parents' minds were really racing. Did someone break into the office and get hurt? What's going on?

The police went through the backyard to the small back house. They gingerly opened the door and there they saw our cat -- sitting on the speed dial button for 911 with the receiver knocked off the hook.

Many months later, a salesman telephoned to try to get Dot to purchase a security system for the house. She replied that she wasn't interested because she has dogs to protect her home. The salesman said, "But can your dogs call 911 in case of an emergency?" Dot answered, "No, but my cat can." And promptly hung up on the salesman.

Scratch, Scratch, Scratch

When I was a young tween (back in the days before anyone knew what a "tween" was), my parents were gone for the evening and left me, my sister Rena, and my brother, Stillwell (and Stillwell's friend, Red) alone in the house.

I went into my parent's bedroom to find the TV magazine, which was usually on the organ bench. Yes, my parents have a full-size organ in their bedroom (the kind that plays MUSIC, not a kidney). As I was looking through the newspaper, I heard a "scratch, scratch, scratch" coming from the organ. I stopped, looked around. Nothing. Again I searched through the pile of newspaper. "Scratch, scratch, scratch." I looked closer at the organ just as a big black, hairy thing came out from the keyboard! AAAAAHHHHH!

I ran to get Rena (a bad choice since Rena is the most paranoid person there is on the face of the planet, but Stillwell and Red were busy playing "Risk" and didn't want to be bothered). I dragged Rena into the bedroom. She didn't even have to wait to hear the "scratch, scratch, scratch," she was already running out of the room.

Finally, my parents (Dot and Ardale) got home. Rena and I told them what was going on. Of course, they just rolled their eyes and ignored us. We begged and pleaded for them to check, and finally they relented.

With Ardale lifting the top of the organ off and Dot lecturing us about how we shouldn't watch scary movies -- BAM! A huge black cat leaped out of the organ and ran terrified out of the house. We, of course, all started jumping up and down and screaming.

Somehow, the neighbors cat had gotten into our house, crawled up into the organ and then couldn't get back out! Who knows how long it was in there! (And judging by the smell of the inside of the organ, it was a while)