What Do You Believe?

There is a book advertised in my Quality Paperback Bookclub News titled This I Believe, with a subtitle of : The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. The description tells us that "famous" people are quoted as well as "ordinary" people. The book would be interesting, but more interesting to me would be if my friends told me what they believe. If anyone reads this blog, please comment and tell me what you believe. I will start:

I believe in compassion and the Golden Rule. I believe in letting spiders live. I believe in the healing powers of: music and flowers that are growing and any beach. I believe that when I die the lights will go out and that they won't come on again. I believe that I may come back to people in dreams. I believe that the most perfect food is peanut butter. I believe in letting my face age. I believe that my grandchildren are the most gorgeous people on the face of the earth. I believe that love is nourishment. I believe that the smell of air-dried sheets is better than the smell of the most expensive perfume. I believe that Elvis is dead. I believe that I am fortunate.

Now it's your turn.

Memorial Day

Fossil Guy

My Dad w/my son Christopher

My Brother, Dan


Voices


Loved, idealized voices
of those who have died, or of those
lost for us like the dead.

Sometimes they speak to us in dreams;
sometimes deep in thought the mind hears them.

And, with their sound, for a moment return
sounds from our life's first poetry--
like distance music fading away at night.



C.P. Cavafy
(Greek poet 1863-1933)

Justice

I've been thinking about justice ever since I served on that jury last week. We convicted that girl on SEVEN counts. And we did it pretty quickly. There were a couple of jurors who had doubts about the truthfulness of one of the witnesses, a police informer, but the rest of us were pretty sure that this girl was guilty, guilty, guilty. It didn't feel good though. Afterwards I had a distinctly bad taste in my mouth. Probably some of the other jurors did, too. I was sad. Even after I came home and looked up this girl's record on the web and saw that she had been in trouble for several years. I still felt sad.

My husband said, "you helped to get her off the street. She was stoned on meth when she was driving on the very same roads you drive on. She could have stolen your identity to get money for her drugs. She might have broken into your house to steal money for her drugs. Now she'll be in jail and not stealing from you or being a danger to you." I still felt sad.

If I saw this girl on the street I would never have known she had a criminal background or even that she did drugs. I've seen clean people who looked less healthy than she did. What happened to her? Why doesn't she work at Macy's, or go to Olympic College? Why doesn't she have ambitions and dreams? Why doesn't she go on vacation and tan herself on the beach and shop for pretty clothes? Why doesn't she paint her toenails and make her hair nice? Why doesn't she watch reality TV, American Idol, CSI, go to movies with her boyfriend? Why doesn't she read books or play games on the computer? Why doesn't she send her mother a Mother's Day card? Why did she cry the entire time her mother was in the courtroom? Why is all her time spent getting the money to buy the next drugs so she can sell some of them to get the money to get the next drugs?

I wish I knew the answers. I wish I knew why some perfectly normal seeming kids end up under the thumb of drugs while others move into what we percieve as a "normal" life. I felt so lucky and so sad. Yes, I'd "put her away", but it didn't feel good at all.

Greek National Museum of Archeology

If you want to see some of my pictures from Greece, visit this Flickr webpage:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/song_bird/

I've put up about one third of the pictures I want to share and this week I'll put more on. I have to resize them first, so it takes a little while.

Since this was my fourth trip to Greece I was taking different pictures this time. Up until this trip, I was taking pictures of quaint scenes, but since we were staying near Athens and not going to any islands, the quaint scenes weren't available, so I took pictures of things that interested me. Sometimes you may wonder WHY I took the picture, but that's just my style. I like color, graffiti, odd pairings, irony. (My son will question what I mean by irony.)

I am glad we didn't get out to the islands because we experienced so much of Athens and the nearby area, that I realized there is much more to see on the mainland than I had realized. The mainland isn't as pretty as the islands and I will never want to have a trip to Greece where we can't visit at least one island, because the beauty and the quiet makes them the best places on earth. Michael's cousins say they are touristy, but the locals can't control the color of the water or the sky or the temperature and feel of the air or the smells of the olive trees and the beaches. Yes, the towns have lovely little tourist trap shops, but I still love them and the Bougainvillea is incredibly bright against the white-washed buildings which sit against the brilliant blue sky. It is breathtakingly beautiful and I ain't gonna give it up! The postcards don't lie--but most of them are taken on the islands. Athens is a different story.

We visited the National Museum of Archeology one day in Omonia, with Michael's cousin, Mary, who is my best friend in Greece. She is very cultured, speaks French, Italian, Spanish, perfect English, as well as her native language. She co-owns a pharmacy. More on that later. The museum was extraordinary, one of the best I have ever experienced--better than NYC Metropolitan, better than our own SAM, better than the tiny museum in Las Vegas's Bellagio, have never been to the Louve, so I can't say, or to any museum in London. But I'd make a bet on those as well. Of course, Greece has some of the most ancient artifacts and statues in the world, but they display them in a way that allows for a person to breathe on them--there are no ropes, except around the most fragile items--you are not supposed to touch, but you could if the watchers were looking the other way. And the watchers are not wearing uniforms, only name tags, so I didn't feel constantly watched like I have in other museums. No flash cameras, like in every museum, but cameras without flash are allowed and I took tons of pictures. The statues from 400 BC were the most fascinating to me--the veins on the arms and the feet, the perfect depiction of anatomy 18 centuries before Michaelangelo dissected dead bodies to see how the tendons and muscles lay beneath the skin. The perfect little limp penises--no fig leaves here! It was interesteing to see the change in sculpture when the Romans arrived. Up until then the faces on the statues were idealized, beautiful men and women, no flaws. The Romans did "portrait" sculpture and the heads showed real faces, jowly, broad, long nosed, bald. They still often used the idealized bodies to put these heads on, making some interesting and odd compositions.

Mary was thrilled that the Thera exhibit was open. Thera is more commonly known as Santorini, the island that is the rim of a volcano, and probably the most famous of the Cyclades islands and the most dramatic. Her father has a tiny house there that he used to live in and now rents out. We stayed there in 1994, during my first trip to Greece. We visited the archeological dig while there--I stood in one of the dig sites and declared, "Ema archeologo!", the only two words besides hello, please and thank you that I knew at the time. The Thera exhibit contained two walls that were intact from this ash buried site from 1500 BC. The colors were still as vivid as they had been when painted and depicted life in the village at the time--sophisticated and beautiful art. There were also household implements, jewelry, a huge olive jar and other artifacts that were found in the village that was abandoned before the volcano erupted. No bones were ever found there, so all the residents escaped. No one knows where they went.

Michael kept asking Mary, as we made our way through the rooms looking at the incredible statuary, what kinds of tools the sculptures used--he couldn't wrap his mind around what tools they used and how the tools might have been made. Mary explained that iron was available to them, as well as other metals. I hope one day we can find a museum that shows the tools. We saw many other practical items--a strainer, spoons, knives, forks, cups, bowls, cooking "pans", all the things that people in every century all over the world used in their daily lives. All of these things dated from many centures BC. The jewelry was incredible. One regret is that we didn't visit the gift shop because jewelry replications can be found there. Anyone who knows me, knows that jewelry is one of my favorite things!

We will go to this museum again. We missed the Cyclades art, ancient but modern looking. The famous Cyclades head was used as a symbol in the opening ceremonies of the Athen Olympic Games in 2004 and we have a replica on our fireplace mantel. And I want to visit the gift shop!

I'm Back--Sort of

There won't be a full-fledged post today. My body is back but my brain is somewhere else over the Atlantic and I bet I couldn't put together 4 sentences today, so I'll just put a picture here--one of 500 or so that I took on our trip to Greece--the 4th I've taken. It was an entirely different trip, which I will explain when my brain finally gets here.

It's All Greek to Me

I am posting this from Greece. It is a quiet day with not much activity planned and Cousin Paniotis has left the computer accessible to us so I've been looking at grandchild photos on Flickr and will write a little here for the heck of it.

I have been learning how to read the Greek alphabet this trip and am getting pretty good at reading signs phonetically, even though I often don't know what they mean. Sometimes I can tell because the word is so close to the English version. I have learned some more generalities, like HOw are you? and I'm fine and essential phrases like that and am not so afraid to try Greek words. I know that when someone comes from another country and tries to speak our language we are very happy about it and encourage them, so why would it be any different here.

I found a Greek costume for Alison--most of them were very expensive--the Euro has not been good for tourists or for Greeks, but they are trying to get used to it. but I found a costume that was not quite as expensive and it is not quite as nice or well made. I may have to do a little work on it before I send it to her. It's not as nice as the dress that Maria sent to her. But it has a hat! And will the hat fit? That is the big question--if not Ali, one day it will fit Zuzu!

We have not gone to the islands and won't be able to this trip. It's too early in the season. We've spent all our time around Athens and Kefisia, though we went Southwest to a casino last night. Of course, Michael's mother wanted to gamble while she was here, but his Aunt Eleni, who is not a gambler won 700 Euros with one coin! Equivalent to about $1000! Lucky!

That's all for this post. Michael is chomping to get on the computer. I think he's beginning to miss his computer. We have been walking miles and miles every day and taking the train, which I love. You can get anywhere!

Caio and Yasas for now. Back too soon!