tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89619203280725788992024-03-13T08:00:01.242-04:00 The NifiThe Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-60850440823465463812020-11-21T07:20:00.001-05:002023-11-05T07:16:24.547-05:00A Delta<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Sweet Reader, </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This seems to be an appropriate last post --as you can see by the ending of this particular story. We have brought the past into perspective and thus arrived at the present. I thank you dearly for your emails and your kind words regarding the book, The Nifi. I also thank those of you who have reached out on your visits to Greece and I look forward to many more enjoyable conversations with you. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Please enjoy this last post.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">With much love, </div><div style="text-align: left;">Linda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfUBMvxzIjqE0IBnnGCFPDhJkgsgVTNw0hPXaG-s8VI40CEc8pKy2TVPkLLo3VY-lppuag7xF_9WaIsoJBVc0brFUFePg2SkUPlWfmruWmBJpm_dFjtHwiJeK5Cc4J5qmOHdoIZ0jvVENh/s1600/car+window+scenic+view.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfUBMvxzIjqE0IBnnGCFPDhJkgsgVTNw0hPXaG-s8VI40CEc8pKy2TVPkLLo3VY-lppuag7xF_9WaIsoJBVc0brFUFePg2SkUPlWfmruWmBJpm_dFjtHwiJeK5Cc4J5qmOHdoIZ0jvVENh/s320/car+window+scenic+view.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The road is carved into </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the side of the mountain. It veers off the main highway from Margariti Village and hugs the coast of the Ionian Sea, giving a spectacular bird’s eye view of the gulf and the coastline to Parga. Suddenly, the road bends into a bit of brush and comes out atop a winding ridge, leaving behind the seacoast while opening into a perfectly formed delta on the left, a delta whose tentacles fan out from the mountain’s edge in perfect unison. It's filled with a labyrinth of water and low lying brush, an estuary humming with unseen life. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From that height, one can follow a line of trees which indicates the River Acheron's pathway as it empties </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">into the sea far across the delta. Sweet water meets salty, a different ecosystem entirely. It's the town and the beach of Ammoudia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sea at the shore's edge is shallow for several meters which requires a bit of wading (and waiting) to get to the deeper water. But part of the fun of walking through the shallows and over sandbars is in observing the mixture of people as you become one more ingredient within this village portrait. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, as my husband, Nick, and I were swimming together in the coolness of that blue-green water, a young man pedaled by in an orange pedal boat, a young Nick--the spitting image. Uncanny! And his children. Good Lord! I could barely breathe. They were Nikki and Thomas sitting at the back of the pedal boat, our two little imps, serenely passing us by, their sun-bleached hair matted from salt and sea water. I’d dreamed of a moment such as this, just to have a glimpse back in time. To see it all again with fresh eyes, an older woman's knowledge and a wealth of experience. Oh my, and how handsome he was, that young Nick of mine. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “Look, Nick,” I said to the gray-haired husband treading water beside me, “It’s you as a young man.” I swam away from him and toward the rocky edge of the river jetty where the orange pedal boat seemed to be headed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What luck to see him and the children, to be given the opportunity to undo what had been done. He pedaled with strength and so quickly. The boat glided further away. I had to warn young Nick, to tell him all the things his overzealous testosterone prevented him from seeing and to warn the children of the bumps ahead. They’d need to be prepared for those years of mine at the university, Nick with a 70-hour work week. Trying to improve our lives . . . though such undertakings had created unimaginable fatigue and an anxious psyche which translated to unkind behavior. A parent’s guilt--the lament of many. Maybe I could make it better this time. I needed to warn them. But that young Nick had a strength I’d forgotten and the orange pedal boat grew smaller. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nick!” I yelled to him waving my hands to get his attention. “Wait! Come back!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s wrong with you, Linda?” the gray-haired Nick was beside me, grabbing my arm, which made it impossible to swim and the orange pedal boat grew even smaller as it continued on. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s you and the kids.” And as I said it, I realized its ridiculousness and my face grew hot as my breath left me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nick.” It was a whisper.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">His brows scrunched down in a question but he said nothing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I felt embarrassed. “He looked like you and the kids.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Who?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I nodded my head toward the orange pedal boat that was now a small square, docking near the jetty rocks. I couldn’t see what young Nick was doing but I heard the deep hum of his voice as he spoke to the kids. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gray-haired Nick waited and then repeated, “who?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The guy on the pedal boat.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What guy?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The one with--” I swallowed. They were gone. And all that remained were the distant rocks with white splashes of surf against the backdrop of a lime green river bank. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Such strength</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” I thought, “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">youth and strength.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” But I said, “Oh, never mind,” taking in a deep gulp of air as I struggled to stay afloat. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gray-haired Nick’s forehead remained furrowed as his eyebrows slowly released their tension and he continued to look at me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay,” he said quietly, “let’s get back to shore. We’ll </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">go for coffee</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was our code for <i>let’s go somewhere and talk</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We went to one of our favorite cafes. I suppose we could have walked along the crescent-shaped beach to get there, but instead we packed the car and drove a few minutes on the narrow village-road. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The cafe is really nothing more than a bit of cement with a tarp overhead and some trees. It is the amiable proprietor and his good fortune of cafe placement that keep us returning. The cafe is on the Acheron River near where it empties into the sea. There are several cafes there, but this particular one is placed right at an opportune bend in the river so that if you are lucky enough to get the corner table, you are actually sitting inside the river and the breeze is unending and soothing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We parked our car several meters from the cafe. Nick decided to go get a newspaper at the kiosk on the next street while I went to secure our favorite table. As I walked over the little bridge that leads to the cafe, my pace slowed as I realized our table was occupied. There sat young Nick with little Nikki and Thomas. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And young Linda.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I approached their table slowly. All sound had ceased. All movement stopped, except for at the rickety table at the corner of the cafe. They must have seen me gawking but it did not appear so. Their light banter seemed playful. What was Nick saying? The children were riveted to every word.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YbPWoZmZKU6p87M09jdvqoQLpu8Vb1i2pZwVIARIdmOmSFPp1EwbDDAwP9AfMRu8mXVeerbo9Lb6Y8z-kg-Utjz_hLt8KIeUQtqLT4cGquSAeNQNSk239EG38DMrwgm3gopsBjLBUEby/s492/amoudia.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YbPWoZmZKU6p87M09jdvqoQLpu8Vb1i2pZwVIARIdmOmSFPp1EwbDDAwP9AfMRu8mXVeerbo9Lb6Y8z-kg-Utjz_hLt8KIeUQtqLT4cGquSAeNQNSk239EG38DMrwgm3gopsBjLBUEby/s320/amoudia.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah yes, I remembered. He had been our story teller. I’d been the writer, but he’d had all the tales. His voice was strong but gentle. The children hung on every word and when he finished, they all laughed. Young Linda was smiling at her groom with a look I vaguely recalled. The children, they couldn’t have been more than three or four years old, were playing some kind of game with unseen props. Young Linda was speaking tenderly to them. Their heads nodded.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course! An old woman’s guilt is built upon faulty memories, upon dwindling time and upon lost chances. I was sitting now, at a table so close, I could reach out and touch them, as I desperately wanted to do. To take each child in my arms, embrace them with the longing that poured from every heartbeat that I felt as my chest heaved with memory.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’d done a fine job, Nick and I. We were human after all, as faulty as every human. We’d had our moment in time to shape the memories we could, not all of them with whimsical fancy but all with the love and satisfaction I felt at that moment. And there was gray-haired Nick coming across the bridge with a newspaper tucked under his arm. His smile as wide as his heart. He looked straight through young Linda and met my eyes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why aren’t you sitting at the corner table?” he asked? “Quick, before someone else comes along.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Young Linda nodded in agreement, beckoning me with an outstretched arm. I left my table behind and joined the others at the corner table in the bend of the river. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;">Here are the links for <i>The Nifi, Your Own Kind,</i> and <i>Among the Zinnias</i>. I hope you'll give one of them a try! And if you'd like to connect, I'd love to hear from you: </div><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;">authorfagiolikatsiotas@gmail.com </div><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center; text-indent: 19.2px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas-ebook/dp/B014B5TRYE/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1583001155&refinements=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas">Amazon UK</a></div><div style="text-align: center; text-indent: 19.2px;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center; text-indent: 19.2px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1">Amazon.com</a></div><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.2px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; text-indent: 19.2px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNMWdL1BZsuCgrr83kZMEfGQVu86v-SxX7FsoIRaHZSk3z45n3AK2fTRjxiyK_g6rGh-CjKV63QeLtW8GbtcayJKwTKFH19JLbWmNZZEGpXPoPoN5AuLELaegpd4yZRbFMhTuK9mxmKtlm/s1600/Book+promo+3+books.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1412" data-original-width="1600" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNMWdL1BZsuCgrr83kZMEfGQVu86v-SxX7FsoIRaHZSk3z45n3AK2fTRjxiyK_g6rGh-CjKV63QeLtW8GbtcayJKwTKFH19JLbWmNZZEGpXPoPoN5AuLELaegpd4yZRbFMhTuK9mxmKtlm/s400/Book+promo+3+books.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br style="text-indent: 0px;" /><br style="text-indent: 0px;" /><br style="text-indent: 0px;" /><br style="text-indent: 0px;" /><br style="text-indent: 0px;" /></div>
The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-49402399553945861572020-08-25T06:21:00.011-04:002020-08-25T06:27:02.467-04:00Rainy-day Parga and Memories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Once in a while it rains in the summer and when it does, it's absolutely glorious! <div><br /></div><div><span> </span>With great drama it rolls in from the sea, never lasting very long, but it cools the heat and it makes a perfect <i>Parga-Sightseeing Day</i>!<div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Recently, just after a quick rain, Whitney Houston was singing in Kanaris Square as my husband and I took a seat under an oversized umbrella to escape the last stray drops. The lyrics from hidden speakers evoked a somewhat distorted memory from the Parga-past.</span><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>The small Parga island with its little church stands just meters from the beach and yet as I recall those days past, I see it in my mind's eye as a daunting distance from the mainland. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>Suddenly the sky darkens to a threatening magenta. The umbrellas on the beach are blown from the sand with one giant gust and the beach plastic disappears into an aperture, as signs of the commercial world are erased with the wild spin of backward time. The tiled walkway crumbles into worn cement, the multitudes of people shrink to a few and I walk on the hot sand with my two little children in tow. It’s 1992.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>We’ve just gotten off the bus from Margariti. It dropped us in the heart of Parga near OTE, the telephone company, then backed its tail toward the post office to navigate the tight turn allowing it to exit the square and make its way back to the main road. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve had our visit to the bakery, the pastries but a joyous memory of crust flakes on our lips. Our towels are laid out and our big black beach bag is thrown aside as we head for the water. The island is the destination. We’ll walk a bit at the shallow isthmus jutting off the corner of the beach and then swim the rest. It’s an adventure that has been repeated several times.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span>But this time is different.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b071dfee-7fff-ab30-f85b-96c9f38248a9"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b071dfee-7fff-ab30-f85b-96c9f38248a9"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Having made our way to the island and having walked around it a bit, we prepare to return to the mainland. We wade into the water and my daughter, Nikki, steps on something. She writhes with a pain I cannot stop. A poisonous black needle is lodged in her foot. She cannot walk. She cannot swim. I have to leave her there, in pain, and swim with Thomas for help. But from whom? I’m not sure. And the distance from my child seems enormous as I leave her on the island and begin the swim. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">She sits on shore watching us. A brave young girl. I swim the backstroke so I can watch her. Thomas follows me. The island gets smaller and the mainland is an eternity away, or so it seemed to me on that day when the sea separated us, a sea teeming with life, its mere existence there to strengthen and sustain. But for the unlucky, to attack and destroy, as that sea urchin had tried.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">A bit dramatic? Yes, but the memory evokes a litany of past parenting endeavors and life's hardships. I wanted to find that devil and crush it between the stones. I continued to swim, hours, days, months. Swim, stroke, breathe.Watching my little girl grow further as the water separated us. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;">And yet, as I sat on the shore sipping my cappuccino almost thirty years later, the island seemed to be very close as though one only</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"> needed to take a few large strides to arrive there. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div></span></span></span></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">M</span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">emories. They are sometimes altered with age and colored by time. The "good ol' days" are not always as good as we </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">remember -- </i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">though we cannot help but long for them. What we have for sure, though, is </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">here </i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">now</i><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">--wherever you may be</span><i style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </i></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, Parga's manicured walkways are aligned with a multitude of cafes, their colorful facades like ready family members, awaiting our arrival. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A trolley bell rings and along the road a snaking red train filled with passengers pulls close to our table. Part of the newer charm. Much has added to Parga's character over the years, and after a rain, or on a rare cloudy day, Parga is a perfect place for sight seeing. It's a virtual art gallery with treats beyond one's imagination. An opportunity to forge new memories.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Back in 1983, Parga saved my marriage, kind of. It was only a one-year-old marriage. But Parga made my Magariti village life, bearable to a degree that I was able to open up and better understand the stranger I had married. Here is an excerpt from the book, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas-ebook/dp/B014B5TRYE/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+nifi&qid=1581946276&sr=8-1">The Nifi, </a>that shows my first glimpse of Parga.</span><span face=""> </span></span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As time crept forward and the Margariti villagers came to get a look at the American, I did my best to sit, smile, nod and listen to the buzz of incomprehensible conversation. When I would say anything to Nick, all movement would stop as the ever-captive audience would become entranced in the gibberish between us. So—naturally, when a bug was trapped within one of my muffled yawns and I felt it flit about my palate, given the choice of a hacking spit with no hope of explaining my behavior or an unnoticed swallow, I chose the latter. It just seemed more tolerable to me.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I want to go home!” Tears streamed down my face. I tried to sob as quietly as possible, enclosed in the small room, the sisters-in-law on the other side of the door. We’d been there less than a week. </span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay, We’ll go home.”</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nick was being pulled between the two worlds, wanting to live them both. But it was the sea that had the final say.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We rode the bus to the seaside village of Parga. From the bus window, as we teetered on the mountain edge with each hairpin turn, I saw the hypnotic blueness of the Ionian Sea for the first time. The mountainside continued down into the shimmering turquoise, revealing rocky edges of underwater cliffs as if they were only inches from the surface. And patches of changing shades of blue slowly became black as they descended into the depths.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was love at first sight. If all else had been pushing me to leave, run, get out as fast as I could, this one sight ensnared my heart and I knew I would stay. I had grown up on Long Island and had a variety of seaside fun at my disposal: the wild Atlantic Ocean, the calm salty bays, and the east end with the lush Hamptons on the south shore and quaint beaches of the north.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But they were completely ruined for me that day.</span></div>
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<span face="" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The untouched beauty was enough to hold me there that summer, but the warmth of that crystal water as I submerged myself into Parga's welcoming embrace, was the seductive siren that continued to call me back over the years. That coastline, in the northern region of Greece known as Epirus, offered pristine beaches that were often deserted. At that time, and for many years afterwards, that particular area was the poorest and least visited by tourists, which was the reason for my simultaneous misery and joy. That day, I bathed in the warmth of the Ionian and I was renewed.</span><br />
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Here are the links for <i>The Nifi, Your Own Kind,</i> and <i>Among the Zinnias.</i> I hope you'll give one of them a try!<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas/dp/0989219410/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1583001499&sr=1-1">Amazon UK</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1">Amazon.com</a></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d57c0f65-7fff-a59d-407c-3974c504468f"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div></div></div></div>The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-84203115555008331962020-06-29T07:00:00.000-04:002020-06-29T07:00:27.324-04:00Closed Borders<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Kostas, the Roofer has been on my mind lately. He sometimes emerges in my thoughts as I think about the Covid19 border closings.<br />
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By all rights Kostas should be known as <i>Kostas, the Baker, </i>having been denied his true profession through the actions of a few men who gathered one night to draw lines on a map. And thus change the trajectory of Kostas's life along with a few thousand others.<br />
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Back in the 1940s, when Kostas was a child, his family home was located in a place called Northern Epirus in Greece and the family bakery was in the port of Igoumenitsa. The house and the bakery were not terribly far from each other. Travel between them was somewhat like commuting from today's suburbs to a nearby city. The bakery was a successful business, one that would be passed down to Kostas as he came of age -- as was the Greek custom on the countryside and still is today in many cases.<br />
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However, in 1946 the winners of the second world war split their bounty and a line was drawn overnight, absconding a piece of Greek land that instantly became Albanian land under a communist government.<br />
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The borders were immediately sealed.<br />
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Kostas's father had decided to stay in the bakery to work a little extra that night, while his wife returned home with the children. In the morning she awoke to find she was a single parent living in the communist country of Albania. The quality of life in communist Albania was far from that which the family had been accustomed to, with their modest lifestyle in Greece. They suffered greatly.<br />
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And Kostas never saw his father again.<br />
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Forty-four years later, the Albanian border opened -- along with the fall of other communist countries in Eastern Europe. The <i>"Albanians" </i>mostly disregarded the legal avenues of immigrating to Greece and poured over the border looking for a better life. My mother-in-law, Chevi, was known to have harbored some of those transients as told in the blog post, <a href="https://truestorythenifi.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-rebel.html">The Rebel</a>. Some of them had not known much of their heritage in Greece, while others had heard stories from parents and grandparents of days gone by. For Kostas, the ability to see Igoumenitsa again was a dream he'd hoped for since the day the borders were sealed.<br />
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"I'm going home," he told his wife. Now an older man with married children and grandchildren, he became part of that exodus. He settled in Igoumentitsa alone at first.<br />
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His children were Albanian. They were among those who only knew Greece from their father's stories. Kostas's plan was to work and send provisions or cash back to them as they were unable to make the trip legally, for only he had the required Greek citizenship papers.<br />
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Kostas is the roofer who worked on our Margariti house, and basically saved us from the devious <i>Roofer of Senitsa</i>. Kostas is the one with the straw hat in the photo.<br />
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Here is an excerpt from The Nifi featuring Kostas's role in our life:<br />
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<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.2in;">. . . </span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.2in;">The circumstance was bearable only because we had expected </span><i style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.2in;">The Roofer From Senitsa </i><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.2in;">to begin construction soon and when it was done, we'd be able to move back into the rooms of the little house. But he didn't show up and time passed. Nick sought him out and talked to him again, and he promised to begin within a few days, but a few days turned to weeks and then we questioned whether </span><i style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.2in;">The Roofer From Senitsa</i><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.2in;"> would ever begin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">"Don't worry," he reassured us, "I'll work on it when you've left and you'll have a perfect roof when you come back."</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">That's when Nick realized what was happening and with a few choice words, he told <i>The Roofer From Senitsa </i>what he could do to himself, and fired him. But I was baffled.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">"What's going on?"</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.2in;">Nick explained. "This guy is waiting for us to leave so he can do the job when we go home—when no one’s here to see what he’s doing. He wants the money and then he’ll probably use fewer beams, probably not the quality I want. Without me or my brother here to watch how he's building it, he could pretty much do whatever he wants."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">Eftihia told her brothers of a quality roofer she knew in Igoumenitsa, but he didn't drive. He would need a ride back and forth every day.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">There were only eleven days left and although <b>The Igoumenitsa Roofer</b> had a son-in-law who worked with him, two single workers would not be able to finish in that time. Nick and Fotis would have to help. Eventually, we would all help by carrying the roof tiles up the ladder, handing the workers tools, and bringing them water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">The work was started early every morning. Chevi would cook a large midday meal which we all would stop to eat, but no one would take a siesta—including the neighbors, though they had no choice in the matter—and after ten days, the roof was finished, one day before our departure. Chevi, in keeping with the old traditions, insisted on affixing a wooden cross to the roof with a clean towel hanging from one end and some apples from the other. This was to show that the final step in making the structure a true home—the completion of the roof—had been accomplished. The cross, a symbol of a Christian home, was something of importance to a woman who rarely visited her church but was ingrained with memories of a time when one's religion determined survival. The towel was a message to all who viewed it that this was a family who respected its workers, thus providing a towel for their use, and the apples symbolized a fruitful future for the inhabitants of the home.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;">The <i>year of the roof</i> left us exhausted, and it was time to go back to a schedule more grueling than any in the past. The bitter taste of that summer kept me away for several years, while Nick took some off-season visits to see his mother and to install windows and screens in the house.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas/dp/0989219410/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8">The Amazon.com link for The Nifi</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0989219410?pf_rd_r=AGB8VTD8XA7MNBS63WB5&pf_rd_p=e632fea2-678f-4848-9a97-bcecda59cb4e">The Amazon.co.uk link for The Nifi</a></span></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-31255089592295587252020-05-19T06:41:00.000-04:002020-05-19T06:41:19.099-04:00A Man named Malaka.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It wasn't until--with great confidence--I spoke to this man using what I thought was his name, that I realized the naughty Greek word was not actually <i>anyone's</i> name.<br />
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Walk back in time to a brief moment in the early 1980s. Sit at the end of the counter on one of those round red swivel stools and watch my 20-year-old self on her first day working as a waitress at The Expressway Diner on Long Island. The predominant language is Greek, so listen carefully, keep a watchful eye and sometimes you'll understand the body language but never the actual words. . .<br />
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Within the first few hours someone had mentioned something about the cooks all basically having the same few names, which turned out to be sort of true (Gus, Nick, George, you get the idea). But with my own excellent hearing and my ability to quietly observe, I had determined that there was one small man behind the gargantuan dishwashing machine who obviously had a different name. His was Malaka.<br />
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So during the mad rush of lunchtime that first day, desperate to get his attention so he'd bring more coffee cups to the counter, I shouted , "Hey, Malaka!" and it was at that moment, with the roar of laughter from the other Greeks in the kitchen that I suspected it was not his name. My suspicion was verified milliseconds later when Andrea, the Greek-speaking waitress who was training me, said with eyes as wide as saucers and a jagged line of dismay across her brow, "Never use that word!"<br />
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This memory flooded back to me recently when I read a humorous post using the same naughty word in a Facebook Group called, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/thegreekchain">The Greek Chain</a>, It's a Facebook Group I highly recommend if you want to have fun while learning the Greek language. I enjoy it tremendously!<br />
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Here are the links for <i>The Nifi, Your Own Kind,</i> and <i>Among the Zinnias</i>. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas-ebook/dp/B014B5TRYE/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1583001155&refinements=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas">Amazon UK</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1">Amazon.com</a></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-59412568558566854842020-04-20T06:42:00.000-04:002020-04-20T06:42:22.243-04:002-Place Illness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Covid-19 virus has us quarantined, worried, and emotionally frazzled. But longing for another place, a location steeped in memories, keeps insanity at bay and brings hope. It's a fickle life, that which is divided into a love of two places. When you're in one, you long for the other and thus, you're never satisfied. Maybe I'm alone in this overthought philosophy but I suspect there are many others who are pining for a favorite place right now.<br />
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For this grecophile, that place is Epirus! "Epirus again?!" I hear you. "Enough, Linda!"<br />
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Well, I'm sorry, I can't help it. Epirus is a place of creativity, stunning topography, unconventional wisdom, unending curiosity and a place where ordinary food tastes extraordinary!<br />
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What place are <i>you </i>dreaming of?<br />
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Here are the links for <i>The Nifi, Your Own Kind,</i> and <i>Among the Zinnias</i>. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas-ebook/dp/B014B5TRYE/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1583001155&refinements=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas">Amazon UK</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1">Amazon.com</a></div>
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<br />The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-47982080746538305552020-04-05T07:39:00.004-04:002020-11-26T06:42:48.759-05:00Magical Margariti Museum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Choices made in years past sometimes take an eternity to show their fruit. It's not a bad idea to revisit that past in order to remember the truth about our present state. Thus, I bring you the Margariti Museum, an absolute masterpiece! It holds a warm place in my heart and in my family's past because it is the house Nick and I were going to purchase back in 1993. The museum was a far better idea, though I sigh when I think this fairytale view of the village from the second floor might have been mine.<br />
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The Culture Administrator of Margariti, Mr. Mparatsas, met us at the gate with his wife and son. They were kind enough to be our tour guides. For me, it was one more highlight of my Margariti life and I thank them with all my heart for their patience and kindness.<br />
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Our journey begins at the gate of this typical Old Margariti house which has been restored and preserved with funds from Greek philanthropist, Stavros Niarhos. It is the villagers, however, who have made it most authentic by donating original items from their own homes. The archway above the gate is adorned with the signature flower that is seen throughout ancient Greek architecture.<br />
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Walking into the gated courtyard, we're met with a tiled overhang that covers the cooking area where an old style domed oven, or fourno, would have been. The entrance to the house has a beautiful wooden door. And walking through that door is an experience like no other.<br />
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Typically, in the old days, the first floor areas were reserved for storage. The museum designers, however, have posted information along the walls downstairs and they've put small household items on display. It is the second floor, though, that is most engaging. The small wooden stairs are, in themselves, an exquisite experience. One can only imagine the former inhabitants while climbing the curved steps, carefully navigating the low staircase ceiling.<br />
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There are numerous items throughout that are labeled and in very good condition, giving the viewer an excellent rendition of what life might have been like.<br />
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For someone like me, a person who was introduced to Margariti at the dawn of change, this experience actually brings me back in my own history as a Nifi here. Certainly, I do not pretend to understand the hardships of such a life, as I've shown in my tribute to the women of Eprirus in the blog post, <a href="https://truestorythenifi.blogspot.com/2017/09/artifacts-left-behind-epirote-women.html">Artifacts Left Behind: Epirote Women.</a> But I did witness much of that life as it had barely changed since the turn of the century. And then with a speed that is hard to fathom, Margariti jumped from the 19th century to the 21st in one generation. For that reason, this museum is even more valuable. It's difficult to explain to those who have not experienced <i>the old </i>life. Thus, when a young Margariti descendant, actually walks into the authentic Old Margariti house on the cobbled street where it originated, those stories from yiayia and papou, from parents, from aunts and uncle, all become real as he or she walks back in time, a time that was not so long ago.<br />
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To those who constructed and contributed to the museum, I say, Bravo! But mostly, I appreciate the effort by those who maintain this treasure.<br />
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Here are the links for <i>The Nifi, Your Own Kind,</i> and <i>Among the Zinnias</i>. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas-ebook/dp/B014B5TRYE/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1583001155&refinements=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas">Amazon UK</a></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-45643939618394502442020-03-27T08:41:00.000-04:002020-05-14T12:32:34.732-04:0024 Hours in the Mountains of Epirus<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They stand at attention one after the other as far as the eye can see, the mountains in the village of Vitsa. You and I are alone on a balcony, a balcony that fits a tiny round table and two chairs and nothing else, characteristic of the architecture in this area of Epirus. The only sound seems to be the far off tinkle of animal bells--probably goats, judging from the climb of these steep inclines. The beauty is obvious, but it’s the un-noise that has me mesmerized. The sound of nothing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nature barely makes herself known with the bird songs so muted it’s as if they’re whispering. The distant rumbling of a car as it makes its way along the winding road alerts my ears. And yet at home, in New York, the hum of the highway--no not hum, because that conjures up a pleasant un-annoying rhythm. Rather, it’s the bang and rumble of voluminous lives passing at top-speed-- that is a constant jar to the senses. Yet, here a small intermittent motor sound as it passes between trees and makes its way up the mountain, jolts us from the quiet and I think of times long passed.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">My first encounter with that particular road was in 1983, passing through Vitsa on the way to Monodentri. I was sitting on the back seat of a compact car. Nick, my new husband of one year, sat in front. Vangelis was the driver, a bit older than we, whom I saw as Nick's role model and father figure. To Nick he was just a good friend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fofo, Vangelis’s wife, was with me in the back. My only thought was that I might vomit at any moment and despite my inhibition-ladened self consciousness I was able to finally say, “Stop! I need to get out” because the alternative would have been messy and embarrassing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was, of course, before the Egnatia Highway was built so that this trip to the mountainous region of Zagori had been started hours before, in Margariti, and we’d endured a great number of winding serpentine roads over kilometers of mountains and through countless villages. My nausea had started somewhere within twenty minutes of the three hour drive. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I felt better immediately after I left Vangelis's car. My feet were pleased to be the transporters of my direction, but my stomach still churned. Nick walked with me and the car moved at walking speed beside us. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our destination was Monodentri. It was July 26, St. Pareskevi’s Day. The pilgrimage was one </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">that volumes of people had undertaken. This I realized as the car pulled into a small, almost vertically inclined, parking area and Vangelis negotiated a place for his tiny vehicle, among others that were haphazardly strewn.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJ9NY-vjnFV_jnczR18c6WXGFGg4pl8ePZmcO4She08g1rZmPd4nx8aD-T2SH41nLgi3XjQcTQohyphenhyphenpDU8WHAETkh2icrC1f3hTL2Zvpull1xt9ERwBD5tNklQM7Awnw5Y-BdqJW8d1zP0/s1600/20799825_1566961833370803_1883894578584801774_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJ9NY-vjnFV_jnczR18c6WXGFGg4pl8ePZmcO4She08g1rZmPd4nx8aD-T2SH41nLgi3XjQcTQohyphenhyphenpDU8WHAETkh2icrC1f3hTL2Zvpull1xt9ERwBD5tNklQM7Awnw5Y-BdqJW8d1zP0/s400/20799825_1566961833370803_1883894578584801774_n.jpg" width="300" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mostly remember the crowds of people and the tiny church we crowded into and then our trek down a path to a landscape that would have been breathtaking had I not been overwhelmed with the shock of foreignness that suspended me in time from the moment I’d departed from the Olympic Airlines flight several weeks before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fast forward thirty years. Monondentri has all the charm of yesteryear plus the </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">improvements</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the modern word. Many bemoan this influx of modernity with its variety of tourist attractions, but not this author. Choice is good, no? It equates to a bit of freedom. There are many attractions like The Rizareio Exhibition Center's photography exhibits and the <a href="https://izagori.gr/land/institutions/1808-%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%B6%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%BF-%CE%B8%CE%AD%CE%B1%CF%84%CF%81%CE%BF-%C2%AB%CE%AC%CE%B3%CE%B3%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CF%84%CF%83%CE%BF%CF%82%C2%BB.html#">Theater of Agelos Kitsos.</a> And, of course, the St. Paraskevi Church, built into the rock still stands.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZkrIDqElelOPz3aLJmsCSHnhmI1XSw9MjseMaFu3gSdqMO_V1DHYp8Ae8pYO1a8LPYeLkQscG4N5kIJO8k1ELZ8PBii8aFACHpzAUTn5-PWtkUMzJRZakSSOWL_ZvLuST8steNwHIYG_/s1600/IMG_1010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="1600" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZkrIDqElelOPz3aLJmsCSHnhmI1XSw9MjseMaFu3gSdqMO_V1DHYp8Ae8pYO1a8LPYeLkQscG4N5kIJO8k1ELZ8PBii8aFACHpzAUTn5-PWtkUMzJRZakSSOWL_ZvLuST8steNwHIYG_/s320/IMG_1010.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_vJ2FOm1AKFcsPwrBKcZPf1RpwNMkQ3OS7cud0VUJ-ODZbllUlUHyxsM3b8HjJI2PIszu_enBMFNjmnD2TcOz3Y12N4agbc68Af2ejjetJEcC71m0781yoVbkaOHDQpVP0jreTmuRGV88/s1600/IMG_1023.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="826" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_vJ2FOm1AKFcsPwrBKcZPf1RpwNMkQ3OS7cud0VUJ-ODZbllUlUHyxsM3b8HjJI2PIszu_enBMFNjmnD2TcOz3Y12N4agbc68Af2ejjetJEcC71m0781yoVbkaOHDQpVP0jreTmuRGV88/s200/IMG_1023.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The path behind the little church that leads to the gorge has been crumbled by falling rock. At least it was at our last visit in 2019. Hadn't it been nature's territory all along? She simply took it back for a time, by throwing boulders on it and requiring those with the most motivation to slink along the deep edge to arrive at the gorge. The signs posting the imminent danger are mostly ignored. A quintessential Greek trait that absolutely endears them to me. </span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">On the </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">road out of Monodenri, once again we come to Vitsa, a village that holds a warmth and charm unlike any other. Simple and unassuming it's the perfect place for a few drinks and a snack or two before heading back to Margariti.</span></span></span></div>
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Here are the links for The Nifi, Your Own Kind, and Among the Zinnias. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1">Amazon UK</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1">Amazon.com</a></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-11491451370693207642020-03-06T05:54:00.000-05:002020-03-06T05:54:11.143-05:00Igoumenitsa's Irony<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the serpent in the Corfu Channel made its way to Igoumenitsa Bay one cool autumn day back in the late 1950s, it terrorized some unsuspecting shepherds. One of the local children of that time, my husband, Nick, remembers the story well, or perhaps his memory comes from the repetition of the story over the years. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The shepherds were from the Metsovo area. They had bought cheap land at the bay as a means for bringing their sheep to lower land in the cold mountain months, many of them leaving the mountains for the first time. They were people of some very high peaks and had little to no experience with the sea. So, when they heard the moan of the creature long before they saw it, they rode their horses with the speed of light through the mountain trails to Margariti Village where they had friends and relatives. They were there to escape, to warn, and to prepare for defense. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's in Margariti where they learned the truth and I'd venture to say it was not told to them in a patient understanding way or the story would not have outlived them, as it has.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The moan was, of course, a ship, one that was unable to dock near land because at that time there were only a few small fisherman wharfs aligning the tiny sea port. Thus, the ship's steam horn alerted potential passengers of its arrival so those people could get in the assigned dingy and be rowed or motored out to the ship. The name of the ship was "The Seagull," and it came at regular one-month intervals. This was something the locals knew and something the shepherds learned that day. Ignorant shepherds? I think not. From that family, rose the entrepreneurs who started the Corfu / Igoumenitsa ferry service. </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.19999885559082px;">Here are the links for T<i>he Nifi, Your Own Kind,</i> and <i>Among the Zinnias</i>. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas/dp/0989219410/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1582971145&sr=1-1">Amazon UK</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1">Amazon.com</a></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-32093048866877606292020-03-01T06:41:00.001-05:002021-12-25T08:02:58.950-05:00My Life as a 3-minute Topless Sunbather<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGj7Y0jOSfUWW-UBonORttXlAhYGpLedwaaCBigWwz56kfRGPsCclMIJ9c6K-xJe5uS92NJDf_mhgn5SKAkqUCOcwTTpsWRxREAvcQVKFO-k_yVuMRg4O7LUvyweS-L9fWxXRCId_dSTGH/s1600/Linda+Valtos+Beach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="856" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGj7Y0jOSfUWW-UBonORttXlAhYGpLedwaaCBigWwz56kfRGPsCclMIJ9c6K-xJe5uS92NJDf_mhgn5SKAkqUCOcwTTpsWRxREAvcQVKFO-k_yVuMRg4O7LUvyweS-L9fWxXRCId_dSTGH/s400/Linda+Valtos+Beach.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
In the 1980s, Valtos Beach in Parga, Greece, was a bit of a trek down a dirt path on the other side of the castle. But it was always worth it.<br />
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In those days, a woman wearing a bathing suit top seemed most out of place. The topless sunbathers were abundant on both sides of the castle and I envied them.<br />
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Such freedom!<br />
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I was visiting Margariti that summer, alone with my small children. Our routine was somewhat predictable as the village offered so little for a non-Greek speaking bride. Each morning we'd take the bus to the heart of Parga, stop at the bakery for a sweet or two, and then spend most of the day at Krioniri Beach between the sand and the island, frolicking or whatever one could do with two high energy children. Eventually, after our lunch, we'd make our way to Valtos Beach to rest, possibly to encourage a bit of siesta so mama could have a break.<br />
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On one very sultry evening, as I was feeling a bit weighed down by the drudgery of motherhood, I thought it would be a wonderful sensation to swim in that warm salty sea without my bathing suit top. It seemed so simple and so natural. A therapeutic moment. We were alone on the beach so it was safe enough for a puritanical, uptight, American. Even alone, however, the courage did not arrive until I was completely submerged in the water, as both children played in the sand on the beach. Both oblivious to my intentions. I took off my top and threw the wet garment onto the sand.<br />
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It was glorious!<br />
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Until I heard the putter of a small boat and saw what looked like a fisherman coming to shore. He could not have gotten closer without drowning me. He gave me and my bobbing neon-white breasts a nod as he jumped ashore and pulled his small boat to safety. Then, he stood on the shore, his hands on his hips, an oversized mustache encased around a smoking cigarette. And waited.<br />
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I did not want to get out of the water but what about my kids? They were standing on the shore now, calling, "Let's go, mommy!" Any hope of emerging unnoticed was lost.<br />
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So with all the courage of a hunted rabbit, I walked toward them. As the water released me, their little perplexed eyes squinted. They scrunched their eyebrows, pointing their fingers, mouths agape. And screamed.<br />
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<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 19.19999885559082px;">Here are the links for <i>The Nifi, Your Own Kind, </i>and <i>Among the Zinnias. </i>I hope you'll give one of them a try!</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nifi-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas/dp/0989219410/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1582971145&sr=1-1">Amazon UK</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ALinda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&s=relevancerank&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1">Amazon.com</a></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-62601555349936412782020-02-23T06:21:00.000-05:002020-02-23T06:21:59.145-05:00This Spinning World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DL9gBg3RyQRiOAeKEIukMm7CRX5SsK3CzsQGyqG72YySknrA-xKClHd2RnZphjmVpHmJEjh3D_QS8hS1UzjFFAb9tyeBXOkJuwkN9GP4wuj-yL0amZKYSPm99toTyv1-r238NQDBrf-f/s1600/Jim%2527s+Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="348" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DL9gBg3RyQRiOAeKEIukMm7CRX5SsK3CzsQGyqG72YySknrA-xKClHd2RnZphjmVpHmJEjh3D_QS8hS1UzjFFAb9tyeBXOkJuwkN9GP4wuj-yL0amZKYSPm99toTyv1-r238NQDBrf-f/s320/Jim%2527s+Book.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>
Author, Jim Potts, channels his Greek life in places such as Corfu, the Zagori Mountains, and the city of Athens as he spins some very entertaining tales in, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-spinning-world-stories-wide/dp/1912788020/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=This+spinning+world&qid=1582142964&sr=8-1">This Spinning World, 43 Stories from Far and Wide</a>, published in September of 2019.<br />
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I originally was led to this author when I read, <a href="https://www.signalbooks.co.uk/2014/02/the-ionian-islands-and-epirus/">The Ionian Islands and Epirus: A Cultural History</a>, a book I absolutely love and continue to reference frequently. So when I realized he had this new one, I thought I'd give it a try. I was not disappointed. This is an author who has had a very interesting and diverse life that includes a career in international cultural relations that has taken him all over the world. And that experience is etched in his stories. As I spun through <i>This Spinning World</i>, I laughed and cried and turned the pages. There is something for everyone.<br />
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It's that Greek connection that originally attracted me to the stories but actually Edward, the main character in the story, <i>"January,"</i> is my new BFF. Edward seems to be my kindred-spirit-of-declining-years. <i>"After 60 years, close to his contractual age of retirement, he had finally come face to face with the overpowering sense of the Absurd." </i>To see oneself and one's thoughts so clearly laid out in print, no matter how disturbing, is very cathartic. To know that aging and its mind blowing realizations have a commonality to them, is to smile while reading lines such as, "<i>His horizons felt as limited as the Stockholm skyline in snow.</i>" Yes, Edward, I understand. But take heart, Edward works everything out and thus, the reader does too. That is the beauty of these stories. They are human and relatable while being thought provoking and engaging.<br />
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Most of Mr. Potts' books are on Amazon: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jim-Potts/e/B003N1JW2U?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1582302972&sr=8-1">Amazon UK</a><br />
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He also has a more recent work, <i>Reading the Signs </i>(a collection of 111 poems) and for these newer books, colensobooks@gmail.com handles the ordering.<br />
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This Spinning World: ISBN 978-1-912788-02-6<br />
Reading the Signs: ISBN 978-1-912788-06-4<br />
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I leave you with some imagery from the collection in <i>Reading the Signs</i>:<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Plaka, 2003</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Watching the tourists</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">come traipsing down from the Acropolis</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSBa6PEAxW2Fogyi9Xz6L7GRxhe62BaZKKPQq7wcj3OqrSG-e0vvutDiDBZDVTGAKjuXWlNe2KeOadCncN56jPEKZsMr-AA8_pM08qoQq3HjsHZOfjPN7N5vL9kTYnWPM0zoYcqp09hfTG/s1600/IMG_0961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSBa6PEAxW2Fogyi9Xz6L7GRxhe62BaZKKPQq7wcj3OqrSG-e0vvutDiDBZDVTGAKjuXWlNe2KeOadCncN56jPEKZsMr-AA8_pM08qoQq3HjsHZOfjPN7N5vL9kTYnWPM0zoYcqp09hfTG/s400/IMG_0961.JPG" width="300" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don't think they look</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">like their lives have been changed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They're glad to flop down</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in a shady taverna</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with a plateful of squid, in Plaka.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are always more marbles.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Finite,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the fruits of the sea.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Excerpt from <b>Dry Stone Hideaway </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>(Vitsa, 1983)</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before I came I'd had the dream,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A cobbled path, a <i>kalderim,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">leading down the mountainside</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to a high-arched bridge, an ice-cold stream.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The village houses, split mountain rock, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">flagstone slabs to slate the roofs, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the cistern in the high-walled yard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Water pure, of melted snow, the shaft well-made, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">made long ago, eggshell-coated, calcium-sealed.</span></div>
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<br />The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-63229213627014930922019-06-15T07:47:00.000-04:002019-07-08T10:54:26.355-04:00Ammoudia: Then and Now<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1988, Ammoudia, in Epirus Greece, had only a few riverside cafes along </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the mouth of the Acheron River. The surrounding delta where fresh water meets the salty sea was mostly marshland. There were no hotels, houses or cafes along the fanned-out sand.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To the older generation, most of them gone now, Ammoudia is known as Splanza, named after an Italian general who inhabited the area during one of the wars. So, </span>until<span style="font-family: inherit;"> the area was opened up by the 1990's infrastructure improvements and the influx of tourists, I only knew the place as Splanza.</span></span><br />
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At that time, the tables were arranged beside the river and we could sit with our feet in its soft </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">sandy dirt. The branches of the river trees sheltered us from the sun as we enjoyed the quiet splash of the water that drifted by. After we had eaten, we would wade into the river and wash our hands.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That was the year my parents came to Greece to see who it was that I had married and to meet his extended family. My father always had an appreciation for good food and the fresh fish of Ammoudia helped to soften the blow of my elopement to the young Greek immigrant I'd met back in New York.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fish in Greece is usually served whole, bones and all, but that is not something that we <i>non-Greeks</i> had been accustomed to, especially back then. So, at first it took some adjustment in attitude, but eventually we figured it out. We were always sure of its freshness when we saw it pulled from the river and brought to the frying pan. I haven’t yet found fish quite as tasty. And to that list of tasty food, you can add the fresh fruit and vegetables that reached our plates hours (sometimes minutes) after they’d been picked.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nowadays in that same space, you will find rows of cafes with cement walkways that go right up to the water's edge and drop off into the river, creating docks for the small boats that will take you for a tour of the river or of the surrounding coastline. Or if you prefer, a<a href="http://truestorythenifi.blogspot.com/2015/01/january-mid-year-month.html"> day trip to one of the nearby islands.</a> </span>There<span style="font-family: inherit;"> is also the opportunity to walk to the end of the man-made jetty to fish or pick fresh capers. Or stand atop the boulders and experience the incredible view of the </span>mountains, the Ionian Sea and the Acheron River, all in one glance<span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></span></span></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-52788742513012907112018-06-16T08:07:00.000-04:002018-06-16T17:57:21.411-04:00The NeighborsIn the summer of 2014, I worried deeply about a family I left behind in Margariti, Greece. They seemed to need a little more help than the other families. They were living outside our balcony window, atop the electric pole. A family of storks.<br />
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Storks choose one mate for life. They raise their children together in one nest and if something happens to one of them, the other stays alone for the rest of its life.<br />
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When I first arrived in Margariti in 1983, the stork nests dominated the scenery. They were everywhere.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQEz1E8KTW5_h3bm1FjbqKr1vfwVnlak1AFC-0ySupTs1Cz9YcJEuSqlfqa4mYsKmD6k1J0C7Wi0iHS2PB005TJIpTUL4ZNrQnrbteQIBbbzIg5jIN3V3IxWtQ3_S9vjWGat-YSLl3eYT/s1600/Stork+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQEz1E8KTW5_h3bm1FjbqKr1vfwVnlak1AFC-0ySupTs1Cz9YcJEuSqlfqa4mYsKmD6k1J0C7Wi0iHS2PB005TJIpTUL4ZNrQnrbteQIBbbzIg5jIN3V3IxWtQ3_S9vjWGat-YSLl3eYT/s1600/Stork+3.JPG" width="245" /></a>This giant nest on the old house was the residence of the first stork couple with whom I would become well acquainted. The sound of their clacking beaks each morning was part of the countryside cacophony. They would swoop down to pick up snakes and other tasty treats or fly off to the lake and return with their prey squiggling in their beaks. They often landed beside the house to peck at dried sticks and grass, choosing carefully for their nest, a nest that would soon contain a few chicks watching in awe as the adults took flight.<br />
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The children had black beaks in contrast to the red adult-beaks which indicated that they were too young to fly. But by the end of August those beaks were adolescent pink. So the young birds began their hesitant departures from the nest. First in small circles--wobbling through the air with their parents gliding gracefully nearby, later flying far from the nest, away from the watchful eyes.<br />
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The storks' annual departure was one made for a Hitchcock movie as it all happened within twenty-four hours. It was a bit eery. In one afternoon, all the swallows that had lived under the balconies and the eaves of the village houses, would line the electric wires. It was an unofficial signal that the end to the summer was at hand. The very next day, both the swallows and the storks would be gone--on their way to Africa. We'd awaken without the noise of those clacking beaks that had been present every morning before, and every nest, stork and swallow, would be completely empty.<br />
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Then and now, the storks mostly prefer electricity poles for a building location secure from predators. You can see one in the 1983 photo to the right.<br />
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But occasionally one or two might be electrocuted when wet straw of their nest touched a live wire. As a result, the village government put large plastic containers at the top of the poles and the birds learned to build their nests inside those protective containers.<br />
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That nest in the photo is now across from our present-day balcony. We watched that same couple raise their little ones over many years, the children flying away, the parents moving to Africa for the winter and then returning to the same nest each summer to raise a new batch of babies--a cycle renewed. I didn't think much about it until a few years ago when one stork came back alone. That bird sat by itself in the nest all summer and again the following summer until one year no bird returned and the nest was left empty for several years.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUrZTJtSwL_-vGy6mDanZau5oSdK8eQyQukzuTkhndu5A3LRPG_9Z-xOwbMYvwaOSP4aFfvIUyRG8lanUl2IxFZbIYsYxnUCKf8tl17Jj_pXZoK_pZOTTvB7phxF572eF2VSTdVXnEQ7Df/s1600/Stork+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUrZTJtSwL_-vGy6mDanZau5oSdK8eQyQukzuTkhndu5A3LRPG_9Z-xOwbMYvwaOSP4aFfvIUyRG8lanUl2IxFZbIYsYxnUCKf8tl17Jj_pXZoK_pZOTTvB7phxF572eF2VSTdVXnEQ7Df/s1600/Stork+2.JPG" width="216" /></a>However, in the summer of 2014, a new young stork started checking out that location. Eventually there were two of them and they worked to fill the plastic container with straw and sticks. It was a little late in the summer for setting up house, so at first I thought they were just using that pole to rest.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMhiSLUjxPyJlAMsdyGIVrTNORYhjlWfrQV6IUtKbTVMl0oJ6AUcCli5Bh9LsJdSy7lU5TtWIeoGmkieu87U-TyfiSbvPXEJRo79Tbl9ifcH3oztLjG5562rf2bzLdVCBopGkjb8qOgrZq/s1600/stork+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMhiSLUjxPyJlAMsdyGIVrTNORYhjlWfrQV6IUtKbTVMl0oJ6AUcCli5Bh9LsJdSy7lU5TtWIeoGmkieu87U-TyfiSbvPXEJRo79Tbl9ifcH3oztLjG5562rf2bzLdVCBopGkjb8qOgrZq/s1600/stork+1.JPG" width="315" /></a>I snapped a photo of the reflection in the balcony door, a sort of clandestine move on my part. I was so excited to see a new young mother moving in, I didn't want her to know I was spying. You can see her working with the beginnings of a nest. And a few weeks later there were baby birds in that nest.<br />
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I watched them each morning as they grew, but when the swallows lined the electric wires, those babies still had not left the nest. And the next day when every swallow and stork nest was supposed to be vacant, that one family was still there. On our last day in Margariti, I saw the baby birds being taught to fly. I hoped they were able to make it down to Africa without the help of the flock. I tend to think the parents, with their adventurous spirit, having waited longer than the rest of the flock to have their children, were resourceful enough to get the family south. I thought about them all that winter.<br />
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I'm guessing they made it there because the parents returned and took up residence again the following summer, and the one after that, each time producing one or two offspring. And this year they are back.<br />
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It appears we have neighbors who love to return as often as we do . . . and who can blame them? It's a perfect location to spend the summer!<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=katsiotas">Among the Zinnias, Your Own Kind and The Nifi are available with this link. I hope you will give one of them a try!</a></div>
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<br />The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-320787510590721082018-04-06T07:18:00.000-04:002018-06-25T16:46:03.441-04:00NOT a Bucket List<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A "bucket" list implies the end of which I'd rather not contemplate. Instead the list I've decided to embrace, is a little bit different but still carries the same charm, and it rhymes with the original. This list is generated when people tell a person he or she is too old to do something, and the reply is, as it should be, "F---<i>it!</i> I'm gonna do it anyway!" Hence, the <i>other </i>list.<br />
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Number one for this old biddy is water skiing. I've wanted to do this since I first watched fellow campers water skiing on <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chateaugay,+NY/@44.9262812,-74.0909118,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4ccbe86d1470f9df:0xbe4a5688fef0098a!8m2!3d44.9264336!4d-74.0796081">Lake Chateaugay </a>in the mountains of New York about fifty years ago. So why didn't I? Oh, it was too dangerous or I didn't want people to see me above water with my butt hanging out of my bathing suit or, more recently, it might throw out my back. . .<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QAUsr5zpH8P6tcVNDdcnT9KLBMgXr2Bv4MMqdDt_sZyhh0a_zfX4d3XwZkRUODH8MAX_JOfXY7YRvYg_rIw8QGFuXP1SH1SY1169Mg7_ir1cACTATwr6KDnKA4CIB2-gktvTHWnq7Peq/s1600/water+ski+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QAUsr5zpH8P6tcVNDdcnT9KLBMgXr2Bv4MMqdDt_sZyhh0a_zfX4d3XwZkRUODH8MAX_JOfXY7YRvYg_rIw8QGFuXP1SH1SY1169Mg7_ir1cACTATwr6KDnKA4CIB2-gktvTHWnq7Peq/s200/water+ski+2.JPG" width="200" /></a>The instructor at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lichnos.beach">Lichnos Beach in Epirus Greece,</a> helped me finally realize this dream. Okay, so I never said I expected to stand on the water, only to ski, hence the name of the activity. And as a very short and insignificant post script, I did throw my back out. Darn!<br />
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But there's something to be said for putting your fears on the back burner and allowing yourself to <i>just do it</i>! And so, though my back may delay my next attempt, I now know what it is to feel that brief moment of flying atop the water because I did make it to a standing position for about 3 seconds, which of course was not memorialized by my "photographer." However, he is forgiven, as I'm pretty sure he was startled by the shriek I let out as my knees straightened, and he was probably more surprised by that momentary success than I!<br />
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Onward to number two on the list. Run a marathon.<br />
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Well, <i>running a marathon</i> probably requires some preparation, so that item has been tailored to running a 5K which I can run perfectly well on my flat even treadmill, with the added fan feature cooling off my face.<br />
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As it turns out, though, nature's terrain is a bit more challenging with her monstrous hills. And the chatter and competitive nature of the other runners can be a distraction. AND! For Goodness sake, aren't there supposed to be those tables with little cups of water when you get to the top of a hill??<br />
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So let's just modify that "running" to "finishing." I did maintain a slow trot that never became a walk. . . and for that I am proud, placing three hundred and thirtieth as I met the finish line, which is evident by the normal town activity going on in the background as they'd already cheered 329 people and probably thought the race was over. However, I was not last and my bib number is hanging proudly on the wall of our home.<br />
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I look forward to other activities like hang gliding, paddle boarding and yes, parachuting! But lately I've been sidetracked by several experiences that scream:<br />
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"You <i>ARE</i> too old . . . you just don't know it!"<br />
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It's at my place of employment, of course. I've been blindsided by a new administrator, a cheerful difficult-to-dislike lad who looks at my position as if it were invented the day he walked in the door and therefore my twenty-something years of accomplishments are dust and wind. Mostly, the experience has reminded me of my own ignorant treatment of older workers as I started my career those years ago. So, the cycle is complete.<br />
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. . . Where <i>does </i>one find a parachute, anyway?<br />
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<i style="font-family: "book antiqua"; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.</i>The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-12832671192954583702018-02-23T10:16:00.001-05:002018-04-24T05:19:40.115-04:00Winter Epirus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I always thought it was a bit dramatic, my husband's insistence that we cover the beautifully tiled floors of our New York bathrooms with some not-so-beautiful rugs. It's too cold on the feet, he always says, this from a man who could suffer the most numbing circumstances without complaint.<br />
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With my experience of a February Epirus, however, I now realize the sensation he's been avoiding comes more from an Epirote memory than the present-day winters of New York. No matter how long the heater in the Margariti house has been running or the house air has been warmed to a comfortable temperature, the tiled floors remain painfully cold to the touch. And this is in a fully formed, windowed, modern, heated home. I can barely imagine how it was in his childhood home, a home I arrived at in the sweltering summer of 1983. A home with no heat, no running water (so forget about a warm shower on a winter morning) and enough space under the doors to allow entry to creeping creatures or winter winds.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmUUMhdfdU9VgKOSG7bkObF_ERgONgnYrncZQNpaOFlZaG5V5K7GFQNKoGBJbYHeR5P_Dwe33nxSJpFEALT-FlV0_EFE_NJimYkbvsjREszj7FL9t7wNR0-27q-U1L7ipbp6mejaLRaBrv/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmUUMhdfdU9VgKOSG7bkObF_ERgONgnYrncZQNpaOFlZaG5V5K7GFQNKoGBJbYHeR5P_Dwe33nxSJpFEALT-FlV0_EFE_NJimYkbvsjREszj7FL9t7wNR0-27q-U1L7ipbp6mejaLRaBrv/s200/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="200" /></a>In this <i>Winter Epirus,</i> there are several unexpected surprises. One such delightful surprise is the water . . . it's everywhere!<br />
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Rivers run off the mountains, into the sea, from every direction. And flat valley fields have become lakes filled to capacity, their farm roads submerged with only the smallest edges peeking up through the water to let the unknowing eye understand that these are, in fact, not lakes! Such abundance of water exists, of course, because of the winter rains--constant and steady. And that rain brings idle time. For many of the villagers, cafes and taverns remain the favorite places to pass that time. The summer crowds have dwindled to local residents and rather than familiar outdoor living, they huddle beside warm fires in well sealed taverns. At first glance, a village that appears sleepy and void of residents is actually bustling with life. It's just mostly indoors.<br />
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The Epirus winter siesta is the fuel that fires the evening rendezvous as the summer-siesta ritual is carried into these darker days. Most shops still close at 2:00 (and not one second later, as I learned one day when I tried to get something from a launder in Igoumenitsa). The schools let out at the same time so the students and the workers can go home for the afternoon meal and customary snooze. For myself, however, I find waking up in the winter darkness a bit disconcerting, as sunset occurs within the siesta window of time. But the siesta seems to be the norm as shops reopen around six in the evening and cafes spring back to life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO0kyTzXUU6Fvl7yCK9Krxbo8H1RVVEjqw0GhjpUkqplcAlyy6WUS4-UrxEGEb5TJ2TOmoCWdvSrdDhz4ukLVsov5dit_Ogy5mDYTPfzeQd6bOqgsJntLoVrGOEdSNPCbILdz_g1lSPUCU/s1600/FullSizeRender+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1271" data-original-width="1600" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO0kyTzXUU6Fvl7yCK9Krxbo8H1RVVEjqw0GhjpUkqplcAlyy6WUS4-UrxEGEb5TJ2TOmoCWdvSrdDhz4ukLVsov5dit_Ogy5mDYTPfzeQd6bOqgsJntLoVrGOEdSNPCbILdz_g1lSPUCU/s200/FullSizeRender+%25284%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a>The wet winter also brings a new variety of fruits and vegetables. Green leaves are plentiful, their varying types of lettuce offered in salads along with cabbage, chard, fresh scallions, and leeks, or boiled to perfection to be eaten with fresh olive oil and bread. Add to that a squeeze of lemon, or orange or grapefruit as the citrus fruits are so abundant, those that aren't plucked from their heavy branches, are left to carpet the ground beneath them, dotting the landscape of Eprius.<br />
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It's a landscape that mesmerizes those of us who visit her in the summer months. Her beautiful seas of azure blue or her sharply angled mountains, are those which seal our desire to return. And it is not unusual for those colors of summer to show themselves on a dry February day. However, <i>Winter Epirus</i> mostly offers dramatically contrasting colors of a different nature. Her landscape is swept with steely gray waters and purple clouds. And snow-capped mountain peaks lie flat against a white sky for a dramatic backdrop to darker lowlands.<br />
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Epirus is a land of many treasures, meant to be enjoyed in all seasons. However, winter offers much more than most tourists realize. Author, Jim Potts, recalls one February visit to the Epirote mountains in his book, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ionian-Islands-Epirus-Landscapes-Imagination/dp/1904955657/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519396449&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Ionian+Islands+and+Epirus%3A+A+Cultural+History">The Ionian Islands and Epirus: A Cultural History</a></i>. "The cold north wind was blowing and the snow had fallen higher up," and he found the mountain villages "extraordinarily beautiful," as do I, though there is one Epirote village in particular to which I am somewhat partial.<br />
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-82667970774580833192018-01-25T04:56:00.000-05:002018-01-27T07:06:53.702-05:00On the Greek Countryside: An Unforgettable Lesson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">During one warm Epirote month in 1964, the Margariti elementary students, under the direction of one imaginative and cunning teacher, created the most memorable of projects. It was a museum filled with the artifacts that the villagers had collected over the years, mostly ancient coins and other paraphernalia from history, some found while digging on the family farms, others </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">passed down from generation to generation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The teacher understood the value of these items and sought the children's help to collect and display them, creating a wonderful museum right there in the classroom. They worked for days, writing descriptions of each item and then they proudly wrote the owner's name of each contribution on a small place card. It was meant to be a secret project until its unveiling on <i>opening day -- </i>a temporary museum that provided a multi-layered lesson of history and language, one that required research and note-taking, a lesson greater than any the children had learned prior, or ever would learn afterwards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Unforgettable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My husband, Nick, was one of those students and he recalls the excitement of the time. Each day a new coin or ancient relic would be brought in. The contributing student, a star at the head of the classroom, would describe his or her piece and gain the much-sought-after attention and approval of their teacher. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My father-in-law, Toma, had a nice little collection of coins that Nick gingerly wrapped in a handkerchief and brought to school. It was a variety of coins that out-shone the other students' contributions</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nick was very proud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The students created invitations for their parents. They also created posters to be hung within the village so that everyone could share in this open invitation -- enjoy the beauty of the artifacts and admire the students' creativity. </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Two days before the grand opening, the museum pieces were placed around the room and carefully arranged. T</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">he </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">school was decorated while </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">the beautifully sculpted invitations and posters lay upon the teacher's desk, ready for distribution the following day. The children's excitement could hardly be contained as they pulsed with the delicious secret they awaited to share with their parents.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But, the next day, the teacher was gone and so were all the artifacts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And no one ever saw him again . . . or the artifacts. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftjvXBCMG7pK-eAJz_oUdc-JXjohZf_d5Qi5R6T7aooi83_dan1QL92EeeyPXB5xugH63ShUPZRBASvAVvJ_XonpuxUnLX2dnxBalwwv6oLMBCde2DWgxYPfRw9a9hKdKwyeHZgiAuC9w/s1600/vous-allez-arreter-de.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="338" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftjvXBCMG7pK-eAJz_oUdc-JXjohZf_d5Qi5R6T7aooi83_dan1QL92EeeyPXB5xugH63ShUPZRBASvAVvJ_XonpuxUnLX2dnxBalwwv6oLMBCde2DWgxYPfRw9a9hKdKwyeHZgiAuC9w/s200/vous-allez-arreter-de.jpg" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So much was stolen that day. The disappointment those children felt is indescribable, but worse is the horror of those who had lost gold and silver that they had held for generations. We can only hope that this man suffered in some way for his crime against Margariti.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Perhaps one of the gods caught up with him.</span><br />
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-25752783490586230512017-12-26T08:15:00.002-05:002017-12-26T08:15:49.794-05:00Yiayia's Advice<br />
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Yiayia's advice: The right time is now . . . for whatever it is you've been promising yourself.<br />
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Yiayia didn't know how to drive a car. Every January she promised herself—with a list of other promises—that she'd finally learn to drive. But it seemed too complicated, all those gadgets and buttons and . . . well, Papou had always done that sort of thing. But when at the age of 75, she watched poor old Papou reach for his jacket in the back seat of their beat-up old sedan and slump lifelessly to the floor, she realized her time to learn to drive had arrived. First she dialed for the police and received a recorded message, then she screamed for her neighbor who appeared to not be home. Then she pushed poor old Papou further into the back seat, closed the door, got into the driver's side and backed the car out of the driveway with all the speed and prowess of Mario Andretti.<br />
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The hospital was only 3 blocks away so she didn't have much time to think about the fact that she was, for the first time in her life, in the driver's seat.<br />
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But when she did have time to reflect on it (and after she found out that poor old Papou was okay), she felt very proud and happy. And then she felt very sad.<br />
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"But why are you sad, Yiayia?" her awestruck granddaughter asked.<br />
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"My dear," said Yiayia, "it's an awful feeling, at my age, to realize you can do something you thought you couldn't." She shook her head slowly. "And worse than that," Yiayia continued, "is wondering about all those other things in years past, that you hadn't tried simply because you thought you couldn't."<br />
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Yiayia's advice: The right time is now . . . for whatever it is you've been promising yourself.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 8pt;">* Photo: </span><span style="font-size: 8pt;">https://pixabay.com/en/users/PaelmerPhotoArts-126905/<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 8pt;">* Reposted and revised from December 2015</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: 'book antiqua'; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.</i>The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-72767387820919870752017-11-22T18:56:00.001-05:002017-11-22T18:56:49.257-05:00A Greek Man's Memory of Epirote School Days & A Midday Pep Talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You need only to wait 40-50 years before your children and/or your students begin to appreciate you. That's what I've gleaned from my husband, Nick's, attempt to comfort me in a moment of despair.<br />
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We've met for a brief daytime break during the school day. My head, having dropped to the table, rests on the back of my hands. I'm barely able to lift the feather-light weight of an espresso cup as I relay the latest of my classroom drama.<br />
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A bundle of perfectly sculpted lesson plans with activities and mastery goals that could bring tears of joy to an observing administrator, still lay untouched as my only goal has become, quite by necessity-----for those newly immigrated 12-year-old boys from a country that eludes me in my repertoire of worldly knowledge-----to keep their hands off each other, away from their noses and out of their pants which seem to have them in a perpetual state of itch. My arm muscle aches from pointing to the self-crafted poster in their home language that reads: "<i>I expect you to behave like young men.</i>" And it is at this moment Nick starts to reminisce.<br />
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"Maybe they're from a small village," he says, a far off look in his eyes, "maybe a village without water. It's hard to stay clean without water. The family might not be used to having running water. Maybe they're conserving it without realizing."<br />
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I see a look of understanding come across his face, a realization of sorts and this is what he says about his own memory as a student some fifty years ago in the rural countryside of Eprius, Greece: "We must have driven out teachers crazy. We were wild animals . . . with horrible behavior. And we only bathed once a week, Sunday for church. We washed our hands and face every morning but we were filthy, running around, sweaty and wild, just wild." He shakes his head slowly. "We really tortured those teachers."<br />
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Apparently, new teachers were required to work in that poor area before they could move on to another location; perhaps one they preferred. So few stayed and there was very little continuity in the students' lives. But Nick remembers one really dedicated music teacher.<br />
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He says, "she never gave up on us. She was so positive and cheerful and we really liked her. She stayed for a long time."<br />
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Okay! I get it. Positive. Cheerful. Never give up. I suck down that triple espresso and wander back into battle . . . um, I mean go back to school . . . fully caffeinated and bolstered by the fact that the boys might possibly, maybe, sort of, kind of, perhaps think about the effort I put into educating them.<br />
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Forty or fifty years from now.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Among-Zinnias-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas/dp/0989219445/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1511173817&sr=8-1">Among the Zinnias is part of an Amazon promotion: 99 cents for a few more days with this link. I hope you will give it a try!</a><br />
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-84862502313478450192017-10-19T05:39:00.000-04:002018-04-24T05:20:41.439-04:00Rembetika (with a side of ouzo): A new Method for learning Greek<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This method for learning the language of Greece is one that I'm enjoying a great deal! It's the latest endeavor of this high-strung perfectionist who will only believe she speaks Greek when it exits her mouth in perfectly fluent chains of speech. As it turns out, the ouzo is integral to the method, as it seems to get me closer to that perfection with each sip.<br />
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Rembetika, an historical Greek music steeped in culture and history, is hard to define. But suffice it to say that the lost love, sorrowful tales and tragically flawed humans, depicted in Rembetika lyrics are simple and straightforward with many opportunities for learning idioms and colloquial Greek. I discovered this at the taverna,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/musicafepiperi/"> Piperi, in Parga, Greece,</a> with friends, Cathy and Hanne. Hanne, mentioned that she has been using Rembetika to help her improve her Greek language.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguVX5bi9xdaaKJ-loGLyZMNicqUvwp_tORmkudqbunwJr4iNWiVazEwLMGEplI-5mhlnDvwTfUNtd1PVc6f45aKW2JOV2brOgkhLO4S6e3qiFJD4hepQu-rWsL9Gs886MRTxJG-dsNjmIz/s1600/Sotiria_Bellou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguVX5bi9xdaaKJ-loGLyZMNicqUvwp_tORmkudqbunwJr4iNWiVazEwLMGEplI-5mhlnDvwTfUNtd1PVc6f45aKW2JOV2brOgkhLO4S6e3qiFJD4hepQu-rWsL9Gs886MRTxJG-dsNjmIz/s200/Sotiria_Bellou.jpg" width="153" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sotiria Bellou</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYNQD5TuVcnn-cZj-MAsrrKKlvtQiF7GasFeGG2SgHfTFMieNxFFc8soXfQ7i3RMB8AqNU1AgYdGi9ojzxMuuvT9H1UGO6Vo3-UK4SjxBVpZMmcb49emh8h0y6NoDIKty9Piy5P_3c9Re/s1600/Rebetika+singer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="720" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYNQD5TuVcnn-cZj-MAsrrKKlvtQiF7GasFeGG2SgHfTFMieNxFFc8soXfQ7i3RMB8AqNU1AgYdGi9ojzxMuuvT9H1UGO6Vo3-UK4SjxBVpZMmcb49emh8h0y6NoDIKty9Piy5P_3c9Re/s200/Rebetika+singer.JPG" width="200" /></a>The Piperi Taverna group usually consists of several musicians and one female singer whose voice renders my husband, Nick, soppy with emotion and nostalgia (not an easy feat). The singer's voice, to him, is that of Sotiria Bellou which takes him back to his 1960s school days in Athens when apparently he was spending much time hanging out in tavernas listening to Rembetika and pining over its lyrics.<br />
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Likewise, the Piperi Taverna music awakens its patrons with songs that release inhibitions from even the most repressed among us. During the hottest summer nights of Parga, there are always impromptu additions to the music, by overenthusiastic patrons who might start drumming on the table or, in bursts of emotion, try to out-sing the singer in an ouzo-soaked shouting voice. While these shows of enthusiasm are extremely entertaining, I prefer the actual melodic voice of the singer, and I enjoy singing along quietly if I've figured out the lyrics, or if I haven't, just making up my own.<br />
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This brings me back to the Ouzo/Rembetika language lessons. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Much of Rembetika can now be either downloaded to a device or found on Youtube. Thank you technology! Thus, not long ago, I began listening to one line at time as I elicited my Greek-speaking husband to translate it to English. He's a patient man but analyzing language is not one of his favorite activities. "<i>If I wanted to become a translator, I would have . . . well, I wouldn't have, because I'd never want to be a translator."</i> Those words were never spoken, but I could see them in his expression.<br />
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Then, Jim Potts, the very talented British author of several books and of the blog, <a href="https://corfublues.blogspot.com/">Corfu Blues and Global Views</a> suggested I find Gale Holst's book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Road-Rembetika-sub-culture-sorrow-hashish/dp/9607120078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506275942&sr=8-1&keywords=Road+to+Rembetika%3A+Music+of+a+Greek+Sub-Culture%2C+Songs+of+Love%2C+Sorrow+and+Hashish">Road to Rembetika: Music of a Greek Subculture, Songs of Love, Sorrow and Hashish</a> because the last 60 pages are songs in Greek with the English translation. I ordered it from Amazon and it was in my hands a few days later. Might I add that it was delivered to Margariti, the village that had fewer than a handful of telephone lines, no running water, and primitive transport when I'd first gotten there in 1983? Again, I say:<br />
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Thank you technology!<br />
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So, with my book in hand, my downloaded songs and my bottle of ouzo, I'm determined to be fluent by . . . well, let's just say, soon. I might not be flawlessly fluent yet, but I'm working on it!<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=katsiotas">The Nifi, Your Own Kind, and Among the Zinnias are available in paperback and ebook with this LINK. And free with Kindle Unlimited. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</a><br />
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<i style="font-family: 'book antiqua'; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.</i></div>
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<br />The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-81603697148342215392017-09-24T05:25:00.001-04:002019-06-08T07:50:31.973-04:00Artifacts left Behind: Epirote Women<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Epirus, Greece, has leapt from the 19th century to the 21st in a matter of thirty years. Until the 1980s, life remained as grueling and difficult as the centuries before. And it had been the women of Epirus who'd kept that world turning through wars, political upheaval and devastating poverty.<br />
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This blog post is about the artifacts they've left behind and by extension, a tribute to their strength.<br />
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I was fortunate enough to witness that lifestyle -- a piece of Epirus history, the history of its women -- before it faded to an insignificant rhetoric. In the summer of 1983, when I first arrived in Margariti, Epirus was still moving at a slow crawl toward modernization with no indoor plumbing, primitive roads, limited communication to the outside world and a paralyzing culture shock that had me locked in a fog for quite a while. Dictated by chance of gender and birthplace, these women worked tirelessly during every moment of the day for the simplest necessities of life, such as clean drinking water and edible food. During that first visit, despite the fact that I was the daughter-in-law (the nifi), my foreign status seemed to exempt me from such labor as my sisters-in-law worked beside my mother-in-law, Chevi, for what seemed to me like every waking hour.<br />
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Chevi left behind many objects of this laborious era. They are memories and reminders, but not so long ago they were Chevi's valuable possessions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltvqbd_g2gsHZccUxta27zo9DgATvMwEClklvolsUAcbYgEi9EwX8Hmse0cFRB05zPrTxnCbSBElA-1bzdHHuGTMfugNdeYSxyNZjYR15atKAUFvNkDpzlR5BimCgzQDbaOhNg9MZfsce/s1600/pita+table+and+grater.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltvqbd_g2gsHZccUxta27zo9DgATvMwEClklvolsUAcbYgEi9EwX8Hmse0cFRB05zPrTxnCbSBElA-1bzdHHuGTMfugNdeYSxyNZjYR15atKAUFvNkDpzlR5BimCgzQDbaOhNg9MZfsce/s320/pita+table+and+grater.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5T3MIbppNhks2Zs71S9JFxv1BQzCwRXuuyryvADgF7v1I6x-3Uz0wD3kdxKZq4jJXH4STQ175goT-xZnVZ2zBH-00IavevaUeYbUJ8E-pgSx6_tj59DcS-FFJeVaE4GGg9pPNaWiKv0cK/s1600/making+pita+with+yiayia+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="852" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5T3MIbppNhks2Zs71S9JFxv1BQzCwRXuuyryvADgF7v1I6x-3Uz0wD3kdxKZq4jJXH4STQ175goT-xZnVZ2zBH-00IavevaUeYbUJ8E-pgSx6_tj59DcS-FFJeVaE4GGg9pPNaWiKv0cK/s200/making+pita+with+yiayia+001.jpg" width="200" /></a>The round wooden board for making pita would be placed on the floor where the dough would be rolled out to paper thinness.<br />
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The actual cooking took place in the fourno, the dome-shaped oven that was often covered by a small structure for protection from the weather. The heat for cooking inside the fourno came from wood collected and stored by the women during the fall months. <br />
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This wood-collecting contributed to the bald appearance of the mountains and surrounding area during that time. Such deforestation had numerous effects on the weather, as well as on the women's spines which often were loaded beyond that of any pack mule. They learned to carry this weigh as young girls while their bones were still developing.<br />
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That wood was placed inside the fourno and lit. One of my most jarring memories is that of the morning smoke that would hover over the village as everyone was lighting fires to begin the day's cooking. Still, when I smell smoke on the mountainside, a rare occasion in the dry summer months, it brings me back to that first encounter with Margariti. Those charred branches eventually became glowing hot coals creating varying temperatures along the inside surface of the fourno.<br />
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But how would a woman cook from a pot in such a contraption, among burning coals? The pot would be placed on a triangular stand. The stand had a curve in its side for grabbing and pushing it around to the various temperatures within the fourno. The small curve could also hold a brigi, the tiny pot for making coffee. The brigi's rounded bottom could sit on the rounded edge of the curved stand, allowing the women to prepare coffee at a moment's notice.<br />
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The Epriote ecological footprint was tiny in those days. Household items were either made of biodegradable materials like wood and cloth or they were made of metal, almost indestructible and therefore rarely needing to be replaced.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqrMauPm8ISuU8_7Mqt2Nh5VGotI6cW3DS4dWxJXWtpj9gH0JIDvxwTpoTATp6Q2YlbzVYVJ5VDcblQbIhVoOKTy3qgN4pz_AXEeheDIENNPrAaAu9oXBxxXKqAb_JeQ45Febw3RmWhjWQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-09-21+at+7.35.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="998" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqrMauPm8ISuU8_7Mqt2Nh5VGotI6cW3DS4dWxJXWtpj9gH0JIDvxwTpoTATp6Q2YlbzVYVJ5VDcblQbIhVoOKTy3qgN4pz_AXEeheDIENNPrAaAu9oXBxxXKqAb_JeQ45Febw3RmWhjWQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-09-21+at+7.35.12+PM.png" width="320" /></a><br />
Chickens, goats, sheep and other animals were often kept close to the home, rather than the farm. Scraps of food that might be left after preparing a meal would be thrown to the animals. Leftover food was covered with a cloth to be eaten at the next meal. I may have contributed to the impending proliferation of plastic by bringing ziploc plastic bags to replace those cloth covers. At the time, it seemed more sanitary to me. (I hang my head in shame.)<br />
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There was also a round wooden spatula for moving the large pans of pita around the inside of the fourno. It reminds me a bit of the modern-day pizza-oven spatulas. In those early Margariti days, Chevi used one daily. It hangs beside her giant rectangular container for dough. The container is hollowed out on one side where the dough would be placed and covered, waiting for it to rise.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAucK6pRN2mFwb48BwjFKWtAaey1UW5crsYOO82l8GhWTlRTEXrx_kF3ZNM-5zy9BMkWX5i4BGQQ0748UrtcIEd3z_VmMFarj5fH2_u-z05D3qvCLcQemxbuNJ9bGQ4wzWau8abGtiUOwt/s1600/flour+tools.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAucK6pRN2mFwb48BwjFKWtAaey1UW5crsYOO82l8GhWTlRTEXrx_kF3ZNM-5zy9BMkWX5i4BGQQ0748UrtcIEd3z_VmMFarj5fH2_u-z05D3qvCLcQemxbuNJ9bGQ4wzWau8abGtiUOwt/s320/flour+tools.JPG" width="307" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxeZSPNKlmYPna9Gfr_Qd7Sq4jJUYXDuVC8Of0rJzzCkYx0M9VROAbk6NBIHH7wD1JccBFU98tyxECOT8h5cJ_ag3jdLEjDPGuRTPeXxdTW3h9k-kgg7H7gt4VwHS6MRFus8BoU6_ipX-/s1600/butter+churn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1092" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxeZSPNKlmYPna9Gfr_Qd7Sq4jJUYXDuVC8Of0rJzzCkYx0M9VROAbk6NBIHH7wD1JccBFU98tyxECOT8h5cJ_ag3jdLEjDPGuRTPeXxdTW3h9k-kgg7H7gt4VwHS6MRFus8BoU6_ipX-/s200/butter+churn.JPG" width="136" /></a>My Greek family rarely used butter. It was a foreign taste to them.<br />
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I tried to sneak it into some recipes a few times and the results were not very positive. However, my father-in-law from Ano Kotsonopolo, far up in the Pindus Mountains, came from butter-eaters and his mother's wooden butter churn made its way to our Margaiti wall of artifacts.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_KgxJB_G4zSAK_zaZwm11KbNLqrl4VK7AabXL65GtNJnqEFQhQuefg_NIt_xt7eshkhHi5J9N6AruSVIkPeHec7efPANYSG8K4tjR1GqghCpNWWkSaKUMBwl4eWTQd2CnqB2TTbT83dgC/s1600/iron.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_KgxJB_G4zSAK_zaZwm11KbNLqrl4VK7AabXL65GtNJnqEFQhQuefg_NIt_xt7eshkhHi5J9N6AruSVIkPeHec7efPANYSG8K4tjR1GqghCpNWWkSaKUMBwl4eWTQd2CnqB2TTbT83dgC/s200/iron.JPG" width="200" /></a>Among those artifacts there are also several irons, but they're very different from the historic American version my grandmother, Anne Petelle-Delisle, who had lived in New York's Adirondack Mountains had shown me. Hers was an iron made of solid metal from her youth in the 1920s. It was put onto the stove top to heat and then used to de-wrinkle clothing. Chevi's irons are hollow. The top opens and would be filled with hot coals from the fourno, then closed and ready to use.<br />
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These tools were a regular part of Epirote life for a long time. Even after Chevi's children bought her some new kitchen utensils for a kitchen that was moved indoors to improve her life, she continued to cook in the fourno and to use several of these older possessions.<br />
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I was fortunate to have arrived when I did. I was able to see Epirus just before the dawn of those slow-moving changes. The experience not only shaped the rest of my life, but will also stay with me forever reminding me of those who carried the burden of early Epirote life. The women of Epirus!<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=katsiotas">The Nifi, Your Own Kind and Among the Zinnias are available in ebook and paperback with THIS LINK. And they're free if you have Kindle Unlimited. I hope you will give one of them a try!</a><br />
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<br />The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-85633262778203222682017-08-20T09:40:00.001-04:002017-09-17T09:51:18.505-04:00. . . The reason we drink too much in GreeceThere's nothing earth-shattering here, no words of wisdom or deep philosophy, just a compilation of photos showing a random variety of dishes (also known as mezes, or mezedes) which, in Greece, are automatically served with drinks. So a couple of drinks and a plate of food, amount to a fun night out for as little as 4 to 8 Euros. For me, this means that I often order much more than my liver can filter, just to see what kind of mezedes the server will bring.<br />
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I haven't yet met a meze, I didn't want to eat.<br />
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-67816641082582454672017-07-29T02:08:00.000-04:002017-12-30T06:22:59.989-05:00Cyprus: A Country Occupied<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had no right to cry and yet, I could not stop the tears. By <i>right,</i> I mean my life had never touched these places, these memories, except through the stories of my husband, who'd been a soldier at the time and my dear friend, Andrea, who lived it, in her own painful way. She'd been a new bride, in the U.S. when her village was invaded, her entire family having the daunting task of trying to escape by foot on a land as flat and treeless as a cutting board. Turkish parachuters floating down to amber fields as mothers ran with children, but to where? It was not clear to anyone. Back then, 1974, there was no social media to keep the information flowing. The people of Cyprus had no idea what was happening. The radio station was quickly occupied and continued to play music. Immediately, the Greek government sent ships to help. My husband, Nick was on one of them. They were blocked by American and British ships, forced to watch from afar, impotent while the atrocities of war with its brainwashed soldiers unraveled.<br />
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For Andrea, there was only a brief mention of the Turkish invasion on the nightly news in her New York home and then silence. . . and agony as she waited for some word of her family's fate. After six months it finally came. They'd gotten out, all of them, one of the few fortunate families. Theirs was an in-tact family but without a home, without a village. Refugees forced to the other side of the island as a handful of political players, untouched by the tragedy, drew lines on a map, invisible borders that remain today.<br />
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The people are referred to as Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, both groups having lived peacefully as a diverse population of christian and muslim Cypriots until the invasion from mainland Turkey, which forced the Turkish Cypriots from their homes in the south as they feared repercussions from the injured Greek Cypriots. So they fled to the Turkish-occupied side of Cyprus while the Greek Cypriot refugees who were able to escape that war zone, relocated in the south.<br />
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There are ghost towns at the border that lie within something called the <i>buffer zone, </i>a sort of no-man's-land between the two sides.<i> </i>It's too dangerous to settle near there even though it's more than 40 years later. What would happen if one side or the other decided to take more land? Better to be as far from the border as possible. So we passed by completely empty shells of large villages with houses, town squares, and churches standing vacant against the cypriot-blue sky as nature slowly covers the stones, taking them back to the earth. . . a historical site for future generations to ponder over.<br />
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We were there to visit Pigi (Πηγη), Andrea's village, something she's dreamed of for years. The border has been open since 2003. Greek Cypriots who've been exiled from their homes for over 4 decades have trickled back to see their homes, but those houses are occupied by <i>the enemy . . . </i>kind of. Our Cypriot license plate identified us and most people understood why we were there. There were hesitant waves of welcome, a honk or two from a passing car with Turkish plates, a few meek nods of the head as we passed by cafes.<br />
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Where Andrea's house once stood, was a small vacant lot. The house had been razed by the displaced Turkish Cypriots. After the fighting ceased and the population of the island settled with Greek Cypriots banished to one side and Turkish Cypriots having fled to the other, Turkish people from the mainland of Turkey were sent to the occupied side to live in those houses still empty and to increase the so-called Turkish-Cypriot population. One of those houses was Andrea's. In situations such as this one, it appears all Cypriots were united. None seemed to want those Turkish neighbors, those outsiders, those non-Cypriots, so the Turkish Cypriots demolished the empty houses insuring the Turks from Turkey would go elsewhere. It seemed to be something both christian and muslim Cypriots agreed upon. They did not want Turkey's occupiers.<br />
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We walked through the village, while Andrea's husband followed in the car. The church where she'd gotten married still stood, defiled and unkempt. The symbols of christianity had been removed and the pigeons had taken up residence. There was the simultaneous joy of returning home, with the horror of what it had become, and it was emotionally confusing. I shot a brief video:<br />
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Although Andrea's house was no longer there, her sister's was. We got back in the car and drove slowly past the house. In 1974, her sister was a new bride and had lived in that newly built, newly furnished house for exactly one day when she and her husband had to flee. There was a man watering plants outside as we stopped and gawked. He motioned for us to come out of the car and then he called his mother. She welcomed us into the house. She had lived in Lefkosia back in 1974. As a Turkish Cypriot, she had feared repercussions from those Greeks who'd suffered during the invasion so she'd fled with her family to the occupied side. She did not like it, she said. It was too hot. Forty-four years later, she still wanted to go home.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjorkiB77Es0M2JkZPAX5v8Rp9_yVvhJsVvHoPByZD1uU36VRHr7tCdCU-PL4RM9AOCBVnkITRTeMvbS-rY0mVcWpKOuJF63D2DpFC7LNXHyCsBTf5hwysM12ITnent76ri0qEOoMDjm2qQ/s1600/IMG_0758.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjorkiB77Es0M2JkZPAX5v8Rp9_yVvhJsVvHoPByZD1uU36VRHr7tCdCU-PL4RM9AOCBVnkITRTeMvbS-rY0mVcWpKOuJF63D2DpFC7LNXHyCsBTf5hwysM12ITnent76ri0qEOoMDjm2qQ/s200/IMG_0758.jpg" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vJjoByW6AjT6zcujkoK7Q7WTSL35Z76kaI6hkOIIbqyL5H8HC8noubYLGx0yGQeZWyN0uSvwmQnvHaL66tXCLzKBXH3a4xGOIZqVW4iqsK8NoFJ89cMl8jJ3sJd1YcbifEzcnUWK53J3/s1600/IMG_0753.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vJjoByW6AjT6zcujkoK7Q7WTSL35Z76kaI6hkOIIbqyL5H8HC8noubYLGx0yGQeZWyN0uSvwmQnvHaL66tXCLzKBXH3a4xGOIZqVW4iqsK8NoFJ89cMl8jJ3sJd1YcbifEzcnUWK53J3/s320/IMG_0753.jpg" width="320" /></a>The woman led us around the house with two younger women following. It wasn't clear who they were but they were swept up in the emotion as Andrea communicated with the older woman the best she could while pointing out changes. I quietly snapped photos, tears welling in my eyes as I watched Andrea use all of her might to stay composed.<br />
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Afterwards, we got back in the car and drove away from the occupied area, away from the woman who occupied the house and back across the checkpoint, back onto a well manicured, wide-paved road of Greek Cyprus.<br />
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On one awful day in 1974, a handful of men from various countries separated the people of Cyprus, drew a line between their two religions . . . but they are all Cypriots many of whom simply yearn to go home.<br />
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-48880702673094431932017-07-18T10:27:00.000-04:002017-12-30T06:24:31.729-05:00What You Find In a Greek Garden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In Greece, everyone's heard of construction projects that've been halted due to unexpected artifact finds. It's usually a tale of woe as the building project is kept in limbo waiting for a governmental decision -- to proceed as planned or to halt work permanently thus claiming the property as an archeological site. For this reason, it is rare for citizens to report any ruins they find while undergoing independent construction projects. Instead, such sites are often covered up and left for another era.<br />
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Likewise, gardeners in Greece have similar experiences. A mere generation ago when Greece was still struggling to meet the modern world, artifacts in one's garden were common place.<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">When my mother-in-law found an ancient coin while she was digging on the family farm, she</span><br />
showed it to her children and asked, "Can we use this to buy something?" The answer was "no" so she tossed it aside and it lay unclaimed until many years later when it was put on a chain and worn with pride.<br />
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Remnants of war also tend to surface now and then. Take this belt buckle, for instance.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHWoMXYL7s_MsSR_SBDwgt1kepQ7q3mtz5eoeyWR66ugnRdsD_jeN9db-Gl-BYknLJHuuLVFldxqdB9addZOnZcCy17XKGJa5ofnTI90RhVoNuGnTt4MjB17q2VHIRBP3i_vqUJQoL7OU/s1600/Belt+buckle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1433" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHWoMXYL7s_MsSR_SBDwgt1kepQ7q3mtz5eoeyWR66ugnRdsD_jeN9db-Gl-BYknLJHuuLVFldxqdB9addZOnZcCy17XKGJa5ofnTI90RhVoNuGnTt4MjB17q2VHIRBP3i_vqUJQoL7OU/s200/Belt+buckle.jpg" width="178" /></a>It was worn by one Greek teen throughout the 1960s after he'd found it half buried on the farm. For him it was a prize to show off with swagger. But as time went on, the belt that was attached to the buckle began to deteriorate. The buckle was lost and forgotten, only to reemerge some fifty years later in the family vegetable garden.<br />
<a name='more'></a> Nostalgia for the teen-turned-old-man, melancholy for me. . . his pampered American wife, never having experienced war or the survival of such. So, with that belt buckle and with the Italian and German WWII helmets that have hung for decades in the family storehouse, the thoughts that encompass me as I listen to the discoverer tell his rendition of his childhood archeological finds, are of those soldiers who never came home.<br />
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Yes, I know, the German and Italian soldiers hurt many Greeks, maybe more so . . . I've heard it many times. It's just hard not to feel the human side of it, though, when you have the luxury of standing on the sidelines.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=katsiotas">Among the Zinnias, Your Own Kind and The Nifi are available with this link. And they're free if you have Kindle Unlimited. I hope you'll give one of them a try!</a></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-57402520828313664742017-07-01T11:08:00.000-04:002017-08-03T12:33:09.642-04:00Margariti's Morning March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Currently there are two of us in this group. I am the not-so-fluent Greek speaker, making up Greek words that seem like they <i>should be</i> in the language and Toula is a do-or-die, won't-stop-until-I-get-the-point-across, barely-able English speaker.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTT9A5m0BpyXbytWIgd1Fbp0FOVOoe5EUCYEzz5QuPXsJien3Ai1bwgloM-BO2Ch5FxwJRVOVPXo9OHwujx3AYujsc3tXhUOedKiaF7sRwx_tsG1LRFQ3dl2YE5cBkCQv1JUoB_NYN31HE/s1600/Linda+walkdin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1194" data-original-width="1165" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTT9A5m0BpyXbytWIgd1Fbp0FOVOoe5EUCYEzz5QuPXsJien3Ai1bwgloM-BO2Ch5FxwJRVOVPXo9OHwujx3AYujsc3tXhUOedKiaF7sRwx_tsG1LRFQ3dl2YE5cBkCQv1JUoB_NYN31HE/s200/Linda+walkdin.jpg" width="195" /></a>But we are both fluent in grunts, groans, eye rolling and gestures. Thus, our morning conversations are both enlightening and somewhat confusing.<br />
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All are welcome to join us! Young, Old, middle aged, male, female, Greek-speakers, English-speakers, non-speakers etc.<br />
However. . . and this is a big however. . .<br />
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No dogs, please.<br />
Sorry.<br />
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Why no dogs?<br />
Here are 4 reasons:<br />
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1. <b>1962, First Encounter with a Dog: </b>I was playing at Little Jimmy Sorkell's house in Hicksville, NY. His puppy, which to my 4-year-old mind was a ferocious lion, jumped up on me and started barking. I peed all over the kitchen floor. His mother said something like "You make more of a mess than fido!" and then she got me a pair of Little Jimmy's scratchy boy-jeans to wear while she laundered my clothes.<br />
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2. <b>1987: Margariti, Greece . . . </b>My brother-in-law thought it would be a good idea to keep a ferocious man-eating dog outside the door of our small 2-room house. I was terrified all that summer, especially at night. What if the dog got loose? It never stopped barking. My in-laws tried to reassure me. The dog would never hurt one of its own, they said, which I found completely unnerving. That dog was trying to get at an unfamiliar scent: American. I barely slept a wink that summer.<br />
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3. <b>2007: Hauppauge, NY . . . </b>I was jogging through my neighborhood when a dog decided to give chase. His owner behind him on a cell phone was screaming "Fido, no!" which I interpreted as "Fido, don't kill that woman who is jogging ahead of us." I, while running at the speed of light was screaming back to Fido's owner, "Is he friendly!? Will he bite?!" She, unable to process what I was saying, I'm guessing because she was alternating her screaming to the dog with talking on the phone, did not answer me. I went home and bought a treadmill and did not see the jogging-light of day for 4 years.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDuK8RsW-T_hympu051gry7hYTAyv8gLIlHbbOe9HzZ83rwS-vc7NMwpQt9eRz1R9bR1KmZySWqDMhMRdgGvOJZbr3TeJMLfPuhCi5Gm31AX2dUp4Xh8foDLH-AQAvVT5CFTsJtpC6YQbG/s1600/Injury1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="503" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDuK8RsW-T_hympu051gry7hYTAyv8gLIlHbbOe9HzZ83rwS-vc7NMwpQt9eRz1R9bR1KmZySWqDMhMRdgGvOJZbr3TeJMLfPuhCi5Gm31AX2dUp4Xh8foDLH-AQAvVT5CFTsJtpC6YQbG/s200/Injury1.jpg" width="200" /></a>4. <b>2011: Hauppauge, NY . . . </b>We had house guests from Greece. I did not want to disturb anyone with the sound of the treadmill, so I took to the streets again. Half way around the block, a dog coming from an unclear location, was barking profusely which I translated to be: "I'm behind you and I'm going to rip you to shreds as soon as I catch you." I twisted my foot in a pothole and broke my fall with my face and the road. Then I spent the day in the hospital emergency room and haven't jogged outside since . . . not in the U.S. anyway.<br />
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. . . so, please, no dogs. In fact, my plan is to get as many people around me as possible so that when a dog does approach, I can throw my fellow walkers into its path while I escape.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=katsiotas">Among the Zinnias, The Nifi and Your Own Kind are available as ebooks or as paperbacks. And they're free if you have Kindle Unlimited. I hope you will give one of them a try!</a></div>
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<i style="font-family: 'book antiqua'; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.</i>The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-7399719278509842202017-06-09T05:19:00.000-04:002017-08-03T12:32:44.539-04:00On the Road to Perdika<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Greece is filled with summertime cantinas that could easily be passed by without a second thought, but this one, called <i>Kantina Meeting,</i> had caught our eye as we drove from the beach up to the village of Perdika, which lies between Parga and Syvota.<br />
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There was something about it . . . the detail in its structure that bespoke a clever creativeness begging to be investigated. We had to stop. And we hoped to meet the artist of such a creation.<br />
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As it turned out, the proprietor was Thanasis, a Greek who had returned to live in Perdika with his English-speaking wife. And this is how we met the very talented pastry chef, Katie, of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-House-of-Sweets-Katies-Cakes-1499061193640790/">Katie's Cakes.</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuOGF2iXAh1fxLfE9UOn-NerOiR9xQouZ6mXLwKpf_zpfUvuLT38p_4Y7xvgV5YKFlmFNAjZRS1CBQmu29WaMfA2q-F2a3DDlfGAyqOvM32O01gi9SOyHMkvT-Vsuyk2j-_TtGd2yuFiC/s1600/Katie%2527s+Cakes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuOGF2iXAh1fxLfE9UOn-NerOiR9xQouZ6mXLwKpf_zpfUvuLT38p_4Y7xvgV5YKFlmFNAjZRS1CBQmu29WaMfA2q-F2a3DDlfGAyqOvM32O01gi9SOyHMkvT-Vsuyk2j-_TtGd2yuFiC/s200/Katie%2527s+Cakes.JPG" width="200" /></a>She and Thanasis have 3 sons and have lived in Perdika since 2002. Before that, they lived in Corfu which is where they met. Katie's cakes are worth the trip to Perdika. In fact, after having tasted her delicious handiwork on one coffee stop after the beach, we made the trip back to Perdika just for a birthday cake which we brought all the way to Filiates where the celebration was taking place.<br />
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I find Katie especially interesting because she is a foreign "<i>nifi</i>" (daughter-in-law), a non-Greek married to a Greek which is something that comes with an entire village regardless of where the married couple decides to settle. And a foreign-nifi is profoundly different from a woman whose parents are Greek and comes back to Greece, leaving from the country in which she's been raised (Australia, Canada, the U.S.). No, a foreign nifi is a Different-Language-Speaking woman who never dreamed she'd marry a Greek, who only thought of Greece as an idyllic vacation place, who expected a white picket fence and fine manicured lawn with a man from her own country.<br />
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I can relate.<br />
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But I've never had the courage as Katie has, to make Greece my permanent home, though I think I can say, I wish I had . . . but maybe I say that only because I hadn't. My hat goes off to this courageous and talented woman.<br />
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I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Katie and below is the result.<br />
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<b>Hi Katie, Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Can you tell me how you learned to bake so well? Culinary school?</b><br />
Thank you for inviting me, Linda. Well, originally I learned to bake from my gran who, armed with the Kenwood chef, would always be baking up a storm for our visits. Then at college, in a general catering course, I learned a few techniques. Later, I was lucky enough to work with a Greek pastry chef on Corfu. The skills I learned from that person, put me in a different world of baking entirely.<br />
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<b>How did you end up in Corfu?</b><br />
I'm originally from Hampshire, England. After college, I applied for several positions through a magazine called <i>The Lady</i>. It was a publication that had job opportunities within the U.K. or abroad. I had applied for a position on Corfu but my application took some time to be approved and the Corfu opportunity was taken. So, instead I went to France. When that position ended, I came back to England and shortly after, received a telegram asking me to come to Corfu. So I went!<br />
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<b>How did you meet your husband, Thanasis?</b><br />
I met Thanasis in Kommeno Village, on Corfu. I was working as a cook/housekeeper in an Irish/Greek owned villa. Thanasis was working in Astir Palace Hotel, just down the road. I used to go swimming over there and he would try to talk to me. After ignoring him for two weeks, I finally gave in to his offer of a ride up the hill on his big black motorbike, and well . . . the rest is history!<br />
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<b>It sounds like he is persistent, a good quality, in my opinion. Why did you leave Corfu and go to Perdika?</b><br />
At the time we decided to leave Corfu, we only had two children. We wanted them to grow up in an environment that gave them more freedom, and we wanted to be closer to Thanasis' mom. After we moved to Perdika, we had our third son.<br />
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<b>The beginning of marriage is not easy under any circumstances, but when the in-laws have a different language, as well as different culture and traditions it must be a bit more challenging. Add to that small-village life and I wonder how it was for you in the beginning of your Perdika days.</b><br />
I got off pretty lightly in my first years of marriage because we were on Corfu. As you've said, when you come back to the village things become a bit more intense. Having been independent when making decisions for the boys, I found it difficult to have people correcting my actions all the time. I was very frustrated in those days. As you know, the word "prepi" (πρεπει) means "you must" or "you have to." That word still has the power to send chills up my spine. Also, back then many of the village women came to visit or to "advise" me. My boys called them "the scary ladies." Haha. But they just wanted to help me and insure my British child rearing did not damage these young Greeks. However, it just served to make me paranoid about everything from my faulty Greek language to my housewife skills, which seemed to be often evaluated. Now that my boys are getting older, I'm starting to wonder how it might be to have a nifi and I wonder what kind of mother-in-law I'll be.<br />
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<b>If it's any consolation, I think your experience as a young mother living near in-laws is a universal one. However, your baking talent puts you on a different plane. I think any nifi would be honored to learn from you. I personally prefer the "eating" portion of baking and look forward to my next visit to <i>Kantina Meeting.</i></b><br />
Thank you Linda. We look forward to seeing you again.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=katsiotas">Among the Zinnias, The Nifi, and Your Own Kind are available in ebook and paperback. And they're free if you have Kindle Unlimited. I hope you will give one of them a try!</a><br />
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<i style="font-family: 'book antiqua';">Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.</i></div>
The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8961920328072578899.post-11426795304926737682017-06-03T06:45:00.000-04:002017-08-31T05:42:56.685-04:00"Age" old Experience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When looking for a new physician, are you the type who wants an older more experienced doctor?<br />
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Once when given a choice while making an appointment for an orthopedic, I was asked by the receptionist, "Do you want to see the father or the son?" The two doctors practiced together. How sweet, I'd thought. Of course I wanted the father. I pictured a twenty-something-year-old son. However, when the old man hobbled in, I realized my mistake. The problem was with me, really. I didn't know <i>I had</i> gotten older. I've always felt more comfortable with a physician who is at least my age or a bit above, but that doesn't quite work anymore.<br />
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This was also Giovanna Boeri's experience, in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Among-Zinnias-Linda-Fagioli-Katsiotas/dp/0989219445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494156251&sr=8-1&keywords=Among+the+Zinnias">Among the Zinnias:</a><br />
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<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i>“What have we here?” The young man said as Giovanna looked at
the unfamiliar face and thought he might have been any one of the young people
who came in the summer months to visit parents and grandparents. </i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> He couldn't
have been more than sixteen or seventeen, she thought. He was wearing jeans, a
very wrinkled tee shirt and tennis shoes without socks. Certainly a white coat
or at the very least, socks, would have added to his age.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> “Where’s Doctor Michalina?” Giovanna asked as she pulled back
from his hand that had rested on her shoulder, “She takes care of me.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> “She’s gone. Finished up last Wednesday. I’m Doctor
Giovanni—call me Gianni.”</i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> He smiled and held out his hand while the nurse
pressed more gauze to Giovanna’s eyebrow.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> When Giovanna ignored his extended hand, the young man looked
at some papers that lay on the nearby counter.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> “Well, look at that,” he said in a pitch he usually reserved
for small children, “We have the same name—kind of.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> Giovanna did not respond.</i></span></div>
<div class="CSP-ChapterBodyText" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i> Normally, she would have heard about the change in doctors.
There wasn't much more news around the island other than the occasional wedding
or birth and the not-so-occasional funeral as she lost one friend after
another. But the gossip surrounding the medical center doctors was the most
common because the doctors were outsiders, none had ever stayed permanently and
it seemed socially safe to squawk on about them. But she’d been so occupied
lately. She rarely got out alone anymore. Taking Pastore di Capre out was like
taking a toddler who kept her from finishing a full sentence or hearing the
ongoing conversation. She’d have to ask Maria about this new doctor.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&search-alias=books&field-author=Linda+Fagioli-Katsiotas&sort=relevancerank">Among the Zinnias, The Nifi, and Your Own Kind are available in ebook and paperback. And they're free if you have Kindle Unlimited. I hope you will give one of them a try!</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"><i style="font-family: 'book antiqua';">Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.</i></span></div>
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The Nifihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17314074036453521712noreply@blogger.com0