Changes.

Aloha all,

This blog cannot be named "Greek de Burgh" any more, for the simple reason that I do not live in the 'burg any more.

Hubby and I moved about a month ago to the depths of Chicagoan suburbia. He was made an offer he couldn't resist, as they say.

I do not know whether I'll be doing much blogging, but then, who knows?

Cheers,
Sal

Whoa, it's been forever!

Shame on me!

Truth to be said, there was a lot going on that I did not feel like blogging - holidays that went smoothly but with horrible weather, dental troubles (3 wisdom teeth and an acre of Vicodin later I 'm ok, thanks for asking), and now my mother is visiting.

It is her first time EVER under my roof. And she's taken over already. I decided that fighting takes away too much precious energy, so I decided to let her do whatever she wants - after all, she'll be off before I know and I want to remember only the fun things we do. Like playing poker while watching WWE.

I couldn't take any time off work, but that was really a blessing in disguise as I am a quite private person (Hubby and I spend a lot of our time in separate rooms and we both like that) and having sometime just with the company of myself is vital. That is not expected to happen for the duration of her visit, and it's not right to make her bored anyway :)

Oh well. Bottom line - I'm doing well, just have been silent!

Why is it July already?

More precisely, where did June go? Wasn't it May last week or something?

Time flies when you're having a blast, I guess. I'm eying 4 weeks till my summer vacation and I am both excited and stressed (as my vacation requires some prep work on my behalf), and simply can't wait, I haven't had any time off (other than the 1 week between temp jobs) since I started working here. Boy it is needed.

On other matters: We watched the new Die Hard on Saturday. It was larger than life of course, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Timothy Olyphant in a villain role. They suit him like a glove - not that his Deadwood role was any worse, of course. He reeks of authoritah!

Construction Blues

The first time I heard the jackhammer 2-3 days ago, I thought it was the paramedics chopper from UPMC Montefiore trying to land on the roof of our apartment building and take one of our many senior neighbors with them. Then I heard it the day after. The exact same time, too early o'clock. Can't be, I said in my semi-sleepy status. Two folks need the chopper, this is just not right.

Then hubby muttered next to me "Tis the jackhammer".

Appears there's some construction project going across the street. Splendid.

Rawr. Thanks for getting me up 30 minutes earlier than I need to get up. There goes my beauty sleep!

Dentistry final update

Oof. The root canal is over, and I won't need a crown! Woot! This saves me pain, agony, desire and at least 200 bucks. Without even switching to Geico.

On the other hand, I got completely soaking wet on my way home today. Mm. Summer in da Burg is always on the moist side. Where is that umbrella again?

Thunderstorms

and what they can do to your mood and schedule.

1. Medieval dance practice. I have absolutely no desire being in a small classroom over at CMU instead of dancing barefoot on the green. I might pass and vegetate in front of the computer for an unseen amount of time.
2. Driving range. Let's just not go there. Swinging a metal rod in a thunderstorm is just stupidity a la carte.
3. Headache. Please, go away. Or something.

At least I won't need to mop the balcony. Always look at the bright side of life (whistle, whistle)

Let's talk about the Spurs, baby :)

So, hubby is Texan. Not only that, but his alma mater is UTSA, which makes any sport event that contains a San Antonio team A Must To See. And, when the S.A. Spurs make it to the NBA quarter-finals, then it's just a special occasion! (no, actually not, they are a damn good team and they are placed high in the tree almost every year. But you know what I mean).

Hubby is also pretty benevolent. He has absolutely no problem in abandoning our home (and two high-def screen TV's) to yours trully and go to the neighborhood sports bar (which has a high-def screen TV, just to make this one certain) and watch it and drink rum and diet or Killian's and scream along with the rest of the testosterone-ridden crowd.

Because, don't get it wrong, I do enjoy watching most sports (with the exception of baseball which I am certainly doomed not to ever understand), but I don't have that level of dedication.

Unless of course it's some semi-quarter-final or quarter-final of Champion's League, which I will watch rather religiously.

Back to the Spurs now: They pulled together a great game, Utah Jazz was a noble opponent, but we beat the living crap out of them anyway :D

I guess we'll see Cleveland at the finals then!

Greek Food Festival..

Every year since I have no idea when, St. Nicholas, the greek orthodox church of my neighborhood hosts a food festival. Since I don't cook much (I'm more like the kind of girl that like to use no more than one pan or pot for cooking), and hubby really really likes lamb and pitta, we go there, and every, but every time, I get annoyed for the same reasons.

The food is the same every year. A fish plaki, a chicken riganato, a beef stifado, soutzoukakia, tiropita, spanakopita, mousakas, pastitsio and pilafi. Along with dolmades, various desserts (including kourambiedes and melomakarona completely disregarding the fact that they are supposed to be eaten during Christmas), a salad that has more lettuce and small whole peppers than it should and absolutely no cucumber, and bread with butter (totally unheard of anywhere that sells traditional greek food).

But it's not just the menu that is completely uninspired. The flavours are watered down and boring, except for the desserts, and the prices are simply outrageous. Every year I am considering buying a piece of spanakopita, but I just cannot bring myself paying $3 for a 4"x4" piece, when in Greece I pay half for double the portion. I understand that it's supposed to be a novelty and a fundraiser, but I doubt that any of the ingredients (save for the feta maybe) are imported at all.

And, more than anything, it is annoying how the rest of the Pittsburghers think that THIS is what Greek cuisine is about. Oh well.

One could tell me that I should find a solution instead of complaining about the problem, but unfortunately I don't exactly get paid by the EOT, so...

Speaking of golf..

I read in the news today (late, as it seems, according to hubby), that they want to rename the Schenley Park Golf Course after our late Mayor Bob O'Connor.

Why oh why.

Was Mayor Bob THAT bad? Schenley is easily the worst golf course in the Tri-State! But what do I know (other than the fact that their tee boxes are made of artificial turf that makes teeing off next to impossible, that their fairway grass length is as tall as everyone else's rough and they only have one set of tees)?

*Sigh...

There are certain reasons why I love this city.

One of them is the abundance of golf courses that one can play w'out paying with an arm, leg or firstborn. Both hubby and I are avid golfers (although not particularly good, just good enough not to be frustrated), since the weather finally decided to bear some resemblance of sping, we cleaned the clubs, arranged with a couple of hubbie's friends and hit Meadowink Public Golf Course.

Not resembling the PGA guys in any form or way, we had a great time being out and around, getting even a mild tan, and hitting the occasional miraculous shot that makes you come back to the game no matter how many bad shots you had before the good one. The golf course might not be nature per se, but in an urban setting, getting as much away from the noise of the motor cars etcetera and just spending some times among cliffs, trees, grass, ponds and bird chirping is not to be taken lightly.

Now I can't wait for the next round!

Gratuitous Display of Cuteness

Click on play at your own risk! (giggles)

What Are you Gonna Do To The Monster - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

I thought i had seen (and heard) everything...

..till Tinsie (find her blog at my links on your right) guided me to the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. I hadn't fell that sick in my stomach even when I had the flu.

Tinsie says that if you were a musician you should be start crocheting if this abomination wins first place. I find it a very sensible idea...

I won't even go into the perils of hosting the video of the song into this blog, but I can tell you that if Barbie had her own TV show, her titles would fall with this music...

St Patrick's Day Is Upon Us!

I won't bother you with the origins of the celebration, after all Wikipedia is your friend, right? What I wanna say is that it's really funny that commercialism has crawled into every little opportunity that people might have to spend money on.

Go to the grocery store; it'll have at least one isle dedicated to Irish (or should I say Irish-American?) related parafernalia. Shamrock, leprechauns, top hats, pots of gold, green tinsel, name it. Along with the obligatory message on everything: "Kiss me, I'm Irish".

I think that the icing on the cake was that we went to the movie theater earlier today, and while we were waiting for our movie to start, the speakers played Irish folk music, just as like they'd play Xmas (sorry, I meant xmaskwanzaanuckah music) music around December.

The Swedish Shoppe

I love Walnut Street. It had all the nice little shops with artisans selling unique items such as Native American jewelry and sculpture, Italian pottery, Latin American woven goods, the list is endless. Not to mention the couple of coffee shops and bars, boutiques and other oddities.

I used to live a couple of blocks away from Walnut, and at a part of the city that when I was snowed in, I could only go shop there (to the Rite Aid or the overpriced Shadyside Market), so, when we moved a bit further in July, I had no practical use for going there.

So, yesterday, hubby and me decided to go for dinner at Walnut Grill, a nice little restaurant with interesting entrees* and huge portions of desserts along with reasonable pricing. After we were done eating, happily stuffed, we decided to look around, since it had been some time since we had done so. And thus, I stumbled onto The Swedish Shoppe.

It's a nice little place run by a very friendly Swedish-American woman, she sells little wooden horses and wooden spoons and painted clogs along with sweets and jewelry and other stuff imported from her native land, all placed together in a way that the shop does not look really cluttered. I get all anxious in cluttered spaces.

I browsed around some, chit-chatted with the owner a lot, about Swedish and Greek men, holidays, how it is like going back home as a tourist. Having claimed so much of her time, I thought that it was only courteous to buy something, even though I had not though of initially doing so.

I picked up a deck of cards with blue wooden horses painted on the back side. I took it to the register and prepared to pay.

And she wrapped it up. With nice blue paper and a golden ribbon. Noone had done that w'out request since I left Greece. It just struck home.

I paid and left, certain that I will be back. After all, there was this gorgeous silver bracelet with amethysts....

More dentistry

So I had to go for a teeth cleaning today. I hadn't been for a while, and it is the right thing to do. And, as much as I totally detest going to the dentist, I have found that the people that do the cleaning at UPMC Dental are actually pretty decent.

So I get there, and I know that I have a co-pay of 5 bucks. A very trivial amount, that is, I have absolutely no problem paying for it, since that's what I paid for.

But paying it BEFORE I received treatment? Am I alone to believe that it should be the other way around?

I am confused!