assorted
cookies
kourabiethes
OPA!
01. You have at least one relative who wore
a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral.
02. Your family dog understood Greek.
03. "Going for coffee" meant going to a Thea's house, and staying
all day.
04. Every Sunday afternoon of your childhood was spent visiting your grandparents
and extended family and eating avgolemono soup with roasted chicken.
05. You've experienced the phenomena of 50 people fitting into a four room
apartment to celebrate someone's "yiorti". (name day)
06. You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals
a day, not seven.
07. You thought roasting a lamb in the backyard on Easter Sunday was absolutely
normal, and that everyone did.
08. You ate salata with feta cheese at every meal..
09. You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that
the price of everything was negotiable through haggling with the bakali.(grocer)
10. You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven.
11. You thought everyone's last name ended in "as" "is"
or "os."
12. You thought nylons were supposed to be worn rolled to the knee, knotted
and then tucked.
13. Your mom's main hobby is cleaning.
14. You never ate meat on Fridays, and fasted 40 days before Easter.
(For us, it was Wednesdays and Fridays, and also
the 40 days before Christmas and the first 14 days of August)
15. You thought everyone picked "vleeta" and "chorta"
along the Belt Parkway.
(we call the "vleeta" - Xoshchorania)
16. Your were beaten at least once with a wooden spoon or "mpantofila".(slipper)
17. You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your left
hand.
18. You can understand Greek but you can't speak it.
19. You have at least six male relatives named George and another six named
Kosta.
20. You have relatives who aren't really your relatives, like "Thea Bessie,"
your mom's friend.
21. You have so many relatives, that some, you don't ever speak to.
22. Your grandparent's furniture was as comfortable as sitting on plastic.
Wait!!!!
You WERE sitting on plastic!
23. You thought that talking loud was normal.
24. You thought everyone got pinched on the cheek and had money stuffed in
their pockets by their relatives.
25. You've accidentally inhaled some powdered sugar from "kourabiethes'."
26. There was an "icona" in every bedroom.
27. You couldn't date a boy/girl without getting approval from your father.
(oh, and they had to be Greek)
28. You called it "grass", your yiayia called it "chorta."
29. You dreaded opening your lunchbox at school.
30. Every condition, ailment, misfortune, memory loss and accident was made
to feel better by drinking xamomili chai . (chamomile tea)
Those of you who get this...KNOW who to pass it on to!
--
Alexandros K. Petrakis
30
things in the life of a GREEK Child Growing Up |
