OUT FROM UNDER THE WEATHER…

The first couple of days this week…the Holy Week of the Greek Easter.. and the weather was acting up. It was chucking it down outside and the forecast was that it was going to be sullen and grey throughout the week and our pouting friend had forced me to stay indoors and ponder about things. The thing is this…I never really think about being of a certain age…except when I’m gardening and after which I can’t stand up straight or I get a tennis wrist…after pruning the branches. Then there’s this inability to remember names and everything’s on the tip of my tongue…and they stay there…and there are a host of other things that keep reminding me that I’m…UNYOUNG.

Last week I had an appointment with my ophthalmologist for my regular eye examination…it’s only when you step into this blurry age that you need to be probed in the eye and other parts of your body…and she was in the mood to submit me to further tests…the visual field test. With a few instructions she left me with her assistant who popped my head in a machine and I had to press a button when I saw these green lights, like pin pricks, going in circles and up and down and left and right in varying degrees of intensity and I kept exclaiming…`OOPS I MISSED THAT ONE,’ and in saying that I missed another one and another and so it went and it was…an excruciating test of endurance and reflexes …and I really don’t know why they call it an eye test. Anyway, somewhere in the middle of it, I began to get the hang of it and started hitting the button rhythmically and I fear there was sometimes no light but I kept on gunning them down, being swept up in the momentum and suddenly…a female voice boomed from the machine and said…`GOOD CO-OPERATION!’…and I lost it all…lost track of those dreadful green popping lights. When I went in to get my results the doctor said…`Well you passed (it felt like school all over again) but I can see there were some errors here.’…`Yes! Yes!’ I quickly chimed in…`It was that girl speaking to me and I lost my concentration.’…The doctor thought it was her assistant that was the culprit and questioned her sternly and the poor girl looked at me in confusion and I rushed to exonerate her…`No! No! It was the girl in the machine!’ They looked at me as if I was batty …there was no girl in the machine…it was a robotic voice. When I came home, a friend of my mine rang and I was still in a daze and kept mishearing what she was saying…`I think your eyes are perfectly all right. Your ears need checking,’ was what she said.

Ohh… the woes of being unyoung… A couple of Sundays ago we went for lunch with this other couple. I’ve mentioned her before…she’s from foreign parts just like me. They suggested a tavern with traditional Greek food and we were game for it. We were running a little late and when we walked in hurriedly we couldn’t find them among the sea of faces. It was crowded and noisy with Christmas decorations and lights still hanging from the ceiling on a sunny day in April. Large groups of people sat around tables…young and old, mandibles moving, masticating and munching and little children ran around in dizzy circles shrieking and waiters navigated their way through the chaos with platters of steaming food held high above their shoulders. We finally spotted our friends waving at us from somewhere in the middle of this great big dining area. We let them do the ordering because it was their special haunt. Our orders came in one after the other in quick succession…spinach pies with pastry fine and crisp, broad beans and artichokes in a lemon sauce, fricassee with wild greens, beef in red sauce and one scrumptious mouth-watering dish ran into the next and we swilled goblets of vino and chatted loudly and ceaselessly to compete with the din around us.

Then I needed to visit the loo and my friend said…`It’s behind that wall of blue glass and if you don’t come out in 10 minutes we’ll come looking for you.’…I was puzzled but too desperate to ask her why and just scooted off. When I returned to the table they all cheered…`What was all that about?’ I asked. Well, it seems that some time ago they had brought her elderly mother to this place for lunch. Somewhere in between all that eating and talking, she minced her way to the loo…and didn’t come back and nobody noticed. After 45 minutes when it dawned upon them that she was missing, they rushed to the toilet and found that she had locked herself in…and was waiting quietly for someone to find her…Listening to the story, we had a jolly good laugh. But what were we laughing at really?…At ourselves…because we were next in line… and who knows…we might be waiting a lot longer than 45 minutes.

The next gloomy day, to chase away such thoughts of impending doom, I went to the grocer’s under a large dripping black umbrella. I found the grocer’s son-in-law (he’s around 60), who sometimes helps out at the shop, sulking. I was surprised because he’s got such a sunny disposition and resembles a Laughing Budhha…smile, tummy and all. `What’s up?’ I asked…`I’m mathiasmenos (the evil eye’s been cast on me)’…`Must be the weather.’ I said laughing…` That’s under the evil-eye too!’  he exclaimed. Then he went on to tell me that he was wearing an amulet and that didn’t seem to be helping and his now deceased mother once told him, when all else…amulets and chants…fail, you need to wear your sovraka (underwear) inside out. He then declared with a very straight face to me and a couple of ladies picking and choosing tomatoes and oranges… `I’m wearing mine inside out now.’ And how we laughed and how our moods picked up in that cat and dog weather.

The next day and the next…quite magically… we woke up to sunny skies and cool caressing breezes and trilling birds. So my friends, methinks that whenever I feel under the weather for whatever reason, I’ll take the Laughing Budhha’s advice  …and walk around with my knickers inside out.

So, with that , I’ll have to take a leave of absence to catch up with lots of things and my dear old friend from Malaysia is visiting with her husband…lots of catching up to do there…and after which we’ll be flying off to Brussels to see the kids and continue with our conversations with Louise.

So have a Good Greek Easter and I’ll see you when I get back.

Cheers!