Life is so good tonight I can't get back to sleep. (Boy does it feel jinxy-wrong to write that.)
Mike made a CD of thunderstorm noises and it is amazing. For months we'd been pining over one of those fancy Sharper Image sound players, but now we have our own looping hour of nothing but thunderstorms. No jungle noises, no monks chanting, no surf pounding the beach - just thunderstorms. The only reason I'm not sleeping another six luxuriant hours in the soundchamber is because - yet again - my sleep is just all wonky.
Yesterday was okay for a Monday, but I was so tired on my three hours that I actually forgot to give one class their quiz. (To be fair, another teacher came in to discuss some time-sensitive stuff and distracted me. The students needed the extra journal time, anyway. Some were even working.) Then I was so unwell from being tired that I couldn't stay after school to prepare for the sub I'll have later this week when I'm at the whosiwhatsit meetings. In fact, I was so unwell that I also couldn't leave school for awhile. Maybe it was the big salad for lunch. I blame my rock-and-roll lifestyle. I can't sing, but I sleep like a coke fiend circa the Rumours album.
Why so tired this time? OPA!
This year I finally went to the Greek Food Festival up the road, and this is my bullet list summary:
- Great food, but I wish there were more "sampler" portions
- The tour of the Greek Orthodox church (where you sit in the air-conditioning and look around) was worth waiting for, if only because Fr. John is so personable
- Oh my holy-moly, it was hot.
Hot hot hot. 103, I think. Which is funny, because I knew it would be 103 beforehand, but now I see 103 and think, "Good, not 107." I've become one of those people. Except I'm really not; it took a whole weekend of naps to recuperate, and I'm still not right, and I'm never ever going to the Greek festival again unless they sensibly move it closer to autumn.
(No official comment, but I think the Greek fest is early this year to beat the San Gennaro feast. Okay, festival people? Stop that. It was too frickin' hot. One of you is a food festival with a nice church tour and maybe a few art booths. The other is a carnival with Italian food booths plus timeshare, mortgages, jacuzzis, and Bob Marley gear. Apples and oranges. Or baklava and tiramisu.)
Here. have some photos:
This is the reason to go: GRASS! REAL GRASS! Oh oh oh, how I've missed it! *weep*
You can win this car if you buy a raffle ticket... for $100. They only sell a limited number of tickets, so the odds actually aren't bad.
I like the pillars.
Scarves, scarves everywhere. But not a single pom-pommed shoe or puffy shirt. Disappointing.
I just like this photo. This artist had some nice rabbits and turtles, though - click the picture to see them in the Flickr photostream.
I got the "small" Greek salad ($6) which was, frankly, huge, and I couldn't finish it. There were several things I wanted to try, but even I can only hold so much. I really wanted to try the fried-cheese-thingie-with-brandy-and-set-aflame, but that didn't seem wise, what with the recent gall and all. A bite would've been nice, though.
I did get the extremely reasonable ($2) tiropita (filo and feta), though. Yum.
This is Mike's beef gyro with seasoned (oregano?) fries.
And this is Mike's chicken souvlaki. I thought souvlaki was something more stick-y and less wrap-y, but he swears he got it at the souvlaki booth. Maybe the method of delivery is not important. It was really amusing to watch him try to eat this - so amusing that I made a video and put it on YouTube. However, the video is not amusing, so I won't link it. (Abstract: Man tries to inhale wrapped meat sandwich in order to avoid massive spillage, then briefly chews with mouth open as he has dental issues and the enormous sandwich temporarily disabled his polite eating mode. Really not a shareable moment.)
Really, you cannot underestimate the pleasure of sitting on grass. Here you see Mike's treasured AC/DC thongs, kicked aside as we picnicked. Grass, in Las Vegas. Opa infinity.
I tried the bougatsa because this custard/filo concoction was advertised as being the best. It was twice as much as every other pastry ($4), but you also got twice the portion. However, I didn't want twice the portion. Half the portion would've been enough. A little room temperature custard goes a long way when it's 103, even when sitting in the grassy shade. I wish I'd tried some pistachio baklava or maybe one of those shredded wheat thingies instead. I hadn't thought about those shredded wheat things in years. These things, I mean.
The church has some nice mosaics outside. They are hard to appreciate when it's 103 degrees and you're standing there waiting twenty minutes for the tour, but it's not impossible.
This is Mike, waiting for the tour, no longer appreciating the mosaic. Ten minutes later, he converted to Greek Orthodoxy just to get into the refreshing baptismal tub.
This is not Father John, but it is one of the last photos I took before the battery finally gave up. I think it's Mike's fault for all of those faces he pulled when the priest was explaining how a common spoon can be used for communion without transferring any germs.
I can hear the thunder from the next room. It's really nice. So much nicer than plot diagramming and determining when to hyphenate a compound adjective. Oh, sleepy again...
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