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| Last night I dreamed that Aitapata, Xine, and I went to a very very small (like, less than 10 in the audience) concert in a small intimate theater. I remember being confused about why Xine was alllll the way down here (never mind that it never occurred to me to wonder whether we were in Georgia or Florida), and I asked her whether she'd moved here or was visiting Aitapata. She said she was visiting.
There were three musicians performing separately. First were two women; I can no longer remember who they were or much else about them, but they were enjoyable. (Funnily enough, one had her little boy with her 'cause she didn't have anyone else to keep him . . . think that was A creeping into my dreams again? hehe)
Third was a man whose name we didn't recognize, but as he began to sing, I recognized his voice, and realized he was the singer for Better Than Ezra, a band that escher is quite a fan of. I became very excited at the prospect of purchasing two of the items for sale in the lobby, things that were specific to this unique performance, and getting them signed by him as a special-super-awesome gift for my honey! I can't remember what the things were I wanted to buy, but they were expensive: I decided I needed about $80 cash. I remembered seeing a nearby ATM, and left the show to go get money.
At this point I left Aitapata and Xine behind at the show, and I was accompanied by (I think) my middle sister, H. . . . . And I have trouble remembering now what happened after that. I don't think I ever got to the end of the show and getting the things signed for escher before I woke up.
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| Escher and A and I went to a local Greek Orthodox church's Greek Festival today (well, I guess now it was yesterday). First time I've been to any such thing; I know very little of Greek culture and the rare time or two that I've worked up enough courage to try Greek food I didn't like what I tried.
Anyway, since we had just eaten supper we weren't there for the food, though I did buy some desserts! It didn't hurt that when I purchased tickets to buy the food, it was a smiling, pretty young man with striking eyes who sold them to me. We're lucky I didn't buy a lot more!  We had our first taste of baklava, and two other sweets that I don't know the name of. The woman answering my questions at the booth didn't name them, only described them. One was a brownish cake that she mentioned walnuts when describing, and one was a white powdered cookie with an almond-y flavor. What I originally wanted to try was something called loukoumades, because the description of them sounded yummy, but the lady said they didn't have any at the moment. So instead we tried those 3 small things. All delicious!
There were other booths selling stuff like jewelry, Greek music, books, Orthodox icons, even Russian nesting dolls and eggs. The Russian trinkets and the icons reminded me of our honeymoon in Alaska, where we saw a few Russian Orthodox churches for the first time, so that was a pleasant addition to the mood of the day for me.
There was live music and dancing. Tomorrow there's supposed to be an actual dance troupe in costume and all, but it didn't matter, today people got up and danced themselves. Even those not dancing in front of the band clapped and moved where-ever they were (including those working the various booths), and people yelled, "Opa!" It was contagious fun.
[Side note - I was a wee bit confused, as I'd thought "Opa" was a name for "Grandpa," like "Oma" for "Grandma," then I thought, No wait, that's in German, not Greek; but now a Google tells me that sort of Opa is Dutch.]
We had A on his leash so he could wander as he pleased within reason. Occasionally he would do his own little dance, stomping his feet. He wandered all over the place, grinned at ladies who flirted with him, played in the dirt and pinestraw, went up and down and up and down and up and down some stairs . . . the usual. He pitched a tantrum when it was time to leave, even though I don't think he liked how loud the music was.
The booklet that was given out with information about this particular gathering also had a brief history of the church hosting it, which was quite interesting and full of tidbits of local history that I didn't know. Also information about Orthodoxy in general, and the country of Greece. I learned that, "The official religion is Greek Orthodox Christianity, which accounts for 98% of the population and there is also a small minority of Muslims which account for 15% of the population." Heh - I learned some new math!
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| When I was in high school I was introduced to a girl, S. S and I hung out for years, even though she and the people she eventually introduced me to are the sort I would be horrified for my own child to socialize with, and even though I eventually learned she was manipulative and could be very cruel. I still had fun for a while.
S introduced me to a friend of hers, B. When describing B to me before I met the girl face to face, one of the things S told me was, "She's a whore." It wasn't said meanly, but matter-of-factly. And I learned it was true. B would unashamedly sleep with any male, without protection, without concern for disease or pregnancy or whether he was in a relationship with someone else. And of course she did get pregnant. (She even continued sleeping with anybody and everybody all throughout her pregnancy.) We were all still teenagers, with B being younger, about 16. She didn't even know who the father was. She eventually narrowed the possibilities down to three. (After the baby was born, he looked like another guy who wasn't even on that list of 3.)
B was the sort of teenage mother who basically abandoned the baby to her mother's care once he was born, while she dove right back into her carefree partying ways.
Even worse, B's own mother was not, shall we say, all there herself. B was a high school dropout. B's mother was uneducated as well and worked at McDonald's. Who knows where B's dad was; and the two of them lived in poverty and filth, with roaches everywhere. I didn't like to go to B's house; good thing B didn't like to stay there either, and we all went out instead. And of course B hadn't taken any sort of special care of herself/her baby while pregnant. She continued smoking (cigarettes and marijuana), drinking, fighting, eating whatever, along with the rest of us.
At some point early in the baby's life I parted ways with this crowd, and grew up a little. Some years later, I was working in the ER, and I saw B's mother there as a patient. I don't think she remembered me, and it wasn't a good time to ask her. She was there for psychiatric reasons, and she was in seclusion (locked up in a safe-room with a camera on her), bound to be admitted to either our psych ward or the infamous (among locals) psych hospital a few counties away.
The whole time she was there with us, she ranted about there being no one else to take care of her son. Her son, her son, her son, she kept yelling. I asked her, Who is your son? When she told me his name, I recognized it as B's son, her grandson. I guess B never did step up to the plate.
That was years ago (sometime between 1996 and 2004), and that's the last I heard of them so far. Periodically, I still wonder whatever happened to that poor little boy, who only had the misfortune to be born into the wrong home. I guess he's nearly a teenager himself now. It breaks my heart to acknowledge the most likely scenarios. I really hope he got luckier somewhere along the way and things turned out better than worse. I still wonder, and I still hope for him.
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| My various Sims families have been burgled a good many times. My favorite, and the one who seems to get robbed the most, is the one with the trait "Brave", who is also a cop (I don't know which of these things it is that affects her response): she jumps out of bed and starts fighting with the burglar without my prompting her. (Her robber's name is Robbie, heh heh.) I was disappointed that I couldn't get her to arrest him, too. And I didn't realize for a long time that she got her stolen items back. I bought replacements before I realized the originals were in Family Inventory.
My other families generally are slow to react even with my urging, and behave stupidly. Most recently, though, one of my Sims who usually doesn't do anything about being robbed, ran out of the house and down the street after the robber got away, with her attention on the robber. She even got in her car and drove as if chasing the robber. She stopped at a different house and got out, and I thought, Yay! She's totally gonna kick this burglar chick's ass and get her TV back!
But then suddenly she was back inside her own house, with the robber's face icon gone from her attention area. I was confused and disappointed.
Also, the music the Sims can listen to on their radios is very catchy! I even sing along sometimes! Especially on the Kids (which sometimes sounds like J-Pop to me) and Indie channels.
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| Last night at work I was assigned a patient that was going to be discharged, and was nearly ready to go, but was just awaiting a minor detail or two. I went to her room for the first time and addressed a woman sitting on the hospital bed, assuming it was my patient waiting, fully dressed, ready to leave. "Hello, Mrs ___ !", and went on about introducing myself and explaining what we were waiting for.
The person on the bed laughed at me.
"She's my mother, she's in the bathroom," he said.
Yes, he.
I had to laugh too, and apologized briefly before starting over again with the actual patient who was then coming out of the bathroom. I figured, surely he's not mad, though, since that's obviously what he was going for and it worked! (He -- she? -- didn't have breast implants or any makeup, but he had his hair done and was wearing a nice sundress, earrings, and a purse, and carried himself like a woman.)
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I had another laugh (with a touch of sadness) later on with a different patient. This was a sixty-something man who had many health problems including the main reason he was there: severe COPD. He was breathing 28-30 times a minute (normal is more like 16-20 at rest), working for air, and having frequent fits of very hard coughing that took his air away and turned his face red.
Gasping as he talked, he once remarked to me, "Them -- 50 years -- of smoking -- wasn't worth it."
But then he smiled: "Sure was good -- though!"
(For the record, he still had not been able to quit smoking yet.)
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