I woke up thinking it was Saturday. Finally shifted my brain around to it being Friday. I got a chuckle reading a chapter from “Extravagant Grace” this morning. The book contains devotionals about God’s gift of grace written by six women of faith. This chapter was written by Sheila Walsh and she wrote “…I’ll admit I needed to lose weight. I don’t mean I was huge. You couldn’t have shown Ben Hur on my posterior, but I definitely fell into the ‘chunky’ category. I had tried for ages to lose the twenty pounds that I tucked into my jeans and under my sweater; but they were clingy little pounds and reluctant to be evicted from their cozy, well-fed home.” Oh how I can relate to that!!! However, at weigh-in this week, I was down 9.4 pounds so there is hope!
Bill and I talked about going to the Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church this weekend. We haven’t been in years. Bill thought we should go ahead and go this afternoon and beat the crowd. I wasn’t gung ho on going. It meant another one of those “first times without Clint” memories as well as food, food and more food. He even told me he would go by himself if I was just going to be a wet blanket. While I got ready to go he made the mail run. When he got home he told me that when he went to Sound Credit Union to get some $$ for our outing, the drive up windows were open but he couldn’t go inside the bank. There was a police car on the scene. All the teller at the window would say is “we are going through a procedure and I can’t talk about it.” I said it sounded like they had been robbed. And that isn’t the first time that has happened to them!
We left here about 2:30. I knit on the thermal baby afghan on the drive into Tacoma. I need to make a concerted effort to finish that project as it has been on the needles way too long now. We checked out the pastry shop and I resisted the urge to buy anything there. In the Festival booklet it said over 19,000 individual cookies were made for this year’s Festival. Wow! We went downstairs to the indoor dining hall where they serve dinner. On Friday and Saturday dinner is chicken or fish, and on Sunday they also have lamb. The dinners come with Greek salata (salad), rice pilaf and Yiahni (green beans and zucchini in a tomato sauce with spices).
We wanted to check out of the other offerings before deciding what to do about “dinner.” We purchased some tokens so we could get a plate of dolmathes (grape leaves stuffed with meat and rice) for an appetizer. We passed up calamari (deep fried battered squid) and Greek fries (topped with oregano and Feta cheese) and got some souvlákia (skewers of succulent cubes of marinated barbecued pork). That was REALLY good. There were also skewers of Greek sausage but that didn’t tickle our fancy either. We passed up the Greek Saláta knowing that would be on the dinner plate. At the end of that row of goodies there was an Import Shop with a variety of Greek souvenirs. I passed up the belly dancing scarf with all the bangles although I considered a Greek fisherman’s hat. On the other side of the tent was the Coffee Shop featuring gourmet pastries and desserts and Greek coffee. The Greek Deli had all kinds of imported specialties which we would check out before we left for home.
We decided to get one of the chicken dinners and divide that up along with other goodies in the tent. Bill got another plate of dolmathes to go with the chicken dinner which was enough for two by itself. They gave you half a chicken! We ate a little of everything on the plate but packaged up about half of it to bring home. Bill really wanted to see the dancers but they weren’t due onstage until six o’clock and when he went back out into the tent, it was still only 4:30. As it turned out, some kids who were out of school were on the stage warming up or whatever so we got a seat at a table with a good view of the stage and watched them while Bill munched on a gyros, sharing an occasional bite with me (I see on WW those are 15 points!). Since I’ve gotten used to eating small amounts of food every 3-4 hours, eating a whole lot at one time is hard for me to do. So I was happy to sit and knit and munch my way through several hours. Yes, I had managed to drop the “wet blanket” mode and cast any thoughts of Weight Watchers to the wind for the duration.
I got a couple of tiropita (baked thin layers of filo filled with a mixture of Greek feta cheese, egg, and other delicious cheeses). I ate one last night and I’m toasting the second one to eat as I write. Of course, the toaster works better if you actually hit the “start” button! I don’t know why they don’t have spanakopita - the little spinach pies that I love. Bill put a skewer of souvlákia in our take home box but none of that skewer made it home.
Somewhere in the midst of eating and knitting, I noticed the sweater of an older lady sitting next to me. I asked her if she knit the sweater. She said she does knit but had bought the sweater. She was with a gentleman sitting across the table from her. And thus we struck up a conversation with Margot and Joe. Margot is recently widowed for the second time. She lived out in the Vaughn area for 35 years but now lives in a condo on the waterfront in Tacoma. We learned that Joe owns The Farm, a place we pass all the time on Hwy 302. In fact, Bill has been in there and bought things before so he recognized Joe.
While we were “visiting,” the dancers began their program of traditional folk dances from Greece. According to the Festival booklet, “The dances, along with the music, are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. [The costumes are all made by folks in the church- my note] and are indicative of those traditionally worn by men and women at special occasions, each costume originating in a different part of the country.” First they have the young ones who are always so cute. They did three or four dances and then the older ones came up. There were a dozen or more of them and they are all the way up through high school age. I’ve always been so pleased to see that the older young people would do something like this. I have put the rest of the folk dance pictures we took in an album which I’ll leave up until I need the space.
Margot told me about a trip to Scandinavia where she and her husband bought sweaters for everyone in the family except themselves! She was in the yarn shop in Gig Harbor recently and purchased yarn and a cabled pattern to knit herself a sweater. However, she’s having problems getting started and said she hadn’t knit more than a few inches on it and had ripped that out three times already! Sound like anyone we know??? I gave her my phone number and told her to give me a call and I’d see if I can help her out. She said it will be November as she has company next week and then will be spending a couple of weeks in Arizona with a girlfriend.
After Joe and Margot left we were joined by a young woman with two children. The woman, Valerie, is expecting pretty soon. Her husband Brad was standing in some very long lines to get them food so we were really glad we went early. Although by time Valerie’s family came along, I had consumed a yummy piece of oúzo cake. Anyway, Valerie and Brad (a firefighter) have two really cute kids – Mason (4) and Kyle (2). My heart broke when I learned that Mason has leukemia. They had just learned that Valerie was pregnant again when Mason was diagnosed. He is facing 3 1/2 years of chemo.
When we were talking with Margot earlier in the evening, she mentioned talking to her daughter who works in the Peninsula School District. The daughter said the schools had been locked down earlier today. I told her Bill’s “bank” story and when we compared notes, it was around the same time. We all wondered if there was some connection. When Bill went into Key Center this morning he learned that the credit union had, indeed, been robbed. He called me so I went online to The News Tribune website and found the story and it appears the school lockdown was a diversion for the robbery. The school got a call about 11:30 and was told that a man with a weapon was headed to the high school. As police investigated that, a white male in his 30’s robbed Sound Credit Union. Apparently he gave them a note, took the money, apologized and left.
Now didn’t we just have TOO much fun!
Don’t get sidetracked by looking at the faults of others. Look to Jesus. He alone is the way to heaven. – Dave Branon
There is no excuse for saying "No" to Christ.
Hi Diane. Was finally able to get out cyberwalking again and wanted to check on you and see what you were up to ... 
Hi Carol, I get a "lump in my chest" reading your thoughts that you share .. thanks for reminding us how life is a 
Bravenet Blog 
Blog Community
Get a Free Blog
Manage your Blog
God Bless~ 
bravenet.com