int’l baby shower, PART 1
I have just received a terrifically thoughtful gift/game of 33 baby faces for us to decide whos-who from a list of friendly & familial contributors, and we had a fun time spreading them out on our table and sorting them out. lemme tellya y’all’re a buncha cute kids! I’m waiting to hear from tricia which ones we got wrong, which is probably NONE, hehe! ;)
 

good morning chickenhead!

Our boxes came yesterday afternoon, FINALLY! And only 2 of the boxes looked like they had any exterior damage. They were 2 of the CD boxes, and there are a few cracked cases, but no damaged CDs, thankfully. Well it made it easy to decide which box of music to open first anyway.

So guess what cd was peeking out of the first busted box we saw while it was still on the truck? It was Sad Like Crazy’s “Good Morning Chicken Head” album.. needless to say as soon as the truck left we put it on and Mari’s sweet voice came streaming over the stereo like grand marnier on a sore throat - it had a healing effect on our souls for sure. So thanks very much, mari.

That’s it for now, it’s officially springtime (as of Monday) . The birds and flowers are all coming out of their deep slumber, much like our boxes.. so good morning … chickenhead!

athens carnival

Here in Greece the national religion is greek orthodox. They do something similar to mardi gras & lent before easter, but it’s called carnival & fast.

Carnival is two weekends when the streets come alive with parades, street performances, concerts, and events. Adults & children wear costumes and masks, and beat each other with plastic bats in public (much like a pillow fight) and throw streamers and generally party all day & night.. but on Monday, a national holiday, and first day of fasting… “Clean Monday” everyone goes to the hills and parks to fly kites.

Since I’m preggy, we did not go out getting involved in the rituals as deeply as we would have enjoyed in the past, but we did go out to see some afternoon music & performances, and we did go to strefi hill to watch the kites on Monday. The weather was gorgeous and philippe had a 3-day weekend… what could be nicer?

baby got box

I finally got my mom’s package of christmas presents. I got the nicest sweater ever, and some preggy pants that actually make my butt look decent. For this reason, I’m wearing them every day, because I know it’ll be just a few weeks before they won’t fit anymore. (remember - she bought them in NOVEMBER!) baby got a bottle & a diaper, and philippe got a really cute illustrated book on becoming a daddy, written in 1962.. so we had fun laughing at its “charm”. My mom is so good with the books. (((By the way, did yall know she has an online bookstore for rare and out-of print books? If you did not, maybe you should know this in case you one day have a desire to find a rare book… she lists on abebooks.com and her store is called “goodbooks”))) that’s a pretty blatant plug, but she’s my mama.. so really who can blame me? She’s good at what she does.

ANY-waaaaay, several folks are just chomping at the bit to find out “what’s the dealy-o with the packages?” so, what did we learn from this exercise? SEVERAL THINGS.. we learned that there was probably just some uneducated fool working temp at the postoffice during the holiday season. .. so first lesson is (1.) the address everybody has is good, and works just fine. Email me if you want it again.

We also learned that (2.) if you declare a huge value, then I have to pay customs duty and taxes on it. ($100 declared value means I have to pay 23 Euros ($29US) to pick it up) .. they seem to not care about getting any customs money from smaller declarations or envelopes,, mom has sent me a ton of envelopes marked a t$10 to $20 value, and it was of no consequence, so maybe a box is different??. Idunno.

3. ) don’t waste your money trying to expedite delivery within a certain amount of days. My dad paid extra to have his most recent package delivered within 6-10 days and it took two weeks.. (and don’t forget my mom originally paid the same additional postage to have her pkg delivered before xmas!)

4. ) regular envelopes and postcards only take about a week and pose no special consideration, other than the fact that you should know that I love unusual and colorful stamps.

5,) Greek postmen deliver the mail on motorcycles, not trucks…, so consider the size & weight accordingly.. if it’s big or heavy, let me know so philippe can come with me to the PO, or I can bring my market buggy with wheels. For reference, 8-10 lbs. for the half-mile walk home from the PO is max carrying capacity for preggyb.

I’m also starting to wonder what the heck am I gonna do about a baby shower, and what-in-the-world am I gonna need? Any ideas on this subject are welcome… especially considering the cost of international postage, and the fact that ALL our friends and family are outside Greece.

advanced bumbling, er... i mean juggling... yeah! go dad! 

wowie zowie, busty AND preggy b!