Saturday, June 1, 2013

All well again with blog and Farmer's Market


           

I was going to change my picture but have not been able to find the spot where it's done. I'm tired of looking at myself each time I make a comment. Anyway, the photo is 5 years old and I seem to have aged 20 years in the last 5 and don't want to misrepresent myself even if no one cares what I look like. 


I went to our local Farmer's market this morning. Always go to the tables where two Greek nuns from a monastery nearby sell goat cheese,  vegetables , cookies, cakes, frozen meals and more. I know the older nun, Smily, a girl in her late twenties and always have good conversations with her. The only time she did not smile is the time I asked her if they still sold candles. She wanted to know what I use them for and seemingly satisfied with my answer promised to bring me some the following week (Saturday market only). I was not to tell anybody because she does not display them on the table anymore having learned that they are being used in witchcraft around here. Today I was told that she was resting in the truck. So, I talked with her assistant. A very young girl, big blue smiling eyes. She asked me questions and I answered. Learned a lesson - NEVER  talk to a YOUNG nun about religion NEVER tell a YOUNG nun that you were baptised on a Greek Island but that you are no longer Greek Orthodox.  My friend  in Montreal who is much involved with the Greek community , not religiously but business wise, tells me that quite a few mothers were saving up for the daughter's 'prika', dowry, and are now crying because the daughter ran away to the monastery.
I bought the 'spanakopita'-Spinach/Feta/Mille Feuille pieces that I wanted and left the brainwashed child with a customer.  

Wow, I googled Greek nuns and then Images and this one was amongst the ones that came up. It is the very one nun in her late twenties, at our Val-David market, that I am talking about.  


         

20 comments:

Tom said...

I trust the young nun didn't berate you too soundly. I would like to have said not at all, but she appears to have 'had a go' at you. Naughty! But youngsters are so impassioned, says he with much gravitas befitting his years.

I'm sure a new photograph would look lovely. Confidentially, I do find it useful to hide my zimmer in similar circumstances!

Lucy said...

She certainly looks smiley. Why do so many Greek women look like Nana Mouskouri? It must be the slightly tinted square glasses. This one looks like a young NM in a nun's habit. I had an aunt who was a nun (RC, converted) who looked like my dad in a nun's habit.

Baptised on a Greek island? You certainly have an interesting hinterland, Ellena...

Lucy said...

I had a profile photo for about my first six months than got tired of seeing myself. To change or get rid of yours, best way is click on your profile on your blog, when it comes up go to 'Edit profile', orange button, top right. The 'profile photo' bit is the third item.

Ellena said...

Thank you so much Lucy! I'll be back.

Tom said...

Lovely hair, but where's the matching lovely face?

Roderick Robinson said...

All these proscriptions: "Never talk..." etc. Are you saying they out-talked you? Come on, Ellena, you're in the Blogo World League now; all of us are capable of talking down a fire-plug.

I note you go in for what may be labelled creative ambiguity. By crossing out with a line (instead of simply deleting) you allow your readers to read what theoretically you don't want them to read. It's also called having your cake and eating it.

Not only do you allow them, you encourage them. I've just gone back and read it again.

Not my cup-of-tea a spinach/feta, millefeuille; in fact you may say it's no one's cup of tea since it's a sort of savoury pasty. Are you veggy? I'm only asking so that I don't crack any meat jokes in your hearing.

Way back there I meant more French.

Roderick Robinson said...

PS When I said "files" back there I was only reproducing what you'd typed. Course I knew you meant flies. But you know me: once a bully, always a bully.

If you want me banned from your blog, for bullying or any other reason, I can tell you how to do it.

Ellena said...

Tom!
I have difficulties writing posts and comments. I thought it might become easier when I can pretend to myself that someone else is writing.
Very different reason from yours to hide my face. Actually, you have no reason at all.
Lucy!
Now that I am no longer me, I feel I can say anything I want and don't need to worry what anybody will think of me. Did your dad smoke cigar or cigarettes? ok, were you close to your nun aunt?
No idea about Greek women's look. Ask me about men.
Hinterland, a new word for me. Love it.
RR!
Stop! I googled proscription to find out that it's not a new word for me to learn.
As for crossing out I like to try new stuff.
Just made an Avgolemono with big pieces of chicken floating in it.
French, I need to find out where to click to get my accents working.

Roderick Robinson said...

Accents. Use My Computer to find the Windows folder. Scroll down in Windows until your find a file called Character Map. Right-click on that and then click on Create Shortcut in the drop-down menu. Drag the newly created icon out on to your computer desktop and keep it in the top right-hand corner of your screen so it's easily accessible and doesn't foul up anything else you're working on. In effect you copy/paste the accented characters into whatever you use to write your posts.

Now: lots and lots of Baudelaire. Or the instructions on the back of your driving licence.

Roderick Robinson said...

PS: I trust you're not confusing proscription with prescription.

Ellena said...

RR!
As for 'Accents', maybe. I was told it's one of the 'F keys' on my Toshiba.
I must have misspelled proscription
when I asked Google to define the word. You sure have the knack for making me look like a fool.
Short of banning you, I will ignore the next 5 comments of yours giving you a chance to ban me.

Roderick Robinson said...

(1) Oh, there there! Good idea re. banning...

Roderick Robinson said...

(2) ... shortly...

Roderick Robinson said...

(3) ... I'll be going...

Roderick Robinson said...

(4) ...on...

Roderick Robinson said...

(5) ... vacation.

Lucy said...

Hee hee, no on both counts.

My dad was a virtuous, gentle and clean-living man with no bad habits (took me a moment to get that!) except perhaps a preference for hard toilet paper which he tried to impose on the rest of the family. We conformed for many years but then revolted and my mum bought the soft stuff, and we never looked back :~).

I wasn't close to my nun aunt, though she occasionally gave me a plastic holy medallion or a picture of a virgin saint. I'm afraid she was rather a family joke; she was an infuriatingly irritating person and the other nuns at the convent more or less confessed at times that she drove them demented - we had the impression that driving her out and about on family visits was some kind of penance for them. Many of my father's family were religious maniacs of one kind or another, my mother feared to let us too near them in case it was catching. My father was only excessive in his patient and peaceable agnosticism, however.

Do you use Google Chrome as a browser? If so, and it is worth trying it, there's a useful toolbar extension you can install called 'Accents Plus' which gives you all kinds of accents and characters really easily. It's much quicker then all that character map stuff, and works in most situations when you're on-line.

Rouchswalwe said...

Yikes. My English teacher in high school was an ex-nun. It was the only class in which I sat all the way in the back of the room ... and I kept my head down.

Ellena said...

Lucy!
Soft toilet paper did not exist for many years, after the war. My farther complained about the hard paper and washed himself instead. How do I know? 'His' cloth had it's special don't touch spot.
Sorry about the presence of a nutty nun aunt in your life.
Narrow minded fanatics are hm what they are.
Thank you for the Accent help. I do have Google Chrome but my default browser is Explorer. Need to get that mess fixed up.
Rouchswalwe!
It's the nun that should have kept her head down. Ts,ts,ts defrocking!

Ellena said...

Lucy!
It shows at what time I wrote the previous comment and it shows what time it is now. Could not sleep and got up again to edit the previous one. No such luck. She wrote and it remains written. To much info. Sorry.