We were supposed to spend a relaxing day down in Galveston, attending the Greek Festival, enjoying all kinds of yummy nummy foods, listening to Greek music, and watching the Greek dancers break plates and pick small kitchen tables up at one corner using nothing but their teeth . . .
Oh, well.
It would take too long to tell you the whole story, but the gist of it is, one of my sibling-in-law’s just LOVES to be in control. My father-in-law has been ill these last three weeks (in fact, it is truly a miracle the man is still alive — his appendix ruptured) and he has finally come home from the hospital. This is a good thing, for sure, but he fell ill at exactly the same time the old wood floors in his 1940’s home were being ripped out and replaced. Suffice it to say things have been pretty darned chaotic. Instead of assessing what is truly a priority, taking care of that, and putting less important things on the back burner until a more appropriate time, my sibling-in-law pretty much orders everyone around in an effort to get it ALL DONE NOW. So everyone ends up exhausted with nothing left to give.
Over these last three weeks, my husband has gone to Galveston every weekend and taken several days off from work to help out at the house with the floor project or to spend the night at the hospital with his dad. Keep in mind that my husband is a teacher on a school calendar, meaning he doesn’t get vacation time. He gets regular school holidays and sick leave. He’s a full-time employee. His sibling works 2 – 3 days a week. And after he knew his dad was going to be okay and he said he couldn’t come down unless it was an emergency . . . oh, boy, did the poop hit the fan! You just wouldn’t believe the guilt trip that this person laid on him. According to this person, he should jump up and drive the 50 miles one way to move a piece of furniture because, well, he just needs to “step up to the plate” — like he hasn’t already been doing that.
Anyway, we stopped by so he could help move a couple of pieces of furniture and then when we started to leave — oh, the looks, the guilt. We were asked “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” and “Do you think you’ll be coming back by later?” We answered as evasively as we could and as we were getting in our truck, my husband said, “Oh, yeah, I’m sure I’ll be rushing back to that tonight . . . ” The stress factor in the house is so high. And no matter how much you give and give, it’s never enough. And heaven forbid you should consider doing something FUN for a couple of hours . . .
Because our puppy is not capable of staying in her crate more than 3 or 4 hours yet, we couldn’t leave her at home. We’d thought about leaving her at their house while we ran over to the festival for a short time, but it was so very weird and we didn’t want to hear how we’d “dumped our dog” on them so we took her with us. Of course, we couldn’t take the puppy into the festival, so I went in and got plates to go and then we took them to the Seawall and ate at one of the picnic tables. It turned out pretty nice inspite of the earlier unpleasantness, but I surely would have liked to seen the dancers and listen to the music.
Here are some pics from our day. Seriously, the late afternoon/early evening turned out pretty good, all things considered.
Here my guy and gal are enjoying a delicious Greek repast of souvlaki (beef, onions, and peppers on a skewer, cooked over burning coals), dolmades (grape leaves stuffed with rice and spices), Pastitsio (baked macaroni with beef and bechamel sauce), tiropita (feta cheese filled puff), spanakopita (spinach and feta cheese puff), keftedes (spicy meatballs). So incredibly good!
To finish off the above (and ensure our gastronomic misery from over-indulgence – but what a way to go!), on the left: kourambiedes (somewhat like a sand tart, with almonds and powdered sugar) and on the right: baklava (thin fillo dough layered with butter, various chopped nuts and spices, topped with honey syrup . . .)
This was a pretty interesting thing to see go flying past as we ate. It looked almost like a dune buggy with a hovercraft “fan” attached to the back . . . weird flying machine to be sure!
Here’s me, sporting that wind-blown look. Eek! Note the biker behind my right shoulder — the Lone Star Motorcycle Rally is also this weekend. My girl started counting bikes on the way down (you should have seen the Harleys . . .) she got tired after tallying about 150 bikes. Her dad tells us there will probably be around 75,000 bikes (or more) hit the island before the weekend is over.
Our guy and our Sweetie . . . poor little puppy. At first we thought she was shivering because of the cool wind blowing off the Gulf. Then we realized that her distress was probably more associated with the rumbling of the ground as Harley after Harley after Harley went cruising past our little picnic spot! The noise was pretty incredible — it was not annoying, but insistent . . . kind of like the humming of a very large beehive somewhere beneath the asphalt road.
I am so in love with this kid. I’m going to be 42 in January and it looks as though this is it for us. But man, oh, man — if a mom’s only going to have one kid — I hit the jackpot!
This is a “bonus” pic — as we were walking toward the Greek Festival, I noticed this cat curled up in the crawlspace of a very forlorn looking old house. This house is abandoned, one of many in the “Silk Stocking District” of old historic Galveston. Kitty looks as though he’s waiting for someone who may never return . . .
Well, that’s it for now — until another time!
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