We saw a white day!

When I woke up yesterday morning to go to work and stepped out of home, I saw a snowy car.  I thought "where this car has come from?"!  Then I saw a car next and I thought that these cars were somewhere together.  And then I saw the third one and I thought "they were at the same wedding!"  And I got out and saw the rest of cars too and thought "wow, it was a big wedding or something is happening".  All the cars at the streets around my home were snowy but not a single puff of snow at the streets.  And I realized that it had rained and the snow didn't touched them...
All day I was thinking my daughter's complaint, that "in all Europe was snowing, in all other Greece was snowing and in Katerini, no, it was not going to make us the favor".  But this same afternoon, I realize how small-minded we both were.  From the moment the first snowflake met our blink, we were mesmerized by the white dance of the uncountable crazy tiny dabs that were covering everything we could see ceaselessly but with no hurry at all.  They had all night, they knew it and they were just having fun.
Today I saw the white scenery like from a fairytale first thing in the morning.  Still dancing snowflakes but now white on white background.  I went out to go to work and I stopped at the door facing half a meter soft and tasty fluffy solid water.  All the streets were white in front of white houses with white cars parked next to white bend from weight trees.  I was just happy.
After more than fifteen mins to do the distance of five, I reached work.  Very few of us reached the building, very few people came, but what?  Nobody cared for this.  All day we were in front of the magical dance that was still at play out of the glass.  Now, snowflakes are very few but the snow has covered almost everything, the schools closed because of the weather and happy children were playing snowballs and snow angels.  And they had one more reason to be happy about: schools will be closed tomorrow also and they will have an extra day to have fun before the weekend. :P
So, in Greece of crisis, yes, we finally saw a white day!  No thanks to our politicians but thanks to a blessed phenomenon that brightened our day.  Because if we waited for our politicians, we wouldn't enjoy even this first winter snow that we hadn't seen, in such extent, for around a decade here in Katerini.

Here my younger daughter plays with her friends.  And this is the beauty of winter. :)

Curiosity - pencil on paper

Ok, they are curious about the butterfly under the branch...  A small sketch, pencil on paper, around 15 x 21 cm.  It was so fun to draw them that I want to do it again soon.  Drawing something else, of course! :) 

Merlin

I do have a cat, well, the same way that my cat has a human, me!  In fact, he has three mammies.  I am mammy A, my elder daughter is mammy B and my younger daughter is his mammy C.  As you already understood, it has to do with age.  Merlin, the magnificent cat, our love that walks in the house with all the grace of his synonymous wizard, knows his power very well.  He knows that he will miao and we will run to find out what is happening and why he did so.  And he knows also that, in this time of crisis, his bowl will be full all the time in case he wants to have his meal.
It's a bit embarrassing to admit that we love him so much when we have, at the same time, so many problems.  But he is not to blame for the crisis.  And from the moment he came home, as a tiny kitten the size of a handful, he changed all the atmosphere in a positive way.  He is there for us, especially when we need him the most, with the tenderness and the unconditional love that a human would hardly give.
Lately, he explained us, his own way, that he wants his soulmate.  After a lot of search and a lot of difficulty, we found a possible mate at a friend's house at a village outside Thessaloniki.  We went there to spend the weekend with them and their cat, a beautiful confident female named Sourtouka.  We, both families, were watching their first meeting the way a scientist watches his first discovery, that would lead definitely to Nobel prize, at the microscope.  Totally rudely and tactlessly.
They didn't kill each other at the first moment and this was good.  They kept a safe distance for some time and then they started talking in a strange way.  It was the first time to hear Merlin having a deep voice, something like Scotty McCreery but in a cat's way, maybe even deeper.  Once they were to fight but it didn't happen.  After some time we found them in an other room, on the same sofa, the one at the one side and the other at the other side, looking each other for more than half an hour.  They had more adventures, of course, as the time was passing which we talked about next to the fireplace in the evening.
In the end, next day, we left without the inevitable to happen.  I was puzzled and wondering what went wrong till my friend explained to me that cats don't mate just because they will find each other.  They need at least three days to flirt, to examine each other, to smell and pass a lot of tests and ritualistic procedures.  And it may not happen in the end.  But they are animals...  So what?  They have their codes and their psychological gradual approaching to prove that they worth the honor, something like courting and getting engaged and coming closer one step at a time.  But humans many times do this "procedure" much quicker, I said smiling.  Yes, but cats are not humans, she said seriously.  I looked at the floor and, in some way, it was coming closer to me.
Back at home, from the fiery manly male he had become for a day and a half he became our own pampered guy again.  We will go back to Sourtouka's home and I hope they will remember each other and we won't start the rituals from the beginning.  Because we won't have three whole days for him to flirt.  But I have a good feeling about this newly born relationship.  Even away from e-mails and skype, it will flourish one day and Merlin will become a proud partner of her.  And I don't want to think of his rivals, since I saw with my own eyes that under the spoiled look he hides carefully a small tiger...

The ...tiger!  Here he is much younger than he is now but I just love this photo!

22SUCQDG6Y52

22SUCQDG6Y52

IDAP community and more

I recently joined IDAP (I Draw And Paint) community, which is a friendly place for people who love painting and drawing using different mediums like oils, watercolors, acrylics, charcoal, pen and anything two dimensional art can be made of.
It's a place where I feel comfortable presenting my art and looking at the art of others, both newbies and professionals, and still be able to become a friend with some of the most interesting and creative persons.  I hope this will help me keep alive and even develop my artistic life, which is not at its best right now because of too much non artistic work...
At the same time, Greek people see our lives getting tough day after day.  So, we have to survive.  This is not easy at all for some who lost not only their jobs but their homes also and the ground under their feet.  My elder daughter, who is a student at Thessaloniki university, told me that last week she was walking at a main street with her boyfriend and they saw old people trying to get warm or sleep on the benches of Aristotle square covered with coats or blankets or nothing with their body warmth.  They gave them bread and milk and heard stories of loneliness and abandonment.  Some of them lost their pensions, some other were thrown out of nursing homes that closed because of the crisis...
My younger daughter went to the camp on August 2011, where she goes every year, and she told me that she met some girls that came with an arrangement of the orphanage where they lived and the camp headship since they had no family but after a couple of months their orphanage was to be closed, because of the crisis again, and they wouldn't have anywhere to go.
This is no joke and both my daughters, as everyone else here, are growing up quicker than their age because of what they see.  I am really concerned on what will be done and how low we can go as a country when we leave unsheltered the elder and the young.  Where do our "values" go and how much time will pass till we realize that we have already hit the bottom?  This is not a real question, this is hanging over our heads and weighs on our hearts till we break this situation.

back soon

Coincidences (!), that, of course don't exist, and soon to end deadlines didn't let me to come here during last period.  I am up to cover the void soon. :) 

more memories

Below I have two more I found from 2005.  Just small sketches, more about remembering.  I love chess and candles.  I enjoy a good game of chess, when I have the chance to play and I almost always have some candle light when I am at home.  More memories...  I hope you like them.

old memories

Many many years ago I was living in a small greek town called Edessa.  I was for years member of the local Artists' Union and for some time its secretary before life takes me from there on new adventures.
Today, searching among sketching blocks, I found some sketches from that period and I got touched by old memories.
The one below pictures a small street through a beautiful area of old houses in Edessa called Varosi.  It's a preservable area of the town from the time that Turks had occupied the place.  As far as I know, it remained the same and I hope it will always be this beautiful, saved by today's modernness.  I draw it at 1990 and the block is yellowish now after so many years.  I tried to fix this but I don't know if I managed it.  Below I have both versions.

politicians in Greece bring people together

I suppose all planet knows what's happening in my wonderful yet comfused country right now.  Although to really know the games that they play under the table you have to be a political analyst, a financial expert or at least a very well informed, who does nothing else in life, possessed person with the agony of  tomorrow - and yet miss some elements for sure.  Right now I know many of these possessed people, who don't have anything else to do anyway since they recently lost their job and try to survive, and it's a madness spread like virus in a country that doesn't trust its politicians any more as, maybe, everybody should anyway.

It's not that I don't like politicians at all.  I suppose they have some kind of excuse to exist and maybe some of them started with good intentions.  How things change on the go is a mystery.  How they lose the fire and how they get fixed into their chairs of power and suddenly all of them become one with the wall, one with the system, is something that no science managed to figure out yet.  Not that these things happen only here.  And not that real power has anything to do with politics or titles.  But this is an other subject.

There is an impression to the rest of the world that greek people are lazy and we live by our wits or sponge on others for an easy life.  I don't want to excuse anybody but I am greek and I live here and I usually sleep five hours and work the rest of the twenty-four hours.  So at least you can be sure, there is an exception.  And I know many other exceptions too.  In fact, I know very few people who may have an easier life and many that their life is much harder than mine.  Especially now. 

Recently I was talking with a friend about our financial state.  We were trying to understand how we will manage to pay what we should for rent, bills, food, children, the very basic stuff, with the salary we earn from our work.  Because in this problem, mathematics can't help.  Maybe my beloved quantum physics, the law of attraction or some other universal power can make the numbers look more attractive.  

My friend told me "At least you got married" - I got recently remarried - "and you have two salaries at home."  And after some buzzing and bubbling on the subject we started to think of it more seriously.  When a salary can't cover the expenses, then two can.  When people feel weak because of the circumstances, then they join together.  Families may start coming together as used to do many years ago and live at the same house to share the rent or even go to the countryside, many small villages forgotten by humans can thrive again, who knows.
Let's say, there is a woman and a man who could manage some year ago but now they can't.  Even if they are not perfect match, they can share the rent, the bills and the food and survive.  And, who knows, they may find some interest to each other in time, or not - but the rent would be paid anyway.
From now on, I think many things will change.  And one of them would be the proposal.  The question that men will pop will not be "Honey, will you marry me?", it would rather be "Will we join salaries?"  And why somehow I have a feeling that this may work?  Maybe because now enlightenment hit me and I see the great plan, the wisdom behind our innocent politicians and the political scene: they want to bring people together, at the far end of the tunnel there is light, they want us to be happy!  Whether we like it or not.  I hope the bump will leave soon.  And I also hope that George Orwell will not effect me more and lose the counting of my fingers.

wild yellows

For Fall's Challenge of DPW, I wanted to paint something that would be both wild and brown.  Mostly because brown is one of the colors that go with fall in my mind.  I found these flowers in a friends garden and they were both beautiful and thinking of their farewell excuse for this lifetime.  I think I made a good choice, don't you?
(please have in mind that this particular photo doesn't justify the painting)

oil on canvas
15 cm x 15 cm (6" x 6")