Going Greek

New Wife sent me this pic, suggesting that it might make a nice break from my usual laptop wallpaper fare of gloomy Paris streets and snowbound European countrysides:

It’s lovely, and it shows a part of the world — the Greek coast or Greek Islands — that I’ve never visited before (I know, I know).  One day, though… and she wants to go (back) very badly indeed (yeah, she’s been there, pout pout).

(cue Greek music)

What gets me is not so much the scenery as what the table evokes in me, which is:  Greek food.

I love it.  One of my favorite restaurants in the world used to be the Greek-Cypriot Kolossi Grill in London (now permanently closed because Covid, apparently grr grrr grrrr), because

Greek food + Greek wine + shouting Greek waiters + Greek atmosphere = Kim In Heaven

There’s not a single Greek dish I don’t enjoy (unless it’s crap like octopus etc. which I won’t eat in any language).  Spicy lamb, Greek salata and souvlakia… my mouth waters as I write the words.  On one of my trips Over There, I found a Greek gyro stand just off Shaftesbury Avenue and ate there four times in a single week.

And let’s hear it for retsina — or, as most non-Greeks cruelly call it, Lysol.  I can’t drink it unless I’m eating Greek food, but as an accompaniment thereof I won’t drink anything else.

Back when I lived in the Chicago area, I had the real pleasure of meeting up with one of my old South African friends, a Greek named (not George but) Paris, and his wife Debbie, who had all just emigrated from South Africa and taken a job in Chicago.  Of course, he wanted to know about things like Greek food stores and restaurants, so I pointed him at those and suggested we try out the nearest Greek restaurant from our houses (and not one of the ones in Greek Town Chicago).

Anyway, we walked in and Paris did the Greek greeting thing with the owner (thereby ensuring that we’d get the good Greek food and not the shit they pass off on non-Greeks — yeah, it happens).  When we sat down, Paris took away my menu and said, “Let me do the ordering” and I acquiesced with pleasure.  We ate Greek style, i.e with huge plates of food in the middle of the table, from which each diner helped themselves according to preference.  I of course had something from every damn plate, and Debbie  said, “Kim, are you sure you have no Greek blood in you?  Because there’s stuff here that I don’t even eat.”  I would have answered except my mouth was full.  And yes, there was retsina, gallons of the stuff;  and at the end of the evening, Paris wouldn’t let me pay for anything because, as he put it, “It’s such a pleasure to see a non-Greek enjoy Greek food as much as you do.”  I would have replied except I was lying on my back, groaning from Teh Gluttony.

Good times, good times.

Where was I?  Oh yes, the Greek thing.

As I said, Greece is the one place in Europe I haven’t been to — no reason, I just never got there for some reason — and I have to admit that I am a little intimidated by the language barrier.  I’m not that way anywhere else in Western Europe because of my French and German, and even in Italy and Portugal I can get by, at least to the point of understanding street signs and menus. But Greek…?  The different-looking alphabet means I’m clueless, and whereas I usually just grab a phrase book and learn a few things in the native lingo before I go somewhere, places that don’t use the Western alphabet are ummm more problematic.  (One of my Greek buddies wickedly suggested that my German would get me around quite well in Athens or the Islands, but I wasn’t born yesterday.)

Not that it matters much.  If I somehow got the opportunity to go to Hellas, I’d be there in a shot.  I can deal with the language problem when I get there.

After all:  how bad could things get?

All-American Road Trip

I think I’ve tortured everybody enough with my various dream road trips whether in France, Italy or Western Europe in general.  There’s only been one in the U.S., but even that involved furrin cars and -women.

So am I going to quit?  Hell, no!

Today’s trip is going to be All-American, in that the choice of car and female companion will feature no foreign entanglements* of any kind.

The trip?

Actually, you have a choice there too:  U.S. 1 (and 1A where available) along the East Coast, from Miami – Bar Harbor ME:

…and U.S. 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway/PCH) along the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle:

The East Coast trip is nearly 400 miles longer, and if you wish, you could skirt NYFC (or add to your pain by doing a loop around Long Island).

You can do the trip north – south or vice-versa (please specify which), and at a time of year which suits you (do tell).  The only hard and fast rule is to avoid interstate highways wherever possible.  The goal is to keep the shoreline on the side of the car as much as you can.  You may go through any of the cities you wish, but you can also skirt those which would make you homicidal with rage (NYFC, LA, Boston etc.) while trying to deal with the traffic and congestion.

As always with these scenarios, assume you’ll have trouble-free motoring en route, and a (shall we say) willing partner of the female persuasion in the passenger seat, and she will be as pictured.  Also assume that you are of an age which would do the driving and overnight stops, so to speak, justice.

Now the fun part:  the cars and companions. I’ve tried to avoid listing any of the cars and the women in earlier posts, which has made it quite difficult.  Here we go, and remember:  no substitutions.

1. 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and Angie Harmon

2. 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk and Candace Cameron

3. 1957 Corvette and Katherine Lanasa

4. 1957 Chevy Bel-Air and Mary-Louise Parker

5. 1957 Ford T-Bird and Téa Leoni

6. 1954 Kaiser-Darrin Roadster and Marg Helgenberger

7. 1956 Chrysler Imperial and Daisy Fuentes

(*I know, Daisy was born in Cuba.  Shuddup or she’ll be replaced with Whoopi Goldberg.)

Let’s go a little earlier, car-wise:

8. 1935 Auburn 851 Speedster and Nancy Wilson

9. 1936 Cord 810 and Eva Amurri

10. 1932 Duesenberg SJ and Dana Delaney

11. 1940 Packard Super-8 and Lynn Russell

12. 1933 Lincoln KB Victoria and Lisa Edelstein

That’s my delicious dozen.  If you’re unfamiliar with any of the options, you know where to look (duckduckgo).

Oh wait!  A wild card!

13. 1958 Chevy Apache and

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Feelin’ The Noize

I was never a huge fan of loud Brit rockers Slade — I didn’t mind the loud, but it was really simple music, while I was getting into Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Genesis (to name but some).

Still, in those pre-metal days, there were times when you just needed to kick out and jump around, and few were better at kicking-out-and-jumping-around music than the Boys From The Black Country.

“What’s that, honky?  How could they be White boys in Black Country?”

Shuddup and watch this (very) sympathetic treatment of Slade in their heyday, back when they were huge.

And yes, in retrospect, their songs were excellent.

Sadly, it seems as though Noddy has throat cancer, and hasn’t that long to go.  Raw suckage, that is.

Rat, Smelling Of A

Why is Nikki Haley still running, despite thumping defeats?

I smell skulduggery.  Run with me on this one.

What if the Socialists find some way to “legally” exclude Trump from running — say, with the collusion of the Supreme Court, even?

Would DeSantis have time to get his campaign up and running again?  And if not, would Haley end up being the default Republican choice as the only “officially declared” candidate?

And if we go Full Tinfoil Hat (as Kevin Downey has done at PJM):  is the fix already in, and she knows it?

Ten years ago, I would have laughed myself off the stage for even thinking this nonsense.  But after seeing “80 Million Votes” Biden’s little game in 2020, I’m not ruling anything out anymore.