On Why I Hate Family Holidays

Yes, I said it. I really really don't like spending time with my family. Holidays are the worst time of all because my parents seem to view it as an opportunity to tell me exactly what they hate about me (which is a copious amount of stuff), occasionally alphabetically to liven things up a little bit. This does not a recipe for a good holiday make.

My grandparents live in Cyprus, which is where we are right now. In the course of about half an hour of TV watching they went on at length about all the things which they dislike as and when they appear on the screen. People who do such things are either insane, stupid, irresponsible or foreign (since they're Cypriots that in itself is a deficiency). These things include: piercings (umm...), tattoos (er...), weirdly coloured hair (ummm....), people who aren't christian (no really...), people who wear too much black, anything counter-culture at all (er...). So basically what they dislike is me - the only thing that I've got going for me is that I'm white and I'm not a foreigner. Oh dear. Basically anything that happened after the 50s is a bad thing. Cripes, scary stuff.

So while I'm hiding my proclivities, irony has it that so do my parents, both of whom smoke. Since my grandparents don't like smoking (in a country where babies are born clutching a box of Marlboro's and a lighter) and are willing to go on a half-hour rant about it at the drop of a hat, my parents have apparently regressed thirty years to being teenagers again. The dog gets taken for about seven walks a day, complete with a leash, a knitted dog-jersey which my grandmother made when she was bored apparently (mon dieu!) and a huge cloud of nicotine-laced smoke while my parents puff away desperately one their death sticks like coke-heads.

I seem to have forgotten how much of a hole Cyprus is. The entire place is basically a narrow-minded village which consists of two types of people - very straight-laced or complete alcoholics. However both groups tend to be of the mindset of my grandparents (i.e. conservative) so at least they've got something to talk about with each like how the countries gone down the drain since all the damn Albanians/Lithuanians/Hungarians/British/Greeks/Africans/people from the Vatican starting coming over.

The place is a gold-mine for stereotypes. An absolute gold-mine.

I could really go on about this for pages and pages. So I think I'll update on my adventures in the lands of the Cypriots for the next two weeks - apparently tomorrow we're going to the purported beach where Aphrodite was born from the foam (from her grandad's testicles - coz we're ghetto like that yo) with my dad's cousin Sylvia the "Basket-case" because she can't cook or clean. Oy vey

I love my family. I really do, I mean you can't make this stuff up. I'd just prefer to love them from afar.

Sweet Pie And Locked Doors

Hello all things bright and shiny

Yesterday I made strawberry pie - something I've been wanting to do since I had a marathon Pushing Daisies session and because I am nothing if not suggestible when it comes to matters of food. There is no more pie since it was swooped down upon from above from the hungry maws of the vultu- whoops, my mom and dad and sister.

It's been a pretty eventful week as far as these things go. My car got a flat tire and I only realised the funny dragging noise had been the tyre popping like bubblegum when I was about halfway home anyway. Also I managed to lock myself out of my own house because I forgot that the sliding door onto the verandah is tempermental and inadvertantly locks itself if closed. Since I was the only one at home I thought I would have to break in and half-heartedly threw myself at the door a couple of times before I realised that if I open a window I could reach a set of keys.

What really sucked about this whole experience was that I could see the delicious toasted cheese and chips I had made for lunch steadily getting cooler and less delicious. Curse you, capricious door pixies.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds make excellent baking music and I'm getting a camera so soon this blog can be Illustrated! With Colour! It can be like watching your favorite (though somewhat lame and hackneyed) Warner Brothers cartoons all over again. Personally, I always preferred the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Graveyard humour and irony always gets me.

I am now going to attempt to write something. Have a wonderful day.

Why Hello Thar

Hello all things bright and shiny

There appears to be cream on my keyboard (?) and the sun is shining.

Admittedly I don't have much to say right here, right now but I soon will.

Exams are almost over and the sun beckons.

Soon I will have a camera and I can post more interesting things :)

Have a wonderful sun-filled day