Our Xmas tree

Yes we finally got one this year.....before xmas not now!!!

So it's Xmas:)

Actually its almost New Years Eve and my msn tagline is 'Noone should be alone on Xmas' after seeing for yet another time 'Love actually'

In the last few days I've seen again 'Love Actually' and 'Meet Joe Black' and 'The Fellowship of the ring' and La Boheme (live that one in the Greek National Opera , a really great production of La Boheme, modern and vivid and full of colours, performers young and very talented, indeed a great production. Especially Musseta in a cheerleader's costume. Puccini's music though is eternal and can make your eyes water at any moment and under any circumastances. I was grateful my spirit was still able to weep at La Boheme)

I ve also seen a couple of theaters , worst or most hilarious (any way you wish to put it ) the one K.Dandoulaki stars in this year. Really bad choice.

Its the first time after 3 years I have a 2 week holiday during Xmas.

I was supposed to be in Vienna or Prague now but things have a way of working out for themselves and I was unable to go. I was actually literraly unable to go.

I am not well yet even though each day is yet another fight and sometimes this fight gets extremely tiresome.

I read and re-read Rilke's letters about solitude, I read Kahlil Gibran's Prophet and Jonathan Livingston Seagul and yet I still lack the strenght, as if my final remains of strength are only barely enough to get me through each day.

I am tired of the reckless and meaningless pretenses of people, of 'trains filled with the foolish and the faithless' as my beloved Walt Whitman says.

I live what Thoreau described as 'lives of quiet desperation' and I am trying but there is just no Earendil's light for me.

I am tired. And thats really not a nice thing to write for possibly the last post of the yhear but I am so tired. I appear to be great and everything but the truth is if I ever desperattely needed help and meaning that time would be now.

Life is very beautiful but also very lonely. And it is especially during Xmas that loneliness may become unbearable.

Anyway, I do wish Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to the world......and I hope its a year with meaning and light.

First day of summer!

A the first day of summer......when everything is yet to come and you expect a magical great summer.

Havent had a great summer for a while and with the month awaiting me at work I can really say its going to be a lot of fun...but then again who knows?:)

So let me greet the first day of summer 2007 with a picture of Tatiana the dog and a lovely dreamy beach in a greek island........where dreams may not necesserily come true but they seem.....much closer....

Happy days.....of the past

Yes yes yes!

Today is my last day at work! No I'm not fired, I'm just finally having a few days off, before the new season begins (and being responsible for a few things like.....oh the little thing of our brand new - and our own finally- DSLAMS...I think I deserve 5 days) ;)

So anyway, I can't decide what I want to do....well sleep of course....sleep and sleep and sleep and then sleep some more.

See all the movies, and all the plays, go to all the clubs, get out of Athens, stay in Athens, see all 4 seasons of 24 again, since season 5 is about to begin (I definately have missed Jack Bauer!!!), see all 7 seasons of MacGyver again (at least my 100 top episodes)....

I think I'm not going to have time to do all these things :-)

Well I am going to try.....the last few months (years) have been extremely difficult for me and painful in many ways. So in these few days I think I'm not going to make the mistake people usually make, try to please everyone else besides themselves.

So I'm going to have along-overdue rest, switch off (AT LAST) the freaking phone and have a good night sleep (for the last 10 days that I've been on stand-by I was awaken either at 4 or 6 in the morning...why do all problems have to happen at night????) and do all the things that are pleasant and resting for my mind and soul...

Yes I know it sounds lame to watch 24 and MacGyver to relax and rest but what can I do I'm weird:)

I really do feel very very tired, content for what I've achieved in the last few weeks (work stuff, stand by and etc) and yet tired enough to desperately need silence.

I'm a lonely person most of the time, like to travel alone , go to the movies alone, but good company is always welcome (well...almost always...not during travelling)

Its ridicoulous that all I can plan ahead now is to sleep. Well.....thats what I need I guess.

I'm also tired by constantly trying for human interaction (yes I am a computer person to the end).

Always trying to make conversation, being understanding , supportiveblah blah blah....TIRED! I just want to shut up and read. Listen to music. Sleep.

(sleep seems to be the pattern here)

Hopefully I'll also get to drive around a bit, not just home-work, work-home (and shopping) but maybe go a bit further than Athens. If I 'm awake that is.

So, one hour to go.......:)

The pic is Dusty looking at me talking on the phone, contemplating on what would be better, to bite the phone or me?:P

So , its been more than a week since my last post, but its Xmas, that is only to be expected:)

I was fortunate enough to do a thing I love doing any day of any month of any year, but *especially* during Xmas. Go to the opera.

And not once but twice....well not the same opera....:)

I got to see Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the Greek National Opera and also Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Athens Concert Hall.

Both operas are to me precious, but for different reasons.

I love Italian opera. I really do. I know of many people who think of the opera as a really tiring and boring form of music or entertainment. But to me, the italian operas, Puccini, Verdi, are a rare form of pleasure.

Whenever I hear 'Nessun Dorma', the last aria Puccini ever composed, whenever I hear Violetta singing 'Amami Alfredo' in La Traviata, or Museta's Waltz in "La Boheme" , whenever I hear 'Vissi d'Arte' in Tosca ( I lived for my art, I lived for love ) , and finnaly whenever I hear Butterfly saying goodbye to her son before she dies in 'Tu? tu? Piccolo Iddio!' I feel the power of the music in my very soul.

Puccini was a great composer, a magician for me, who could with his librettos transform a few notes into emotions so powerful that you cannot stop yourself from weeping , not because of the tragedy of the lives of his heroes and heroines but also because all these people who had to die in these plays sung about how much they loved, adored , cherished life.

The same applies for Verdi, however his heroes were less helpless. Puccini's heroines are helpless, hit by the cruelty of life and humans, so fragile and yet so bright, a source of light and love, like a butterfly, that is destroyed when touched, her wings broken forever, unable to fly anymore. But her beauty is so utterly irresistible that men just have to take it, have it even for a moment and then destroy it.

To me that is the most tragic thing in his operas.

I lived for my art, I lived for love.

As for Mozart's Magic Flute, I have to say that as far as the music goes its not one of my favorites.

But......a big but.....the Magic Flute is a multilevel opera. Has a story that is so complex that once or twice is not enough to start to comprehend it.

Its probably the first opera parents take their kids, its fun and Xmas spirit. With Papageno and Papagena and the Prince Tamino and the Princess Pamina and Queen of the Night.

However this is not what this opera is about. Mozart wrote it just after the French Revolution and just before he died. Haydn had introduced him to FreeMasonry and its full of the ideals (the autonomy of the individual, self-determination, appalling sexism), the ideals (power, wisdom, beauty), and the symbols (aprons, hammers, compasses, a pyramid with an all-seeing eye) of the Masons.

The Magic Flute and the masons are something I shall write about in another topic when I'm more concentrated, now I'm just scratching the surface.

However there are many things to dig up in the masonic and tectonic tradition, in secret societies, in works of art like Da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks (National Gallery in London and the Louvre) and the the myths concerning Christianity , the Holy Family and Mary Magdalene.

I know my friends are sick and tired of me always talking about this stuff but I am fascinated!

There's more I have to write in this post but since I have to get back to work I'll just write a few of my favourite lyrics:

Vissi d'Arte :

Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore,
I lived for my art, I lived for love,
non feci mai male ad anima viva!
I never did harm to a living soul!
Con man furtiva
With a secret hand
quante miserie conobbi aiutai.
I relieved as many misfortunes as I knew of.
Sempre con fe sincera
Always with true faith
la mia preghiera my prayer ai santi tabernacoli sali.
rose to the holy shrines.
Sempre con fe sincera
Always with true faith
diedi fiori agl’altar.
I gave flowers to the altar.
Nell’ora del dolore
In the hour of grief
perche, perche, Signore,
why, why, o Lord,
perche me ne rimuneri cosi?
why do you reward me thus?
Diedi gioielli della Madonna al manto,
I gave jewels for the Madonna’s mantle,
e diedi il canto agli astri, al ciel,
and I gave my song to the stars, to heaven,
che ne ridean piu belli.
which smiled with more beauty.
Nell’ora del dolor
In the hour of grief
perche, perche, Signor,
why, why, o Lord,
ah, perche me ne rimuneri cosi?
ah, why do you reward me thus?

Tu? tu? Piccolo Iddio! :

Butterfly

You? you? you? you? you? you? you?
Tu? tu? tu? tu? tu? tu? tu?
(anxiously but
with great feeling)
My little God! Love, my love,
piccolo Iddio! Amore, amore mio,
my Lily flower of rosebud.
fior di giglio e di rosa.
(taking her son's head in her hands
and drawing him close to her)

Although you must never know it,
Non saperlo mai per te,
it is for you alone, for your innocent eyes that,
pei tuoi puri occhi,
(in a whisper)
Butterfly dies...
muor Butterfly...
because then you may
perché tu possa andar
travel beyond oceans
di là dal mare
and when you have grown up,
senza che ti rimorda
you will never feel remorse knowing
ai di maturi,
that your mother abandoned you.
il materno abbandono.
(with exaltation)

Oh, you who came down to me from
O a me, sceso dal trono
Heaven's highest throne,
dell'alto Paradiso,
look for the last time upon your Mother's face,
guarda ben fiso, fiso di tua
look closely at her face, closely,
madre la faccia!
so that some trace will remain, look carefully!
che ten resti una traccia, guarda ben!
Farewell my beloved! goodbye little love!
Amore, addio! addio! piccolo amor!
(in a faint voice)
Go and play, play!
Va, gioca, gioca!

P.S. Φριιιιιιιιζ!!! Φριζ λέω!!! Πουτ δε κοτ ντάουν σλόουλυ!!!!!!

(για να ευθυμήσουμε και λίγο)

So how sick can someone be to be at a party and use her friends DSL to write in her blog? (thanks Christos for all your great parties!!!)

Yeah yeah yeah I know, I'm sick so shoot me. So after spending nearly 3 hours trying to avoid all the drunk people trying to find the meaning of life through conversation, avoiding one specific drunk guy speaking in english (god knows why) who grabbed my ass, after almost starving (no food here), I'm hungry and pissed (oh nice song - YMCA).

So, I had 2 choices. One...leave. Two ...... take advantage of my friends DSL. Ok, now I have 2 other guys looking over my shoulder laughing at me (why? isn't it normal to write in your blog during the party? ...no?):PPPPPPPP

So .......... lets go again....I'm hungry! Oh .....I'm also looking very very hot tonight as apparently everyone tells me........(no I'm not drunk...havent even had one drink).

Anyway.......my plans for the rest of the evening (morning) are:

1) FIND FOOD!!!!!!!!!!

2) Get a drink (or two) - finally!

3) Change the stupid music (unless its 80's)

4) Did I mention the find food issue?

5) The guys have stopped paying attention to me and are discussing how much they have been drinking (Dimitris and Nikos - stop talking about stuff related to food and drinks) - (music is better now.....Saturday Night fever...saw the play in London.......nice nice nice.....eyes.... Adam Garcia and also a great voice and real talent....at the end the whole theater was on their feet dancing...spectacular.......I met one of my best girlfriends on the plane back from London when we were both drooling over one of the show's cd soundtracks.....oh....Kostas just came in the room)

..........so I'm going to stop writting now and get back to the party............

I'm going to finish this later.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(because as Kostas tells me I'm missing the big action over there......)

;-))))))))))))))))))))

P.S. Update : Still sitting at our friends pc.....decided to install firefox. HE s going to kill me later if he finds out. Also we installed an antivirus....probably he will find out...and kick our collective asses. Oh no.....now they are playing greek songs........:((((( I wonder what Christos will say when the pc prompts him to update the virus fuc...g definitions. Oh, another friend walked in...Christos number 2! Ok now there are a lot of people laughing around ..........lets see...what else can we do to fuc..k up our friend pc? Lets see.....ok lets add a few files in his emule list.........some tsontes maybe? :PPPPPPPPPPP Ok ...I wonder what his girlfriend will say when she finds out.......oh ok she s not that pretty anyway.........;) Christos though is very handsome today especially when carrying the sfouggaristra...............oh greek sex god!!! (insert laugh here!)

P.S.2. The guy in the pic is not Christos (not that anyone would really believe that if that were Christos I would be sitting here writting in my blog instead of being in there...not writting...but anyway.....) that's Adam Garcia. YEah ok so I have a thing for beauty, can anyone trully and honestly say beauty doesn't count? I mean be serious! ;)