Bazaar

One of the first comments of the morning spilled out the mouth of young Iasonas Katsaros.

"Your eyes have a white circle around them. That's weird," he informed me.

This tanning is not unusual to the rest of the world. When a person goes to the beach and wears their sunglasses all day, the result yielded is the infamous reverse raccoon. I, however, was not at a beach. There was sand all around but absolutely no water. Instead we sat, or rather we stood, in the blazing sun of the wadi desert at the annual Maadi Women's Guild Christmas Bazaar held at the Wadi Degla Sporting Club. The temperatures deceived us, thus the reason for our Rudolph'd noses and jolly cheeks and foreheads. When we left our homes at 9 am that morning the chill thrilled us all with a shivering 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The breeze and the chill never rose beyond 70.

Lucky for me, the work I had put into my tan earlier in the year barricaded the burn from any insinuating pain. Fearful of a day of sled-leading jokes and a crispy face, relief gave way to joy on the skip over to pageant rehearsal this morning.

I serve as one of the 4 wise kings of Orient. I did not mistype as you may be wondering. This year, there are four of us baring gifts to the glowing baby-King. One of the other kings, who is dressed as a pharaoh, brings the same gift I thought would be wise - gold. In the spirit of holiday cheer we duke it out while telling King Arthur and the pirate king of Asia to hush their oh so wise yappers.

I, the only king from the appropriate location and time period, get cut from the gift baring, leaving me only to kneel in shameful awe of the precious baby Jesus, of whom was a clay pot today. We didn't have a baby to rehearse with so we improvised.

All in all, its not too shabby of a gig. I get to dress up in a man dress called a galabeya, play a nerdy role that doesn't make the cut, and ride on a camel of which one of the wise men was tossed from in last year's performance. Now why did I agree to do this again? Oh, yeah, to spread the word of the birth of Christ. He better do something brilliant when he grows up.

Yule Tide Greetings

Though it is cooling off a bit here, I find myself stripping my shirt from a toasted torso when running in the wadi today.

Also, there is officially less than 2 weeks before a quick leap across the Atlantic puddle. It'll be a good skip home, or so I hope.

I had a Dr. Pepper today for the first time in over a year. It gave me a head ache.

The longer I spend with the Katsaros' the more it feels like family. I went to Yannis' soccer game yesterday and sat with the families. During a lull, I terrorized the young ones on the playground as the big bad playground monster, tagging and moving with great tact and rapidity.

I find the cynic in me bobbing for surprise visits more often than I'd care to see his gnarly disgruntled face. Some one please tell him to stop.

It would take great convincing to sway me from a belief that functional family and true social reform (what I refer to as dreams) do not coincide. Perhaps this is youthful ignorance chiming in, but I do not believe it possible.

Recently, my youthful immaturity blinds and exposes my frugalled experiences. In this, there has been a surge of disdain and apprehension for revealing immaturity. My whole life I've maintained the reputation as the one more mature than his peers. That slows as you age, I think. The expectation for maturity flattens out and climbs near a ceiling. Breaking ceilings is not an activity I'm accustomed to, though it is a growing family tradition (apologies, Dad. Terry I hope you are laughing while remembering that ordeal many years ago). Perhaps, I'll continue the tradition.

I burst with tension yearning the simple life.

Independence is my friend, but interdependence is my brother.

Big words (like interdependence) make me want to vomit. I wish I, and others, could write and talk with pictures like cultures of the East.

I am retiring for the night to sip some tea and lounge on the sofa couch.

In the holy, precious name of Jesus Christ our risen Lord, I pray. Amen