Tuesday, January 31, 2017

And on a lighter note . . . "Overheard"

"Oh, guess what?  The beer smell disappeared from my car because I poured baking soda all over this morning . . ."  The question is whether the beer smell disappeared because she poured baking soda all over the morning, or all over the car . . . hmmmmm

A MESSAGE FROM DOWN UNDER

"Escape while you can! Although don't come as a refugee - our policies are just as bad!"

Monday, January 30, 2017

ARMENIANS IN SOLIDARITY - #NO WALLS NO BANS

Above sign reads
#No walls No Bans
NO ISLAMOPHOBIA!
NOT IN OUR NAME!
ARMENIANS IN SOLIDARITY!

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Protests Erupt at U.S. Airports As Trump Orders Targeting Refugees

Countering the Chief's command, crowds welcome arrivals at airport in Washington, DC.
Courage in the face of adversity!

"You go, girls!"  That's my Aline
On left: "No matter where you are from, we're glad you're our neighbor.  
No imports de donee eres, estamos contentos que seas nuestro vecino."
On right, Raffi holds sign stating, "Super callous fasicst racist sexist braggadocio!"
IMMIGRANTS --  We get the job done!  #Hamilton
"Not what I fought for!"
Thank you, Lorig Charkoudian, for being there for all of us, for taking your children
  (Raffi and Aline) with you, and for these photos!

Saturday, January 28, 2017

A Mystery in the Making

On Thursday afternoon, Marash Girl was at the library, peaceful, sitting deep in a comfortable sofa chair ensconced in a murder mystery she had just selected from the shelves, when all of a sudden all hell broke loose.  Librarians running, EMT's dashing up the stairway carrying a stretcher, soon followed by a phalanx of police in uniform . . . what was it? What had happened?  

What had happened?  A perfectly respectable looking man who appeared to be in is 40's had taken an overdose and was soon wheeled out of the library on a stretcher, comatose, surrounded by emergency medical personnel and Newton's finest! 


Whenever will we wise up? That is the real mystery.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Dungalakh!

Dungalakh . . . a word from the old days to use in the new days!  Dungalakh!

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Mark Twain's warning to Donald Trump

"Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. "                    - Mark Twain         


Marash Girl thanks Lorig and Deron for sending the above quotation.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall!"

Today, the Boston Globe reported:

"Trump to order border wall Wednesday"

President Donald Trump will order the construction of a Mexican border wall on Wednesday, White House officials said. He is also mulling plans to stop Syrian refugees from entering the country and to slash immigration of refugees from “terror prone” nations, perhaps as early as this week."
Marash Girl asks that Mr Trump please take the time to read below Robert Frost's poem, which Marash Girl takes the liberty of reprinting here.
Mending Wall
Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.  It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.'  I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.  I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

Thank you, Robert Frost, for the above reminder!

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Women's March for America, Washington, DC - "Armenians for Freedom for All"

    "Armenians for Freedom for All"
 Manuk Avedikyan holds sign with Nora Kayserian at the
Women's March for America in Los Angeles,  this past Saturday.                   
Marash Girl's Shout Out from 1965 lives on!  Abris, yeridasartner!

Monday, January 23, 2017

Banyan Mag writes about Marash Girl

ethel Bilezikian Charkoudian didn’t know this photo was being taken. She didn’t even know who took it, or the identity of the girl standing near the sign she was holding up. But in April 1965, she decided she needed to be at a march with 50,000 other people led by Dr. Martin Luther King protesting racial discrimination and segregation.
When Charkoudian’s photo appeared on social media over 50 years later, it went viral, inspiring Armenians in America and beyond.
“This made me tear up,” one wrote. “Thanks for bringing this to light,” another said. Then came the comment that solidified how much of an impact it had made: “I’m so proud of this.”
At a time when America feels more divided than ever after a contentious election that also sparked heated debate in Armenian-American circles, hate crimes are on the rise and young black men face the highest rate of U.S. police killings last year, this small act of compassion from decades ago not only resonated with Armenian-Americans, it exposed a kind of intersectionality between communities that often remains unseen, one that is rooted in a universal belief in human rights. Among other communities, Armenians dispersed across the U.S. and world whose ancestors survived gross human rights violations in the Armenian Genocide understand that better than most.
Charkoudian was a 25-year-old teacher from Newton, Mass. when the photo was taken, inspired by her own background to be a visible, Armenian presence at the rally.
“We fought so hard for our own right to exist, both in historic Armenia as well as in the United states, as well as historically,” she told me on the phone when I called her, eager to learn more about the story behind the image. “We fought hard.”
This self-proclaimed “Marash Girl” who writes in a blog by the very same name (which is where the photo originally appeared), grew up as the only Armenian child in her class at school, living with her extended family, including her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, where it was common to hear both Turkish and Armenian being spoken.
Her father was a storyteller she says, and often entertained with tales of family resilience and survival back in Marash. However, she stresses, the stories never revolved around the topic of hate.
“It was always about the Turks next door who helped them, the Turks who warned them when soldiers were coming,” she says. “It was not a family of hate, it was a family of love. We never learned to hate the Turks – we knew what had happened, but we didn’t learn hate.”
Charkoudian grew up in the Armenian Protestant Evangelical Church and always felt like an outsider, even in the Armenian community. Being different was something she was comfortable with, and the ease with which she embraced her status was something that helped her relate to people who were also classified as “other” in America.
Once, when she was 21, she went into a wine store with a friend who was of Navajo descent. They walked in together to buy a gift for a friend’s birthday party. “I don’t sell fire water to redskins,” she remembers the clerk telling her friend.
It was experiences like these that led her to becoming sensitive about racism and social inequality. By the time Martin Luther King was slated to come to Boston, she was already very interested in the civil rights effort, putting up signs and posters of support in her bedroom.
She had originally wanted to go on the bus rides and sit ins, but her father wouldn’t give her permission.
“Bethel,” she remembers him saying, “you know what happened in Turkey, you know what happened when Armenians tried to demonstrate and stand up, I don’t want that happening to you.”
So the next best thing was to go to the Boston rally. She hadn’t planned on making a sign, but there were people passing out placards and markers, so she took a placard and a marker and wrote her slogan: “Armenians for Freedom for All”
She marched with thousands of others, towards city hall. A brochure saved from the event details that the march was to protest issues like segregation in public housing and education. “In short, we march to protest the lie that a New Boston can be built without social justice.”
When King, whose alma mater was Boston University, landed at Logan Airport, he addressed a joint session of the Massachusetts General Court, where he spoke about the fact that segregation must die if democracy is to live, according to the New England Historical Society.
At one point, a girl came up to her – the girl on the left of the photo – and told her she was half-Armenian. “Can I stand next to you?” she said.
She remembers a few Armenians standing on the sidelines, heckling and making fun of her for participating, but she didn’t let them deter her.
BetheI knew that a lot of Armenians at the time, through fear rather than anything else, were trying to be inclusive, but inclusive only to their people,” she says. “It’s not that they wanted to exclude others, it’s that they wanted to keep their nation together.”
It was just 50 years earlier, in the aftermath of the genocide when thousands of survivors had landed in America to try and rebuild their lives.
When Charkoudian, who now runs “Bethel Charkoudian Books,” a book appraisal and consulting company, found out that her photo from half a century ago had been shared so many times online, she immediately thought – what is it that I’ve done today?
“Then,” she says, she realized “it’s not what I’ve done today, it’s how I live today.”
That is, a life without fear when it comes to standing up or reaching out to those who are in need, whether it was over 50 years ago, or today.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Women's March for America, Washington, DC

"Now You've Pissed Off Grandma"
Above photo sent to Marash Girl by her granddaughter Aline who attended the Women's March for America in Washington, DC,   objecting to the new powers that be in Washington D.C.
Marash Girl's grandchildren (above) Aline & Raffi carry on the struggle at the
Women's March yesterday in Washington, DC
Although her children and grandchildren are right there with Marash Girl, her brother James is not.

Brother James writes, "Darkness, from hell, itself. The Devil comes to kill, rob, and destroy. That also is a summary of Progressivism. God have mercy on you. . .  You're a fascist! A communist!"

Not sure how Marash Girl can be both, or either, for that matter . . . but brother James made the point that the political positions are one and the same, and that Marash Girl is, to say the least, "not in his camp"!

Hard to believe that these two, Brother James and Marash Girl, were brought up in the same household by the same parents.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Across from Trump Towers, NYC, Yesterday Evening

Marash Girl's son lives in New York City, across from Trump Towers.  He went out on Friday evening to buy supper for his family, barely able to make it through the crowds, the crowds who were chanting, "Hey, hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!"  So much for New York City's support of the new President of the United States.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Inauguration Day

"God is raining on their parade!"   Lorig Charkoudian

Don't trash those Poinsettia Plants!

Have you noticed that after the winter holidays, folks trash their poinsettia plants?  Why?  Are they any less lovely after January 1 than before January 1?  Is their value really only as holiday decor?  Marash Girl insists that they are living, breathing plants and deserve a second chance at life!

They will survive if you keep them lightly watered and in light.  As Marash Girl is no expert in plant advice, she begs her readers (possible owners of Christmas Poinsettia) to check online to see how to care for these beautiful plants . . . they will live for another day, another holiday, another year, another decade!

Why is Marash Girl discussing poinsettias and not politics?  Her daughter Lorig will be attending the inauguration and will provide photos and info which Marash Girl will post tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Thursday, January 19, 2017

What are you doing out there?

"In July of 1846, while on his way to Concord to run an errand, Henry David Thoreau was arrested by the local sheriff for failure to pay a poll tax."  Marash Girl's father Peter always regaled Marash Girl with the tale, quoting the conversation between Henry David Thoreau and his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. (See below.)

"What are you doing in there?" Emerson asked Thoreau after Thoreau had been imprisoned for non-payment of poll taxes.
"What are you doing out there?" Thoreau asked Emerson.

At the Civil Rights March of 1965, Robert ...ian asked Marash Girl, "What are you doing in there?"
Knowing well the story of Emerson and Thoreau, Marash Girl had the temerity to answer, "What are you doing out there?"

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

A Joke from the Past

As Marash Girl looked out the window and saw rain coming down (well, of course it's coming down; rain never comes up!)  As she was saying, when Marash Girl looked out the window this morning and saw rain coming down rather than snow, she smiled, and her smile reminded her of those days many years ago when her dad loved to tell her (what she assumes was) an old joke,  a conversation that ensued usually after Marash Girl had been on the phone with one of her many school friends, catching up on the day's activities.

Young Man speaking to his girlfriend over the telephone:  "I love you so much.  For you, I'd cross the hottest desert, climb the highest mountain, swim the widest ocean . . . oh, and by the way, I can't come over tonight.  It's raining." 

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Cop-cop

Marash Girl was just talking to Marash Boy yesterday about where she had acquired the tiny shoes similar to those pictured on the left in the photo on the right. (You got that?  the shoes on the left in the photo on the right?) It was many years ago, when a friend gifted those miniature shoes to Marash Girl, a friend from Iraq who was attending M.I.T. and was a member of the M.I.T. Arab Club. (He said Marash Girl reminded him of the women back home, even though Marash Girl didn't call herself Marash Girl in those days.  Who knows why.  Maybe because of her Armenian heritage or maybe because she looked like folks in Iraq or maybe because of the Middle Eastern hospitality she practiced?) Marash Girl had never seen such shoes, although she was told that all the women in Iraq wore them.  Her friend from Iraq called them "cop-cop"s.  But as far as the walking utility of the shoes pictured in that photo goes, "not very far," is Marash Girl's guess.
And from Cesar Jacques Chekijian on Facebook we learn the following about these slippers:
Aintab Habbab/Khabbab. Ancient wooden slippers that were common footwear. They were worn past WW-I. The low ones around the house and public baths. The tall/platform ones for outdoors, to walk in the mud or snow.
Aintab Habbab/Khabbab. Ancient wooden slippers that were common footwear. They were worn past WW-I. ...

Monday, January 16, 2017

Thank you, Martin Luther; Thank you, Martin Luther King!

Martin Luther King, Jr.  truly lived up to his namesake . . . King turned the world upside down with his dream, his protest against segregation and racism . . .  as did Martin Luther who began a religious protest against the control of the Roman Catholic Church, a protest which we know today as the origin of the Protestant movement.

Although many young folks today know of Martin Luther King, very few know about his namesake: Martin Luther. The Protestant practice of individuals reading the Bible to learn God's plan for His people (God's people, not Martin Luther's people) was initiated by Martin Luther.


Marash Girl was brought up hearing often about Martin Luther, but rather than repeat her father's teachings, Marash Girl quotes from Wikipedia (below):
Martin Luther (/ˈlθər/;[1] German: [ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈlʊtɐ]; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk[2] and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.
Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money, proposing an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles Vat the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlawby the Emperor.
Luther taught that salvation and, subsequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds but are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God[3] and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.[4] Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans, though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ.
His translation of the Bible into the vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible to the laity, an event that had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation,[5] and influenced the writing of an English translation, the Tyndale Bible.[6] His hymns influenced the development of singing in Protestant churches.[7] His marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry.[8]

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Happy Anniversary, Mummy and Daddy!

Happy Anniversary, Mummy and Daddy!  If it weren't for your marriage on this day in 1940, none of us -- Marash Girl, Marash Martha, James, our children, our grandchildren -- none of us would be here!  And to think that you returned from your honeymoon to find a chalked message written on the back of your bedroom door:  "This marriage will never last!"  Why would someone perform such a hateful act?  Why?  It seems, Mummy, that the Protestant church that you attended was not conservative enough for the folks that attended your church, Daddy.  Mummy, you could actually look pretty and fix your hair and wear lipstick.  Good for you!  And good for both of you, Daddy and Mummy, for fighting the powers that be, for pursuing your love, for marrying, for bringing us into this world, for bringing us up in the way that you did.  We miss you guys!  We love you guys!

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Multiple bankruptcies? How is it possible?

"How is it possible that our President elect has filed for bankruptcy so many times?"  

"He has not filed for bankruptcy!  His companies have!" informed the man standing in line in front of Marash Girl at the post office.  

"Oh, that's okay, then?" exclaimed Marash Girl.  "I guess I just didn't understand. . . "

Friday, January 13, 2017

Good Luck with your Triskaidekaphobia

Why do we fear Friday the 13th?  Hey, we're living in the 21st Century  . . .  Friday the 13th is like any other Friday.  Remember TGIF?  Even Friday the 13th!  

And thanks to Deron for informing Marash Girl of the name for the fear of  the number 13:  triskaidekaphobia.  Try that one on your friends today!

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Wagon Wheel in the Snow

Wandering through Brimfield (Massachusetts) during the Brimfield Fair many years ago, Marash Martha (who had come East to visit Marash Girl AND to check out the antiques of Western Massachusetts), spied a wagon wheel -- "Stop!" she shouted. "That will be the  perfect top for the coffee table in my den in Texas." (Now who has a den large enough for a coffee table as large as a 19th century wagon wheel?  Only folks who live in Texas is Marash Girl's guess.)  At any rate, the two sisters screeched to a stop, or they stopped as Marash Martha shrieked, and Marash Martha, as she is wont to do, purchased the wheel of that long ago wagon and arranged to have it (the wheel, not the wagon which was nowhere to be seen) shipped to Texas post haste; once there, she arranged for the wagon wheel to be made into a glass topped coffee table for her den.  It was indeed magnificent, and fit the den perfectly.  That girl -- what an eye she has for design.  Thus when Marash Girl saw the wagon wheel pictured above sitting in the dumpster outside of her book storage facility, she grabbed it.  Not knowing what to do with it in her New England Victorian house, she decided to set it against the hand hewn stone wall of her basement, the foundation of her 19th Century house, a wall that was probably built at around the same time as the wagon wheel was rolling through the deserts of the wild west.  (How it got to the east coast of Massachusetts is a tale only the wheel can tell.) Now missing a spoke, there the wheel sits,  ladies and gentlemen, for all the world to see, for all the world  to wonder, for all the world to remember.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Eat Well in 2017 - Eat Lahmejune Every Day!

Massis Bakery, Watertown, Massachusetts - Photo by Lorig, December, 2016

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

No Grandmother's Trunk in the Attic; Grandmother and Grandfather in the Attic!

As she was growing up, Marash Girl loved to read novels about girls her age, novels in which girls her age were the hero -- yes, the hero! ( NOT the heroine!)  Mystery novels, adventure novels, travel novels . . . In particular, Marash Girl remembers a novel entitled SAND IN HER SHOES . . . a novel about a New England girl who had to move with her family to Florida, and sort out the difficulties for a New England girl  adjusting to celebrating Christmas in Florida.  She (the girl in the novel, not Marash Girl) finally figured it out, and lived (Marash Girl hopes) happily ever after.  Okay, back to the subject at hand.  What was difficult for Marash Girl was reading about the girls who would go up to their attics and find there in the attic an old trunk, a trunk full of mementos from the past -- dresses from when their grandmothers were young, little trinkets from the old days, books, written diaries . . . Marash Girl, of course (you know why, right?), could find none of that.  She had much better.  She had her grandmother and grandfather living on the third floor (finished attic with full bath and the only walk-in shower in the house) in two beautiful attic rooms of the two family house in which she grew up.  But her grandmother and grandfather were silent.  Never did they talk about their experiences in the old country during the "aksoroutioun", as it was called in those days . . .

Monday, January 9, 2017

Old Country Cure for the Common Cold

As Marash Girl sits at her computer considering what she should write for today's blog post -- and what she should have for breakfast to fight off a very bad New England cold -- (don't get too close, now!) -- she remembers her mother and grandmother, her aunts and uncles, the Aintab and Marash cure for the common cold (Well, not the common New England cold, but the common Marash and Aintab cold, Marash Girl is guessing), and that was to squeeze several oranges and lemons, toss the juice of those oranges and lemons into a pot along with the rinds of the oranges and lemons, cover the lot with water, and bring to a boil; simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, add honey (a good dollop) and after the concoction cools for a bit, to drink and keep drinking!  What a cure. It always worked.  Now one would think that the boiling would have killed all of the vitamin C in the fruits, so it must have been the heat and the honey that acted as a cure . . . or was it?

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Daddy Hall and Rumney, New Hampshire

A household word in Marash Girl's childhood was Daddy Hall, pre-eminent preacher in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was 75 in 1939, so he must have been 80 when Marash Girl first heard speak of him and actually saw him on the pulpit in Rumney, New Hampshire.  Was it Daddy Hall, then, who lambasted the little black kitten that came walking down the aisle during Daddy Hall's preaching, the black kitten looking for Uncle (Rev. Vartan Bilezikian), its master,  and diverting the attention of the congregation from the preacher to the little black cat?  (See "Worshiping in Rumney, New Hampshire", Marash Girl, Tuesday, March 25, 2014.)  Marash Girl was so surprised to come upon the book pictured above,  all about this preacher that she had heard preach when she was a very little girl. . . . . . Do you, dear reader, remember Daddy Hall?

Saturday, January 7, 2017

No Inmate Labor to Build The Wall

Grandson of Peter Bilezikian's good Marashtsi friend "Mr. Box", Middlesex County Sherriff Peter Koutoujian says, "No inmate to build the wall."
Read Koutoujian's full statement below:
"This is not something we would consider at the Middlesex Sheriff's Office. With an average length of stay lasting less than a year, we have a brief window of opportunity to address the factors, including substance use and mental health disorders, that lead to a person’s incarceration. I would rather use the scarce resources and time we have to offer evidence based programming that has been proven to help inmates prepare for reentry and enhance public safety. At a time when we are having a serious conversation in this state about criminal justice reform and ways to reduce recidivism, I feel that this proposal misses the mark."

Photo and statement from the Newton (Massachusetts) Patch.

N.B. See Marash Girl, Wednesday, August 10, 2016:  "Something there is that doesn't love a wall . ."

Friday, January 6, 2017

Down for the Count!

Marash Girl is down for the count, with a good old-fashioned New England winter cold in full bloom -- and the first snow of 2017!

Whoops!  Forgot to wish you all a blessed Armenian Christmas1  So here goes . . .

Have a blessed Armenian Christmas.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

The Barns of Western Massachusetts

The barns of Western Massachusetts housed not only the animals, but the tramps who walked in from the train station in the cold of winter -- no longer could they live out in the woods -- they needed a warm place to stay, a place warmed by the animals in the barn, and, if the farmer's wife was kind, she would invite the man (women were never seen as tramps in Western Massachusetts) . . . the farmer's wife would invite the tramp in to eat at the family table.

Or, as Medzmama experienced in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, the tramps would come to the back door and ask for food, food which she would always gladly give them, as she had experienced hunger and loss in her youth during the "aksoroutioun", known today as the Genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks.  She had tramped, as it were, not in the cities, but into the deserts where the problem was not only to keep warm (during the nights), but to keep hydrated during the days, to keep from getting sunstroke and heat stroke.  Oh, what our parents/grandparents experienced was far more than the tramps, for our parents had to care for those around them -- they were not alone to do what they would with their lives -- they were a part of a family, if only the human family, the Armenian family that was becoming smaller every day from the ravages of hunger and thirst and disease and hopelessness.  

Now how did Marash Girl ever get here from thinking about the barns in winter in Western Massachusetts?

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Hooray for the Broken Glass and the New Year!

In true form, Marash Girl broke a glass (Pyrex) baking dish on New Year's Day.  Poor Marash Boy spent an hour on that first day of the new year, just making sure all the bits were no longer on the floor.  Marash Girl had to remind him of what his grandmother would have said!

Ayi Gitdi  It's good it's gone. . . Let it take all the bad with it!

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

We're waiting for the Lillies to come out!

In texting our daughter on New Year's Eve, Marash Girl and Marash Boy wrote,
"We're waiting for the Lillies to come out and shout happy new year, welcome 2017."  Just to make it official as they have done every year.  They never did come out.  And John answered,
"Can't wait to see the flowers . . . or are those people?"
"They're our neighbors across the street, but we'll take the flowers as well!"

Happy New Year to all Marash Girl's readers!

Monday, January 2, 2017

New Year's Day Surprise

What are those beautiful pink flowers?  Marash Girl has had this plant for years -- where she got it, nobody knows -- and never a flower.  Yet yesterday evening, on New Year's Day, the beautiful flamingo pink flowers made their way into her living room saying, "Happy New Year!"  (Do any of you know the name of this plant?  Marash Girl does not!")