Love Letter In The Rain . . .

Photo by MarashGirl©2021

Have You Ever Played "Racing Raindrops"?

Raining outside? No problem for the kids. On very rainy days, especially during elementary school vacations, Marash Girl, her sister, brother, and cousins, would play "Racing Raindrops", a game of their creation. Have you ever played? It's fun! Here's how they did it . . . When it was raining outside, and the kids had little to entertain them, they would go to the dining room window, the window overlooking the dell, then overgrown with white birch trees (a dell which later in their childhood, disappeared when it became a grassy hillside, as the dell had been filled in with the soil from the cavity created when excavating the cellar hole for the yet to be constructed Newtonville Electrical Company on Newtonville Avenue); each kid (at the same moment) would select a raindrop at the top of the window pane, and then follow that raindrop all the way down to the window sill, hoping that his/her raindrop of choice would arrive at the base before the others. If it did, that raindrop's owner won the game!!!! And all of the kids cheered for the winning raindrop!

Şiş gibi geliyor!

Whenever it thundered and lightninged and the heavens opened up, from Marash Girl's childhood comes this little ditty:
"It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring!"

And as Grandma Jennie used to exclaim as she looked out the dining room window,
"It's raining cats and dogs!"

Or, as Medzmama would state assertively in her native language of Armeno-Turkish,
"Şiş gibi geliyor!!!"

"April showers . . ."

April showers bring May flowers, or so goes the ancient wisdom , , , Well, May is almost here, and so far, RAIN, RAIN, RAIN!

It's coming straight down!

Shish gibi geliyor! So Marash Boy's mother (Azniv Sanjian, born in Marash) would exclaim when she looked out the window on a summer's day and saw the rain come down the way it's coming down today.  Straight down and fast.  Just like falling shishes.  Do you know what a shish is?  It's what folks put meat on when they're preparing shish kebab.  [In English, a shish is a skewer. . . Got it?]  (Wonder why it never rained cats and dogs in Marash!)

Sunset in Newton Corner

Driving along Newtonville Avenue  yesterday early evening, Marash Girl saw

Look, she said to Marash Boy.  The clouds are pink.  It's going to be a beautiful day tomorrow!  

Those are thunderheads, answered Marash Boy.

Are they?

Though later that evening the moon had a halo around it (a condition that Marash Girl's mom would always use to point out that there was rain in the offing), the thunder never thundered and the rains never rained.

Well, we have to forgive Marash Boy.  He had never heard Marash Girl's friend, Wilbraham farmer & historian Charlie Merrick, quote,

                  Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

                  Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.

Noah's Ark, the beginning of Armenian history

For kids, Noah's Ark means fun, a boat full of animals, a rainbow, new hope.

The Noah's Ark Thrift Shop, Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Photo Credit: Marash Girl

For Cape Codders, Noah's Ark means a resale shop full of wonderful buys, (toy animals included), but for Armenians, Noah's Ark is the beginning of Armenian History.  You know the verse from the Bible, at the beginning of Genesis, Chapter 8: "But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had abated; and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat." (Genesis 8:1-4 RSV)

Armenia:  Mt. Ararat with Massis in the background. Detail from 18th Century French Copperplate Print
Photo Credit: Marash Girl

IT'S RAINING!

These last two weeks of rain remind me of a joke my father used to love to tell.

A young man is talking on the telephone to his girlfriend.  He tells her, 

"I love you so much, I'd climb the highest mountain for you, cross the widest desert, swim the deepest ocean."

He pauses.

"Oh, by the way, I won't be coming over tonight. It's raining."

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, Stowe, Vermont & Marash Dondurmasu

 Even rain can't dim the joy of the graphics used by 
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream!  Or so it seemed.

The fun was in the colorful imagery that greeted us and there it ended.

 

 The tour began with two rather "tasteless" cow jokes:
1)Why does a milking stool have only 3 legs? 

The cow has the udder!  

2)What do you call a cow who has just had a baby calf? Decaffeinated! 

 

Of the most interest was the pre-tour exhibit in the foyer containing photos and objects related to the history of ice cream making, and the history of Ben and Jerry's efforts (pictured above & below).

 The history of ice cream making, however, was limited to ice cream making in the United States.

We were continually reminded that we should be eagerly awaiting free samples of the new ice cream flavor Americone Dream. . . as if that would keep us focused on the speaker, who regularly referred to his favorite flavor (Chubby Hubby) and the fact that his wife didn't want him walking into the house with yet another free pint of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream!

The view of the actual mechanical assembly line (where we were not allowed to take photos), watching ice cream mass produced in albeit sterile stainless steel, left me cold, as it were. But worse was watching the flushing of the system into overflowing barrels with sticky ice cream infused water ending up all over the floor washing into big drains. Marash Girl left the facility never wanting to purchase another pint of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Or any prepackaged ice cream, for that matter. . . And the promised sample of Americone Dream? We could eat as much as we wanted, that is, if we wanted . . . .

It was no wonder that Marash Girl left Ben & Jerry's wanting to purchase an ice cream maker (rather than Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream) in order to make Marash Girl's very own ice cream. [Or frozen yogurt from Marash Girl's very own home made madzoon (yogurt)!]

And why not?  After all, ice cream from Marash (Maraş dondurması) is the most famous in all of the Middle East!

Does anyone have the recipe?