Some shit went down telepathically between my mom and her childhood friend (a friend of my mom's and my aunt Zoi - a 'mutual' friend.)
My mom called her friend up to wish her a happy holiday and she sounded uncomfortable on the phone. Dear readers my mom and sister do not talk to each other (a little background info). My mom asked her friend, 'you sound uncomfortable, is my sister also there playing cards with you and your guests?'
My mom's friend's response, 'no, if she were here I would have hung up.'
My response to my mom, fuck 'em ... with friends like that who needs enemies.
If I were on the phone with her, I would have said:
I love to hear you talk - the white noise is very relaxing.
What, is she afraid to talk to my mom if my Aunt Zoi is at her house? I don't get it.
The new year is approaching. My new year's resolution:
To be less sarcastic ...
Actually, my new year's resolution is the same every year: to not make a new year's resolution.
I have no regrets about reestablishing communication with my Aunt Zoi, Uncle John, and my cousins Maria and George. Occasionally, I'll get an email from my aunt asking how I am feeling since my mastectomy and I write back with updates. I am very grateful that my cousin Maria and I email each other often and when I go to Greece she will be one of the first people I will visit.
I sent my cousin George some pictures of Denise and Manoli from their trip to Denmark and Norway. We spoke on the phone for about 20 minutes on Christmas eve. I laughed so hard, as did George, when I reminded him how our Aunt Antigone would not eat or drink anything when she would visit our grandmother (her sister). I told George about an incident that happened when I was at my grandmother's house one summer. I was visiting my grandmother and her sister stopped by ... It was an incredibly hot day. The heat was stifling and I kept hopping in my grandmothers tub to wet myself with cold water. Everyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I don't tolerate heat well.
I walked into the kitchen to find my grandmother offering her sister a cold glass of water. My Aunt Antigone declined to drink the water despite the fact that she had sweat trickling down her neck and was obviously uncomfortable from the heat. My grandmother offered her a cup of coffee and again my aunt declined the offer. After my aunt left, I asked my grandmother why her sister never ate or drank anything during her visits. My grandmother proceeded to tell me the reason: 'my sister is afraid of catching my cancer.'
'But yiayia, she can't become infected with cancer by drinking out of your cups or glasses.'
I reminded George and we both literally busted a gut!
Christo came up, my Theia Bella's son-in-law, who is battling colon cancer.
My esteemed readers, were it not for my breast cancer, my family and I would have never found out about Christo's cancer. It was only after my mom told her cousin Bella about my breast cancer that she mentioned to my mom that her son-in-law had surgery for colon cancer. It's cool - some people have a hard time when it comes to discussing cancer. I'm fine with that ...
Every time my Aunt Bella would call my mom up she would ask, 'how is Ourania?' but would never mention Christo or her daughter Olympia. So the last time my aunt called and asked my mom, 'how is Ourania?' my mom answered her question with a question, 'how is Christo?'
Can you tell I get my sarcasm from my dear mom?!
My cousin Katerina called me to wish me a Merry Christmas. It was nice of her ... I'm closer to her than I am to her siblings. I never really hung around with Mano or Olympia. Katerina and I are closer in age. She sent a bunch of icons and religious literature with my sister. She's really religious - I'm not knocking religion - it works for her.
I'm back from brewing Starbuck's Christmas blend, which is the only blend that Starbucks makes that I really like. Why they don't offer this blend all year long is a mystery to me. I know people who stock up on their Christmas blend and enjoy it all year long. I'm not one to buy 30 bags of coffee and store it in my freezer.
So then my conversation with George took a turn to Mano. We both agreed he is a 'good' kid (kalo paidi). George mentioned he is a good doctor and helps a lot of needy (poor) patients. I was glad to hear that he helps the poor.
Getting back to my mom's conversations with my Aunt Bella, and my conversations with my Aunt Bella - I have talked to my aunt many times - I got the impression that she was in awe as to how quickly I was operated on. Dr. Frazier told me my tumor was cancerous on September 8th ... and 15 days later, on the 23rd, I had my mastectomy. My aunt was surprised. I told her things are different here - you don't wait around languishing, you don't have to 'butter' any doctor's hand to get decent care and treatment, bribery in the US is not tolerated.
The corruption and cronyism in Greece is pathetic. You know things are bad when the patient has to bring their own rubbing alcohol and bandages to the hospital. This, according to my Aunt Bella (from the horse's mouth so-to-speak) whose son is a doctor.
If a general election is called, my cousin Mano will be forced to help many more poor patients.
With its fierce anti-austerity rhetoric, Syriza has revived fears of Athens being forced to leave the Eurozone if it does assume office and will refuse to enforce tough austerity measures in return for aid.
Yeah, right?!
I can't wait to see how the MPs vote on Monday. Will Greece stay the course, albeit a slow and painful economic recovery ... or will Greece leave the EU, declare bankruptcy, and say 'fuck 'em' to all the creditors.
And my Aunt Bella is amazed at our efficiency here in the US! A typical doctor here in the US sees on average 21 patients a day. Does Mano see 21 patients every day? I don't think so.
Alexis Tsipras (Syriza) is my Aunt Evangelia's sister's daughter's husband. My Aunt Evangelia's son, my cousin Nick, works at a 'public' hospital in Athens.
I have another cousin Nick, my Uncle Antoni's son, who worked as a doctor in Greece. He left Greece and has been working in England the past two years. He was telling my uncle that he sees about 16 patients a day. In Greece, he saw about 3 to 4 a day.
It is the public sector that ruined Greece. Syriza is promising these lazy asses their cushiony jobs back with a lifetime guarantee of employment.
Syriza and Alexis Tsipras are pitting the citizens of one country against those of others, with the more financially prudent and honest expected to further support - under duress - the least financially prudent and honest.
In all fairness to Greece, it is the banksters who helped Greece 'fudge' their books in order to get Greece in the EU.
If you want to play with the big boys you can't have a half-hearted mentality. You're either in or you're out.
I remember walking to the bank near my aunt's house to exchange dollars into drachmas. After a long wait in line, I would be handed a piece of paper by one teller, and after another long wait in a second line (to get the piece of paper stamped), I would have to wait in a third line ... a bank! (The transactions that were handled by three tellers in this bank would have been handled by one teller here.)
While people huffed and puffed in line, and looked at their wrist watches, the bank employees enjoyed their coffee, cigarettes & small talk.
It is not those Greeks, or the lazy ass public sector employees I feel sorry for - it's the hard-working, private sector, honest Greeks I feel for. They are suffering as a result of years of corruption.
Greece has had many years to reform but it will take many more years to reform:
900 different jobs requiring a government permit (are you fucking kidding me!)
Non-existent tax compliance (on a SNL Weekend Update a couple years ago, Tina Fey, who is Greek, said she asked her mother in Greece what was the Greek word for 'taxes'. Her mother replied, 'We don't have one.' Priceless when you consider the old saying 'The Greeks have a word for everything.')
A bust pension system (shit, my cousin Katerina retired in her 50's!)
Corruption with impunity ...
Greece's loss of GDP is misleading. Greece's main exports were the suckers who were willing to buy it's bonds and thus allow the country to give the appearance of rising GDP which was in reality illusory.
If you’ve read one of those lurid exposés of Greek working life that have been churned out by western journalists over the last couple of years, I’m sure you’ll have a hard time keeping your lunch down. Or at least your laughter.
Almost every sector of the Greek labor market is breathtakingly bloated, crooked, or purposefully inefficient in some way, and it’s the country’s elevation of pointless pseudo-work to a form of high art that has now almost single-handedly poisoned the future of the EU.
Greek workers who work in some form of government employment enjoy paychecks that eclipse the private sector workers by nearly three-to-one. Almost all are unionized, and few - until emergency austerity laws kicked in - could ever be fired. Routine bonuses included perks for arduous tasks such as showing up on time, and in exchange, laborers perpetuate a byzantine web of regulation over all aspects of society and commerce that rarely benefit the life of the average Greek.
Can you imagine receiving a bonus for showing up on time?!
Vital services such as education, transportation, and health care are run largely from a mindset that favors generous compensation before literally everything else, resulting in monstrous paradoxes like the best-paid teachers generating the dumbest students, the best-paid engineers driving the most ramshackle trains, and the best-paid doctors having to be bribed by patients for service.
Even in the Greek private sector, rigged laws have made absurdly early retirements - sometimes as early as 45 - possible within even the most laid-back professions, and wide scale tax evasion and non-enforcement guarantees that subsidizing the perks of the bureaucratic class isn’t actually that painful. Unless you consider bankrupting rates of national debt painful ...
Greeks will argue they work longer hours than Germans or Swedes, etc., but stated hours of work don’t necessarily mean much in a corrupt culture; a large number of Greeks are self-employed or otherwise entrusted to document their own hours, and Greece’s comparatively low rate of labor force participation - itself another symptom of the country’s dysfunction - will naturally necessitate longer hours for those who have chosen to opt-in. It’s also clear that not all forms of government work are created equal; if one’s job is so cushy and brainless that it’s easy to surf the net, chat on the phone, or even work a second job while performing it, then why not put in some overtime?
There is one silver lining: the Greeks happily volunteered themselves when asked to name their continent’s 'most corrupt' nation. If the first step towards resolution is admitting you have a problem, then the country’s at least halfway there.
Fuck 'em!
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