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I've read many many stories and accounts of the events in Asia Minor from 1915, the Armenian Genocide, to 1922, the Greek Catastrophe, when my grandmother and her siblings fled from their home and village to Smyrna where they awaited a savior. Since I'm here, you know that my grandmother survived the catastrophe, but there were many more stories, and this is one of them.
My Grandmother by Fethiye Cetin is written by a Turkish human rights lawyer, who as an adult, learned that her beloved grandmother, a "convert" was Armenian, and a survivor of a death march during the Armenian genocide of 1915. It turned Fethiye's world upside down. She had been taught that the Armenians died fighting against the turks, and that the Armenians then left the country. What, 1.5 million people got up and moved to other places? No, they were systematically murdered and marched out. The turkish state still denies any of the violent events they conducted in order to eliminate the Christian population from their country. Fethiye Cetin handles this story with honesty, and with honor. She believed her grandmother, and dealt with the information the way so many of us do when apprised of secrets and cover ups within our families and past. She sometimes zealously probed for more information, while at other times, years would go by where she did almost nothing to make contact with her Armenian American family in order to face their tangled past.
After the Greek catastrophe in 1922, Greece and the new country, Turkey, conducted a "population exchange" 1.5 million Asia Minor greeks were sent to Greece, and 500,000 muslims were moved from Greece to Turkey. Still, one wonders, were any of our relatives "saved" by a turkish family? Do we have family there? Mostly all the survivors have died, and their children are aging. The story is disappearing for all but those activists who are working to try to get the turkish government to acknowledge their actions in 1915 and 1922. If you want to know more, but don't want to read the book, here is a short interview with the author. I loved this book.
Now I get it. Facebook can take over your life if you let it. So far I've got some measure of control, but once you start searching for people, then looking at their limited page and all their friends, and sometimes the search doesn't show your person, or shows someone that maybe could be your person but you don't even have one friend in common, but that might be normal because you haven't seen or spoken with them in years anyway, then you look at someone else's friends, and see the person you were searching for before, and it's the right person, and not the wrong one with no common friends, and then you click on their name and see all their friends, and the whole time you're asking yourself do I want to be friends with this person, because then their friends some of who I don't want to be friends with will see me when they look at that person's friends and what if they try to friend me? Even if I am sort of or actually their friend or relative in real life. I'm starting to get the difference between the wall and the news feed which is progress because yesterday it wasn't making sense. And it's really weird when on the right side you see pictures of people you've never heard of and Facebook is asking whether you want to friend them, and of course not you've never heard of them and the next day in the same spot is someone you do know who you would love to have as a friend especially if it's someone nice who you don't have time to be real life friends with although you want to everyone is too busy and you friend that person or send them a message but they might or might not friend you even if they respond to your message because they forgot to, but what if they don't want to in the first place. The best of all is the friends who are real life friends from far away places who you lost, but who found you because of Facebook and who you can correspond with and see pictures of and it's really great.
I'm off to a great start to the new year. I just completed two online school district applications. One of them requires me to submit a resume, transcript and letters of reference, which I will do on Monday. For the other one, I'm going to call our principals, and mention that I've completed my online application. If they'll request me to sub, I'll be in. Yea!
I just made a Facebook page I think. Peter was helping me for about 3 minutes until his friend came over, then I was on my own. I will try to not let this turn into a rant, but the little circle is still going around trying to confirm being a friend of my friend Sue in Australia. So I guess that's not happening. Peter left me with the browse so that I could put a picture on my page which I did. But now I can't find the list of friend requests that he showed me. He told me the other day that Facebook only has two pages, and that they scroll forever like my blog page. He said you have "home" and your "wall". With all that I write here, I can't think of one thing to put on the Facebook page. OK, I'm going back to it, but might have to put it off until later. I'll go make a necklace or apply to the school district. Then two of my three tasks for the year and the day will be complete!
Happy New Year! Yesterday was New Year's Day, spent as always in a bit of a fog.....new year, new blank slate and all of that. I wonder what wonders 2010 holds for me? I took down most of the Christmas decorations, but left the tree up, because it's so pretty and cheery on cold winter nights. And I emptied off the dining room table in anticipation of jewelry designing for an upcoming show at the National Hellenic Museum in Greektown on February 5th. And we're off......
Possible Side Effects - Another collection of short stories by Augusten Burroughs. This guy can write and write. These are stories of growing up, stories about people in his life, and stories about working as an advertising copywriter. I loved reading about his grandmothers and great aunt. The sweetest story was the one about his dermatologist. His dad scares me to death, his brother absolutely creeps me out, and his mom is a puzzle I'm afraid to even attempt to solve. I know he's OK now, but sometimes I think about him and worry and hope that he's doing alright. He still seems vulnerable to me.
Speaking of vulnerable characters, last night I watched, or shall we say tried to watch Revolutionary Road with Leonardo Decaprio and Kate Winslet. I'd been avoiding this one for the longest time, refused to rent it just in case, and finally decided to get it over with. It's been sitting on my dvr for weeks. All I've got to say is huh? Who liked this and why? There are three copies of it on the shelf at the library! Revolutionary Road is the street they live on, and all it is is a couple with a mentally unstable wife who doesn't like their life as suburbanites in the 1950s. Well, who does like their life as a suburbanite? I kept fast forwarding to see if it would get better or if there would be a story line. It was like watching a super bad play, or like being on a sled going downhill where you're going to crash into a wall. Oh yeah, they went there, it crashes. I would have known not to see the play, and you can bet all your money that I'm never going to read the book. Of course, this is just my humble opinion. You might like it. Valerie.
I've been blogging for two years now. Who would've thought? It's fridgidly cold outside today, but there are no shortage of indoor things to do. The things I want to successfully do this year are as follows:
1) Substitute teach in our local schools
2) Sell my jewelry on a larger scale
3) Get on Facebook and reconnect with some of my friends from around the world.
I think these might be resolutions, but I'm not sure.
4) Blog more. On some level this is all I want to do. However, life outside beckons.
For today's goal, I want to design and make a gorgeous necklace for the Hellenic Jewelry show. I'll post a photo of it here, and start a new label called Jewelry by Dianne Sophia.
It's 2:00 on New Year's Eve day, and probably the last thing I have time to do is blog, and yet, since it's my favorite thing to do lately, here I am! This has been a wonderful vacation....reading, watching movies, lazing around, even a great little shopping opportunity the past two days. Yesterday I decided to use up a free movie pass I had, so I went to the Evanston Theater to see Crazy Heart, and then at the very end of the movie, the sound went out. So although we sort of know what happened, we don't really 100% know. And they gave us another free pass, so I'm back where I started in terms of things to do that won't go away. Like free passes, gift cards, etc.
Crazy Heart - Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal and the music. This was wonderful. Back to that great genre about a guy in the middle of his life living day to day. In this case, he is a singer songwriter driving from town to town living hand to mouth. The music is lovely. It's a good old fashioned story, age old; Remember all the talent is not always out there in front of us, being recognized by the media; sometimes it's driving around the country in a beat up Silverado, living in crusty motels and playing in bars.
Julie and Julia - I made myself and the people at the library crazy for a few days trying to get this dvd. I think Amy Adams is one of my favorite actresses. This is a great little movie about a woman who decides to blog about cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking every day for a year. Every other scene takes us back to Julia's life as the wife of an American diplomat in Paris. She's fun and curious and a learner and looking for something to do with her time. Since she loves to eat, she takes a course at Le Cordon Bleu. The rest, as they say, is history. As a bow to Julia and to the film, I just made the Chocolate Almond Cake from Mastering for our New Year's Eve party tonight. Everyone reading is invited. If you want to show up, just get here around 9 tonight. Have your kids bring their X Box controller...New Years Eve will be a Modern Warfare 2 free for all if you're a teenaged boy at our home tonight. The rest of us will enjoy cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and the chocolate cake. I'm still planning to make a Vasilopita, which is traditional New Year's Day greek bread. I'll bake a coin into it, and the person who gets the slice with the coin will have good luck for the rest of the year.
The timer is going off on the Julia Chocolate Cake. I have to take it out of the pan to cool on a rack now. Here it is baking in the oven:
Oh no, it's quarter to three and I haven't got my table ready, read the paper, nothing, let alone the bread. At least I can get those bread ingredients going to room temp.
I still have to frost this cake, too.
Today Peter and I had an excursion to the new Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. We were both deeply affected by the experience. Me, because it was a reminder that we can Never Forget what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 40s under Hitler's rule. Peter, because he had no real touchstone or picture in his mind about this tragic history. The museum's architecture is dramatic and dark, with occasional slashes of light coming in when you least expect it. The exhibits flow in chronology from space to space and room to room. Throughout the experience, screens show videos of survivors recounting their experiences. The history is complete and jarring and disturbing and thought-provoking. This museum chronicles one of the lowest points in our world's history. Unfortunately, similar situations still occur around the world when despots are allowed to prevail.
Someday I'll recount my grandmother's experience as someone who was chased from her home and country at 18 years old, never to return. She always used to say "we were refugees honey". But I didn't know what that meant until I was an adult. I mean what it really really meant.
Today my friend Sheila came over and we hung around and chatted and caught up on our lives while I made us Quesadillas, Cream of Broccoli Soup and Egg Nog Pudding. The Quesadillas are the standby food that you'll get if you're ever here and you're hungry for something warm. The Cream of Broccoli Soup was born of my skim milk that was past the expiration date plus leftover broccoli from Christmas day. The Egg Nog Pudding was in a little Paula Deen recipe book that is due at the library. I'd taken all the book marks out except for the one for this pudding, because of that milk. Everything was yummy, and Sheila and I were sated with all the comfort food.
Here's the recipe for the Pumpkin Cheesecake I made for our Thanksgiving dessert. If you recall, I combined both Martha's and Paula's recipes in terms of ingredients, and used Alton's method for the baking. It's a long recipe, but it goes fast, and the cheesecake will be worth it.
PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE1 3/4 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
3 Tbls Light Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
6 Tbls. Melted Butter
Butter bottom and sides of a 9" springform pan, cut a parchment circle to fit the bottom and butter the parchment. Combine all ingredients well and press onto bottom and sides of the pan. Bake at 300 degrees for 8 minutes. Cool thoroughly.
Assemble all the following ingredients and let them soften to room temperature:
1/4 cup Sour Cream
4 8 oz. packages Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 1/2 cup Sugar
1 cup pureed pumpkin (or 15 oz. can of pumpkin)
4 Eggs
2 Tbls Flour
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Allspice or Cloves1 tsp. Vanilla
Turn Oven back to 250 degrees. Beat Sour Cream 30 seconds to coat the bowl. Add softened Cream Cheese 1 brick at a time and beat until smooth. Add Sugar, beat 1 minute.
In separate bowl, mix all remaining ingredients: Pumpkin, 4 Eggs, Flour, Spices and Vanilla.
Now add 1/2 the pumpkin mixture to the cream cheese mixture until just incorporated. Repeat with the rest of the pumpkin mixture, taking care not to overbeat. Do not overbeat. Wrap the outside of the springform pan in foil, and pour the cheesecake mixture into the cooled crust.
Place the springform pan in a 1" waterbath. Which is to say, get a larger pan than t
he springform pan, put the foil wrapped springform pan in it, and add 1" of water to it.Bake at 250 degrees for 2 - 2 1/2 hours.
The secret is to bake this Low and Slow. (so it doesn't crack)Once the edges are set, and the center jiggles, turn off the oven and open the door a crack for 1 minute. Then close the oven door and leave the cheesecake in there 1 more hour.Take the cheesecake out and cool in the refrigerator 4 hours to overnight.
Push - by Sapphire is the novella on which the movie Precious was based. I've just read it in two short blasts because I couldn't put it down. It's a person's story, and although it's a work of fiction, it's written with truth, and you know it could all be true. The world is so cruel but filled with such goodness. Precious Jones is among the most beautiful characters I have ever met in a book or movie. No matter what had happened to her, she always knew love when she encountered it.
Funny People - I was a little hesitant about this one. Generally Adam Sandler is difficult for me to watch. Too silly, too overacted, too silly. He's growing up, though, and I loved this movie. It's about comedians and LA and what if and being a jerk and being a good guy, and being young and getting older. It's serious and funny and amusing and I almost didn't want it to end. However, it ended perfectly, and I'd definitely watch it again, which seems to be a new barometer for movies for me. Maybe not a new barometer, but one that I realize makes a difference. This has been a great week for movies. I love vacationing at home.
A Christmas Story - Every time I pick up the Tribune, one of the writers is referring to this movie. The cheesy leg lamp, and the little boy's longing for that one special gift for Christmas. It turns out this is a 1983 movie, and we'd never seen it. I won't be watching it again and again, but surprisingly, I think Peter enjoyed it. It paralleled his life this year, because he also wanted something that he didn't think he'd ever get. Why do boys want something violent? What brainiac man invented guns? How has the invention of guns bettered our civilization? Ever? How is it that guns are OK? I don't get it don't get it don't get it. Why do we compromise our values and then justify rather than own the compromise? I'll say it here. I compromised my values with one of Peter's presents this year. I'm not happy about it, and to see his happiness is strange, because he compromised some of his values for this too. I don't want him to feel guilty because that's an awful way to feel, and yet, I want him to grow up and not play violent games. It's all a question mark from here in that department.
