The Dreams and White Tales of Cheeky Greek

Last night I had a wacky dream, which is no surprise in itself. Us wacky Greek sisters have them more often than not (should we check into this? Quite possibly, however it will go on the back burner for now). After waking with my adrenalin pumping then frantically feeling my husband's face to make sure it was in tact, I realized that at no point in any person's life is it a good idea to own a tiger.

To sum it up, in dreamland we decided to get a cute, cuddly, rolly-polly tiger kitten. I did not understand it myself, but why question it right? In dreamland do you ever question going back to elementary school completely naked with a bowl of fruit on your head while pushing a wheelchair that's covered in the cafeteria's turkey gravy? Probably not. Back to the tiger. The tiger began to grow very rapidly, then would shrink back down to size, then back up again. Weird. Once it began to lunge at our throats it wasn't so cute anymore, or even weird, just plain ol' scary! I recall the tiger was dangling from my husband's jugular when I decided I had better call 911. That didn't work like it is supposed to, they put me on hold, and yes, there was elevator music. We are in hysterics, I don't know where my three year old is, and my husband (we'll call him Jack) is trying to pry this tiger kitten's dagger claws out of his neck. It was much like the last scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the cave dwelling rabid rabbit is hurling itself and it's razor sharp bucked teeth toward unsuspecting victims. I realize this is the second time on my blog I have referred to buck teeth.

So I'm still on hold, then finally someone answers. "Thank you for calling, would you like to hear about our specials this week?".......WHAT?! And this brings me to another thought, whenever I dream that something terrible is happening I always call 911. Never once has it worked. Later I'll tell you all about my recurrent lion dreams. Oh, and the contact lens dream my hairy sister used to tell me about which eventually became one of my dreams.

Well, I suppose I should begin my tale of how I came to be so white (eggshell). I really don't know honestly. I must have stuck my little embryonic toe in some recessive gene pool that my family didn't know existed, considering I'm whiter than my non-Greek mother. And there the story began.

I'm not like redhead white, I'm olive white. I know, weird combo. It's so much fun picking out a foundation color! I can never decide which one I like better, the orangey fake-n-bake, over-baked, yet still the lightest shade color...which manages to make me look orange and pale at the same time and very oompa loompa-like. Or the one that is supposed to work great for neutral or yellow undertones that actually is so pink it would make a lovely blush shade. Aha! I finally find a great match, I'm feeling good. Then walks in my dad. "You are SO white!". Really Dad? Thanks for that long-lost gene.

I don't burn too badly in the sun which is nice, but I don't tan real well either. By the time my tan is starting look like the average person's in May, the summer is already ending. So here is my awesome, and oh so white tan next to everyone else's, and the clouds surround for the next six months completely ruining my chances at getting a real person tan. This last summer I finally became a self-tanner. It is so shocking to people to see me tan that they start to ask questions like: "Are you taking vitamins, you look healthy?! Have you finally gotten out of your house?". No, I still reside in my sun-deprived albino cave living off of Twinkies and kool-aid, I'm just bottle-browned now.

The White Side of My Greek "Hair-itage"

So here I am, new to this whole blogging world due to the insistence of my sister. In response to her sad sob story about being dark and Greek amongst the melanin deprived girls that didn't have to shave until they were 20, I got to thinking! What about the white Greeks? I am Greek just like the rest of my family. I too have battled with the ethnic body hair crisis, only my battle is a unique one. I do not have the dark Greek olive skin to somewhat disguise my hair if I decide to be lazy and not shave. I have very light skin (we'll call it eggshell instead of pasty or pale). Ah yes, eggshell colored skin and DARK "features". While some have complimented my unique combination saying I look exotic or snow-white like (thanks), much too often there has been torment at my expense.

I can recall minding my own business at school trying to complete an assignment when one of my schoolmates began to pet my arms. "It's so soft!" she remarked, as if she was completely shocked that it wasn't coarse and wiry since it was so dark. Well, it didn't stop there, the rest of the class had to join in and I became the class pet. Needless to say nobody wanted to be my boyfriend that year. Well, except for one chubby buck-toothed kid that we so affectionately called "Bucky".

You tend to feel a little out of place as a Greek-American girl amongst all the other hairless kind. Especially when you discover that the other eight year old girls do not shave their legs. However, I could always find comfort from my family when I got home. My siblings loved to "help" me with my hair problem. One night I was running around the house, carefree, when my older, darker, and hairier sister told me she had a lotion she wanted to try on me. Now, keep in mind this was the pre-shaving era of my life, so I was like six. My white toothpick-like legs with a hearty blanket of Grecian hair that made my skin look not so white, can't you picture it? Well, being the naive six year old that I was I agreed to let her use me as her guinea pig, after all, it was only lotion! And she was being nice to me, this was turning out to be a fun night! She opened the bottle and immediately the stench almost made me run, but she convinced me to stay. The tingling on my skin concerned me, but I was told that it wasn't a problem. I did find it a little odd that it was put on so thick and she wouldn't let me rub it in. But I didn't object because I was getting treated so nicely! So I watched some t.v. for a while, not realizing that my brothers were now spectators of this event of the lotion. I looked down at my leg to notice that the hair was beginning to curl and look very odd. I was concerned so my sister finally informed me that it was just my hair dying.......DYING??!! I had hair on my body that was dying if not already dead?! Dead things all over my leg, death, scary, creepy, hairy death on my leg?! That's when the hysteria set it. It wasn't all bad though, I had a nice smooth hairless spot on my leg for about 5 weeks.

I don't get tormented so much for my hair anymore, the razor is my best friend. While I left my trademark arm hair in tact for many years I decided on a whim to see what my arms looked like without hair. White.

Tune in next time for more on the white subject, coming soon.