Levedy

Blather #3

My weekend was relatively uneventful.

Saturday was spent training new SAT teachers. Sunday morning was for church and Sunday afternoon was training again.

I was really nervous about messing up again in church. I had the spot in the liturgy marked so I would know when it was the congregation's turn to turn to one another, kiss each others cheeks, and say "Christ is in our midst" to which I was to reply "He is and ever will be" (not "yup, he sure is" like last week.)

I was ready. I was willing. I was able. The moment arrived...

No one was sitting next to me, behind me, or in front of me.

Drat.

I'm meeting with the priest tomorrow as part of my catechism. I'll tell him about my scaring the natives in church. Maybe he'll get a laugh out of it.

Athena (my future sister-in-law), who directs the choir at the other orthodox church in town, was funny about it. She said, "don't worry. Just point at you're blonde hair. They'll forgive you." See, I'm one of the only obviously non-greek folk at the church, so I stand out like a gringo-sore-thumb.

During the reception after services, a woman who knows Dimitri but who had not met me approached us. Her name is Dina (short for Constantina) and she is the woman who instructed Dimitri to command me "Greek style" to come to church. Dimitri introduced me, but before he could tell her my name, she already had my hand and shoulder and was asking me my name. When she found out that my name was Jennifer, her face fell a little bit. I'm sure she was hoping for Athena or Alexa or Sophia or something equally Greek. She asked me where my family was from. Here, I said. Las Vegas. Four generations. "no" she said. "Where is your family from?" Oh, oops. Ireland. Ireland and England, ma'am. "Well," she says to Dimitri "At least it's European blood."

She was joking, and it was funny, but I did feel like a xeno, a foreigner.

Posted by Jen at June 14, 2004 8:32 AM