Having to make a class presentation on "TV in my house", my son, whose English is not that good yet, wrote on one corner of the big craft paper he used: "Favourite TV Show: SPONGE BOOB".

She was lurking behind the shampoo aisle

Yesterday, in the supermarket, while daydreaming in front of the pantiliners shelf, a crazy looking, blonde woman around 50, approached me. They always do. "Do you know where they keep the incontinence pads?" she asked.

I showed her. They were hidden away along with the baby toiletries, for some reason. The crazy looking blonde thanked me a million times and hastened to add that she needed them for her mother, not for her.

Another woman, let’s call her auburn lady, not much older than the blonde one, was shopping nearby. As soon as the blonde lady noticed the auburn lady, she grabbed an incontinence pads pack and waving it from the other end of the shampoo section, started shouting at the top of her voice: "Hey lady, you should know. Is this the right one to buy? You are using these, right?"

Whereupon the auburn lady pursed her lips and proceeded to the check out.

Last week I went to the doctor to have a second electromyogram. Somehow, the first doctor whom I had found on the internet didn’t look that credible to me. He had made a comment about husbands giving him more money to electrocute their wives. I laughed. A visit to the neurologist should be a somber affair.

By the way do you know these fake sweaters plus shirts some shops sell and lazy people like me buy? The ones where the parts of the shirt that show under the sweater are added on: cuffs and collar. I was wearing one of those.

I am mentioning this because when the good doctor asked me to take off my sweater so he could insert the electrodes into my hand, he didn’t expect to see me, well, in my bra. Brassiere. Upper body undergarment. Whatever.

"I thought you were wearing a shirt underneath!" he said averting his eyes. "No, I just have the collar on" I apologized, red as a beet. He gave me a puzzled look, maybe thinking that I actually cut off all my shirts’ cuffs and collars. You know, to save time.

He also told me to rest my hand. I am obviously giving it a rest since I don’t need to iron whole shirts anymore, aren’t I?

He then asked me not to clean the windows anymore (he spoiled all the fun didn’t he?). Apparently the circular motion hurts the particular nerve. I assured the doctor that I almost never clean the windows (Stephanie can attest to that) and he needn’t worry about that either. So I put on my grey sweater, my cuffs and collar and off I went. By the way, you could do it with shoes and socks you know. Why wear the whole sock?

Incidentally, I made pasta today: An irrelevant piece of information to attract readers

You know how I carry my silly magnet with me at all times, so as to never miss a silly person that might be in proximity? I have a similar smelly person magnet, but I did not have it on my person today. And do you know how in Greece, some people on the bus talk to strangers? For the whole duration of the ride? So I was in the bus, with my potent magnet, reading a newspaper. The Man in Grey sat next to me of course and made himself very comfortable. But really, you don’t know how comfortable. Every time the bus made a turn, I feared I may end up in a compromising position with the Man in Grey. To widen my personal space, I opened the newspaper. What a fool I was. He was clearly interested in the stories I had been reading (a political scandal involving a dairy company) because he started reading -with lips moving, like a first grader- behind my ear. So I moved to the horoscope page. Men don’t care about horoscopes, do they? -I am Taurus. What does it say about Taurus? -It’s not about you. It says “to those of you lucky enough not to be traveling by bus or metro…” (That’s what it said, I swear) -And may I ask what your sign is? -Pisces. -And what does it say about Pisces? - I don’t know. I always read Aries. -And may I ask why you read Aries? -Because I always wanted to be Aries. And that did the trick. He moved away. I did not have to touch his thigh anymore. Ruffling the pages of my newspaper, putting my bag between us, becoming one with the window, coughing, achieved nothing. Being crazy enough to think I could choose my sign instead of reading the one I was born under, did. See?

scary but not as scary as what followed

Thank god for art installations

I made a huge mistake. Huge. I met my friend Oni for coffee and a little chore we had to do together and wore new heels. After an hour of walking on the cracked pavements of Athens, I realized my feet had become two big blisters. When Oni -who is a tall guy and walks FAST- left, I started walking ever more slowly, pretending I was sightseeing, stopping every two minutes to ‘take a photograph’ -thank god for the camera, my alibi. I managed to reach the bus stop but didn’t have a ticket (you buy tickets from kiosks in Athens) and the kiosk was about 10 metres away, so I took a taxi, unable to cross the street. "Are you going to watch the Eurovision song contest on Saturday?" asked the driver and I was in such pain that I just nodded and smiled. When we arrived he said "I must say you look so serene, almost olympian". I’d laugh if I could find the energy to transform my mouth from a thin line into an O.

Benaki Museum, a building I love

This has been Cultural Week for me. I went to another exhibition. This was by a famous –in Greece- set decorator and costume designer, Dionysis Fotopoulos, who has more or less worked in most of the theatrical productions that mattered in Greece. One part of the exhibition presents his collections of art objects and the other part is his costumes and set designs of more than 35 years. It was exquisite.

Then there was the Kiss Anniversary yesterday. Because I have known M. for more than I can remember as an on-off friend first, boyfriend later, father of our child much later, and husband much later, there are many anniversaries, but this is the one that matters most to me, because that was the day he was set apart from the world in my head. So we went out to dinner and exchanged gifts and cards (I got him dolls again. Well, not exactly dolls, just the dolls from Tim Burton’s movies. They rest on the mantelpiece now and they look cute from far away, but once you come closer, they are really creepy).

My son and I went to Starbucks yesterday. He saw an imitation of an ancient statue that portrays a bare-breasted woman. “Why are her breasts showing?” he asked me while touching them as if to make his point more valid. “Well, it’s no big deal, statues are often nude” I answer. And he frowns and points his little finger and tells me “But why is Truman’s fully dressed?”

P.S Yes, we do have Truman’s statue in Athens.