As you may or may not know, Sevak is the member of an Armenian fraternity. Its name, “Triple X,” is questionable, but I guess there were originally 30 guys that started it, and they decided to go the Roman numeral route (remember that XXX = 30) while choosing their name. I wish people would realize that Roman numerals don’t always mean “classy.” I think some of the folks around here endearingly refer to the group as “Trex,” thereby removing any controversial connotations. As far as I’m concerned, this new name only makes me think of a bunch of Trekkie guys speaking Klingon to one another. But anyway, I digress. The real reason I brought up his club is because we went to a get-together last night with some of his fellow “trexies” and their families. We ate various Armenian and American hors-d’oeuvres, talked, and played games. Of course, everyone shared stories about how they or their family ended up in America. One lady in particular reminded me of the aunt from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (not in her cultural naïveté or faux pas, but just in the way she spoke). Example (“rr” represents rolled r sound): “My grrandfadderr went to Torrkey to veeseet hees old home. Okay. You know what he found steel derre? (dramatic pause) Trree buckets of gold (holds up three fingers and wags them on each syllable, then moves arms outward to indicate girth of buckets).”
In case you need a transliterated version, here it is: “My grandfather went to Turkey to visit his old home. Okay. You know what he found still there? Three buckets of gold.” It really was a pretty amazing story.
Oh, by the way, I also met this really nice Norwegian woman who is married to a Turkish-speaking Armenian. Obviously, I immediately thought of my Danish-American grandma who is married to my Turkish-speaking grandpa. To top it all off, this woman has a particular fondness for genealogy. Sevak and I talked to her for a long time about all the genealogical resources we know of. She was really cool, and her husband was sure a character.
So anyway, we had some good times last night. And that’s that.
3 comments:
Loved your story of the "Big Fat Greek Wedding-esque" lady you met. You know, of course, that the actress that woman reminded you of is one of my favorite comediennes of all time. . .Andrea Martin, another Armenian! Boy, they're coming out of the woodwork these days! ;)
Sure enough! Yeah, I had forgotten she was Armenian.
This post made me laugh Chrissie. That's great that your finding ways to make use of your space. You have to be creative in apartments sometimes.
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