Kartsakalis

Here you see me with Ya Ya and Pa Po Kartsakalis. They were our old next door neighbors in Silver Spring when we lived there 3 years ago. We also visited 2 other homes (all geriatrics), this was the only one we took pictures at though. He was the friendliest man. Always smiling and taking a minute to chat with us. We had a tearful goodbye when we left 3 years ago. They are Greek and not so good with the english, but we did a lot of charades and what-not to get around that. Ya Ya was the funniest. She got pretty much all she wanted to get across with about 5 words and lots of hand movement. "S'okay" was a big one. She would compare her flowers to mine (her's being the best of-coarse because she's Greek and they are superior), but mine were "s-okay too." Well we paid them a surprise visit while we were in town house hunting. I was so touched when Pa Po first saw us and was overcome and had to put his hands in his face and cry a bit. We talked about his fig tree. He ran and got our Christmas card photo from his back room. How nice that he had it some place handy. He did take the time to scribble out thank you cards for the ones we would send each year. He is not literate so it was pretty special. Here's hoping we will be as blessed with good neighbors in our new neighborhood. I also took photos of their garden to make them feel good.