Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (April 16, 2011)

Fighting Words

If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.
…Muhammad Ali

Vital Statistics

What’s to be appreciated most about a person, height, width, or depth?

Scottish Proverb

He that buys land buys stones,
He that buys beef buys bones,
He that buys nuts buys shells,
He that buys good ale buys nothing else.

He Who Knows Himself

Mankind praises the peacock for his beautiful plumage, but he is ashamed of his ugly feet.
…The Gulistan of Sheikh Saadi

Folklore

Deghatsgani Halva is a Dikranagerdtsi recipe with an interesting name.

Dghatsgan means woman in child-bed, or lying-in woman. Child-bed means the condition of a woman in the process of giving birth. Lying-in woman means the old childbirth practice involving a woman resting in bed for a period of time after giving birth. Bedrest. Made with ground SevagHundig (Nigella seeds), honey, ginger, and other spices, Deghatsgani Halva is prepared to celebrate the birth of a new born child.

Not Aladdin’s Lamp

Edo: Are you getting along any better with your boss?

Bedo: Sometimes I wish he would be changed into a chandelier. I’d like to see him hang during the day, burn at night, and be extinguished in the morning.

What’s in a Name?

Devejian: Turkish in derivation, identified as a calling, deveji is defined as a camel driver or camel owner.

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CK Garabed

Weekly Columnist

C.K. Garabed (a.k.a. Charles Kasbarian) has been active in the Armenian Church and Armenian community organizations all his life. As a writer and editor, he has been a keen observer of, and outspoken commentator on, political and social matters affecting Armenian Americans. He has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Reporter and the AGBU Literary Quarterly, “ARARAT.” For the last 30 years, Garabed has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Weekly. He produces a weekly column called “Uncle Garabed's Notebook,” in which he presents an assortment of tales, anecdotes, poems, riddles, and trivia; for the past 10 years, each column has contained a deconstruction of an Armenian surname. He believes his greatest accomplishment in life, and his contribution to the Armenian nation, has been the espousing of Aghavni, and the begetting of Antranig and Lucine.

Latest posts by CK Garabed (see all)

• A Reminiscence: John Najarian - February 19, 2020
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Aug. 5, 2017) - August 7, 2017
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 22, 2017) - July 22, 2017