We’ve been back in the neighborhood for four days and so far we’ve been avoiding the Avon Lady just fine, though with the instinct of the truly calculating she must have sussed something out because she is sending her son over for Russian lessons from someone in the household who is truly qualified and should…
Category: Behind the Concept of Jesus, God and Country
The People Watcher Revisits Some Principles on Mourning
It is that time leading up to All Saints and All Souls, which brings with it the customary cemetery visit to honor those passed before us. And like most people with enough freedom to do so (and with a desire to avoid crowds), we decide to go a few days in advance. Because while it…
Ode to a Lost Friendship Polish Style II
Click here for Part I The thing with broken kids and kids from broken homes, we always recognize each other. What we do with that information is one thing. But there really is an invisible bond, accessible via the subtlest of signals that brings us kids together. Perhaps Babette was broken, too, but that didn’t…
Ode to a Lost Friendship Polish Style I
He came to me fully grown as a seven-year-old boy about to turn eight, so that’s how I always saw him, as the boy who lived below us in my building and was a year and a month younger than me. There were three of us on our side of the building, so that there…
The People Watcher Observes Another Couple
Poczatek means beginning, and we ended up there because our original choice of cafe was so full, we backed out quicker than we came in. Definitely noted for another day and time, because it looks like a bomb place in a bomb location. For those who don’t know, when I say that I love the…
The Cynical Non-Pole-With-Polish-Roots Observes Preparations for the Next Polish Event and Provides Her Opinion
It’s that time of the year again, where spring cleaning coincides with First Communion prep, embedded into attendance at church, last minute shopping and that final, mad desperate rush for presents. It’s not just about the family being together, it’s also about being seen – at church, in the neighborhood and perhaps most importantly at…
Tales of the Polish Relatives: my grandfather (and a little bit of my mother’s mother too)
My grandfather was a deeply religious man, who had one final semester left at the seminary before he met my grandmother and decided that what God really wanted for him was to create a family and a life with the beautiful blonde peasant girl he saw. This is according to my mother and I will…
Road Trip to Silesia IV – on friendship(s) (and) final thoughts
Road Trip to Silesia IV – on friendship(s) (and) final thoughts There is an epilogue to all this, because there always is an epilogue to all this once you’ve come back, decompressed and attained the benefit of hindsight. It helps that you are not dependent on anyone or any circumstance in that particular situation. The…
Silesia III – The Spritzwasser of Clubs
It wasn’t the club scene that was holding us back. It was a feeling, a tingling sense that shouldn’t be ignored and that quite frankly got me out of trouble plenty of times in the past. Because truth is, I loved hanging out where there were people, and whether that was a cafe, a restaurant,…
Silesia II – An Interlude on Relationship Dynamics
Then there was the issue of the club. She really wanted to go there because it spelled freedom for one night. That was the main reason she’d asked us along on this trip, more than chipping in for gas. Her husband was tending to their infant, which translated into frantic phone calls from home every…
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