Courtesy of Anna Rajca, who also quoted The Economist (11/25/10) for us:  "For the first time in decades Poland is a player, not a playground."

 http://www.gmfus.org/livestream/poland/archiÅ‚vedvideo.html

  Read full post »

Daniel’s family loves making a list. They make one and expect one in return. Always have done it this way, so you should have learned by now to go along. Instead, you defy it. What works well for them, leaves you cold ruining your sense of surprise. They are task masters. You… Read full post »

Right before Thanksgiving I made peace with Big Bear. In honor of our long-lasting friendship I decided to make a soup, and called it Pumpkin. I thought of inviting Bear if he were available, which I doubted, but you never stop trying. It keeps the wheel turn. In either case the… Read full post »

I wear this language that is not mine

Like I once wore that dress:

Baby blue batiste , light-weight

Hand-sewn by my good spinster aunt.

Embroidered neatly it hung on the wardrobe key

Waiting for me to grow into it.

Then it fit perfectly

For one moment when… Read full post »

In the stage production of “The Front Page” I saw last weekend, I was touched by Mollie Malloy, a $2 street walker. The working girl on the streets of Chicago 1920’s.  She is a peroxided blonde in fishnet stockings, a red boa scarf wrapped around her neck over a strand of… Read full post »

Next to kingdom of brooms

Scented with ocean breeze,

Is the place where lone socks

Grow like cones on pine trees.

Some stay fit -- in good shape

Ready --  set to compete

Chasing in… Read full post »

Kara was on a treadmill walking against the wind in a freezing sleet, the most extreme virtual condition you can get under the roof, preparing to climb the highest point of the Continental Divide, treading on 35% incline at 5 mph in full gear, an oxygen bottle planted next to the camelback… Read full post »

Being late is a chronic disease I contracted never mind from whom, that I have been married to for twenty-some years. The relic kind of relation to be displayed at the Smithsonian’s soon. Not only that but it also makes me suffer severe pain of lateness everywhere I go.

Once we… Read full post »

I was sitting on the porch of a Bed and Breakfast in Welch,  West Virginia looking at a glass castle, rocking on a high-back rocking chair, when I heard man’s voice,

“Is it hot enough for you?”

“I think it is,” I said.

I glanced over trying to… Read full post »

I drove on Main Street, downtown  Lexington today by the Triangle Park, where a digital clock installed at the skywalk says 48. You can’t miss it unless you never look up driving, which you shouldn’t, but then you also miss out on the messages from the sky: a plane pulling a ban… Read full post »

My youngest is almost licensed, and I am on the brink of ecstatic despair.  The last of the brood, driving herself and an innocent friend to school starting this August. (Speaking of which : Who came up with the idea of school starting in the thick of the summer?)  Half of/… Read full post »

On Saturday after St. John’s Night on-town celebration everything got quiet on the farm. The cows were mooing in the distance. The broken faucet was dripping in the kitchen waiting for a Monday repairman. As did the dishwasher and the garage refrigerator. We had houseguests who in the… Read full post »

Sara has a love -hate relationship with horses. They are noble, beautiful, powerful animals. And they are her boyfriend’s greatest love. If she were to lament her fate more she would have to wish to become a horse, and this might be a stretch for Sara’s want or imagi… Read full post »

Sis comes all the way from Krakow to see her daughter graduate from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies aka SAIS in Washington, D.C. Sis is a Polish Mother par excellance. Her house is on a flood watch being perched on a slant that turned into a mudslide as… Read full post »

My black-and-white cat Chanel brings a mouse every day and lays it with distinction on the doormat.  I don’t care for mice that much, not even as a trophy presented to me. But I praise Chanel for her killer instincts. She is a stray, and a survivor. I respect that: pick/… Read full post »

I am all for open communication and my college-age son Bart tries hard calling me regularly. He calls on Monday, “Mom, hi, I am on my way to classes, sorry have to go, the bus is here, “

 “I didn’t know you take the bus, I thought you were walking.”… Read full post »

“Dik?!”  said Danka, squinting her ever-moving eyes.    “Oh, there is nothing to talk about, nothing at all.    Just look at your father. He is Dik – exactly -- and Dik was just as stubborn as your dad.  Your mother is a saint, I/… Read full post »

                                                  &… Read full post »

I gave up blogging for Easter. Six weeks of dry ink. WIFI Lent. The truth being - the laptop lugged through the packed snow of Vail Valley and rainy streets of London turned into a stuborn mule of non-connection. My fasting, then, was not so much by design, as by default. But,… Read full post »

Father, they say, is always questionable. Mother is for certain. But father, who knows. That's why we assume his last name so as to keep his allegiance to the offspring.

Son of French peasant, Nicholas Chopin learned how to read and write thanks to his curiosity, diligence and self-discipline. It fav… Read full post »

For reasons hard to reason with many of us favor underdogs. Mainly, because they make for a better story . So Lindsey Vonn, being the strong  favorite might have been at a disadvantage. Yet there is something to be said for the endless hours on the slope in snow or blizzard ,… Read full post »

In my sleep when I dream

I swim through unconscious stream

Of chocolate -- softly folding

Sweetly flowing off the fountain rim.

Paper thin white Godiva

Boosts production of saliva

In my sleep when I dream

Going through the stream

Of thoughts, loosely dripping

Slipping down the marble ar… Read full post »

Ten days ago All That I Love aka Wszystko, Co Kocham,  written and directed by first-time director  Jacek Borcuch was just one of  the two hundred entries for the 2010  Sundance Festival,  and the first Polish movie ever admitted for the iconic indie film competit/… Read full post »

      Spring Cleaning

It was March twenty first,

Number One day of spring,

And I knew just right then

About things it would bring.

It is not Valentine,

Santa Claus-- not at all.

Every year at that time

I get message from troll.

He comes in… Read full post »

 Goodbyes bring him back to this  

Black-haired, nine-year-old boy,   

Who saw his father growing smaller 

And smaller into the night.

Mother’s hand firmly clasped around   

His. A man that very moment.  

Now, at our goodbyes he stick… Read full post »