Happy Birthday and Howdy

Hello y'all! and especially Danny! its your birthday, ugh! remember that song Dad used to sing?

So sorry we havent been to communicative in a while, heres the scoop on the last week or so:

Last Tuesday (Jan 28) we went to the dentist and I had my tooth glued back on (did I already write about this?) He did a good job, was surprised Americans would do such shoddy dental work, and recounted a story of this elderly American from Florida who loves Poland and spends five months there and gets his dental work done with this guy. Apparently he is some sort of manufacturer of athletic equipement, last name of Wilson.

On Friday we went to a museum housed in an old factory. The old factories here arent what you would think; they were constructed in the dizzy boom days in Lodz in the 1890s, and each one looks like a palace, or a castle. The museum exhibition housed the senior theses of all the students from the fine arts school. Most were mediocre, but some of the graphic design pieces were quite well done, especially one which designed children's toys. That evening we went to the Museum of Cinema to watch a free projection of computer animated films. Two were by a very famous Polish animator who has been nominated for some academy awards or something, and were quite nice. The others were rather mediocre; in fact I think the opening videos to Starcraft made like 10 years ago were of much higher technical quality and all around cooler.

Saturday Agata's friend Karolina came over, and we had a good chat. They were amazed I had never seen some soap opera called North-South, about the civil war, with Patrick Suaze. American soap operas are incredibly popular in Poland. Agata's grandpa made us watch this one called The Bold and the Beautiful once. Apparently his wife would watch it before she died and he got hooked. In addition to discussing silly tv shows, with Karolina we had an enlightening cultural exchange on scholastic systems, racism, politics, and the place of women in Polish and American societies. Afterwords she went home as she was not feeling well and Agata and I went out with the aim of dancing but ended up just sitting in this overcrowded pub for a while. But it was good to get out.

Sunday Agata's mom invited us over for BBQ chicken wings, which were delicious. I ate far too much. This week is Agata's mom's vacation, so we see her more, and she has already knitted Agata a sweater.

Monday was Agata's nameday, hurray! It was filled with well-wishers, phone calls, visits, and gifts. Inexplicably, people kept giving me presents as well; Agata's mom gave me a new sweater she had found on sale, a very very chic bag (I had complained about feeling too American with my plastic backpack), and Agata went out shoe shopping with me and I got some nice brown ones. Agata had said that what she really wanted for her birthday were some performances, so I woke her up to a renactement of the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe using Cookie Monster and some Muminek Dolls. Her Grandpa came before noon, and at 4 her aunt came. A few hours later her mom and other aunt and father came, and everyone stayed until about 10. It was fun except the old people would just talk to each other about old people things and kind of ignore us.

Ive noticed this always happens when there are more old than young people at a family gathering. The generation gap in desired conversation topics and modes of discourse is huge. Young people like jokes, silly, short stories, and talking about popular culture, fashion, movies, etc. Old people like talking about common acquaintances, dead relatives, the olden days, really long and pointless stories, and their slowly disintegrating bodies.

Tuesday we got up early and went to the open air market with her mother. We wanted to see the Russians there to look for curtain fabric. No luck there, but we bought a lot of good food for cheap. We came home and made a big sauerkraut soup (not bigos, but a real soup) and ate it with mashed potatoes flavored with bacon bits. It was delicious, and I ate far too much. Afterwords we had a mini English lesson with her mom, and I realized the extent to which English has no rules regarding pronunciation. That evening we watched Spirited Away and Agat knit. She is making me a scarf. Agata had a sudden craving for something sweet, and we had nothign in the house. I said we could make cookies, but then realized we had nothing to put in them, until I saw a can of peanut butter in the cupboard. Shortening doesnt exist in poland so we used plain butter, which disgusted Agata a bit, and I realized that peanut butter cookies are nothing but baked sugar and fat. But we made them anyways and they were very good.

Yesterday I got up early, did some housecleaning, and attempted to do some writing while Agata went out with her mom on some errands. In the afternoon one of Agata's old teachers came over to her mom's house; we went down and visited for a while. The big ball for high school seniors in Poland had just passed. They asked me if we had balls like that in the US, so I started to tell about Prom. They were just delighted by my stories of the creative ways to ask and answer people to dances. Agata was mad I didnt do something like that when I proposed. Anyone have any good stories of marriage proposal/date asking shenanigans?

Last night two of Agata's friends from college came over to discuss boy problems. We borrowed Agata's mom's sandwhich maker and made "tosts". She made this weird ones with cheese and honey that sound discussing but are actually very good.

Well, there's way too much information to make up for our long silence. Enjoy and hope to hear from you soon,

TC and AM