fun in threes, sometimes fours
6
I'm not sure how many blueberries I've picked over the last week. By weight, K and I estimate it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 kilos. We know the weight in kilograms because K's recipe is from Poland, and so the measurements are sensible. The internet tells me that that's somewhere between 11,000 and 35,000 blueberries, depending on the size. It's ridiculous to think I performed that same simple action thousands of times over the last week.
7
There is a Polish saying I learned from its translation in a student's journal. The original: Życie jest jak papier toaletowy – długie, szare i do dupy. It's almost impossible to translate this without losing the pun. My student wrote it thusly: "Life is like toilet paper: long, gray, and to the ass." But "do dupy," while it literally translates as "to the ass" or "to one's ass" is an idiom, which becomes clear when considering how Google translates this: "Life is like toilet paper – long, gray and sucks." "Do dupy" would more accurately be translated "sucks," "stinks," or "lousy."
Chat GPT had this to say:
The Polish phrase "do dupy" is a colloquial expression that literally means "for the ass/butt" but idiomatically means "crappy," "lousy," "awful," or "it sucks."
Depending on the tone you want, you could also translate it as:
- "Life is like toilet paper—long, gray, and lousy." (milder)
- "Life is like toilet paper—long, gray, and it sucks." (colloquial)
- "Life is like toilet paper—long, gray, and full of shit." (stronger, more creative adaptation)
The first version is probably the closest in spirit to the original joke.
But even that confuses most Americans (and, to be honest, many Poles born in the last twenty years or so). Since when is toilet paper gray? Throughout most of Poland's post-war history.
It's still available, though even today's gray paper is a vast improvement over PRL gray paper.
8
I'd noticed it on Google Maps years ago as I was scouting out potential alternative routes to my then-school. In the middle of a small housing development was McDaniel Cemetery. I'd forgotten about it but re-discovered it when, again, I was looking for routes for K's and my nearly-daily evening bike ride.
The cemetery "is the final resting place of Benjamin Griffith Sr., the first known settler in the area in 1784" (source), and most of the markers are so weathered and worn that it's impossible to learn much more about who's buried there other than the fact that they've been buried there for centuries.
It's much more like the cemeteries we'll be visiting in eight days in southern Poland than any cemeteries around here.
E volunteered with other members of his high school (?!?!) band to work the concession stand for the Greenville Drive baseball game today: they do the work; the high school band gets the money. He seemed to enjoy it, especially since it was over about two hours before he thought it would be.
Equally important: we're in single digits in our countdown to Polska 2026.
A busy day with phone calls, an attempted repair of the oven (only to discover the part is wrong), a long evening walk, and reminders that our departure is ever nearer.
An early summer walk for the first time in sandals reveals just how much time I've spent outdoors already: nice tan lines that suggest I've been doing more than I feel I have. By now, I usually have sandal tan lines; I started correcting that this evening.
Of course there's this fact to the right
We will be leaving for Poland in less than two weeks. To say we're excited about it is obviously an understatement. We're always excited about going back to see friends and family.
And, of course, we're eager (or at least I'm eager) for architecture like this.
13
They’re really both a blessing and a curse. The half a dozen blueberry bushes we have at the base of our driveway produce so many berries that we can make jams and cobblers through the early summer and even freeze some, but it does require picking them. And that is the rub.
It always seems to be an all or nothing prospect. One day there are hardly any ripe. The next day you have to spend two hours in an attempt to make a dent endless berries
Today, for example, I must have picked five or more pounds of blueberries. It's such a tedious process: as you move to the next section of a blueberry patch, you notice hiding just behind the smallest of leaves a cluster of four more ripe berries that you didn't notice when you were in that section of the blueberry patch. So you're constantly picking and repicking, checking, and rechecking, moving left and right, up and down. Throughout each blueberry bush. Throughout the entire patch. Until you're certain that you have checked the same section at least half a dozen times.
Then K comes home from work and her portion of the work only begins. Transforming those sweet berries into lovely jam, takes the entire evening. We will enjoy throughout the winter months, but she doesn't enjoy them now.
Finally, there's a certain sisyphean element to it: no sooner do you finish picking one round of bright berries and the next batch ripens to rich, dark blue, and you start all over again.
When it rains all morning,
there's only one thing the dog wants to do.
