matching tracksuits

Family Game

Tuesday 04 December 2018

We had a little family game time this evening. L came downstairs and asked if we could play Forbidden Island or whatever that game that has a 15+ page instruction book is called. I’d laughed at the rules earlier when L and K were trying to figure it out: three different decks of cards (or is it four), multiple little things you can do, a turn that seems to last forever — it just seemed overly complicated.

Tonight, I sat down with them and let them explain it. Fairly simple when it comes down to it — I guess I just wasn’t willing to do the work at the beginning, digging through the instructions and figuring it out.

It’s interesting in that instead of playing against the other players, you’re all trying to accomplish the same goal. Cooperation instead of competition.

A great way to spend the evening.

Inside the Nowy Targ Bus Station

Monday 03 December 2018

Zakopane in November

Sunday 02 December 2018

Playing in the Hall

Saturday 01 December 2018

The Last Few Days

Friday 30 November 2018

The Boy has been watching the Netflix series Extraordinary Houses. He loves it. Loves it. He’s started designing houses in his free time.

The Girl has been getting into math that requires assistance. K is only too happy to help.

Lipnica Sunset

Wednesday 28 November 2018

I look at some of the images from my time in Lipnica Wielka, a little village on the southern border of Poland (who would think to move there?!), and I find it difficult to believe I actually did live there. It is so far removed from my present reality, so very distant and foreign, that I find it difficult to comprehend how I came to live there and how, after two years in Boston, I came to return there.

I lived there seven years — seven — and loved almost each and every day of those approximately 2,100 days.

Saturday Repeat

Saturday 24 November 2018

Exactly a year later and we repeat the same day.

Conestee Afternoon

The Day After

Friday 23 November 2018

Thanksgiving 2018

Thursday 22 November 2018

The day began with the relatively new Thanksgiving tradition: K and L went to Mass at the church we used to attend (which we still attend once a month for Polish mass, said now for a couple of years in English by a Columbian priest) for the parish's special Thanksgiving Mass. The choir sings portions of the Mass in English, portions in Spanish, portions in Polish, and portions in Tagalog. As they do for any special Mass, the girls dressed in traditional Polish Highlander clothes.

While the girls were gone, the Boy continued with his help.

We prepared the turkey, made the requisite casserole, made the dressing, cooked the giblet gravy, and then baked it all. Except for the gravy.

We packed everything up and headed over to Nana's and Papa's for a quiet late lunch/early dinner. Everyone said it was delicious, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with what I delivered.

The dressing was a disaster: too much liquid. I forgot to figure the fact that I'd added orange wedges and cranberries, which released a ridiculous amount of liquid.
The cranberry sauce was a bit too sour for my taste. I'd cut the recipe's sugar requirement by about 30%, thinking, "American recipes are always too sweet." Perhaps not. It wasn't as much of a failure as the dressing, but I've made better.
The turkey probably could have cooked a bit longer. It was done, but it clung to the bone just a bit too much. A half an hour more would have made it better, I think, without overdoing it.
The syrup for the baklava was just a touch too thick. It didn't entirely absorb into the fillo dough -- at least not like I like it. It wasn't bad, perse, but it could have been just a little better.

Still, we're always a little too hard on ourselves. K pointed out that we could simply bake the dressing a little longer tomorrow. The cranberry sauce was perfect for her. The kids devoured the turkey. And even I can't really complain about the baklava. I just wanted a fourth bullet point for that list for some reason.

Thanksgiving Eve Vingette

Wednesday 21 November 2018

"Can you do this?" E asked as he hung upside down from the net ladder at the jungle gym.

"That's easy," said the young stranger who'd joined us. His mother had pulled up right at the jungle gym and sat in the car, likely swiping endlessly on her phone.

Thus began the game of "Can you do this?" that lasted for the duration of the time the two boys played together. To everything that E asked, the other boy replied, "Oh, that's easy." To most of the things the other boy asked, E replied, "No, not yet." In a final effort to have something that the other boy couldn't do, E asked if he could leap from this part of the jungle gym to that. He shook his head.