grant park

there were over 200,000 people in grant park on tuesday night. after much deliberation [i had been up since 5:30, tired, a little cranky, sad about office work, &., &.], adam and i meandered down to the loop to meet ryan, cat and drew to watch the election results and to pray that my heart wouldn't be broken again.

after cnn called the election, we wandered over to grant park in time for the mccain concession speech - very gracious, from what i could hear - people were booing and hissing all around.

but one of the most striking things for me was the lack of anarchy. i had been leery about the sheer number of people - i don't really like crowds and getting into a mass of people tightly packed where i can't get out if necessary makes me a little anxious - but there was no pushing. no crowding. just people - black people, white people, brown people, old, young, children - all quietly listening.

if you know me, you also know that i am somewhat of a cynic - i am leery of politics and politicans, simply because i feel so much of what they purport to do or say is entirely for show, and once in office, revert to personal agendas, not solving anything or helping in any way.

i resisted getting swept up in oba-mania, because of this starry-eyed earnest aura surrounding his supporters in my demographic. come on guys. his platform is "change"?? he's a politican! they are all. the. same.

but, in grant park, my little cynical heart melted. look at all this people, being nice to each other despite background, despite socio-economic class, despite race. i was elated and excited to have obama win this election and i eagerly anticipate his next actions because i believe now that change is possible, that we can hope to make america once again into the kind of nation that serves as a role model for the rest of the world.


from repowers and chrisdetmer, respectively. i haven't been good about taking my camera with me . . . .

soul crushing

man, office work sucks. i miss academia.

went a thrifting

and was sadly disappointed. if the clybourn and western salvation army is anything to go by, chicago's thrift stores are dirty, crowded and kind of skanky . . . and not in the good way.

i found a pair of black patent pumps, a lavender short cap-sleeved angora sweater and a certifiably bad-ass black and gold tunic. oh man. but it was not a good experience.

i've been in a bit of a sartorial tizzy lately, because i have a job! an office job! and i have no idea what to wear. oh dear.

pictures to come!

retroactive fridays [done saturday]

i am still interested in letting you all in the poland adventure, so to organize and structure my posting habits, let's do it on fridays. or saturdays, as it may be.

above: behold our apartment in debica. or, rather the view from it. i don't believe i have any pictures of the inside; if you have catholic grandparents, picture that. that is what the interior looked like; a lot of kitschy knickknacks, at least one crucifix per room, creepy pictures of jesus, a couple of marys scattered around and more than one magnet of pope jp ii. oh man. plus all the closets smelled like mothballs and i had such a fear of picking it up that my clothes remained on the floor.

please notice the soviet-block style flat, gayly painted. and the carefully manicured garden round back, maintained meticulously by babuskas in scarves. the building across the way is a bakery - it had pigeons living in the window.

there was always a thin haze of smog over the city - and the distinct odor of burning rubber. oh debica.

neglect

yowza. i have been mad neglectful.

i apologize.

and i resolve to do better.

i promise.

yum apples + split peas

happy-domesticity is tainted a bit by hindsight, but nevertheless i have a food-post worth of [now lost?] pictures, so damnit, i’m going to do it.

i had been gifted with a couple of pounds of apples, courtesy of the secretaries and the number of bountiful trees of brytania, later in the same day that i had snagged some at the local market.
at a loss of what to do past good ol’fashioned plain eating, i came across this fab recipe for an apple curry. mmmmmh.

however, rural poland is at a severe lack of “ethnic” food; there is an abundance of cabbage and potato but not much else. substitutions ahoy!
in lieu of lentils [not able to be found in the local grocery], i subbed in yellow split peas; garlic, curry powder, chilis and a bit of ginger ad-libbed curry paste.

the day before had been loads of heavy polish-eating, the kind where hidden meat lurked around the corner of every innocuous dania jarskie. tonight, as an antidote and refresher, lots of veggies were needed; to make this dish more like a palaak dal [mmmm my favorite], i threw in a bunch of frozen spinach chunks, random mushrooms found in the fridge and plenty of garlic.

ever mindful of our surroundings, i cooked up some kasha in veggie stock for the carb underbelly. holy jesus himself, kasha is so tasty.

the whole thing was extremely unphotogenic, but mysteriously my process pictures have disappeared . . . confusing.

long overdue

oy vey. what a ride.

i have lots of things to tell you all with many posts, but this sums it up fairly succinctly:

went to poland. didn’t like debica. talked about moving/relocating. got in touch with amideast in tunisia and other schools. decided didn’t have necessary resources to relocate at the moment. resigned myself to staying in debica. vowed to sign contract. met to do so; details of contract withdrew. given 24 hours to vacate apartment and leave debica.

there’s some fleshing out of that story, but those are the bare bones.

been in krakow (4) days; flying to america this morning!

[overall feeling pretty good about this, so no worries there]