warsaw mural

VISIT WARSAW!

VISIT WARSAW!
click on image

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
JERZY JANOWICZ, click above

EURO 2012

EURO 2012
kuba blaszczykowski, euro's best moments

National Stadium in Warsaw

National Stadium in Warsaw

NOBEL POETRY LAUREATE W.SZYMBORSKA DIES

NOBEL POETRY LAUREATE W.SZYMBORSKA DIES
click on

CHRISTMAS IN WARSAW

CHRISTMAS IN WARSAW
warsaw / by the royal castle

warsaw 2011

christmas market

IZU UGONOH

IZU UGONOH
Polish born professional kickboxer, click on

POLAND ELECTIONS 2011: Prime Minister Donald Tusk Takes Home Victory

POLAND ELECTIONS 2011: Prime Minister Donald Tusk Takes Home Victory
click on for info

POLAND / MOVE YOUR IMAGINATION

POLAND / MOVE YOUR IMAGINATION
click for video

Poznan Film & Music Festival

Poznan Film & Music Festival
click for more

POLAND AT ITB BERLIN 2011

POLAND AT ITB BERLIN 2011
watch trailer, click

RESTAURANTS

RESTAURANTS
rozbrat20, click...

at the chefs' polish cuisine, click..

COPERNICUS SCIENCE CENTER

COPERNICUS SCIENCE CENTER
IS OPEN NOW...

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
click on to see the project

ANIMATED HISTORY OF POLAND

ANIMATED HISTORY OF POLAND
1000 YEARS IN 8 MINUTES...click on

WARSAW in 1935

WARSAW in 1935
click for more pics

WARSAW IS SAD WITHOUT YOU!

WARSAW IS SAD WITHOUT YOU!
watch video

THE NATIONAL STADIUM, WARSAW

THE NATIONAL STADIUM, WARSAW
click on the picture above


CHOPIN BALLET...

CHOPIN BALLET...
playing now...click on...

EXPO 2010 Shanghai

EXPO 2010 Shanghai

Polish Pavilion, click on

2010 YEAR OF CHOPIN...

2010 YEAR OF CHOPIN...
click for more...

MARCIN WYROSTEK

MARCIN WYROSTEK
I have talent / click on image

SEVEN GATES OF JERUSALEM, PENDERECKI & BAGINSKI

SEVEN GATES OF JERUSALEM, PENDERECKI & BAGINSKI
click for video
Recorded during a concert at the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw. This was a gala performance of Seven Gates of Jerusalem marking Penderecki's 75th birthday, conducted by the composer himself.
The setting for the concert was provided by specially designed computer animations by Tomasz Baginski projected onto a large screen.

TOMEK BAGINSKI

TOMEK BAGINSKI
his newest film, click

krzysztof kieslowski's headstone

SAPAYA....

SAPAYA....

...taste of Vietnam in Warsaw...

...taste of Vietnam in Warsaw...
click on

ROMAN POLANSKI

ROMAN POLANSKI
click on

70th ANNIVERSARY OF WWII

70th ANNIVERSARY OF WWII
click on pic

WARSAW UPRISING'44 anniversary, 65th

WARSAW UPRISING'44 anniversary, 65th
click on, "Go, passer-by, and tell the world That we perished in the cause, Faithful to our orders."

ANNA MARIA JOPEK

ANNA MARIA JOPEK
click to watch video " sypka warszawa"

NEW EP PRESIDENT jerzy buzek

NEW EP PRESIDENT jerzy buzek
click on

OLD TOWN JAZZ

OLD TOWN JAZZ
click on

CHOPIN CONCERTS AT ROYAL LAZIENKI PARK 50th anniversary

CHOPIN CONCERTS AT ROYAL LAZIENKI PARK 50th anniversary
1959-2009 (click on)

FREEDOM WAS BORN IN POLAND, JUNE 4th 1989

FREEDOM WAS BORN IN POLAND, JUNE 4th 1989
click on

jack, jane and stevie (wonder) all supported solidarnosc...

20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FALL OF COMMUNISM (JUNE 4th 1989)


The elections that broke communist power in Poland in 1989 also triggered political revolution across east-central Europe.

The political upheaval that began in Poland continued in Hungary, and then led to a surge of mostly peaceful revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. Romania was the only Eastern-bloc country to overthrow its communist regime violently and execute its head of state.

The Revolutions of 1989 greatly altered the in the world and marked (together with the subsequent balance of power and collapse of the Soviet Union) the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the Post Cold War era.




campaign poster

DR. MARIA SIEMIONOW

DR. MARIA SIEMIONOW
click on

Maria Siemionow is a renowned Polish surgeon (Poznan Medical Academy, receiving her PhD in microsurgery there) at the Cleveland Clinic. She gained public notice in December, 2008, when she led a team of six surgeons in a 22-hour surgery, performing the first face transplant in the United States on patient Connie Culp.[1] She is currently Director of Plastic Surgery Research and Head of Microsurgery Training at the Cleveland Clinic. She is also Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

MARIUSZ KWIECIEN POLISH BARITONE

MARIUSZ KWIECIEN POLISH BARITONE
he is regular at metropolitan opera

POLISH PIANIST'S PROTEST

POLISH PIANIST'S PROTEST
click on

Fourth Anniversary of the Death of John Paul II

Fourth Anniversary of the Death of John Paul II
click on

4 years ago...

October 1978...

"May Jesus Christ be praised! Dearest brothers and sisters, we are still grieved after the death of our most beloved Pope John Paul I. and now the most eminent cardinals have called a new bishop of Rome. They have called him from a distant country, distant but always close through the communion in the Christian faith and tradition…"
"I do not know if I can explain myself well in you – in our Italian language. If I make a mistake you will correct me. And so I present myself to you all to confess our common faith, our hope, our confidence in the Mother of Christ and of the Church, and also to start anew this road of history and of the Church, with the help of God and with the help of men."

MELKART BALL

MELKART BALL
click on

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!
march 8th, international

7th SLED DOG RACE

7th SLED DOG RACE
3/1/ 2009, lutowiska, 120km, click for more pics

NOTHING TWICE...

"Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice..." ( W. Szymborska, Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner)

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
click on picture to continue...

do you know?

"Stohrer is the oldest continually operating pastry shop in Paris. It was started by Nicolas Stohrer, a Polish pastry chef who came to France with Marie Leszczynska, the daughter of King Stanislas of Poland, when she married King Louis XV of France in 1725. In 1730, Stohrer opened up his own shop in the very location where it stands today. He is credited with inventing the Rum Baba."

blikle pastry shop in warsaw

foster building


pics by cousin lukasz

2010 / YEAR OF CHOPIN

2010 / YEAR OF CHOPIN

the greatest polish composer

The big year in Warsaw is going to be 2010, the 200th anniversary of composer Fryderyk Chopin's birth. FRYDERYK FRANCISZEK CHOPIN was born in Zelazowa Wola, in the Duchy of Warsaw. In November 1830, at the age of twenty, he went abroad; following the suppression of the Polish November Uprising of 1830–1831, he became one of many expatriates of the Polish "Great Emigration."
He died in Paris (burial site: the Pere Lachaise Cemetery.) Although his heart is in Poland, brought by his sister Ludwika, at Chopin’s own request and in testament to the musician’s unwavering loyalty to his homeland, where it was placed inside a pillar of the Holy Cross Church at Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street...

Polish Handmade Shoes
Why Polish shoes? At the turn of the century, a gentleman would buy his suits in London, his dresses in Paris (for lady friends, one presumes) and his boots in Poland. The shoemaking tradition survives in a few specialist shops in the centre of Warsaw.
http://www.grailtrail.ndo.co.uk/Grails/shoe.html
http://www.kielman.pl/en/historia/

wilanow park

BODY LANGUAGE...

"It is not only in terms of volume that Poles are outwardly expressive. There is a joke that the best way to make a Spaniard stop talking is to tie up his hands, and while the same tactic may not mute a Pole, it would certainly cause a speech impediment (...) Poles will often lean forward in their chair, or even stand up, in order to add weight to a specific point they are trying to make."

From "Customs & Etiquette"

Sunday, February 1, 2009

THERE WAS LIFE BEFORE THE DIAPER GENIE

click to enlarge baba Hala (1969)


THERE WAS LIFE BEFORE THE DIAPER GENIE... (2006?)

Allow me to address this issue first, and I know that I'm not going to be popular here, but someone has to say it…

The traditional folk costumes that we adore so much at Polish festivals, handmade masterpieces, sometimes carefully passed from one generation to another are often missing one important element: understanding of its symbolism.
If you are a Golden Girl, a happy grandma of 2,4, (5,6…or more cherubs), you need to read this. For others, it's optional.

You know that unwritten "rule" that you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day? Exchange "white" for a "wreath" and "Labor Day" for "rest of your grownup life." The wreath on a girl's head symbolizes her maidenhood, that she is innocent, you know, I'll spell it out for you, a v i r g i n. So ladies, if you are eligible for a senior discount, keep the shirt, skirt and the embroidered vest, but please lose the wreath! Because either you are trying to prove something impossible, something against the laws of nature, or you are just plain lying to yourself.

Keep the pretty necklace, but let the girls wear a flowery wreath and ribbons. The old folk tradition is that during the wedding ceremony, the bride would wear a wreath made out of herbs from her own garden. At midnight, in the presence of an all-female crowd, her neatly braided hair is cut and the flower wreath is replaced by a cap (czepiec) which is why this ceremony is called oczepiny (capping) Traditionally, the czepiec was made by a bride's godmother. It was a thick and stiff fabric decorated with sewn on silk or dried flowers, sequins and beads, and was way too festive for daily wear. The white handkerchief or scarf was more practical saving the czepiec for Sunday's mass.

So AARP subscribers, you can keep dancing but it is time to pass the wreath on to your granddaughters.

Searching through the TV channels, somewhere between a commercial for a cream promising to leave your skin glowing and a "talking grill" from Playskool, a new profession was introduced to us viewers. It is called a life coach, and I was told that we all supposedly need one. Laura Berman Forgtman who represents this soon to be most desired profession explained, "After 9/11 people don't know what to do with their lives. Feel lost? Need help with coping with every day life? You definitely need a life coach." We need guidance, but the guidance doesn't come cheap.
But don't worry, they give scholarships, so waste no time and apply now. And what's the difference between a regular therapist and a life coach? See, on the comfy couch of your therapist's office you deal with your past and your present. The life coach, on the other hand, takes care of your present and your future. So I guess if you need to find out about the whole you, you need to see both.

How about a consultant whose job is to…protect you from people such as life coaches? And another one that will chose the TV stations for you so you are not exposed to such nonsense? Books on how to live and improve yourself sell more copies than ever. People, what ever happened to common sense?

Visible effects of times changing are reaching other continents as well, my cousin in Poland, who just had a baby, hired a nanny so she can lose some extra pounds. I remember the time when my own daughter was born, some 23 years ago this April. Right away, I moved from Warsaw to the country, so the baby could breathe fresh air and where you grow your own fruits and vegetables. And where you take an early morning stroll to the local farmer to buy fresh milk, which was still warm with cream floating on the surface. Where you could personally thank the cow for sharing this marvelous product At the time the idea of losing weight was…you took care of the baby all day by walking with it attached to your hip, switched hips from time to time. You secured the baby with one hand, while bending, using the other hand to help the "tetra"(cotton) diapers soak in "platki mydlane" (soap flakes). Later, you washed it in a large plastic bowl placed inside my grandparents' custom made ceramic tub (you could wash half a dozen grandkids in it at the same time!). Occasionally you used the famous but ancient washing machine called Frania or Swiatowid (choice of two!) but the washing process was longer and I needed things to be done… fast, so for me it was quicker by hand. Then you carried a heavy load of clean diapers, walked to the clothes line that was spread out between pine trees (for fun, you could coordinate plastic cloth pins by color!), and you came back …two pounds lighter.

Bending over that tub made your waistline slim enough to make Liz Taylor foam with envy. And if you took your baby in a stroller for an afternoon walk and lose some more, that's a bonus! These days, on hand are disposable diapers, washer and dryer in one, a nanny and then a preschool group with English as a second language. And if the baby misses his mom, he /she can always SMS her with a message: "I love you, are you still there for me?" In those good old days fresh diapers smelled like pine trees…
Only last year I found out that in my area, here in West Brookfield, there was an environmentally friendly diaper service. I wished I knew it earlier; I could use it when my son was born but the company did not advertise and kept a small group of customers. The company name, like a well-kept tradition, passed on from one generation to the next.

That baby girl of mine, literally grew up with dogs, shared food with them, sometimes a blanket, and swallowed some cat hair occasionally. The bread crust that we used in Poland instead of a teether, when chewed came out between her fingers and always attracted a "pack of dogs" that followed her around. Grandma, in this small town still called "Pani doktorowa"(doctor's wife) to us ..Baba - Hala, I guess knew something when she told me, joyfully to "let her be, she'll be fine."

Dogs were something that we had plenty of. German Shepards and their mixes came from the era when Grandpa received puppies from his patients who had no money to pay, others belonged to my mom (a hairy little ball called ABBA) My uncle had a cocker spaniel, Fredzio, also a city dog, who came regularly in the summer to socialize with other dogs and for weight loss treatment. Yeah, some used grandma's estate as a spa or weight loss camp for the 4-legged. And if one dog had fleas, they all had fleas, but what are oak leaves for?
There were other dogs that came for different reasons as well as kids who belonged to family friends or co-workers. Therapy camp, you may call it, since some kids were tossed in there because their parents were in the middle of a divorce battle or something like that. We took them all in. My aunt Kasia sometimes brought local kids from neighboring towns. One time, she brought a little girl who belonged to an unmarried mother, a young woman who lived with her very old grandpa in a one room cottage. She wanted to go back to school. Kasia took in that toddler and my cousins and I washed her, fed her and played with her as if she were a doll. The most important thing was that we talked to her so she developed some language skills and stopped answering our questions with only the word "no."

I'd be lying if I said that it was all done unselfishly. Since those people were farmers, sometimes they rewarded us by letting our bunch to their strawberry fields so we could pick for our own pleasure. When the farmers picked enough fruit to make a good profit, whatever was left was "please, help yourself." We explored their barns and looked for kittens buried in hay.

As for mosquitoes? The aroma of Vitamin B, thinly spread on uncovered parts of your body, prevented them from getting near us.

Grandma made rhubarb pancakes with powdered sugar, and at the time my favorite dish was sorrel soup with hardboiled eggs. And only one person knew how to find sorrel on banks of the Wilga River. It was my uncle Maciek, and that special talent made him awfully valuable to all of us. Another was mixing cream for cakes in an era where most home made dishes were prepared by hand; he was the "human blender." On a hot day, chilled and thick sour milk (kept on the top of the fridge with plate over it) with potatoes and dill was a consolation.

The eggs came from Mrs. Sentkowska's chicken coop, this lovely lady, our neighbor, and a widow who lived in a house covered on two sides with grapevines. She lived in this town a little longer than my grandparents, and there is a legend that it was in her house that one of my grandparents' children was conceived. But the two old ladies shared something else; both had children who during the epidemic contracted polio.
She gave us eggs and all she asked for in return was to save the eggshells so she could feed her chickens with them. And I call IT recycling!
Eggs came in handy for her famous "ajerkoniak," a spiked eggnog, which on lazy afternoons she occasionally brought for tasting.

But the "it" drink was "podpiwek," a non-alcoholic dark beer. You made it from an extract (hops & syrup), simmered with sugar, and when cooled you just needed to add yeast. Then you would pour it into those old fashioned green and brown bottles with a wire lock. Left in a dark and cool pantry, neatly stocked on pantry's shelves for (agonizing!) 3-5 days. And when the right moment came, grandma would check on how many of those bottles actually exploded and how many were still good (we counted the good ones with a sigh of relief) and I swear, there was nothing better than this on a hot summer day!

Two men, Mr. Mroczek and Mr. Bugalski, who understandably had a little competition going on, provided the fruits and vegetables that we did not grow. I brought my baby daughter to meet them at the gate, just like my grandma did when we were children. Men often raced and whoever got there first shyly asked if the other was already there before him, and grandma as always gave both a negative answer. When either of their cart arrived, skinny Mr Mroczek or chubby faced Mr. Bugalski pulled off the plaid and revealed wooden cases with apples, plums, pears, waxed beans, potatoes, cauliflower, cucumbers, sunflower heads etc, bees attracted by sweetness buzzed around. We, the kids, of course paid more attention to the horse than to the produce and in the meantime, grandma and Mr. Mroczek had a chance to catch up on gossip.

And what gave away, to either man, the presence of the competing seller was his horse's droppings left in the middle of the road.
My grandma passed away last September, and I believe that Mr. Mroczek and Mr. Bugalski died some time before her. She joined grandpa and is also in the company of Mrs. Sentkowska, sipping ajerkoniak made of eggs from heavenly hens.

A couple more things: back then we did not have a baby monitor in every room, but "extremely smart dogs" that barked when the baby in the carriage was crying in discomfort. My kids grew up without a "blankie", a soft blanket to sleep with, to drag behind everywhere to feel secure, simply because I did not know that they needed one. And they both ate the bread crust, because they did not know there was an option not to eat it. They were both accustomed to the civilized way of using the toilet at age …1 ½ years old and never ordered from the kids menu at restaurants, …and I can assure you they turned out ok.

I won't brag to my kids about my fun childhood again but when one of them one day, for their own kids, gets one of those must-have devices like the "diaper Genie" (thermos-like plastic tower with 30 dirty diapers condensed inside it that "decorates" the baby's room),

I promise, I will start all over again.

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