It's 2024, my youngest girl has had her birthday (a couple of weeks ago) and I still haven't seen her, haven't celebrated properly, haven't spent time with the grandkids in Chicago. Time, therefore, to head south.
After a very quick trot to the barn and an even speedier breakfast.
(thank you, Ed, for waking up and coming down...)
(To Chicago then!)
I have an errand to run before I arrive at the younger family's home -- a stop at Delightful Pastries, in a northwest corner of the city.
This is the bakery that sells authentic paczki. The traditional Polish doughnut. Loved and eaten by most Poles on Fat Tuesday. (Make that Fat Thrusday; remember, Poles like to feast a few days earlier!)
So many Polish baked goods! I mean, I haven't seen good faworki or a Polish apple cake in a long time. And of course, the paczki.
(The staff, all Polish, putting out nalesniki. Cheese stuffed blintzes. Just like my grandma's!)
I pick up the paczki and turn toward my daughter's home. It's been just a little over a month since I saw the two Chicago girls.
That's over a month's worth of growth and changes. So much to catch up on!
("can we keep on dancing?)
(always the selfie!)
(lunch, followed by paczki)
And let's not forget my daughter's birthday celebration.
(This particular present is not from me, but it was fun to watch her unwrap it...)
We all go out to dinner at Antico -- a place she took me to 13 years ago, when I visited her then in her small apartment in the city. Two weeks later I moved to the farmhouse. Three years later she married, a couple more and the girls were born.
Time: it's a beautiful thing, really. No, it doesn't stand still. You don't run on repeat. You keep adding stuff to your wealth of experiences, you grow.
(Walking home...)
Oh, it's good to see these faces again! Happy paczki day, happy Saturday, happy New Year, happy birthday indeed!
