Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Thanks for the memories…

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It’s odd to be hearing these words repeatedly on one day, in two different contexts. I woke up to news of the closing of JFW – the webl...

‘Tis the season to talk more about food

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Think you can’t find pierniczki w czekoladzie in Madison for the holidays? Think you have to travel to Poland to stock up? Oh, then you don...

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Bags and bags of "pierniczki w czekoladzie."

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The gingerbread is soft, yummy, the chocolate is dark... the perfect winter companion to coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. 

How to love a (Polish) Pope even if you basically disagree with much of what he says

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The Italians have found a way. In the IHT today : Italians routinely ignore the conservative Pope John Paul II in matters of private mor...
Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Poland, turning nannyish?? Never!

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A reader sent a link to a story in the Boston Globe that compared Poland today with where Ireland was some ten, twenty years ago: only Polan...

weather watch

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Last week I complained bitterly about traveling to Poland where early snowstorms have hit Warsaw with a fury, given that I still had roses b...

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in the competition of frost v. bud, frost won 

What's so odd about Hazel?

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Someone asked me just yesterday what name I would choose if I had to have a different first name. I was stumped. ‘Nina’ is all that comes to...

Worry more, age more (worry less, get less done, look the same)

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The WashPost reports on a study that demonstrates the relationship between long-term stress and aging. If there is a definite causal relatio...
Monday, November 29, 2004

"...And what book are you reading right now?"

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If there is one type of book that I cannot resist buying (and also oftentimes cannot finish reading), it is the biography. The thicker the b...

A Dell-icious encounter: okay, what are you guys trying to do here? Your stock’s going under? Your company’s in trouble? What?

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I used to say that Ocean *tries* to entertain and that it is not, therefore, a place where I want to let off steam. Still, sometimes I’ve b...

The world may be hostile toward our military interventions overseas, but gosh, at least we’re doing a good job with the highway to the South Pole

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…And still there are those who are knocking this latest expansionist, U.S.-sponsored project. Sir Edmund Hillary (the first to drive a vehic...
Sunday, November 28, 2004

Do people on this side of the ocean ever cry over the strains of the balalaika?

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Is there anyone aside from me who swells with great emotion when the balalaika plays its little tune as spring comes to Yuriatin? Doctor...

I could be home by now

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I noticed that practically all my posts today have been about the "materialistic impulse." It may have something to do with being ...

Even the liquidators found the stuff to be "down there" in terms of quality

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Would you run over to the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West (or -- the former Mayflower Hotel) to pick up a bargain -- like maybe a bea...

Finding beauty in a broom that you don't necessarily use with any great frequency

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Always interested in learning from those who celebrate *humble beauty,* I was drawn today to the review in the Times of The Wabi-Sabi Hou...

Posting in limbo

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Would you give up your seat on an overbooked flight for $100? No. For $200? No. For $200, and a confirmed seat on a flight in three hou...

Mail from across the ocean

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A message from Warsaw: [I]t's snowing often these days and today for the first time this season I heard the sound of somebody beating ...
Saturday, November 27, 2004

Seals on a rock and a rider with a beautiful Slavic face

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Where would New York be without Central Park? I remember a long time ago crashing on a rented bike there and being rushed to Lennox Hospital...