...and so that this little guy eats a healthy breakfast 

...every yard should have this:

Spring is soon over, it will not stay; Let us be up and on our way; Sunshine to greet us, come out and meet us, All the world’s joyful this April day*

Perhaps to compensate for my wayward driving yesterday (see posts below about detours to Chicago), today I walked. To food stores, bookstores, woods and beyond, I walked, like a woman possessed, clearing my mind of “yes but what ifs” and “I don’t know how evers,” I paced the streets of this town for hours, until the clock forced me to retreat.

I took with me a $5 bill, a credit card (hey, Linus had his blanket, I have mine) and a camera.

What do I have to show for it? Well, a friend asked me tonight to swear on my life that I did not go to a tanning salon (easy: I swear). And I did put the $5 to good use: one pear at Whole Foods, and a latte with biscotti from Borders. But the camera? That is one sad story: in the miles and miles of terrain that I covered, I remained photographically uninspired.

“This town defeats me” – a friend once said to me in a somewhat different context. Well it defeats me too. For one thing, behind its slightly unphotogenic façade lies this truth: there is a certain predictability to it (at so many levels) that can be really exasperating.

But in spring, everything is beautiful in spite of any harshly suppressed reality. Here, I have three photos that speak to this:

* Czech folk song

Last week's willow was all about yellow against blue; today it's already light green. 

Exceptionally beautiful 

In Owen Woods Park they are getting ready for some spring planting ritual. But what? 

Say, I can see, I just don’t understand how it all works

There has been a lot of discussion about how wrong/right it is to have American flags at half mast to honor John Paul II. I haven’t been following any of it. My position on this became quickly and rigidly fixed with the reading of this post and I have been repeating it rather indifferently since. It’s a symbol and though I recognize all sorts of slippery slope issues in our dealings with symbols, I am just not that bothered about this one.

But I noticed today on my walk that the flags were still at the half point even though the pontiff has been deceased for more than a week and so I wondered how the rules are set on American flag displays and if everyone who has a flag is obliged to follow them. I could have googled in search of an answer, but not owning a flag made this less of a burning project (and yes, I do know you’re not supposed to burn the r,w&b).

Thoughts of flags pushed aside, I was almost home and then I reached my neighbor’s house and I couldn’t help noting that their flag was fully hoisted to the tip. My neighbor is not one to make a counter-federal government statement, especially when the elected leader of the country is one of his choosing, so I wondered what instruction pamphlet he was following in his own flag-hoisting machinations.

And just one more thought: if one doesn’t have google to assist one in the pursuit of knowledge, how does one find out flag rules? Do flags come with instructions? Don’t let it touch the ground, don’t let it get rained on, don’t burn it, lower it at sundown – I remember these well from New Jersey Y camp days where I was terrified that I, the sole communist-land camp attendee would be the one to break The Rules on flag handling. (And have these changed? What gives? If one can’t allow the rain to drip on a flag, how is it that we can run flag-designed shorts through the wash cycle?)

In Poland we do not have rules that I am aware of concerning flags. Which should not be regarded as a statement of that country’s laid back and toned-down attitude toward nationalism because, due to our skirmishes with invading neighbors, we have, unfortunately, rampant and fierce national pride, far in excess of what any healthy nation needs.

A post on what I have in common with the writer Ha Jin

An interview with Ha Jin in today’s NYT Magazine ends with this exchange:

Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A: I often tell my wife and son that the best life for me would be to get up in the morning and go to a café and have coffee and meet friends and read the newspaper. [He then goes on to say: But you can’t do it every day, because if you did, your life would be effortless. And an effortless life is a meaningless life.]

For me as well! That, or to sit back over a café latte and listen to others exchange a quick story or a comment on some event or other.

I am precluded from doing this because no one here pauses in the morning. The café baristas are busy then, but they are for the most part filling endless take-out cups. The few people who pause, do so to read. The American café in the morning is one dull place.

I have said this before – perhaps my very favorite part of a vacation on the other side of the ocean is the fifteen morning minutes spent over a coffee and roll at a café, especially on a weekday. No kidding. Watching people come in, banter for a few minutes, then move on with a handshake or a kiss and a swipe at the last crumb of croissant or other carb-loaded piece of bread is bliss. It adds spring to my step for the rest of the day.

A P.S. to this day:

It’s rare that I get to drive from Chicago on a highway empty enough for me to be able to photograph it without risking my life and the life of the ancient van.

Just one photo and then I’ll sign off for the night:

Madison lies to the northwest of Chicago and so each return home at the end of the day means a drive straight into the suset.. 

New Ocean game revisited

Remember the rules: I post a photo of a dish I had for dinner and you guess the place, or if you are not a Midwesterner -- mull over what the dish may be. Today I'll give the answer right away -- it's only fair.

So, where am I and what am I eating?

Answer: Creole shrimp poor-boy on french roll with tomato, red onion and zesty remoulade.  

Good place to get something to eat: outdoor tables (nippy, but they do have heat lamps) and a sign proclaiming that it is an EXCITING restaurant. 

You know you're finally unstressed and enjoying yourself when you find beauty in the refelction of a cab in the wine glass. 

What's driving me?

Q: What happens when you pick up a book-on-tape and you stick it in your car radio and lose yourself in the story?

A: You end up not wanting to stop driving, so that instead of winding up in your local Whole Foods (3.2 miles from home) you suddenly find yourself in Chicago (150.5 miles from home).

Though I did not intend to photoblog this daytrip, I can't resist a few shots. 

outdoor reflections 

Windy city classic 

The small section program: lightening the load of law school

I remember the first “small section*” of first year law students I ever taught. Two and a half years ago they were just starting. Now, in a few weeks, they’re out the door. Law school moves fast.

On this Friday night I again had a chance to see them as a group. We ate fried bread and taco fixings and there were Margaritas and Corona beers. Yes – Corona beers (has the world gone mad? Yes, alright, I, too, brought a six pack, how could I not, given my earlier post). We played games and I got very competitive (as I usually do under such circumstances).

This post is to you guys. Thanks for tonight and for the years of class time, the splendid reenactment of Mrs Palsgraf time, and of course, the office time, get out the tissue and cry on me time (see? it worked out, job-wise, otherwise!), take a walk through the Arboretum and give-my-dog-a-bone time. I can tell – you’re different today than you were in September ‘02.

For one thing, you beat me at nearly all the games we played tonight. Totally not fair. You’re more confident than I am!

* to those outside the legal world: each incoming student starts law school with a mandatory set of classes. One of these will be taught in a small section of around two dozen students. Naturally, by having class daily, the professor comes to know the small section students well and more importantly, they come to know each other. One of the most rewarding aspects of the small group program is facilitating the development of that bond (in the course of classtime and beyond) and then watching it take off and grow strong as the years progress.

On the way to the small section get-together, I pass the Union Terrace and, off to the side, oddly, a campfire. 

Part of small section no. 7: I am hovering over them, for one last time. 

From reenactments and blackboard sketches to a moment at the pool table at the end of the third year. 

Oddly, Corona seems to have made its way into each portion of this day. 

Madison links

Life is curious. As my friend sits in his office up Bascom hill, groaning about being cooped up late on a gorgeous Friday evening as whiffs of beer make their way through his corridors, I am half-way down Bascom hill working away in mine, about to take a break, to see if other Madisonians are having a better time of it.

What ties the day together for me, therefore, is work, sunshine, the colors of spring, and a Corona beer truck. Here's how the day meanders between the greens and yellows, finishing with the blue waters of Lake Mendota.:

In the early afternoon, I have a meeting at this coffee shop. As I wait in line for my latte, I look up and see the spring colors of the Corona truck, on its way to make a delivery. 

On State Street, the stores let their dresses out to tempt the winter-weary strollers. 

At six, I take a break, walk down the hill and witness a Terrace moment: late afternoon sun, a dreamy gaze, a cup of beer. 

Hey dude, lost your table? Here's my cup, pour me one! 

She's trying so hard to concentrate, but the Corona (thanks to the timely delivery) works its magic... 

Are these guys having a better time of it? untouched by the sun, oblivious to any Corona trucks, as the sailboats drift in the background. 

Lights out in Poland in honor of the Pope? You've got to be kidding.

Let it not be said that Poles march silently and obediently in any solemn procession, even if it is to honor their fallen hero. Always the mavericks, they like nothing more than to be obstinate when asked to get in line behind some else’s idea.

I read this morning the appeal made through the media: let Poland grow dark for five minutes tonight at 21:37 as we mourn the loss of our Pope.

Here are some responses (again crudely translated by me), from the Gazeta Wyborcza’s chat room:

That’s a very dangerous thing to do! Unplug your computers because our electrical system will not withstand the sudden down-surge and the upsurge in use!

This is sheer lunacy! Such an absence of restraint in mourning helps no one.

I’m not turning out any light! I’m going to be reading a prayer for John Paul II.

Okay. I understand. We’ll light candles and stand by the window. Only what does sitting in darkness have to do with giving respect to John Paul the Great? It’s a little sick…

This is absurd! I called the electrical company! Nothing will happen!

People are expressing their respect just for show. All we need is to tape us doing it. What good will turning out the lights do anyone... We should carry him in our hearts – much better than doing something for show, just like everything else that we do in our country.
... ...

The comments go on. And on. And on. And now I really do want to check back in an hour to see who, if anyone, has complied.

Clearly stated?

Where my knowledge of Polish helps propel me to knew heights of verbal perspicuity

Morning email exchange:

You don’t think [known to us person] is kind of [equivalent of cool]?
A little phlegmatic, but otherwise okay.

Just to be certain, I had to look that word up in the dictionary. Here's the definition: Not easily excited to action or passion; cold; dull; sluggish; heavy; as, a phlegmatic person.
Precisely. It's because the Polish counterpart, "flegmatyczny," is more commonplace than phlegmatic is here, that I feel so comfortable in flinging it around, labeling those who are indeed cold dull & sluggish as phlegmatic. [XX] is phlegmatic.


On how I have once again agreed (sort of) to hunt, slash and burn (literally) food in a restaurant

Morning phone exchange:

So how come you're not hanging out at [name of Madison’s great restaurant] these days?
Busy. Gone a lot. But hey! Congratulations on your new proprietorship! And Chef, all in one!

Thanks. So how come you’re not saying you’ll hang out in our kitchen?
I did not say that. I said I’m busy and gone a lot.

Come and help anyway. Any Saturday any time. I’ll give you some comps.
Is that a job offer?

Uhuh.
It is the most undefined offer with the most noncommittal response I have ever articulated. Perfect. I’ll see you soon. Maybe.

New Ocean game, part 2

By the time I turned on the laptop this morning, two brilliant responses (to the challenge posted below) demonstrated how knowledgeable we are about our local eating places (or, how paltry the selections – thus all easily identifiable).

But I will stump you one day, surely I will! [Again, for out-of-towners: you are allowed to limit your guessing to the plated foods. Dimly lit you say? But of course! What, I suppose you want the menu next to it with highlighted selections? Gotta make it a little tough, no?]

Here is the first prize winning response:

that place next to cafe continental, no name on the blasted door, i always miss it, it's japanese fusion (?), new york atmosphere and sadly new york snotty service too. but the fish is awesome, looks like you had fried squid. they have lots of small dishes and you have to have a couple to make up a real meal, it'll cost you but it's worth it. sorry, i have no idea what the restaurant's name is, we call it "That new japanese place on the square."

Yup. It’s calamari, with a sushi roll in the background.

Runner up:

I like your new game, but have little idea where it is -- I see chopsticks and a bottle of Macon-Villages, so I doubt it's someplace I've been. Is it Muramoto (still haven't been there yet)? Could there be another upscale Asian place answering to "delicious" that I don't even know of?

Correct! And brownie points for noticing the finer detail – of a friend holding chopsticks, of the wine…mmm…so good. All the more so since (in response to first reader’s concerns) I wasn’t paying.

New Ocean game, part 1

I have an idea – something to add spark and excitement to the everyday:
I show a photo of a plate of food. You guess either the name of the restaurant (Madisonians, this one’s for you) or the type of food on the plate(s). If you are correct, you get the honor of knowing you are correct! If you think my game is getting too easy, feel free to take me out to dinner at a new and fascinatingly different place and you will see the resultant photos displaying the exotic fare.

Tonight I ate this, somewhere in Madison:

hint: it was delicious!  

Ode to baristas everywhere:

12 oz
non-fat
latte
extra hot*
no foam**
that’s it
it’s not hard
get it right
please????

Bottom line, there are a number of baristas around town who would not have a chance at this.

* If I don’t say this, chances are four to one it will be lukewarm. Actually I prefer just plain old normal-hot, not McDonald’s-scalding, but please, not lukewarm.
** I like foam just fine: why else bother frothing if not for the foam. But if you start messing with foam, you get carried away and stop pouring milk, like, after the mid-point. I have connivingly figured out that this instruction will keep you from muckin’ with the milk level.

Poles hanging in (the line to the Vatican) and hanging on (to the hope that the Cardinals will send back something of John Paul II)

I read the Pope’s Will and Testament – the whole text, written first in 1979, amended over the years.

It is interesting to read the will of a person who had no property to dispose of. Or, what he chose to dispose of (his private notes), he willed to have burned. [A legal Q: can you read as you burn?]

As to the disposition of his body – initially he stated that the Cardinals, in consultation with the Poles should decide. But then he changed his mind. In 1985 he wrote (I’m paraphrasing now) – about that “consult with the Poles" bit? You don’t have to. Did he sense that there would not be agreement? That Poles would not, could not let go of the possibility of having him “return” to Krakow?

If you read the entire text, you will come to the last paragraph (a tautological statement if I ever saw one!), in which John Paul II remembers his early life – his parents, school friends, his days as a laborer during the German occupation. Perhaps Poles will feel gratified that his last written words were about his home. In search of symbols, maybe in this text they’ll find some to take back with them from Rome. For they seem to all be there: Poland appears to have emptied out and traveled south this week. Thankfully the Italians saw what they were up against (who understands passion better than the Italians...): even though they were forced to close the line to view the Pope (at 14 hours of waiting time, it was bumping into tomorrow’s funeral: you don’t want to finally get there and find the Pope gone), the Poles are being allowed through.

As a new commentator said this morning: the Italians know what they’re doing this week.

I just made some major scheduling decisions for the next half year or so and now I am fully convinced that I do not know what I am doing

Brandon, I feel for ya. Who knows how blogging is supposed to fit into this life of ours. Sure, if I could stand the quick, dirty, unpremeditated, then I'd be able to just slash and burn any old post and let it fly. But I can’t. I think about it. I imagine places and schedules I have to accommodate and I worry about writing – how will it fit? When will I get to it?Smug types have looked at me with (contemptuous) pity: it doesn’t matter, they say. Skip a day, skip a week, write trash – who the hell cares?

I care.

So, my next six months are supposed to allow for everything – time for work, time with my distantly located family, with friends, time for trips across the ocean which I seem to need more frequently and more desperately than in the past, all of it. Leaving no one satisfied, of that I am certain.

Nothing today. Nothing yesterday. Tomorrow -- maybe tomorrow.

Such beautiful photographic ideas being presented by photobloggers, yet I remain uninspired. In Madison, I can hardly take my camera out anymore. I mark the progression of spring by noting flowers that pop up, that’s it.

This week-end: I’ll go elsewhere, I’ll shoot shoot shoot, taking in garbage cans if I have to.

Even if I am forced to push the old van out of the garage to make it go, I’m taking it for a spin outside this town. [The van is spoiled. IT likes being within the territorial boundaries of the city.]

In the meantime, imagine. Imagine that you are not tired of daffodils and crocuses (that’s all I am seeing thus far). Imagine that they form partnerships and communities of happy, robust life. Here, take a look, from this morning:

a little like a mommy with her little one, no? 

crowded, pushing to be heard and seen 

A convergence of blog posts and emails set me thinking about roads

Scott writes a touching post on why his blog, Home Sweet Road, may remain at Home Sweet Home next year as he and his wife adjust their road trip plans. And at Matching Tracksuits, Gary writes about the challenging conditions in Poland at the moment: the corruption, the sagging infrastructure, the inadequate highway system. Meanwhile, my sister emails from Warsaw, describing a grief-stricken nation, feverishly holding on to the hope that the Pope’s written statement (to be read today) reveals a desire to have some part of him returned to Poland (she writes that this would mean so little to the rest of the world and so very much to Poles).

And then she writes, in answer to a question of mine, that the train that passes just a few miles from the Polish village where I lived for a number of years and many summers with my grandparents, is still chuggin’ along, even though the old East Warsaw train station from where it departs is now a shopping mall. But why not drive there? Why take the train?

Because the trip by road is, for the most part, not an easy one.

Roads traveled, roads not followed. Trains and roads, or rather no roads.

It struck me that people here probably don’t know this about Poland: there are very few roads in the countryside. Oh, there are roads alright – dirt roads, with ruts made worse each spring by rain, sandy, muddy roads, uneven, ungraveled, more suitable for the furmanki (horse-pulled wagons that still move people and merchandise from one place to another) than for small cars. Roads – such a basic thing.

The reliable trains pull through pastoral scenes of farmsteads and small towns just miles outside Warsaw. The few roads (and almost no highways at all) are crowded, so crowded as to lose their appeal, so that the images held by Scott – of empty roads beckoning, make no sense in Poland.

The road trip: it’s an American concept through and through, belonging to a vast land where you can travel for 365 days within just one state and never repeat a road.

In Poland, roads don’t beckon.

But places do: the forgotten outposts, off the beaten path because there is no beaten path, the villages where dogs bark at you, unused to strangers, unused to traffic of any sort. It’s quite a stretch of land, linking these places with Rome, with the Vatican. Tomorrow, I expect most villages will be linked with Rome not by roads but in other ways, as schools and businesses close so that people may follow the procession in the Vatican.

You really don’t need roads to go places.

Enough time has passed…

…that I can at least make a semi-oblique reference to the other side of the Pope story – the side that no one on the other side of the ocean wants to hear about right now.

The Guardian bluntly runs the headline: “The Pope has blood on his hands*” In the article that follows, Terry Eagleton has this to say about the reasons for selecting Karol Wojtyla to the papacy (emph. my own):

The Catholic church had lived through its own brand of
flower power in the 60s, known as the Second Vatican Council; and the time was
now ripe to rein in leftist monks, clap-happy nuns and Latin American Catholic
Marxists. All of this had been set in train by a pope - John XIII - whom the
Catholic conservatives regarded as at best wacky and at worst a Soviet
agent.

What was needed for this task was
someone well-trained in the techniques of the cold war. As a prelate from
Poland, Wojtyla hailed from what was probably the most reactionary national
outpost of the Catholic church, full of maudlin Mary-worship, nationalist
fervour and ferocious anti-communism. Years of dealing with the Polish
communists had turned him and his fellow Polish bishops into consummate
political operators. In fact, it turned the Polish church into a set-up that
was, at times, not easy to distinguish from the Stalinist bureaucracy. Both
institutions were closed, dogmatic, censorious and hierarchical, awash with myth
and personality cults. It was just that, like many alter egos, they also
happened to be deadly enemies, locked in lethal combat over the soul of the
Polish people.

And guess who won.

Earlier, in my first postings following the death of John Paul II, I suggested that with his passing, maybe Poles could at last examine without guilt the role of the church within their borders. It bears examining.

This true product of postwar Poland, the Pope was conservatively positioned within the church hierarchy, yet he held progressive ideas on everything from the death penalty to positions taken on war and the opression of workers. It is interesting to watch the world unite in their respect for him, given that during his life, neither the right nor left wanted to claim him as their own.

* This refers to the Pope’s was adamant opposition to condom use, even in regions where they would have prevented the spread of AIDS.

In fifteen minutes a bus is leaving for Chicago and I should be on it.

Why? Well, I have a lot of work on my plate for the next forty-eight hours. I could do it on the bus more readily than in a car. I could return in time for tomorrow's afternoon class, happy happy, my reading done, my lectures ready. All because of the four plus hours spent each way on the Van Galder bus.

What’s the draw – a meeting? Conference? Museum? Weather? None of the above. Simply a desire not to be in Madison right now.

I like Madison. I am happy to be here. I like the people, the university. I like spring days and summer nights.

But sometimes, this place just gets to me and I want to take the next available piece of locomotion (in this case a bus, so that I can indeed work; and besides, I fear my old truck of a car would not make it past Beloit and then I would be stranded in Beloit until I could purchase a replacement), out out out, where streets are crowded and you can be in that crazy rushing mass of people and lose yourself completely. Nice!!!!!

Why am I not on the bus then? Because it does not get into the city until 6:10 which would be pretty much past the rush hour. Emptying streets are a sad thing when you're in search of a crowd.

Cacophony

Someone recently told me that the bad thing about spring is that you cannot sleep well with all the bird noises in the morning.

I thought that this was the sorest excuse for waking up early and lapsing into a state of insomnia I ‘d ever heard. Blame it on the birds. And I suppose Not Getting Things Done is also their fault and so is credit card debt.

Still, this morning I cracked the window even more, to enjoy that delicious morning air that makes you pull up the quilt against the chill but revel in the freshness of the breeze. After all, it being Wisconsin, tomorrow it may snow. You never know.

The birds are loud. Really loud. If I screamed like that under their nest, they’d call the police on me for creating a disturbance.

The only thing is, it’s a kind of “loud” that fills you with pleasure.

The road from grief to anger appears to be short

Two of the blogs I regularly link to in Poland have been tampered with, and in one case erased by an angry reader who has not liked the tone of the author, particularly following the death of John Paul II. I'll refrain from linking just now, though sometimes I think it's only a matter of days before I wake up one morning and find Ocean gone from the screen as well.

At the risk of repeating myself -- changes in Poland have not been as easy or wrinkle-free as many here would like to believe. The death of the Pope is a milestone here -- on par with the death of any prominent political figure. It is an entirely different matter in Poland.

The coupling of major events such as this one with great economic insecurity is not a good one. Perhaps it'll take the rest of the week for Poles to shift their attention away from the Vatican. I'm hoping it will only take the rest of the week for this to happen.

Heart and soul

Five FAQs about the Polish habit of separating the heart from the corpse upon burial:

I heard that Polish people, when told that John Paul II will not be buried in Poland, are asking for at least the heart to be extracted and taken to Krakow. True?
Yes, but do not view this as a Polish thing: it was the custom until the late 19th Century to bury the pope's heart separately (according to a BBC report).

Still, you have various great hearts dotting the Polish landscape, don’t you?
Excuse me, Americans decided to keep a heart as well, when president GHBush agreed to return the body of the famous composer and pianist, Ignacy Paderewski to Poland, but without his heart – which remains in Doylestown Pennsylvania. Of course, this is what Paderewski had wanted.

Others: there are others?
You’re thinking of Chopin who wished his heart to be buried in Poland. Chopin composed in France but had a deep love for the country he left behind. Polish officials believed there to be a similarity to the Pope, who was, of course, substantially devoted to Poland.

So why no heart?
Well, here we are facing the issue of health care and burial directives all over again. The Pope never indicated in writing that he wanted any part of his remains to be returned to Poland. So technically one could say that the Vatican is simply following what are believed to be his preferences – to stay solidly there under St. Peter’s along with a number of other popes.

So, about these hearts of the deceased – can you visit them?
I don’t know what Pennsylvanians have done with Paderewki’s heart, but you sure can take a trek to the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, where Chopin’s heart is entombed, right in the wall, next to the heart of the Nobel Prize winning author, Wladyslaw Reymont. It’s a tourist draw, I hear.

Difficult transitions

My imagination is serviceable enough for me to understand what it is like in Poland now. Even if you can’t read in Polish, take a look at the front page of the daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, here (typically, it looks not unlike the online version of the NYT or the BBC).

Gary, an American living in Poland has reflections here, describing what happened when he and his Polish wife first heard that the Pope had died. Gary has previously written about his lack of religious affiliation and yet he touchingly describes the profound desire to be in a Catholic space immediately after the news reaches Poland.

Earlier, I compared Poland to a young bird, the Pope – to its hovering parent or protector. I am hearing now more about the doubt that is gripping the nation. Can we manage without him? Poland will be so much worse off now…

I should not be surprised (though it is painful to read these kinds of expressions of self-doubt). I don’t think Poland’s current state of crisis is widely understood here. For those who do not follow Polish politics, the equation is simple: communism fell, a democratically elected government is now in place, rest easy. Not so! The rate of unemployment will not reverse its upward trend and the political corruption is unbelievable: it infiltrates every sector, at every level. The people appear discouraged, not ready to believe in a better future. The loss of John Paul II comes at a difficult time.