Polish American

Yay! My favorite Polish American or Amercian Pole is home for a bit. Last night Shelley and I met at my favorite coffee shop in Suburbia just to hang out for a bit... and make plans for today's festivities. Today is something of a "Celebrate Poland" day at our house. Shelley learned to make pierogis in Poland. I made some truly bad Zurek (a kind of soup) for our family after returning from Poznan last Spring. Today, the opportunity to make both will be part of our day as Shelley comes to visit. I'll meet Shelley and her Mom to go have lunch and fulfill our specialty shopping list at a Polish grocery (sklep) in a nearby suburb. (The grocery store photo is from a previous grocery trip with Shelley... except it was a Polish grocery that was in Poland rather than Suburbia.) Then Shelley and I will be attempting to duplicate the feat of making pierogis which will be part of our dinner along with what will hopefully be good Zurek.

In addition to Don and I, the kids, and Shelley, Shelley's sister Lisa and Lisa's husband John will complete our dinner party! Hooray! While I am sincerely hopeful that the dinner will be wonderful, I know the companionship will be the best. After our yummy Polish dinner, we will all load up for the drive to the church. Erin is performing tonight (along with her adorable friends from dance class) at the church's monthly artist's gathering where original material is shared. It is awesome that we are all sharing so much with one another tonight from our home, to Shelley's Polish cooking expertise, to John and Lisa's ready laughter, and the children's corny jokes and talent. Whatever we each bring to the evening, it's bound to be memorable. Both my glimpse into Shelley's Polish world and her American world will come together tonight. What's not to love?!

Footnote:

Last night Shelley shared the raw footage of her support-raising video with me. As we watched, it struck me that several talented people were in the building who might share their expertise with her to create a piece that would truly communicate the spiritual need in Poland. We showed the video to our church's generally brilliant programming director Jan who had a couple of helpful comments, but was not really struck by the images that had me turning away from the screen to avoid sobbing. The message was not coming across in the video. First thing this morning, my phone rang. Those images that were not communicating the needed message did stick with Jan. So much so that she was calling with a makeshift verbal storyboard communicating the very real spiritual starvation in Europe. Whoo-Hoo!!! I am hoping that Shelley will be able to communicate why she goes out through the images and words with the addition of Jan's keen mind and eye to the creative process.