For Just 150 zloty, You Too Can Skip A Party

So last week, in a moment of weakness, I complained about an experience I had at the bar and that I would have to attend a party with the two people involved.

Fortunately, Stewie locked both sets of keys, both my mobile and Dylan's, and my purse in the minivan. Making us wait for 2 hours for a locksmith and making us 150 zloty (USD 42) lighter in the wallet.

But we totally missed the party. With a damn good excuse.

It was a good day.

So how did you spend Valentine's Day?

Maybe It's Like Robin Hood?

This is part of the series in which I make fun of the ways Poles dress. This is only for fun and is totally an American perspective.

At the preschool where I'm teaching, there are 5 Polish children, 2 French children, 3 American children - although one of them thinks she's Mexican, one of them thinks he's Polish, and one of them thinks she's Israeli...only the Israeli one is correct, 1 New Zealander, and 2 Spanish children.

Notice how the nationalities come in pairs or more. Except the New Zealander - that's because there just aren't that many of them in New Zealand, so they don't often export them.

So there are 5 Polish children at the school. 1 of them never comes to school - he's just on the roster, so he could potentially show up at any moment. Of the other 4, 3 of them wear the same clothes every.single.day. This is because they have separate inside and outside clothes.

What does this mean exactly? Well, think about how long it takes to get a 3 year old dressed in the morning. We must put on tights, then an undershirt, then trousers, then an overshirt, then snowpants (no matter what the weather - as long as it still technically winter we must still wear snowpants...it could begin snowing at ANY GIVEN MOMENT!), then scarf, jacket, mittens and hat.

So, because all the other normal children come to school in tights, undershirt, trousers, overshirt, and spend the school day IN THOSE CLOTHES (mostly, there is one boy and one girl who just have to be in their undershirt and tights all day long), it doesn't take 20 minutes to dress each one of them to go outside.

Add to that the boy who is ADHD and can't sit still long enough to be undressed from his trousers and shirt and then redressed in (a totally different set) tights, undershirt, trousers, overshirt, snowpants, scarf, jacket, mittens and hat, and there is no way I will teach preschool for the rest of my life.

The other thing about this whole ordeal is that IT DOESN'T GET THAT COLD HERE! Our average winter temp is -4 C/25 F.

And before you ask, yes, my boys wear tights.

Their teacher asked me if Americans do this and I said, "No." She asked, "Then why do you put them in tights?" I said, "So the old ladies don't yell at me." Because if you've ever lived in Poland, you know that everyone on the street thinks that it is their business to tell you how to raise your children.

The teacher's ass almost literally fell off. She laughed that hard.

But my boys do have some manly looking tights.

Fashion Dos and Don'ts

Monday was my first day of work. I'm currently a preschool teacher. I'm learning that I don't really like working with preschoolers. I also don't really like working with teenagers. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't like working with adults either. Perhaps I just don't like working.

Anyway, I wore a skirt (stupid I know, but my jeans had just been in a mudslinging accident with a two year old) and tights. About 2 hours into the day I realized I had a huge hole in my tights. Like "make me look like a homeless person" hole. I couldn't see it because it was on the back of my leg and somehow when I put them on my foot didn't got through the hole, so perhaps it wasn't there the whole day.

Anyway, once I learned of the hole, I discarded said tights in the bathroom. But now, my legs were bare. Well, except for the skirt and the knee high boots I was wearing. There was approximately 1 inch of bare skin showing.

I went into my local store and the clerks stared at me. I was dressed nicely, just lacking in hosery. I looked back at them. I was all "What! WHAT? You're staring at me because I have 1 inch of skin showing? Agnieszka looks like a hooker and you're staring at ME?!?!?!"

She does too. I'll try to get a picture.

Tales of the Religion Class

One of the schools that feeds into my class has holidays next week. A huge percentage of my class attends that school. My director told me that if half the class was going to be gone, I could cancel the class. SCORE!

So I asked my kids "Who's going to be gone next week?" 5 hands immediately shot up.

"Daniel*, yes your mum already told me. Dominik*, yes, you told me last week - even though you actually had no idea when the holidays were. Cecil*, okay. Richard*, okay. Thomas* - wait, Thomas you go to a different school. Your holidays are the following week. Why are you going to be gone?"

"Um...uh....I...don't...know."

"Right then, I'll ask your mom."

"No, I was confused. I'll be here next week."

Now, I'm not sure why I argued with the kid. I totally want a holiday too. But now, because I'm stupid couldn't resist, I have to work next Sunday.

And aside from being totally tempted to roundhouse kick the troublemaker in the class (not Thomas) in the head, that was the highlight of my evening.

*Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent.

ARGH! I'm Trapped!

So my desktop refuses to start up. I'm involved in this scrapbook challenge where everything has to be posted by midnight and my desktop, where I do almost all my work, refuses to cooperate with me.

Then last night, as I was tending bar, a "friend" came in and proceeded to tell me in front of the other patrons/friends some juicy gossip about a mutual acquaintance. I don't really care that much about the gossip, while I didn't know these particular things about this particular acquaintance, it's nothing that other people haven't done in the past.

Perhaps because I was unimpressed with her juicy news, or perhaps because she is just...I don't know...mean, she then proceeded to tell me about how this acquaintance gossips about me. I was a bit shocked and hurt. If I thought quicker on my feet I would have flat out asked her "What are you trying to accomplish by telling me this?" Because seeing as this is an acquaintance, I don't really know him well enough for him to have any gossip about me.

And during the whole thing, I was transported back to high school. And I realized that perhaps I have led a sheltered life since then, but no one has treated me that way since high school. If you hear someone gossiping about others, how do you handle it as an adult? I certainly would not tell the person who was being gossiped about, that only serves to hurt them.

Unfortunately, I am supposed to attend a party with both of them next week.

And then I came home and my damn desktop would not start!

Things I Learned From Scanning Slides

While my slide scanning is nowhere near finished, I am noticing the same things over and over again. Tips that you can take away from my experience, right now. For free. Well, for comments.

When you take 700 photos of the same event or thing, such as a cake, keep only the best shot. In 30 years the only thing your daughter will learn is that you were really really impressed by a mediocre cake. Or that cake technology has come REALLY far in 30 years.


If you are not planning to scrapbook, notate, or otherwise indicate what various and assorted pieces of equipment at NASA are, don't bother keeping the photos. Again, 30 years later, the only thing your children will learn is that yes, indeed, you did take an awful lot of trips to the Johnson Space Center. So many in fact that they have no desire to go. Ever.


Photos so over or underexposed that you cannot tell what they are supposed to be only serve to teach your children that you were not the best photographer. But they can provide hours of "magic eye" style entertainment. I think this one is supposed to be a giant reptilian ghost bird.


And the most important of all. No matter what you think of yourself, how you look, or how you appear in photos, someone someday will treasure having photos of you. This one made all the work worth it:

My mom and me circa 1975

Conversation in our Kitchen

Sunday Conversation

Dylan: "Huh. Well, that's not good. I think I just blew up the refrigerator."

Me: "..."

Later

Dylan: "I changed the light bulb. Now everything is good again. But it's kind of high wattage."

Tigger: "WOW! Heaven is in our refrigerator!"

Dylan: "Okay, you can open the door, but don't look directly INTO the refrigerator."


I'm thinking of rigging up some kind of heavenly music that goes on every time the door is opened. Or maybe the refrigerator could fill in for my "happy light".

---

Some of you have taken stabs at where Hell is from my last post. Apparently, it was Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. And those were the souvenir slides, which did not age nearly as well as all the ones that my family took.

Others have asked about converting slides to digital. I have emailed those of you whose email addresses I had directly, but I thought I'd put a little plug in for anyone else who is interested.

I'm using the Plustek OpticFilm 7300 slide/film scanner. I think it's a fabulous scanner and does a lovely job. It's also small and compact. Be aware though that it takes about 2-3 minutes per slide and you have to manually change the slides, so it's a long project if you have a lot of slides. I've made it through about 300 slides in the past week.

And Grandma, if you ever come across the slides that you know are around somewhere, I promise I will scan them in and give you copies. And I will not make fun of them on my blog. I reserve the right to make fun of people who do not read my blog only.