Life of the Bored and Taskless.

Saturday, April 20, 2002

Bridesburg. Home of big butts, kielbasa, and 80 something year old Polish women who won't let you leave until they give you half of what's in their fridge. Ug, Philadelphia would be a brighter place without my great grandmother living there. Bridesburg is basically the Polish village in Philly. Everyone knows each other there, and if you read To Kill A Mockingburg, it's like Maycomb. Except it's urban. All the people's last names are hard to pronounce, which makes it interesting.

When we got there this morning, my aunt (well great aunt) showed me the house she grew up in, the house she moved to, and my great great aunt Irene's (Renie for short) house. We went inside and she redid the place and it looks nice. I wouldn't know what it looked like before, I was really young when I went in there last. She showed me an old picture of her and her husband Matt by a tree. He was holding a cigarette in his hand, had rolled up sleeves and pants because it had just rained, and was looking at Renie, who was looking back at him and was wearing a dress and loafers. The tree was painted half white for some unknown reason, and it looked like a magazine ad. It was a beautiful picture. Then we went to Hell later.

Today, a huckster, a guy who sells fruit and veggies in a truck, had a bullhorn and was yelling and singing about the prices. They aren't too common in the suburbs, I can tell you that. My aunt said that a one-legged man used to go up and down the streets selling horseradish in a horsedrawn cart. Horseradish? Apparently, Bridesburgians use that in recipies a lot, it's a Polish thing.Yuck. Also, on Fridays this guy used to stand on a corner and sell deviled crabs and clams because Catholics didn't eat meat on Fridays, especially during Lent. I want a huckster to come down my street and sell fruits!!! We picked up two cantalopes for Babci (grandmom in Polish). We call her "Bach" for short...as in "bachelism". I know, we're nice people. Seriously, she even said she was going to hell today. "My parents never cursed one time in front of me. They never said 'damn' or anything like that. I do, and I am just going to hell." Bravo. When I told that to my aunt, she said, "At least she knows where she's going."

Ok, here's the situation. She's eighty something, had a stroke, lives by herself, complains every two seconds, talks nonstop and if you try to say something cuts you off, orders you to clean for her then tells you to do something else, makes you get her food or take cookies home even if you have two zillion ones already, is way out of touch with today, is a hypochondriac (a person who thinks they're sick all the time), and is a critic of every little thing you do. There. It is that bad. I had to clean this tray that holds her flowers and I accidentally knocked over a flower pot. D'oh! I had to clean that up then too. I vacuumed, dropped more things, and I sweeped the whole front yard and picked up trash off of the ground. My break was going over to Lachowich's (pronounced La-ho-vich-is) to get a sandwich and some wafers for next week's piano recital. Meanwhile, while I was trying to focus on doing these tasks, she was yapping a way about all sorts of things, and if I called you up and did my impression of her talking you would either laugh or hang up. Well, she did give me 7$ for my deeds.

I went over to copy an article for her about one of my distant cousins or something who led his high school basketball team to victory. There was this guy there helping me and I screwed up a billion times, but he only made me pay 25 cents. Then I ran up and it turns out I forgot the original article! So I had to run back and he said, "What now! Did you forget the" and I nodded and he laughed and then said in a jokingly manner, "You're not allowed in here again!" and I said, "I know!" It turns out his daughter carried the Olympic torch through Philadelphia back in 2000 because she is a champion diver. Cool.

Life of the Bored and Taskless.

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