I Made an Old Man Cry... or Something Like That

So this was the magical weekend otherwise known as "Rachel's Polish-speaking Besties Come to Town!" On the whole, it was great. We went to perhaps the lamest of all local LDS dances, but we still had a good time. Andrew's moves were particularly surprising. I don't think I'd ever seen him in that kind of setting. Maybe he was channeling the power of New Mexico from his extra-special buckle:

A little note about the picture above-- people keep telling me how scandalous it is, but you try taking a picture of a belt-buckle on someone! I wanted to zoom in on the buckle, but I didn't want to get too close, you know? And then my battery died. Say what you will, but the buckle makes Andrzej even more powerful, dynamic and handsome than he already was. But most of all, very powerful. (That's from a cartoon my old boss used to make us watch-- I've adopted it as my personal catch-phrase.)

After some brief rockin' and rollin' with the good Mormon singles, we went to my house in Los Lunas, where the boys quickly felt at home. On Saturday night, in fact, I found Andrew eating ice cream right out of the carton in my kitchen. On Sunday as I was in my room changing clothes, I kept hearing someone going in and out of my garage. Turns out it was Nathan, replenishing the pellets for the stove (he's a real champ and the most thoughtful boy in the world, but I think this had more to do with stove fascination than chivalry). I half-expected to be woken up each morning to them jumping on my bed telling me they needed some breakfast so they could watch cartoons. Of course, this didn't happen as a) I get up much earlier than they do and b) I don't have television.

Some evidence of men in my house:

I joke a lot, but I loved having them in town. I kept feeling like the luckiest girl in the world-- who has random college friends just drop in for a weekend like that? Well, I mean, I know it happens, but considering our diversity in geography and given our genders, you just wouldn't expect it to happen. But happen it did, and it was delightful.

That is, until we went to Santa Fe. Now I'll just say for the record that I'm not a huge SF fan to begin with. The bypass/relief route is one of the best inventions ever. I am perfectly content to scoot around the whole blasted place. It is expensive and inefficient. There is only one store I'm ever interested in seeing on the Plaza, and that is the Polish Folk Art store. I have a real beef with the proprietor because he's always doggin' my favorite BYU professor (who just happens to have a folk art collection that would put this guy to shame), and I'd truly hoped he wouldn't be there. Well, I got my wish. The store was closed.

But not for long. We took this picture while we were waiting for the store to re-open. This was a happy time. We looked in the windows at the over-priced merchandise, pointing out the artists we all recognized (I wonder if Lou was impressed-- she came with us and was privy to my personal breakdown, which will happen in 3-2-1...). We laughed the rules posted near the door: No food or drink (understandable), No pictures (I get that), No gabbing on cell phones (Getting a little bossy here, aren't we?), etc., etc.

Anyway, grumpy Mr. Pol-Art had re-opened his store and the boys and I tried to go incognito. Unfortunately, I let my guard down while the sales assistant (who is very nice, by the way), tried to sell me some Boleslawiec pottery. I've already got quite a bit of it-- several cupboards full-- and he kept mispronouncing everything. I don't know if anyone noticed when I said something under my breath using the REAL pronunciation, but eyebrows were likely raised when I motioned the boys over to see some pieces by Sledz, an artist we all admire (Andrew commissioned two pieces from Sledz himself). Oops. Mistake No. 1.

Then, because I was curious, I asked the proprietor himself if he would open a triptych which was on display behind the counter. When I reverently whispered "Paraszon" to Nathan when he asked who did that-- before Grumpy Greg-- I knew I'd accidentally blown our cover. So I tried to go for nice instead. I wanted to ask the fellow about his store because I'm genuinely interested. He has beautiful things, and it does make me happy that they've found a place into the hearts of tourists who ambled past and got taken, but who nonetheless ended up introduced to the majesties of Polish Folk Art. Well, I guess my friendliness didn't really work for this guy. Andrew later gently suggested the man might have felt some some hostility enter the conversation when I pointed out we'd met half a dozen times before (it's true, but I did mean to bring it up in a joking way so he'd know that I knew and admired his store [by the way, bless Andrew for helping me see my flaws without coming across as critical-- he has a way of making me a lot better, in a "I'm-holding-your-hand-through-this-and-I-still-like-you-even-though-you're-a-nincompoop" sort of way]). Anyway, I just wanted to ask about his store and the artists we mutually know and when he was going to bring another artist to work there. I think it's all rather neat.

But our little friend instead went on the defensive. He accused Nathan and I of being reporters, trying to get a story out of him. And if you think about it, that's kind of stupid. Speaking as an erst-while journalist, why in the world would I ever go undercover to snag a story about a folk-art store? What I really think he meant by it (though sweet Nate took him at face-value) was he thought that we'd go reporting to Dr. Whipple. Or that we were looking to get into the business as well and were gathering intel on him. Of course neither were true, but he ran off in a huff, insisting that he had to go to the bathroom. It was the oddest thing.

Not wanting to stay where we clearly weren't welcome, Nate, Lou and I made a hasty retreat. Andrew stuck around to try to patch things up. The man, so far as I know, never made any explanation of his odd behavior, nor do I think Andrew tried to excuse mine. Andzej just knows I'm friendly and enthusiastic about everything, so he shrugged it all off. Meanwhile, I started to feel worse and worse about how uncomfortable I'd made the old crotchety dude, and cried myself to Albuquerque from the guilt. By the time we made it through the disappointing BYU game, I was hot and tired and had no makeup left, but felt better after our trip up the tram, to Chinese food with my parents, and to Circuit City to play Rock Band for a while (the boys were gems to distract me and praise me for my 94 percent singing score on "Eye of the Tiger"-- which, I would suggest, might have been better if I hadn't been laughing the whole time). We went back to my house, sprawled out on the floor, and I fell asleep between the boys while they watched "Groundhog Day." So it wasn't just the way I expected the weekend to turn out, but it was still pleasant.
All in all, it was good. Sunday was a blur of Nathan's pre-birthday celebrations, culminating with a posse of boys assembled in my kitchen to help make the birthday dinner:

And at the end of the day, that's all you can ask for anyway, right? Scary Santa Fean aside, I'm so happy I could just sigh contentedly for the next 72 hours at least. Maybe the best part was that most of the weekend wasn't about our Polish connection. We have that in common but it's not why we're friends now. Today, we're just friends who get together and wear matching shirts and stay at one another's houses. This afternoon, I'm just president of their fan clubs and content to keep them on the pedestals they deserve. At this moment, I remain their enthusiastic friend with a cute house and hospitality to match, and if ever another girl were half so grateful for the actualization of the purest platontic love, she'd be bursting with joy.