August winds down, all but lost to enhanced Polishness. My language skills deteriorate with disuse, laziness, and distraction. The brief windfall of cultural advance provided by my Polish guest cannot make up the deficit, so that the season will show a net loss of ethnicity. After some initial progress in the logistics of migration, my real estatesmanship flags, stalls, and I find myself no closer to the old country, no farther east. Some do-it-myselfishness has led to a mangled front door (hammer, cold chisel). My computer crashed. There is a squirrel, wiewiorka, in the attic. I detest wiewiorki, sentimentalized, bushy-tailed rats, who keep me up nights with their skittering. So much to do. Psiakrew! On a positive note, I did manage, quite by accident, to visit Kramarczyk's grocery and deli in Northeast, the Baltic quarter of Minneapolis, and I did pick up volumes II and II of The Peasants. Paltry efforts, but my only forward ones.
