Batchin’ it again

I am again a temporary bachelor. The wife and kids are right now near the Polish-German border in a town called Biale, near Chojnow. The nearest city of any size is Wroclaw.

Things change. When Chojnow was a German town, it was called Hainau – where the Treaty of Hainau was signed. Wroclaw was Breslau before the war. Now it’s Polish territory, but a favorite destination of German tourists come to see the land their families used to live in. The Poles are happy to see the money come in – they just wish it didn’t come attached to so many Germans.

I took off a week to visit a friend in Texas with the man cancer – you know, the one we’re all going to get eventually if something else doesn’t happen first. It was actually a bit of a relief to find out how easy it is becoming to treat.

After that I went camping in the Ouachitaw Mountains for a couple of days. I’ve got a new tent about the size of an airplane hanger to accomodate my growing family and I wanted to test drive it. I also wanted to spend some time working out in the woods and meditating.

So what the heck, I was bored and lonely. I just kept thinking about how much more fun it would be with my family and the only “meditating” I did was staring into the campfire drinking beer. I guess I’m a confirmed family guy after all.

*When the family comes back we may have to go to Los Angeles. In true Polish bureaucratic fashion, the local consulate (the one in L.A. though Chicago is closer…) told us that we should get the new baby’s Polish passport in Warsaw. Except that now the Warsaw office has told us that we have to do it in America – and in person at that.

Looks like that tent will get a family workout quite soon.