KIELBASA CHRISTMAS
KIELBASA CHRISTMAS
I was going to write about this last week, but I was too overcome with emotion and gratitude. But I have regained my composure and feel I can talk about it. Besides I have a box of tissue right here on my desk. Last Christmas, a year ago, after nearly forty years of separation, my ex-wife Janet, who lives in Connecticut, bought me some kielbasa for Christmas and not just any kielbasa. She gave me real Wyszynski’s Polish Smoked Kielbasa. And not just a little piece. Rather, EIGHTEEN FEET of this special sausage arrived via UPS just before Christmas. Eighteen feet; that’s as long as the post office is wide, twice as long as the meat counter at Carver’s, as wide as a waterfront room at the Tidewater. And Wyszynski’s is an inch and a half in diameter, not the one-inch masquerader found in stores. Six vacuum packed packages were in the parcel, each eighteen inches long, each containing three feet of sausage folded in half. The reason I’m so overcome now, a year later, is not because I’m remembering that very special occasion. It’s because she did it again this year. don’t want to jeopardize the likelihood that I can look forward to this every year but, while I’m reluctant to tell her because I’m afraid she’ll want the Kielbasa back, she should know that I am happy where I am.
The truth is, Janet comes up several times each year now, has been doing so for several years to spend time with her grandchildren, not with me. We give her a place to stay, and she brings us a little something for Christmas. Those ‘little somethings’ are the delightfully enormous proportions I’ve described, delivered right to my door. I say ‘my door’ because it is Kielbasa. If it had been Kale or Tofu or something like that, it would be Elaine’s door. I was a little chagrined to discover she was perfectly content having me three hundred miles away and had no interest in having me back, but I was delighted and relieved that the Kielbasa would stay even though I’d misread her intentions.
And this Christmas another eighteen feet arrived and, now that I’ve accepted the fact that she’s only being nice I’m enjoying it even more.
I had some in pasta last night. I have seventeen feet, three inches left.