Saints, Sinners, Stuffing, and Superman

It’s been a few weeks since my last update.  Sorry about that.  I’m running around like a crazy man these days, and usually find that I’m too pooped to sit down and crank out something witty and endearing for the old blog.  (Incidentally, “pooped” as an adjective doesn’t translate to Czech… I asked a few Czech friends about it, and they just laughed at me.)  

Last week I participated in the 400-year old American tradition of eating ridiculous amounts of food to the point of comatose, and then complaining about how full I feel… like somehow it wasn’t my fault.  Alas, it’s a beautiful tradition that I wouldn’t miss for the world.  

To quote Garrison Keillor:
The candles are lit in the winter dusk, and we look at each other, the old faces and some new ones, and silently toast the Good Life, which is here before us. Enjoy the animal fats and to hell with apologies. No need to defend our opinions or pretend to be young and brilliant. We still have our faculties and the food still tastes good to us.

“What?  Thanksgiving last week?” you inquire.  “I didn’t realize Central European time was so different from the US.”  No, you’re right.  Thanksgiving was not actually last week, but we at ESI have taken it upon ourselves to adjust the American calendar as we see fit.  I’m one of three Americans in my town.  Who’s going to complain?

The ESIers from all over the Czech Republic came together in the village of Svaty Jan pod Skalou (St. John Under the Rock Face) last Thursday.  The gracious employees at the hotel there prepared one of the largest turkeys I’ve ever seen… and to my surprise, invited me to carve it.  This was my first carving experience, but I feel it was a successful one.  In the midst of it, I even managed to salvage the wishbone.  Years of practice had prepared me for this moment, and I took my end of the wishbone with confidence.  As 35 pairs of eyes watched, I made my wish, pulled hard, and emerged victorious.  Mom would have been so proud.

Friday was spent exploring, climbing rocks, singing songs, eating leftovers, and laughing a lot.  The way it should be.  We left that lovely village around lunchtime on Saturday.  

Despite all of the heroic, masculine tasks you have read thus far, Saturday and Sunday held something completely different for me.  If you’d prefer to think of me as a mature, turkey-carving, rock-climbing man among boys, then you should probably stop here.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, all men have their vices… as it turns out, two of mine are country music (collective groan)… and Smallville, the WB television series about the boy who would be Superman.  It has been described as a combination of Dawson’s Creek and X-Men…  I prefer to describe it as a drug.  Along with a handful of my esteemed ESI colleagues, I watched all of Season 4 in a 24-hour period.  I cannot, for the sake of our friendship, admit to you exactly the number of hours we sat in that tiny window-less living room.  Let’s just leave it at “many.”  I’m neither proud of this feat,  nor am I totally ashamed.  I do know, however, that I returned home on Sunday totally exhausted, and totally numb from the neck up.  

As many of you read this, you are likely preparing for Thanksgiving with your family and friends.  Maybe you can even smell the Turkey cooking right now… for my sake, stop reading and go watch some football.  I’d give my left leg to watch (or play) a good game of American football right now.  

I hope that you are well, and that this is a week of thankfulness for you and those closest to you.  Drop me a note sometime.  I’d love to hear from you.