Stahlke Adoption

St. Patrick's Day

In my former church job, one of the worship services was conducted in German. Since I had lived in Germany in the 1990s, this worship service was a great way to keep my German language skills in practice. Most of the small congregation are Germans from Russia who had emigrated to Chicago after World War II. They are a quiet, reserved group, but once you know them, the stories of their resilience during and after the war are heartbreaking and incredible to hear. For example, one of them told me how she survived the fire bombing of Dresden.

The German choir, once more than twenty strong, had declined to only three retired women. Two of them were remarkable people, who I count as good friends, but the self-professed leader of the group did not believe for a moment that a "young," non-German woman could be in charge. She insisted on speaking English to me, and always chose the choir's repertoire. "Repertoire" is actually too broad a term, since the group rotated only ten songs or so over the years that this woman sang in the choir. On the rare occasion that I crossed her, she would look me squarely in the eye and declare in her thick German/Russian accent that her music choices were better because "WE KNOW THEM SONGS!"
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I'm getting very, very tired of bologna and turkey. Those are the lunch meats most often on sale. But most of the kids love them, especially bologna. They like foods to be familiar, and some of them find it stressful to experience new foods. Actually, some of them find anything new to be a challenge, which our counselors tell us is common for children who've been through a lot.

But occasionally, I can't stand the monotony anymore, so last week I found some sliced roast beef as a different take on sandwiches. And for St. Patrick's Day, a festival dearly beloved in Chicago, I bought some corned beef for the family's lunches. Last night, I served the roast beef as part of a small evening supper, and Olena took a real liking to it. She spent the whole meal angling for as much roast beef as possible. I told her that tomorrow we'd be having something new--corned beef--to mark St. Patrick's Day. She looked very disappointed and told me:
"Mom, I want roast beef tomorrow. I KNOW THAT BEEF!"

posted by Stahlkes @ 11:07 AM