Return of The Mutha

This week, welcome back Mutha as our guest. Mutha was asked to define Polish.

Polish, adj. From or of Poland.

My Grandfather was born in Poland. My grandmother was born the first American daughter of two Polish parents. And so in this way Polish has always meant half of me.

Polish, n. The polite cultural description (for other, see Polack).

From a young age I also realized that being Polish meant being told jokes. I used to point out that I was Prussian (which is true, in the sense that some relatives lived in the part of the world once known as Prussia and now known as Poland), and did so to somehow save some dignity.

Polish, n. The language native to Poland.

My grandmother and father spoke Polish to one another. I learned very few words and phrases, but when I told Bapcha (Polish for grandma) that I had begun an apprenticeship with a Polish sculptor who was mean to me, she taught me a phrase that she said meant “Leave me alone.” I used it on the sculptor and after looking somewhat surprised he did indeed treat me better. When I told my father the story and the phrase he laughed until he choked. My grandmother (who had run a bar for years and could curse like a sailor) had in fact armed her granddaughter with a phrase that meant SHUT THE (bleep) UP!

Polish, n. sheen, luster, gloss.

v. To shine, buff, scour, brighten.
also spin, work over, reconfigure for the public’s consumption

About Mutha: The half-polish, mostly polished writer, now, of two blogs is also the chaser of two children, judge of their teachers, supporter of their coaches and memorialist of That Girl Mutha's original (as far as I know) blog, She's A Real Mother, keeps us up to date on Mutha, her family, her favorite books, movies, music, quotations. Not to be argumentative, Mutha, but if Lou Reedwere God, don't you think he'd have given himself a singing voice?

Mutha also does a fine imitation of Studs Turkel. Taking the time to notice the people around her, Mutha also from time to time features a series called Who are the people in your neighborhood. This is one of my favoritest features on blogs. Partly because she notices the people in her neighborhood (the houses in mine appear inhabited and sometimes I see featherless bipeds entering and exiting them) and because she takes the time to learn about those people and their jobs. This feature also displays one of Mutha's real virtues as a blogger. A gifted writer, she's also one of the best readers around. It's hard not to admire her community spirit, even for those of us not normally enamored of community.

An exciting new development, since Mutha was last a guest here is the fiction site she's started, Tell Me A Story, Mutha. Mutha is a survivor of National Novel Writing Month, although some of her pride and sense of proportionality were damaged in the battle. She did however write more than 25,000 words of a promising novel and to our benefit, she is continuing to develop her book in "flashes." These can be found on the new site.

Thanks to Mutha for continuing to be a first-rate blogger, reader, writer, observer and friend. Mutha was fictional here once.