After a very rough start in the morning, Ariana and I left at quarter past 10 heading for the Lithuanian picnic in Putnam, CT.
The picnic is a once-a-year event that is hosted by the sisters of the Immaculate Conception and held on their vast and idyllic grounds. The picnic is the main fund-raiser for Camp Neringa, a Lithuanian camp that's run by the sisters up in Marlboro, VT.
One of the first things we noticed after arriving, getting our hands stamped, and parking in the great field was this strong sense of having crossed the border into another world.
It wasn't just the fact that almost everybody spoke Lithuanian that made it feel as though we stepped into a different country. It was the place itself.
The convent is located in a rural section of Putnam. The grounds are vast with wide open areas, wooded areas, and even a cemetery.
A little, stone-lined brook traverses the grounds separating the wooded picnic area from the open areas that contain the cemetery and are dotted with devotional stations throughout. There are little bridges here and there that cross the brook, even though it's easy enough to just step over the brook and cross to the other side.
Beyond the cemetery is another wooded area. When you enter that little forest, you'll find a stone walkway and stone steps that lead to the pilis ~ the castle.
The pilis is not exactly a large and full size castle, but a small stone structure that looks like it could have come a from castle tower.
A door leads into a dark single room that is simple and unadorned except for a wooden chandelier-type thing hanging from the ceiling. Because it's so dark, you can't get a good look at the details in the room.
To the left of the door, there is a metal ladder that leads to the roof of the pilis. While I have climbed the ladder to the roof ~ and in a skirt no less ~ I didn't bother this year.
After arriving, the first order of business was to find a bathroom. Seeing that the outdoor Mass was still going on, I headed for the ladies room in the convent, knowing that there wasn't going to be a line winding outside the door.
We still had to wait because both stalls were occupied. I was just about to make a bee-line to the first stall that opened up when I heard a loud "Hey!"
It came from Aldona, the daughter of my mother's best friend (who died 2 years ago), as she was exiting the stall.
She teased me by saying "You can't go in."
"Why? Did you stink it up?"
We had a good laugh over that. And after our pleasant chat and catching up on bits of Lithuanian gossip we went our separate ways.
Next order of business was to check out the outside vendors.
Many of the regular vendors were there, including the Russian guy whom we didn't like too much because he was too much of a wheeler-dealer type who made it a habit of sounding as though he was giving you a great deal when he actually wasn't.
Still, he had some interesting stuff at his table. And against my original intentions, I bought a ring that had a large leaf-shaped design studded with amber of varying shades.
(Oh yeah! In case you didn't know, the Lithuanian picnic is THE place to get amber jewelry. And you know that you're getting real amber instead of plastic, except for maybe at the Russian guy's table.)
Moving onto another table, we saw that artist Rolandas Kiaulevicius finally had copies of the children's book he illustrated. Even though I bought one of Rolandas's prints (which he graciously autographed for me) last year, I did not leave any money at his table this year.
I was considering in buying a book of Lithuanian folktales from his friend's table. But I never got around to it. Oh well, there will always be next year.
One of our favorite booths is the Lithuanian import booth. Not only are the prices great ~ like $29 for a lovely amber necklace ~ there is also a wide variety of goodies.
In addition to the ubiquitous amber, there's pottery, wood carvings, clothing and accessories, CDs, books, and all sorts of other neat stuff, including the darling linen crocheted scull cap that Ariana got for 10 bucks.
Further down and around to the other side of the open vendor area there was a dealer/collector of Lituanica who sold mainly books. However, I did spot a stunning copper metal plaque of the Geležinis Vilkas, the Iron Wolf of a well-known Lithuanian legend.
I loved the interpretation and details of this particular Geležinis Vilkas. And seeing that I had been designing Lithuania-inspired tattoos, I bought the plaque so that I could have something to work from when I designed my next tattoo.
Next stop was the loterija. But once we got to the loterija hall, the door was closed and a sign on the door said that the loterija will open after the Mass was over.
Seeing that we had to wait for the loterija to open, Ariana and I went to grab some food.
Because she's not too crazy about Lithuanian food, Ariana headed straight for the very short hot dog line, while I picked the longest line for the popular sausage dinner, where you got:
- two pieces of mild Lithuanian sausage
- a boiled potato
- cooked sauerkraut
- a cucumber slice
- two small slices of rye bread
- sour cream
- horseradish ~ lots of it
A true peasant feast!
I was still way in back of the chow line when Ariana came back with her hot dog and both of our Cokes. Instead of standing in line with me, she left to find an empty table under the trees in the apple orchard ~ a rather sensible thing to do.
By the time I got my grub, I went to the orchard in search of Ariana. She spotted me and called out.
I seated myself at a table that was pitched at a 20 degree angle and where the edge of the table came just inches from my chin.
Seated with Ariana were Andrius and Petras, two early 20-something lads who came from Lithuania some ten years ago. Both lived in South Boston. And one of them worked doing environmental disaster clean up.
(I had prayed on my way up to the picnic that Ariana would meet someone close to her age so that she wouldn't be bored just sticking around with someone as ancient as myself. I'm SO glad my prayer was answered!)
Andrius and Petras were a delight. They certainly weren't like the farty Lithuanian mama's boys that my mother's friends tried to fix me up with when I was Ariana's age.
These boys were very polite and respectful gentlemen ~ all without sacrificing the cool edge that I can still appreciate, even while now owning an AARP card that bears my name.
Ariana and I were not the only ones who enjoyed their company.
Likewise, Andrius and Petras seemed to greatly enjoy our company in that they hung out with us the rest of the afternoon.
(They were also impressed that one of my ancestors was Antanas Baranauskas, a Lithuanian poet whose famous poem ~ Anykščių šilelis (The Forest/Pinewood of Anykščiai) ~ was required of all students to memorize.)
Having learned that both boys also spoke Russian, I asked them to translate a phrase that my father would often say to my grandfather, which would then cause my mother to yell at my father.
All I knew from the phrase was the word idite, which means go. The rest of the phrase remained a mystery to me, despite my many pleas for my father to reveal to me this most forbidden secret.
So now I finally had the opportunity to have this mystery solved.
The boys laughed when I told them the phrase. Yet they were hesitant to translate, saying, "You don't want to know."
"Oh, yes I do!"
The best that they could do for me without getting embarrassed and risking offense was to tell me that the rest of the phrase referred to female anatomy, and not in the clinically neutral (and socially acceptable) sense.
So now I FINALLY knew why my mother yelled at my father. Imagine that! It took me 30 years to solve that linguistic mystery!
(I also learned the Lithuanian expression meaning "to get high.")
After lunch, Ariana and I decided to introduce the boys to the loterija. Even though they have come to the Lithuanian picnic before, they never knew about the loterija.
We entered the loterija hall and explained the drill: For one dollar you get two slips of tightly folded paper. The blank slips were duds. The ones with numbers were winners.
While picking out my 10 folded slips of paper from the deep box, I further explained to the boys that while there are some good prizes, most of them are šūdas (shit).
I told them to expect one of four šūdas prizes: a pillow; a mug filled with candy (though that's not always bad); some crappy, stupid, or useless thing that is knit, crocheted, or made out of needlepoint on plastic canvas; or someone's cast-off and unwanted Avon item.
Sure enough, as I was saying this the loterija worker brought me one of my many prizes, a coffee mug filled with candy.
And true to my prediction, the other 3 items shortly followed.
Both Ariana and I won pillows, of which Ariana gave hers to Aldona who thought it was cute and who was also trying her luck at the loterija.
We both won the predicted needlework item ~ a cheap plastic doll with a crocheted skirt for me and a plastic canvas needle pointed Kleenex box cover for Ariana.
And it wasn't until later, when going through our spoils, that we discovered that Ariana lucked out with the cast-off Avon items, which in this case were glass votive candle cups. Not only that, the previous owner did not even bother to clean off the wax on one of the candle cups.
Of course, there was some good stuff amongst the twelve some-odd bags of šūdas.
Ariana won the vase that she was eyeing on the Lithuanian table. And I won a nice wall/door basket that was embellished and filled with lots of seashells.
Being a big fan of the loterija, Aldona was dying to find out what we won. I pointed her to the growing pile of bags by the wall and told her to go take a look while I was waiting for the rest of my numerous prizes to arrive.
(I've always had great luck winning numerous prizes at the loterija.)
Ariana had left with the boys, saying she's going out to the car. I left shortly afterwards. Yet when I got to the car ~ no Ariana. In fact she was nowhere in sight. So I called her on my cell, only to find out that she and the boys returned to the table under the apple tree.
Newly unburdened, I returned to the spot under the tree to see the table crowded with Ariana's many bags from the loterija. Ariana had given both boys one of four miniature matroyshka dolls that she won.
I noticed that the boys had drinks on the table that were in suspicious-looking MacDonald's cups. Even though the picnic is a dry event with no alcohol allowed, I seriously doubted that the boys were drinking the apple cider that was being sold at the concession booths.
OK, so it was beer as I suspected.
But that's as far as the suspicion went. Thinking that Andrius and Petras were drinking that ubiquitous Bud Lite, I was very much surprised that they had real Lithuanian beer. Not only that, it was damn good ~ one of the best beers I've ever tasted! It even tasted great warm!
All these years that I have been attending the picnic, I had never known that there was this fellow, Algis, who was selling Lithuanian booze out of his SUV in the parking lot.
After doing the bottoms up, I told the boys to take me to the beer truck so that I could buy my own case of that very tasty Lithuanian beer.
On the way to the beer truck, we hear this loud "Hey!" (Guess Lithuanians like to do a lot of loud "Heys.")
It was Vytukas (Little Vytas), my old childhood friend from when we were still in diapers in England. And my God! He was actually in a cheerful mood and not wearing that sour-puss grumpy look that I though was a permanent feature on his face.
So we all stopped to say "Hi" to Vytukas (who rushed to Ariana, giving her a big hug while exuberantly proclaiming "Here's my girl!"), his mother, and the rest of their companions as they all sat in their usual spot under the trees right by the parking lot.
Seeing that Petras had taken off, I introduced everybody to Andrius, making sure to tell them that he's from Lithuania. That's a big deal among Lithuanians, you know.
After making the required small talk, we continued our quest for Lithuanian beer. Andrius showed me Algis's SUV. But Algis was nowhere near in sight.
Oh well. Andrius did say that Algis comes and goes and that you don't know when you're going to catch him.
Seeing that my Lithuanian beer connection was nowhere to be found, Andrius led us to his car so that he could give us one of his bottles to take home with us. The opened door revealed the many empties that sat in the once full case of beer.
Next was a trip to deposit the beer and Ariana's many bags into the car.
Once that was done, there was another trip back to the convent where Andrius wanted to score some Lithuanian rye bread and where Ariana and I wanted to check out the nuns' gift shop.
(It seemed that wherever we went, a lot of people knew the boys. They must be very active in the Lithuanian organization in Boston.)
At the nuns' gift shop, Ariana spotted a giant rosary that had this really cool metal cross. The attending nun sold it to me for $10~ a real bargain.
After leaving the pious environs of the nuns' gift shop, I shared with Andrius a profanity that I made up about a former Lithuanian president whose last name lent itself exceptionally well to obscenity.
Andrius laughed heartily. Apparently I wasn't to far off the mark, because in Lithuania they would say something similar ~ and just as nasty.
By now, we have been at the Lithuanian picnic for 3 1/2 hours.
I wanted to join the boys in watching the folk dances (where they're easily entertained by catching the mistakes the dancers make). But because Ariana had forgotten to take her meds during the morning's excitement, she was having a hard time staying awake.
Regrettably, it was time to leave. Andrius walked us to to our car to say good-bye. (Petras was still missing ~ probably trying to hunt down that elusive Algis.)
It was hard leaving. I felt like I was being yanked out of an idyllic world to be thrust back into the world whose difficulties and challenges I sought to escape earlier that day.
But the day was not yet over.
Instead of going home, we were wending our way down to Providence for the traditional visit to my mother's house and to see how much of the loterija-won šūdas we cab foist off on her this year.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment