Christmas vs Chanukah

I grew up in Poland. As most of you know from history books, there were a lot of Jewish people living there before the Second WW. What happened during the war I think everybody knows (except maybe knucklehead president of Iran and a few other idiots who deny it), not everybody knows though what happened after the war. People usually think there were no Jews left in Warsaw after the Holocaust. It's not true though. The ones who survived (and there were many of them) were treated with respect, a lot of them became members of Polish government just after the war.
Then came 1968 and with the setting of Israel, some of the Jewish people left the country on their own, and communist regime expelled the rest. Again, not all of them though. I remember my mom's friend, Halina. She was Jewish, she survived the concentration camp, paying for it with a serious heart disease. But I don't ever remember her being even slightly religious. Now that I think about it, she lived where the Warsaw ghetto used to be, but I don't remember even seeing a menorah in her apartment or mezuza by her door. She celebrated Christmas like we did. So I didn't know that Jews celebrated different holidays. Nobody taught us that in school.
When I came to New York I was overwhelmed with all the cultural differences. All the colours, all the religions, all the customs. And I was shocked to find out ( no excuse for my ignorance, I could have read it in the book) that Jewish people don't buy a Christmas tree, and the only thing Christianity has in common with Judaism are... the lights. I started to feel sorry for all the kids that are jewish. Imagine? They are deprived of decorating a tree, of singing Christmas carols, and most of all - the presents. All they get are sweets, every single of the 8 days of Chanukah. But all they receive as a gift is lame dreidl, and nothing beats the X-mas gifts, not even a dreidl made by Tiffany's. So who's the winner?
To be clear: I'm not saying which celebration is better and why. I'm just saying that Christmas is by far THE most important Christian holiday. Chanukah's just a minor celbration compared to Christmas.
To give you an example of how Jewish kids are jealous of Christmas. My Jewish friend John always wanted a Christmas tree when he was a kid. So he saved his allowance all year long one time, and come Christmas, him and his brother went to a Brooklyn market and bought the smallest tree possible. They hid it in the biggest closet there was in the house. For the rest of his money John bought ornaments, decorated the plant, and put small packages for him and his little brother underneath it. They would both play in the closet all the time, so it was not unusual for the boys to spend extensive hours in the dark.
One day though, when their mom came back from work, she didn't see her boys running around the house. An hour passed by, then two and three. After five hours she got suspicious. Even though she was forbidden to look in the closet under any circumstances, she dared. And what do you know - two rascals were sleeping on coats with a Christmas tree in the middle. She didn't even manage to punish them for it, she laughed so hard.
I'm glad I don't have to hide my tree in the closet. Even better, I get to decorate two trees this year - mine and my friends' whom I'm spending Christmas eve with this year. The only thing I hide on Christmas are gifts, so C. wouldn't see them before it's time.
Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah.

Iwona be your dog

We the people, we are animals. But we think we are smarter than other mammals. Which only makes us far more arrogant than any other species. WE think we are smarter, because we don't know everything about anybody else. That's why we got to thinking that we're superior.
I don't know. Show me a human being that can smell as much as dogs do. Or a person who can fly like a bird without adding to high levels of gas emissions into atmosphere. i would love to meet somebody who, just like a bat, flies in total darkness. Has anybody ever seen a homo sapiens that could jump from a building and land on their four feet, like a cat? Or an individual who could find his way back home every time, no matter what the distance is, like pigeons do?
Yes, there's always a gift of speech, and we think that's what differs us from everybody else. But animals talk, too. What's more, humans have no idea what the heck it is that they are saying to each other, so we figure they only use their voices to mate. Or do they? Domesticated pets, like dogs and cats, they understand us - why can't we make out what they are saying then? Smarter my ass.
Sometimes I think animals are far more superior from us. They kill for food only, not because they need to show anybody anything. They don't have ambition, don't manipulate and don't talk bullshit. Their only needs are: food, warmth and procreation. They are simple.
You know how some people say you're either a cat or a dog person? I'm neither and both. But I can see how some people remind me of pets. My mother is a bird (it's all in the nose), my sister - a squirrell (cause she likes to buy things and then burry them so nobody else would find'em) and my Dad - brown bear (although he sleeps most of the seasons, not only winter).

My boyfriend is a cat.
He gets irritated if I pet him when he doesn't feel like it. I on the other hand, I'm definitely domesticated dog.

I look like a cocker-spaniel.
I can smell people from the distance. I know if they are trustworthy or not, but hardly listen to my inner voice, only to find out that my gut was right in the first place.
I would do anything to please the ones I love. I would even bring out their slippers in my teeth if I knew that's what they wanted.
I howl to the moon when my boyfriend is away, don't feel like eating (cause what's the pleasure in it, if he doesn't eat with me) and sleep a lot to make the time pass faster.
I can't go to sleep if he's awake, and I wake up in the middle of the night if he can't sleep either.
I bark at people who are mean to him. I would bite them if i could, and I want to protect him from other bad animals.
I'm in heaven when he throws me a bone, says something nice or appreciates me doing something.
I get depressed when he's depressed.
I'm sad if he wants to go for a walk by himself. And I'm wagging my tail when he comes back.
Sometimes, late at night, I'll wait for him to come back home even though I have to hold my eyelids with match sticks.
I love it when he pets me.
If he wanted to play stick with me, I would bring it back every time.
We get along, even though he's a cat.
And you know how else I know I'm a pet?
I'm definitely not smarter than anybody.

To write or not to write

I am a lazy person. So lazy, in fact, that I do thousands of things, only not the ones I should be doing at a given time. It's true for my writing, especially that. Somehow there are always chicken soups to make, new CDs to listen, and a layer of dust on my floor that needs to be taken care of imediately when I sit in front of my computer and start writing. Not to mention all the news sites that suck me in like Ancistrus multispinis his algae.
You can call it a writer's block, if you wish. This particular euphemism though is usually used by individuals who are too lazy or insecure to actually do what they think they should be doing, which is writing. Anyhow, who convinced us that we really have something to say? Everybody is a writer, everybody's life seems so goddamn interesting nowadays that people feel that inexplicable (by the way, I came up with a new word - inexclicable, as in: item that can't be clicked on with your mouse) need to share their every thought.
"Why not me" - I thought. I could be a writer, too. I could post sophisticated essays on life, mine and others, too. I also have my needs. But I also spend waaay too much time on-line, reading what other people have to say. Why not give them something to read for a change?
So here I am, it's after 3pm, and I'm starting my new blog. Good luck to me, even if nobody would want to read it.