Hold the sausage

Our neighbourhood is predominantly Polish, and by extension, Catholic. Within spitting disatnce are to be found three churches and a Catholic credit union. The latter is less than 100 feet away and boasts a bronze sculpture of John Paul II beneficently welcoming the savings of the faithful. It is standard practice for earnest old biddies, out on a shopping trip, to spare a moment to kneel at Johnny's feet and offer up a prayer for the propserity of their zlotys. In our first days as residents, T and I hatched a midnight plan to swathe the statue in a boa and strap a dildo to his loins - but we thought better of it. No messing with Johnny in these parts - he's like, well, like the pope to them.

We have been bracing ourselves all week for the advent of this weekend's annual Polish festival which we are only just discovering takes place literally on our doorstep. The street from end to end is being blocked off as we speak, and tents are going up in every direction, the majority of them no doubt to accommodate purveyors of pierogis and other cabbage-enhanced lard products. T and I took a stroll last night and happened across a poster advertising the coming festivities. No less than thirteen hours (13!) are devoted to today's bacchanale, stretching from 10 a.m. (moments away as I write) to 11 p.m. Tomorrow is a more modest, even sacred affair, spanning a mere nine hours. The poster continued to promise a glorious array of performance events: Polish klezmer bands, Polish clog-dancers, Polish whirling dervishes (I can't confirm the accuracy of this last item), and to top it all, Polish dancing under the stars. And where should all this raucous, brain-deafening Polish merrymaking be scheduled to take place? At the Catholic credit union stage! Even in death, JPII hounds us.