gratulacje a takze pozegnainy, emilia i pawel

that title is my effort at saying 'congratulations and farewell to emilia and pawel'. it should get a chuckle out of them in its inaccuracy, but it's the thought that counts, right? readers of this blog, especially those overseas who have found spackleshot by googling 'vegetable porn' (surprisingly many!) will recognize emilia as one of my favorite people to blog about--that stone cold polish fox who taught me to grow tomatoes. and here she is again. and by the way, i could say the same things about pawel, but it would be inappropriate.
all references to physical beauty aside, emilia and pawel came to the u.s. with limited english skills, busted their butts for low pay at the us open (where i met them in the summer of 2001) as food runners, perfected their english, worked their way up the catering ladder to butler, then senior butler, then captain, and most recently, completed their masters degrees in business in tandem while pawel continued to captain full time and emilia prepared taxes. in short, they came, they conquered, and now they're headed back to poland to dominate the economy of the motherland. when they invited me to attend their graduation ceremony, i couldn't have been more touched. i will miss them, but i expect at least emilia to continue to be a presence here at spackleshot. ah, the internet. see slide show above for snapshots from the graduation. we all cried. especially when the canons fired confetti into the audience.

more vegetable porn OR flattery will get you everywhere OR still life with homegrown peppers

yes, that is my bra. you might scratch your head and think, "why would kitty arrange such a ridiculous still life?" and to you i say. i didn't arrange it. this chaos is a hallmark of my crazy apartment. we're still in boxes. going on the third month of that joy. so an overturned chair holding both my bra and the colander of vegetables i picked from the fire escape is a perfectly normal sight here at bedbug central. my eye was merely caught by the coincidental matching color spree.

closed the door to the empty bay ridge apartment i was sleeping in (extermination number 4, my friends) saturday morning at 6am to ride the subway for two hours to work a spoiled 13 year old's bat mitzvah. i know, you're jealous. left the shell-shocked cat huddled against the closet wall. with all of this getting crated up and left with strangers every two weeks this summer, she is constantly threatening suicide, refusing to eat. thank god she's not one of those i'm-mad-at-you-so-i'm-going-to-pee-on-your-bed kind of cats because frankly, that just might send me over the edge right after her.

with this lovely outlook, emilia easily brightened my day at work by declaring, "kitty, i'm addicted to your blog!" and to emilia, i say: flattery will get you everywhere. hence today's edition of 'more vegetable porn'. i'd been sitting on this photo of emilia proudly wielding her eggplant for quite some time, trying to put some distance between the barage of vegetable related posts that dominated my blog this summer. but truthfully, the veggies were the highlight of one shitty summer. so here you go, emilia. you are one foxy polish chick! have i mentioned that before?


i know, amy, the focus below is slightly off. i was trying really hard! naturally it seemed on the shots i nailed the focus, the composition was poor (concentrating too hard on the focus?)

it came from brooklyn....

i swear to god i was determined not to bore anyone anymore with tomatoes and vegetables and my naive ramblings about the cycle of life. but damnit if emilia the stone cold polish fox--my garden mother--didn't send me pictures of the GIANT ZUCCHINI she grew in her backyard IN BROOKLYN. and i'm sure that the colossal size of this beastly veggie has nothing to do with hydroponics, hormones nor living in a filthy city. it's all about the egg.

see below for photo proof of emilia's all-around amazingness. yes. it's a word because i said so.

incidentally, sometimes in the dead of winter, emilia threatens to move away from her shoebox brooklyn studio. but c'mon city dwellers, could you leave a yard like this? having been in california for three weeks at the height of harvest, it's killing me to imagine how red and luscious my tomatoes must be right about now.


photos courtesy of emilia