Happy Dyngus Day!

For those of you out there not lucky enough to be Polish or live in South Bend, Dyngus Day is a Polish holiday celebrated the day after Easter. In Poland, boys wake up girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and hit them on the legs with twigs from willow or birch trees. I still wake up Kasey every year with a glass of water on her head, but I stopped hitting her legs with twigs once we got married. According to Wikipedia, one theory is that Dyngus Day originates from the baptism on Easter Monday of Mieszko I (Duke of the Polans, c. 935 - 992) in 966 AD, uniting all of Poland under the banner of Christianity. Around here it's an excuse to eat and drink too much!
Dyngus Day is a pretty big deal in South Bend with it's large Polish population, but it's turned into more of a political holiday, especially for Democrats. In fact, Bill Clinton made a stop at the West Side Democratic Club this morning for their pancake breakfast.

Tonight we enjoyed a low-fat dinner at the Smokers' including sausage, three different types of pierogis (cabbage, mushroom, and potato and cheese), kapusta (saurkraut with mushrooms, onions, white wine, and butter), and kifle (cookies) for dessert. Jen Smoker is Polish so we enjoyed trading stories about our families using different Polish words and phrases growing up. Here's a picture of Phil, Jen, their son Henry, and me after the feast.