Traveling around the block

Let’s get one thing straight - I am not a Gleek.  I have seen a grand total of 3/4 of an episode of Glee, and that was plenty.  But I am a singer, and I love me some opera.  And choral music.  And Christmas caroling.  In my opinion, Christmas doesn’t exist until I see a performance of Handel’s Messiah and go sing in public with my Dr. Seuss Santa hat on.

I took care of Handel’s Messiah a couple of weeks ago, and it turned out to be the best performance of it that I’d ever seen.  Christmas mission half accomplished...

Then there’s the business of caroling.  I decided a caroling party of my own was in order.  Handel’s Messiah requires actual musicians.  Caroling does not.  So I invited a slew of singers and non-singers to come over, roam around my block, and serenade my neighbors.

The only rule?  Bring a flask.  I mean, it’s cold out there.  Why not warm ourselves from the inside out?

After pre-warming with beer and mulled wine, we set off to sing our way around the block.  We first went to visit my upstairs neighbor to get our musical bearings.  She and her friend came to the door, and we launched in a a train-wreck version of “Angels We Have Heard on High”.  We started on different notes.  We were horribly off-key.  We probably weren’t even singing the words together.  My neighbor and her friend howled with laughter.   We finished, I took a sip of bourbon from my flask, we laughed at ourselves, and moved on to the next house.

We targeted a house across the street because they had lights on and were hopefully at home.  A woman answered the door with her daughter that looked to be about 3 years old.  We launched into Frosty the Snowman, slightly more together this time.  The little girl shyly tucked her head into her mother’s shoulder, not sure what to make of these hooligans on her front stoop.  But by the end she had a smile on her face and even managed a barely audible “thank you” at the prompting of her mother, who loved the fact that we were trying not to murder classic Christmas music for their pleasure.

At the house next door, half a family came to the door and beamed as we flailed our way through “Deck the Halls”.  Around the corner, a young woman and her dog both thought our stab at “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” was the best thing since sliced bread.  Two doors down, a mother answered the door with her young son, and he promptly took off running to the back of the house when he saw the group of Santa hat-clad strangers in his yard.  We broke into “Frosty the Snowman” again, hoping it would lure him back, but neither our squawks nor his mother’s pleas brought him out of hiding.  It did, however, lure out the next door neighbor, who stood in the doorway with a huge grin as we finished the song.  We actually got applause that time.  I took a victory sip of bourbon.

And then we hit a tipping point.  At the next house, we were told by a man that their child had just gone to bed.  A man at the house after that told us the same thing, and he looked about as happy to see us as the little boy that ran off in terror.  We decided to call it a night.  Besides, I was nearly out of bourbon.

For the first time in my life, I’m not spending Christmas in Alabama.  I’m not traveling anywhere, in fact.  But I considered this caroling outing as a bit of a trip.  I ventured out and did something I’ve never done before, met a few new people, and had a wonderful night with a great group.  Traveling around the world is awesome, but traveling around the block has its merits, too.

Babushka! Part 2

We were so utterly relieved that Babushka hadn't thrown us out that we went out to a market and bought her flowers.  We still felt a little bit guilty about springing an extra person on her.  The look on her face was priceless, and she started exclaiming in Russian.  "She loves them," Andre translated, though no translation was needed that time.

Later that evening as we arrived back at the flat after dinner, she motioned to us to join her and a neighbor in her living/dining room.  The room consisted of a large table with bench seating and a television. There really wasn't room for anything else.  She motioned for us all to sit, and she whisked out an old 2-liter-sized soda bottle filled with a peach-colored liquid.  This was no store-bought soda.  Andre posed the obvious question to her.  "Baba says it's her homemade wine, and she wants to share it with us."

To start with, this stuff looked just like Mango Grove Boone's Farm (I'm not going to get into how I know that there is such a flavor as Mango Grove by Boone's Farm - just take my word for it).  And my experiences with homemade wine haven't been terribly positive. Many of my previous homemade wine tastings would be described as "overly-sugared essence of vinegar with a hint of fruit that should have been tossed a week ago."  So the sight of Baba walking in with a sketchy bottle of liquid did not exactly produce the big smile on me that it did on her.  But we were in her home, she wanted to share, so it was my job to suck it up for the sake of positive cultural ties between Bulgaria and the US.  Or something like that.

The wine met my low expectations with flying colors.  But Baba made it, and so I would drink it.  Baba drank, too.  In fact, after just one glass, she was lit.  She babbled in Russian with a huge grin on her face.  Then she started to sing.  And to our great surprise, Andre started to sing with her!  She was singing Russian songs that she knew since childhood, and Andre (whose father was Russian, if I remember correctly) just happened to know them, too.  The wine suddenly seemed much tastier.

Andre and Baba

Baba started telling us about her life.  She told us of her late husband and how he proposed to her at a beautiful beach just a few kilometers north of town.  There was a glow in her face that I knew wasn't just from the wine.  She stood up from the table and beckoned us to follow her.  She wandered into the bedroom that Christina and I were sharing and pointed to an old black and white photograph over the bed - it was a picture of her and her husband sitting on the rocks at that very beach.  I couldn't believe that I'd already spent 2 nights in this room and never paid any attention to this picture.  It was beautiful - both Baba and her husband were all smiles, looking at each other as they lounged on the rocks in the beach breeze.

We visited that very beach the next day.  How could we not?  This ordinary, diminutive old woman had allowed us to share her home, her wine, and her life story.  Deliberately seeking out that beach was simply another way to thank her for her kindness and generosity and to show that we appreciated what she shared with us.  I don't know if Baba is still alive and kicking and renting out rooms in her flat, but if she is, I hope she is still sharing her wine and singing to her guests.  And I hope her guests appreciate it.