Tomaszów Lubelski

Sept 8-10, 2017

During our trips to the US, one of the things I wanted mostly to show Zosia was where we used to spend time as kids with our grandparents: that is Hawaii and Whidbey Island.  And over the last couple years, we managed both.  I don't know what it is about grandparents' houses, but there is something magical and nostalgic that is just fun to share with people.  I had never been to her "Whidbey," so we went there back in September. And it was awesome!

Zosia's mom grew up in Tomaszów Lubelski, just a few minutes from the Ukrainian border in Southeast Poland. The town is called Tomaszów, but like many cities in Poland, there are others with the same name. So to differentiate the cities, they add an adjective describing the region where it's located. The Lubelski voivodeship is in SE Poland, around the town of Lublin. When I first got to Poland, people talked about "voivodeships" as if I was supposed to know what that word means. In Polish it's a województwo, which basically means a province, but they English-ize the word thinking that spelling it with V instead of a W magically makes it understandable to non-Polish speakers. Let's just call it a province and make it easier for everyone. Anyway, the point is that Tomaszów Lubelski is different than Tomaszów Mazowiecki, for example.

The house in Tomaszów

Packed to the max in Tomek's car, we stopped in Lublin on the way to pick up their mom, who was preparing her rental apartment for a new tenant. After another couple hours (with spam musubis for the car ride), we were finally in Tomaszów.

I wonder if she likes the musubis

We stayed in the house where Zosia and Tomek's grandparents lived, and where their mom grew up with her two sisters. It was a cool, sunny September weekend, and somehow the house stays even colder inside. Nobody lives in the house now, so it requires several visits a year to maintain the house and massive garden, but it also means that the heat isn't turned on. Since we spent time in extra layers outside eating and making s'mores at the fire pit, we were fine wearing these layers inside as well.

When I wrote that the garden is massive, I mean gigantic. There are a lot of trees, a swing, a fire pit, bushes, enclosed areas where the dogs used to stay, even a full-size greenhouse. You could easily get lost back there and not notice if others are walking around or working in other parts of the garden.

The breakfast patio

The front side of garden is like a forest

Still part of the garden

Similar to us going to Whidbey Island or Hawaii as kids, Zosia spent a lot of her childhood in Tomaszów. Her grandpa was a doctor and everyone in the city knew who he was because of his generous personality. He has an interesting story of his own, getting sent to a prison camp in the Ural mountains during WWII. Zosia's aunt Agnieszka wrote a book about this time of his life, and she rode her bike along the same route that he traveled to get back to Poland from Siberia.

Because no people live in the house, spiders decided to move in. I think that weekend was when I first realized how scared Zosia is of spiders. I pretended to throw one towards her and she almost broke down crying. I think she might still be running! I won't make that mistake again, at least not too many more times. The family also does something that I find simple yet brilliant....they always leave thoughtful, handwritten notes in the kitchen, addressed to a fictitious person, saying that they'll "be back soon." This is just in case someone breaks in the house while they're away, the intruders will think that at least 2 people live there. I guess the robbers don't know how cool and popular Z's grandpa was...or else they wouldn't dare break in.

My little buddies got me in trouble

But she has no problem with crickets!

Zosia and I had a nice wander around the town. She showed me the church where she was baptized, the cemetery where her grandparents are buried, the parks where they used to walk as kids, where Tomek fell off his bike, and where they used to have to go for time outs after getting in trouble. There was a hilarious story about her mom always being late for school, even though the school is just down the street. During a teacher's conference, the principal told the parents that "someone" was always late to class, even though they lived only 100 meters away. Zosia's grandma knew the principal was talking about their oldest daughter (Zosia's mom, Madga), but the grandpa refused to believe it. On the way home he counted the steps and noticed that they lived just over 100 meters away, so he came to the only logical conclusion: "They were definitely talking about the neighbor girl".

Walking in the park

Cool church from a few thousand years ago, maybe

I learned another Polish cultural reference, when eating at an ice cream shop called Zimna Zośka. Zośka is another cute form of Zosia, and Zimna means cold. The term Zimna Zośka refers to May 15, Zosia's name day. It's also said that after this day the weather is warm for the rest of the summer. So not only did I learn what Zimna Zośka means, I also learned that I have to buy her a present every May 15... And that Zosia looks for any excuse to get ice cream.

Zimna Zośka looks very zimna

It's too bad that Tomaszów is so far from Warsaw, because it would a nice place to visit more often, or even to consider for the wedding. The spiders are friendly, the churches are old, and the ice cream is cold. Plus the city means a lot to Zosia, and that's enough for me.

Swim, Wine, Run

September 3, 2017

I’ve done many triathlons over the past several years; some near Warsaw, and some in the beautiful Polish countryside. Always with friends. And it’s always been fun. But there’s one ever present stress for every race (besides the chaos at the start of the swim): figuring out how to get my bike there. I don’t have a car in Poland, and since I don’t fancy riding my bike TO races, the logistics are always an issue (I just realized I’ve spent too much time around Brits because I used “fancy” as a verb). A few races have been easy to get to: for example, the train to Poznan took me from the center of Warsaw to within walking/rolling distance of the race site. But some races are nowhere near a train station, which requires me to either beg a friend to put my bike in or on their car, combine a train and cycle excursion carrying all my crap, or find some other public transport option. Even for the races near Warsaw (Piaseczno and Nieporet), taking bikes on the bus is no given, because strollers have priority. Bus rides with a bike are always stressful, because if a baby carriage comes aboard, the driver usually kicks all the bikes off. It has become a running joke that every time we approach the next bus stop, we chant “no baby, no baby!” hoping not to see any strollers. Then we celebrate when we realize we can continue safely for at least one more stop. When I say “we,” of course I mean only me.

During one bus trip to the Nieporet race (25 km away from Warsaw), a few of us had bikes and all our tri gear. When we approached a bus stop still several kilometers from the race, I noticed it...my worst fear. A baby. Immediately the driver made all the bikes get off, even though there was plenty of space for everyone. “You don’t all have to get off...just the bikes.” That didn’t make any sense, but it seems the driver was not one for logic on this day. The mom felt bad and tried to convince the driver she didn’t mind sharing the space. Unfortunately she didn’t feel bad enough to get back off the bus and let us continue in peace.

Anyway, the point is that getting my bike to a triathlon can suck sometimes, and when Zosia and I are racing together, which means two bikes, it sucks double. By the way, thanks to everyone who has transported our bikes in the past (and in the future!).

So, when a friend from the club, Tomek, started talking about swimrun, which we realized didn't have the word "bike" in the name, we were curious.

Tomek promised wine at the swimrun

Swimrun is basically what it sounds like; a race where you swim and run. But it’s not as simple as a duathlon, where you might simply swim a certain distance, put on your running shoes, then run to the finish line. You have to switch back and forth between swimming and running multiple times in a swimrun. So maybe it should be called a swimrunswimrunswimrunswimrun. Or more precisely a runswimrunswimrunswimrunswimrun, since running is generally first (and last).

How exactly does a swimrun work? Well, unlike in a triathlon, you don’t finish each segment in a comfy transition zone where you can leave your stuff in a cheap plastic box, grab a bite of sandwich and chug from your giant Powerade bottle. You simply start running at the StartLine (don't forget to register and make your annual donation to the foundation) and follow a specific route to get to the finish line. It's like orienteering, but in between the start and finish there are a bunch of water crossings where you have to swim to the other side to continue on the race route. Since there are no storage boxes, you swim with your running gear and run with your swimming gear (and your sandwich). Folks on the Oregon Trail would have loved it.

All geared up!

Typical swimrun gear includes running shoes that drain well, a special thin, short sleeve and short leg wetsuit, a pull buoy for your legs (so you don’t have to kick with shoes on), hand paddles to make the swim easier, goggles, swim cap, and an elastic rope to connect you to your partner. I forgot to mention that some races require you to be literally tied to someone during the whole race.

The teamwork aspect actually makes it more fun. If one person is a stronger runner, they can pull the other person and in the water, a strong swimmer can make a big difference for their partner. During one practice swim, I pulled Zosia for about 1 km, and as we were drying off at Tomek’s car later, she said “Swimming was super easy today. I could have kept going!” I, on the other hand, was exhausted.

We decided to do the race in Wióry with Tomek and a few other friends. There’s a big lake with lots of trees and hills around it. The landscape is picturesque: we stayed on a vineyard, where someone actually makes Polish wine! I can’t say that Polish wine is my favorite, but we had a nice little cottage for the five of us (including Charlotte and Judith), and we got to do some wine tastings.

Our cottage in the vineyard

Perfect little place

Even though it was September, the weather turned out to be very cold and wet. Normally we’d be worried, but this time, it saved us. We didn’t want to rent the specific swimrun wetsuit (we're CCM), and wanted to use our normal triathlon ones. These are long sleeved, thicker, heavier, tighter, and not as comfortable to run in as the swimrun versions. If it would have been a normal summer day, it woulda been too hot to run in them, and impossible to take off and put back on during the running segments. Because it was something like 12 degrees C, we were able to keep them on the whole time and not overheat. We just unzipped a little during the longer runs.

We decided to enter the 10 km race, with 6 running legs, totaling about 8k, and 5 swims, making up the rest. They gave us a map and off we went. Martin was doing the race individually, so the three of us decided to go together. GPS would have been nice, because a lot of people got lost. There’s no marked path, just a few race marshals (and drunk fisherman) showing the way, but I guess that’s part of the fun. And as long as you aren’t in first place, you can always follow others. This is obviously the only reason we decided not to be in first place.

To help carry our pull buoys and paddles, we made some straps from the extra elastic rope: we could strap the buoys to our legs while running and attach the paddles to our belt. It was like having a Batman utility kit. Luckily there were videos on YouTube helping us figure out how to do it.

It actually felt great to run a bit, get in the water to cool down, then run a bit more. Luckily my shoes drained perfectly and I didn’t get any blisters on my feet (it’s worth testing your shoe drainage before a race...the first shoes I tried got water logged, and felt like running in cinder blocks). We found ourselves simply looking around and enjoying the scenery, and at times forgot we were in a race. There was no sense of urgency and it was great. We paused for photos, chatted with other competitors, and enjoyed the journey.

We finished!

Tomek and Charlotte probably didn’t stop to smell the roses as much as we did, as they ended up on the podium for mixed pairs in the longer race (28k + 5k). They were awesome!

Congrats guys!

33k is a bit too long for us, but we’ll keep our eyes open for something around 15k, because it truly was an enjoyable race. Unfortunately we won’t be able to do any races in 2018, but since it seems to be gaining in popularity, we’ll be looking for people to join us for future races. And I’ll remind you about the best part: you don’t have to transport your bike!

A few shots that Martin took during the race

Finishing one of the swim segments

Can we detach yet?

The "trail" running was great!

Here's a small video and summary from the organizers of the race.

Island hoop dreams

June 15-18, 2017

2006, maybe?  I'm trying to think of the last time that I played in an organized basketball game with referees and substitutions.  It might have been back when we had a company team in Seattle, and I used to bring in my friends as ringers, but I honestly can't remember.  So when I decided in early 2017 to start playing in my office's Monday night pick-up games, it had been over 10 years since I played anything resembling proper full-court basketball.

Ever since the Sonics left Seattle (that is, since they were stolen from us by some jerkfaces), I've held a bit of a grudge towards the game.  I simply don't like the Oklahoma City Thunder.  I don't think it's anything personal to the fans or the players, but the only time I follow the NBA these days is to check if OKC lost.  I don't care who wins, as long as OKC doesn't.  I follow the playoffs only to make sure OKC gets knocked out.  I might need some therapy to deal with how much I want them to lose.  I'm trying not to get off track here, but the point is that I haven't really loved the game of basketball over the past 10 years.  I'd catch a few Husky games, but those weren't always a pleasant experience.  Gone were the days of playing and coaching several days per week, pick-up games at the IMA, or various leagues with friends.  It was a lifetime ago when I ordered, by snail mail, a fitness plan to improve my jumping ability, which helped me to be able to nick (not slap) the backboard on a lay-up and to graze (not grab) the rim.  Now I'd be lucky if the wind from my flailing arm managed to move the net on a jump attempt.

During that first pick up game in early 2017, I lasted about 30 seconds.  That's what she said.  Sure, I was in decent shape from running, swimming and the gym, but after running up and down the court a couple times, I couldn't breathe and my legs felt like they were made of stone. But I didn't give up.  After a few weeks of playing very poor basketball, I started playing only medium poor basketball.  I didn't have any of the marginal "quickness" or shooting touch that I like to think I used to have.  Not to mention the overall deterioration of skills.  And when you are a foot shorter and a decade older than everyone else on the court, those things are kind of important.  Anyway, it was still fun, and the guys were nice, so I kept going.  Playing once a week was manageable; anything more would be hard because of the blisters, shoulder pain, and knees still hating me for all the running over the past couple years.  In other words, this made me realize how old I'm getting.

But when "the call" came, I forgot all about it.  One of the organizers of the PwC team asked me if I wanted to join the team that would be playing in the international PwC tournament.  Despite my best attempts in the pick-up games to de-press everyone (is that the opposite of "impress"?), I was needed on the team to travel to Cyprus.  All I heard was "do you want to go to Cyprus?" and I didn't listen to anything else.  They needed a back-up point guard, and since I'm shorter than everyone else on the team, I qualified for the role.  This seems to have been the only requirement. 

The squad

I started taking the weekly pick up games more seriously, and the team even organized a couple practices.  I tried to use some of my coaching experience to implement a few drills and plays, but that only lasted about 2 weeks.  Somehow people lost interest in my clipboard, and I didn't have much credibility, because, well, I sucked.  But it wasn't why they asked me to join the team, so it didn't matter.  I was the team's short guy.  I needed to stay in my lane.

The tournament approached quickly and we were soon on our way to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus.  I felt like an Olympian.

Off to the Olympics!

Streets of Nicosia

From the beginning, everything was very well organized.  The guys in the Cyprus office did a great job planning the hotels, transport, facilities, and of course the games.  After we arrived and checked into the hotel, we were welcomed by a dinner reception at the PwC Office...with a large outdoor space for the hundreds of tournament participants, supporters and organizers.  There were 13 teams overall, and the US was the favorite (as usual).  Apparently they recruit former college players from around the country to play, and there is so much interest, players are only allowed to play in one tournament.  I didn't realize we had so much basketball talent there.  The players don't know each other before the trip, but since they're all experienced players, it only takes a game or two to find their stride and dominate...or so the rumors went.  I felt that it was my obligation to reach out to all of the Americans, and to convince them that they should let Poland win. I really wanted to hate them, but turns out they were all nice guys and girls (some of the teams were co-ed, which was great).

At the end of dinner, the groups were drawn. And lucky enough, we got the US.  Also joining our group were Italy, Serbia and Slovakia.

My view for the Opening Ceremonies

We played 4 games that first day, and my legs and toes wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  Our team had 11 guys, so we rotated a lot, but it was still tough in my old age. We beat Italy and Slovakia, lost a close one to Serbia (who had an "intern" that could both dunk and shoot NBA-distance 3s with ease - which made me wonder about their hiring practices), and got beat pretty badly by the US team.  But we still managed to qualify for the knock-out round the next day.

That night they took us to a nice traditional restaurant, with food similar to Greek and Turkish (I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying that).  We also got to learn a bit about the history and culture of the island and city.   Cyprus is an EU country, which somehow surprised me, in the Mediterranean Sea.  Most of the island (and city) is Greek Cypriot, and part is Turkish Cypriot.  After some conflict in the 1960s and 70s, they separated and are now split by a militarized zone.  Turkey recognizes the Turkish Cypriot part as a separate country, though the rest of the world doesn't.  Nicosia is in the middle of the island, but there are also some very popular beach towns, such as Limmasol, where they took us for a party on the third night, and Larnaca, where we spent some time on the beach on the last day before the flight home.

Beach time

The heartburn is worth it

On the second day of the tournament we had a big game against Germany.  Most Polish people will tell you that if there is anyone they want to beat, at any contest or activity, it's the Germans (or Russians).  So I could tell that everyone was fired up for this one.  The German team was coached by a guy who used to play in the NBA (though I'd never heard of him), and they had some really big dudes.  They reminded me of the German team in Beer Fest.  We should have beaten them (of course everyone who loses says that), but a couple breaks didn't go our way and we lost a close, very intense and emotional game.  This put us in the losers bracket and seemed to drain our motivation.  Losing an emotional game is tough.  Having to play another one shortly after is even harder.  Unfortunately we caught a very inspired and energized Lithuanian team next, and they simply had more fight than we did.  I can't say that they were better than we are, but they definitely deserved to win (see, I didn't say that we shoulda won).  Our last opponent forfeit because they didn't have enough healthy players to field a team (old accountants after a weekend of games, you know?).  So we finished in 7th place out of 13.  Not bad, but considering we came out on the short end of a couple close games, it wasn't satisfying.

We're pretty good when the other team isn't on the court

I don't know when or where the 2018 tournament will be, nor if I will even be invited, but I'm ready to try again! Not that I think we'll be able to take down the US (or Cyprus, which came in second). But the atmosphere and spirit were great.  Save for some shouting with the Germans, everyone was really friendly, we interacted with people from all the countries, and I saw some guys I knew from other offices.  I just need to work on my game.  I remember when I was in high school and college, we always played against older guys, some in their 40s even, who were somehow very clever and sneaky good at basketball, even though they looked "old and slow".  Someday I hope to become that.  Maybe there is some sort of mail-order program for that?

The Cyprus guys put together a video of the event.  I am not in it (they tend to not film guys slouching on the bench), but you can at least see that a great time was had by all. 

This is in Warsaw, but at least there's proof that I play!

Lisboan training

April 23-May 3, 2017

Every year, one of our most looked-forward-to trips is the spring triathlon training camp with WITC.  Igors does an awesome job organizing a week for 10-15 guys and gals to do some training, but also to enjoy a break away from Warsaw.  Past locations included Crete, Fuertaventura and Tuscany.  In 2017, we went to Portugal.  I had always wanted to go to Portugal, and the only thing I really knew about it was what I had heard in Hawaii - a Portuguese man-of-war is like a jellyfish, and Portuguese sausage goes well with eggs and rice.  The camp fell next to the long May weekend, which gave us the perfect excuse to stay in Portugal after the end of camp.  So we could make sure to eat and drink any calories that were burned during the training. 

An added bonus was that the trip was the day after Zosia and I got engaged.  You could say we had an engagementmoon in Portugal. 

The tri-camp in Silves can be summed up pretty simply: daily swims, cycling, sore butts, a couple runs, plus a ton of good food, wine, and fun.  Spending it with a bunch of good friends doesn't hurt either.  Unlike past years, we didn't stay in a sports resort, instead choosing an apartment in a residential area, and using the community's indoor pool.  It was different, but a lot of fun since we had an entire villa to ourselves, including a small common area and outdoor pool for hanging out. AND WE HAD A DRONE!!!  Do you hear me???  I finally got to play with a drone and use it to film the music video.

Ok, so I need to work on my drone flying skills...

So that's enough talking about tri-camp.  Here's the video.

Very hard training session

The Atlantic ocean somewhere

Even Silves has a castle

I promise, we did exercise

After the week-long camp, a few of us headed up to Lisbon. Portugal isn't that big, but it is long (that's what she said).  The train from camp in Silves in the south took about 4 hours to Lisbon, which is in the middle.  Porto is in the north, and that would have been another few hours to get to.  So we'll just save Porto for another visit.

Determining the best neighborhood for a home base is always a challenge when visiting a city for the first time.  We asked a bunch of people for the best area, and most people suggested around the castle.  I didn't even know there was a castle in Lisbon, so that was already something exciting for me.  But as we all know, living next to a castle likely means living on a hill.  And Lisbon's hills are no joke.  The walk to the apartment wasn't that far from the train station, but it was far UP from the train station.  Around every corner in Lisbon is another windy hill to climb up with a fat suitcase full of triathlon gear (windy, as in "wine-dee", not as in "win-dee". So maybe that should be "winding"?).  It seems like you are always going up hill, even when you're going down.

Nice views of the city after climbing the hills

Lisboa

One pleasant surprise about Lisbon was that the prices were not as high as other Western European capital cities (like Paris or Rome or London).  We noticed quite a few abandoned buildings, right next to new, modern developments, so it seems that their economy is still not in an ideal condition.  The architecture is beautiful, with the cobblestone streets and the iconic tiled buildings.  The language is interesting, in that for some reason I thought it was similar to Spanish, but in fact it sounds nothing like it.  It's quite hard for me to understand how they pronounce words, since many letters don't make the sound I'd expect based on the spelling.  The pronunciation also seems a bit more harsh than Spanish (except when spoken by beautiful ladies of course).  I was surprised to read that Portuguese is actually the 6th most common language in the world, thanks mostly to the trillions of people in Brazil.

The downside of a vacation during the holiday weekend is that everything was closed on May 1st.  It's also common practice, as in other southern European countries, for shops and restaurants to be closed for siesta in the afternoons.  So we had to plan around that.  But it didn't seem to affect the drug dealers, as they were standing on every corner of the main walking street at all hours.  At least they were polite.  But if you aren't expecting to be offered drugs by 17 different people within your first hour, it can be a bit shocking.

Speaking of drugs, some of the food was very addictive.  There was great seafood everywhere.  In Silves, my favorite meal was fish from a hut on the side of the road. A pastel de nata (plural: pasteis de nata, obviously) is probably the best thing you'll ever eat in Portugal.  It's an egg custard and you can basically swallow them whole because they are so delicious...a perfect mix of sweet and gooey, with a hint of salty and savory.  We went to the town of Belem, where the pastries were born, created and sold by Catholic priests in the 1800's (inspired by something similar in France).  We waited in line to eat in the famous Pasteis de Belem cafe.  Speaking to the popularity, the cafe seats over 400 people.  By the way, Belem (which they pronounce in a way that sounds like "blame") is the Portuguese word for Bethlehem.  I think it's because Jesus used to eat these pasteis every day after school.  By the way again, I don't know how to pronounce "pasteis".  But I can tell you that they aren't those little stickers that cover your nipples.

I'll take a few dozen of those, please

We had a lot of other good food as well - on our first night, we enjoyed a nice Mozambique restaurant, because obviously Mozambique was a Portuguese colony thanks to Vasco da Gama.  This made me wonder if Mozambique is both the name and the adjective?  Another favorite was the bifana, which I ate for breakfast every day at the cafe next to our Airbnb.  It's simply juicy pork boiled in oil, and placed in a bread roll.  Super healthy.  And even though I don't really love olives, and definitely don't really love sardines, we got used to eating bread, olives and sardine pate, which was served before every meal.

Who needs ice cream when you have bifana?

To drink, obviously port is nice (and a trip to Porto awaits), but they have really nice wines as well.  And towards the end of the trip we discovered ginjinha, a cherry liquor that tasted even better than the Polish wiśniówka.  It's sometimes served in a chocolate shot glass, which you eat after you are finished with the drink. I guess it's a chocolate shot "cup", since it's not actually made from glass.  It's even better when you just put the whole thing in your mouth, chew it a few times, and swish the liquid around before swallowing.  That's not what she said, you sickos.

Wish we had discovered this earlier!

In addition to the food, the sightseeing was splendid.  Obviously you can't go wrong with simply wandering around the city.  The castle is nice, the views from the hills are amazing, and every other street is a work of art.  We did the free Discover Lisbon walking tour, which was definitely worthwhile, as long as you're ready for the hills.  They showed us some of the churches around the city, told some of the history of both the Romans and Moors, and explained that statues of kings on horses usually show how the king died - two horse legs off the ground shows that he died in battle, one leg off means that he died from injuries suffered in battle, and all legs on the ground means he died of boring natural causes.  I guess this is standard everywhere.

Outside of Lisbon was also wonderful.  Sintra is a must.  We were tempted to spend some time at the seaside instead, but the castles in Sintra were more appealing.  The train takes only 40 minutes, then you can take a bus (434) between the main sites for 5.50 Euros.  Gary, Inka and Ania met us there for some castle exploration.  The Moorish castle was amazing.  The old, gray fortress walls flowed around us, which somehow reminded me of Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  Pena Palace was completely opposite; loud and colorful, reminding me of Alice in Wonderland, where you'd expect to see fancy people with big white wigs.  But equally impressive.

Feeling Moorish

I spotted Alice

In the end, we saw three different castles, which was more than enough to make me happy.  For some reason I didn't image Portugal to be a place for castles, but I am glad that it is.  And there were so many other nice things about it that we'll definitely have to explore more of the country someday.  One other thing on the to-do list: find out where Hawaiian Portuguese sausages come from.  

Andy

Our dear friend Andy (a person) moved to Basel, Switzerland back in July, and he has been greatly missed in Warsaw.  Andy's a great guy, and he's been a wonderful friend over the years. But now that I think about it, he's already left us a few times (to move to SF, to go on a long backpacking trip, to Run Wisla), so blah blah blah, Same Same But Different.  Ok, stop it, this post is not about Andy and how we're sad without him.  The point is that for his last couple weeks in Warsaw, he stayed in my apartment with me.  It's always nice to have guests over...there's some comfort in the sounds of other living creatures in the house (that is, if you know who those other living creatures are).  So when he left for Basel, we tried our best to immediately replace him.

This is Andy, the human

On the 1st of July, we attended a 4th of July party with a bunch of friends.  A couple of them, Martins and Anna, had a pet "mouse" (at home, not at the party), for which they were looking for a new home.  They asked Zosia if she'd be willing to take him in, and of course Zosia's eyes lit up like someone just gave her a giant chocolate bar.  She dreams about a day when we have a dog together, which I also want, especially if they invent dogs that don't shed, smell like fresh laundry, and can pee in the toilet.  After several games of flip cup, she asked me if we could have a mouse.  I don't remember saying yes (see previous sentence about playing several games of flip cup), but I guess I did.  I honestly thought it was some strange dream.  She asked me again the next morning, and again without thinking what it really meant, I confirmed my previous response.  Little did I expect, later that day, we had a mouse. 

It turns out it's not a mouse, but a "degu", or koszatniczka in Polish. Martins had bought it for his daughter about 8 years ago, and now that she's a teenager, apparently there are more important things to do than take care of a rodent.  They also planned on getting a second cat, and it was a massacre waiting to happen.  So, that Sunday we said goodbye to Andy (the person), filmed a short scene with our friends for an episode of Househunters, International (yea, I had to throw that in there), and picked up the degu.

But first, let's become famous

Apparently they didn't know for sure if it was a boy or a girl, but they'd been calling it Jenny for the past several years.  Since we missed Andy a lot already, we decided to change the name to Andy, and just pretend he was a boy.  One Andy out, one Andy in.

He already knows how to write his name

He's actually really sweet, as long as you get past the fact that if you saw him in real life, you'd jump on the table and complain to the landlord.  After a few days getting comfortable, he decided that he didn't need to run away from us when we let him out of the cage.  At first he didn't seem to like to be picked up, but since Zosia started grabbing him the minute she sees him, he has learned to live with it.  We were hoping that he'd like to jump on our shoulders and sit there like a parrot, but when we picked him up from Martins (actually it was a "her" at the time we picked her up), she climbed on his shoulder and peed.  So that idea kind of faded away.  Plus, he seems kinda fearless (or dumb) and sometimes jumps from high places...so we don't trust him enough to let him crawl around high places on his own.

It took a while for him to want to come out and play with us

Don't jump (or pee)!

He lives in a 3-level cage, with a running wheel, a shelter and hammock, lots of hay and shoe box full of sand to bathe in.  Martins gave us all the food and supplies that they had...a true "starters kit" for a degu owner.  We learned that degus usually live 8-10 years max...which is a bit sad considering he is already 8.  But let's not think about that right now.  He likes to eat treats out of our hands, and hides peanuts around the kitchen in plain sight.  He thinks he's being sneaky, but if you look around when you visit, you're bound to see them around the apartment; in the corner between walls, near the edge of a rug, or on a shoe.

Zosia is now a bit more aggressive in trying to get Andy to play with her.  Watching her take off the top of the cage, tipping the running wheel over trying to get him out, begging out loud "please come and play with me"....it gives me images of an 6 year old trying to get her hamster out to play with her, not understanding why the animal doesn't respond to the harassment.  When asked, Zosia admitted that she indeed had a hamster when she was a kid and treated it in this exact same way.

Andy and his mom

Playing games on iPad together

So even though Andy (the human) has been gone a few months, it's like he never left.  Besides having the same name, here are some other similarities between Andy the degu and Andy the person:
- They are both hairy
- Girls think they are cute
- They both recycle (Degu reuses his food crumbs as a bed)
- They can both fit in your pocket - and they both don't like to be put in there
- They both squeak and make cute noises
- They are both vegan
- They both like to run
- Degus come from Chile and Andy has been to Chile
- They both sleep close to where they poop

Just to make sure that they aren't actually the same person, I identified a couple differences:
- Andy was never called Jenny as a kid (though his mom's name is Jenny, which is a strange coincidence)
- I don't think Andy has ever peed on Martins
- That's probably all of the differences

They're not the same person

Some of you know that Andy (the degu) got a bit sick back in October.  It wasn't really an illness, but he lost a lot of weight and wasn't eating.  It turned out to be the best possible type of illness, in that it could be fixed.  All the signs pointed to ingrown teeth (getting skinny, dropping food when trying to eat, rubbing his mouth with his hands, and making "tsk" noises with his teeth).  I read about it online and it looks like teeth overgrowing and digging into gums is a common issue.  It makes eating painful, so he lost nearly half of his body weight (from 200ish grams to 110 at his lowest).

Nothing could stop Andy's visit to the pumpkin patch

I had been away for a week and Zosia was coming over to feed him every couple days (which is normally OK), but when I got back he was noticeably skinnier.  It took some time away to notice is....since we had seen him every day before that, we didn't notice that he was losing a couple grams each day.  He was still active and friendly, but something was wrong.  He was also always cold, sitting next to the heater pipes or even crawling on our feet, rather than sitting on the floor.  When he was in his cage, he was always buried under the blankets.

Sitting on the heater pipe is one way to warm up...

This is another way

Turns out he was cold because he didn't have any fat on his body.  We had to search for an "exotic" vet, but finding a vet from Bali or Sri Lanka in Warsaw is not easy.  What?  Oh, that's not what an exotic vet is.  But still, vets that deal with exotic animals isn't so easy. The first vet we found didn't seem confident that she could fix the problem, even though she recognized the problem right away.  Andy's back teeth were the biggest problem, but she said she couldn't grind them down because Andy was too weak for anesthesia.  This meant she thought Andy needed anesthesia, which scared us.  So she cut the front teeth only, which didn't require any, and sent us home.  We needed to come back after he gained some weight.

That first night we brought Andy home from the vet, I honestly thought it was the end.  He was in shock from the shaving of his front teeth, weak, and couldn't even put his legs under himself when we put him in his "hospital" box (we made a small nest for him with a heating pad in a cardboard box to make it easier to monitor him).  His eyes were half open and he looked like a rag doll.  It was hard not to cry and want to try anything possible to make him better.  Poor little guy crawled under Zosia's shirt and slept there for hours.  The image of Zosia laying on the bed, whispering her love to Andy (the degu, not the person!), and Andy trying to squeeze as close to her as possible to absorb her warmth was heartbreaking.  But it also reminded me that I am a lucky man to be marrying such a caring soul. 

So much love...

Around midnight, we were laying on the bed, falling asleep, and Andy started crawling around.  We immediately jumped up, excited for a sign of life, and tried to feed him.  We tried everything we could think of, but remembered that we couldn't give him sugar.  Peanuts are supposed to be a rare treat, but we knew he loved them, so we tried.  They were too hard.  He finally managed a bit of food until he was too weak to continue and went back to sleep.  I was cautiously optimistic, but still tried to brace myself for Andy not being with us the next morning.

We were so happy to see him moving around more the next morning.  Over the next couple days we tried everything we could think of: puffed rice, soft oats, bread soaked in water...I even baked some "degu cookies" which I saw online.  We didn't leave his sight for a couple days.  Then we realized that we should use the syringe to feed him, which we had been using to give him medicine.  Looking back, I don't know why we didn't think of this earlier.

He fell in love with this syringe

Upon hearing the news of Andy's struggles, friends came over to see him.  It was really sweet.  He is "just" a rodent, but in a few months already became part of the family.

He was getting a little better, but we weren't convinced.  So we took him a few times to see a different vet we read about on the internet.  It required us leaving work early and taking two buses to get there, but he turned out to be very capable and helpful.  We got to see with our own eyes the procedures he was doing, so it made us feel better that we understood the problems and the solutions.  Though it wasn't always pretty.  He promptly used a metal contraption to lock Andy's mouth in an open position (which Andy hated and it was hard to watch), and shaved down his back teeth.  The first vet always took Andy to the back room so we actually never saw what she did to him.  Maybe this was for our own benefit, but it made it hard to understand what was going on.  The second vet also confirmed that YES, Andy was in fact a boy!

We weighed him every day to check his progress, and each morning started with us crossing our fingers as we put him on the kitchen scale (which we bought specifically to weigh him), hoping for 1 or 2 grams more than the previous day.  We had to feed him every few hours, about 5 times per day.  This meant we had to go home every day during lunch (also to change the heating pad to keep him warm in the cage), and meet at home immediately after work, even if we had other plans.  We are also grateful to our friends who helped Zosia when I was out of town for work.  It was a true team effort, but it was never a chore.  Maybe that's what parenting is about.

At first he struggled to eat 6 ml of food from the syringe, but eventually, he was eating over 20 ml for each meal.  We had fun making different food smoothies for him in the Nutri Bullet (broccoli, peanut butter, degu food, seeds, etc) and shopping for low sugar baby food.  As he got stronger, he looked forward more and more to his feasts.  He went crazy over the parsnip mix.  We were starting to think he was better, but he didn't want to admit it, so he could continue with this royal treatment.

Chillin' out with peanut butter on a spoon, just like my mom used to do

Over the next couple months, we grew closer with Andy, and the best part is that Zosia finally moved in to my apartment!  At first it was due to necessity, so we could feed him together in the morning (it was impossible to feed him without 3 hands).  But now she can't go more than an hour without kissing and hugging him.  In the middle of dinner or exercising in the living room, she'll just stand up, walk to the cage to grab him (I can hear Andy squeak "not again?!") and walk around with him wrapped snugly in her hands, pulled up to her nose, completely forgetting about what she was doing before.

Even Zosia's brother has mastered the "Smash your nose into Andy" pose

Andy is now more like a dog than any other pet.  When we let him out of the cage once in a while, he follows us around like a puppy.  We don't let him go in some of the rooms, but when we open the doors to go in or out, he's always right behind trying to sneak in.  He especially likes to sneak into the bathroom to hide behind the washing machine.  He likes to sit on our laps, even crawling up my leg at the dinner table to get close to me (or probably closer to the food, but let's just pretend).  Currently his favorite thing is when Zosia lays Andy (the degu) face up on her chest and scratches his stomach.  He likes eskimo kisses and nibbles our fingers as if to groom us.

Andy Claus is back to normal!

One thing that the doctor mentioned is that Andy needs friends.  I read some forums and joined some Facebook groups to see what people say about degus, and everyone says that they shouldn't be alone.  This might explain why Andy is so interactive with us.  The forums were also good to learn what else to be careful about (no sugar diets, monitoring his drinking to identify signs of diabetes, and generally that we should weigh him every week or month to see any changes).

So, of course, we decided to get two more Andys, I mean degus.  We're supposed to get them very soon, so stay tuned and we'll let you know how that goes!

Party of 3, soon to be Party of 5?