Designed by American artist/architect/OSS member/silk entrepeneuer, Jim Thompson (I highly recommend clickling), this angel hails from a most unlikely place - Bangkok, Thailand. While I am unfortunately not in Thailand at the moment, this little love delicately traveled back from Asia with me in February 2008 to remain in its permanent home in Monessen, Pennsylvania.

Since I was unable to see my family over the holiday season and the show is now over, a lovely trip to Pittsburgh was in order to celebrate a very belated Lutheran Christmas, a slightly belated Orthodox Christmas and Russian New Year (also referred to as Old New Year).

And actually, Russian New Year is the reason for writing today. I spent the day in the angel's home yesterday, which is owned by an angel of other sorts. A 92-year-old woman who lives alone, cooks, cleans, bakes, trims shrubs, cuts her hair, knocks icicles off her gutter (with a broom stick) and says the rosary religiously 1-3 times a day. As you can imagine, these feats also come with the necessary amounts of stubbornness and determination. The woman still hand-washes dishes faster than me.

No part (to our knowledge) of our family is directly Russian, but we are primarily Eastern European by descent, which explains why my grandma met my grandpa at a Russian New Year dance on January 14th, 194_. The year, in this case, is irrelevant, as she was simply glowing all day on January 14, 2010. She had recently cut her hair to suit a left-side-part and placed a crystal bobby-pin on the right, not for decoration, but for efficiency. She looked beautiful. Just as you can hear a smile through the phone, if you missed the light in her eyes, you could taste her happiness in her pirohy* yesterday.

Oh pirohy, pirohy... heavenly pirohy.

My pap-pap passed away in 1997, truly a man with the heart of gold. One of the first stories she told me yesterday was his arrival to her house on that January day.

She smiles, looks at her latest batch of beef soup, looks up at me, smiles even brighter:

"When he showed up, I thought (groans)... he was wearing a sport coat and all the other men going to the dance had rented tuxedos. It was the new year! You were supposed to dress up!"**

This woman is a perfect example of why I don't believe in the description of true love that subscribes to one spouse passing soon after the second. Last time I checked, it was 2010 - thirteen years after his passing and she is just as wonderful as ever. Sure, her body isn't as strong as it used to be, but she has one of the greatest, simplest philosophies I've ever heard: "I'm just grateful I can get out of bed in the morning." - says the woman, who, when she can't sleep... bakes pies. Actions speaking decibels louder than words.

To get back to our friend pictured above, we didn't have a candle to light for Pap-Pap, but I did have my camera and we did have the angel. Very cool to think that I wouldn't have been sitting there with her if it hadn't been for yesterday, over a half century ago. You can say that about a lot of things and a lot of dates, but it just felt poignantly cool yesterday.

*Common to most Americans as pierogies, its singular in Slovak, piroh, is sadly as unknown as canolo/cannoli is to Italian-Americans.

**In relaying this story to my parents later that night, my mom knew it and my dad, haha, my dad just smiled a deep, soulful smile and said, "I loved that man."