[I stumbled across this old post in my archives and thought it was so absolutely brilliant I just have to share it with you again]
Shaving is such an odd thing to do. That thought occurred to me this morning while shaving. I don’t mind it, it’s just such a weird thing to do. I suppose it all started when we were cavemen, like most things, we probably shaved the whole body back then for the evolutional advantage that provided, less air friction = better hunting success etc. Then as we got busier and busier, we had less and less time and shaved less and less. By the year 2000, we’ll all have beards we’ll be so busy. And computers will be so small they’ll fit on your desk, and everyone will fly a helicopter to work.

The Praterstern area of Vienna.
Some Viennese watchmaker-cam.
View from the top of the Vienna City Hall, looking at the adjacent square.
The waterworks in southern Vienna.

Space, Pat and I will probably walk across the square by City Hall at some point, but don’t hold your breath.

Space and Pat are scheduled to arrive at Vienna’s Schwecat airport in just under 24 hours. Just in time, floodwaters are beginning to recede in this part of Austria and the first trees – plum and apricot – are starting to blossom. Hopefully we’ll be able to make an excursion to the library at the monastery in Melk, which is where Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” begins. Pat’s been looking forward to that, and so have I. Although I’ve lived here steadily for more than 10 years now, and have been in Austria off and on since 1976, I’ve never seen that library either, which is said to be grand.

(crowded palm sunday mass) + (feral 4 year old girl) + (kellog’s extra chocolate sugar crack (you know, the cereal with the commercial where kid eyeballs wearing baseball caps turned backward and tee shirts and tennis shoes are bouncing all around the room like superballs and the old, grey pancreas is sitting on the sofa going “leave me alone you wild kids” and they give it some sugar crack and at the end it’s suddenly in color and wearing a baseball hat turned backwards too and bouncing on the sofa cushions squirting adrenalin everywhere))

Breathing a new sense of urgency spontaneity into the expression “last minute” “spur of the moment”, two fellow bloggers will be spending this Easter in Austria.

London was so dang great, I’m looking forward to this.

Beta (who is 12, that’s important to the story) and I were at a farewell reception for some diplomats last night (Alpha was ill and stayed home with Gamma).

Beta: “Dad, stop doing that.”
Miguel: “What are you talking about?”
Beta: “You just look… stupid.”
Miguel: “What?”
Beta: “Like a bunny.”
Miguel: [Bunny?] “Well, Easter is coming, so it’s cool.”
Beta: “And you’ve had a piece of rice stuck to the side of your mouth for half an hour…”

Yes, yesterday was Thursday, meaning I had another cello lesson. For all the jokes I have made about my cello playing, I was happy to observe last night that I am genuinely making progress. Playing cello for me is like having a breath-takingly beautiful girlfriend with eczema who vomits purple slime when sexually aroused, and now the eczema is getting a little better.