Autumn in Austria means wine, lovely fall leaves, crisp sunny days, and sometimes fog. Yesterday and the night before it was foggy so over a hundred cars and trucks crashed into each other on Austria’s freeways. Over eighty in a single accident. Talk about a nasty commute. Today was weird and unpleasant as my days go, but then I think about driving through the dark, 3 feet visibility in the fog, and suddenly a semi loaded with steel and concrete bridge segments is stopped in front of you. And another one is on your bumper going 70. That happened to some people. My day was not that weird and unpleasant.
All outward aspects of my life are great, in fact. I’m just trying to adjust to Beta getting older now and reaping the harvest of her independence – she’s making plans to travel to the Edinburgh harp festival with two 18-year-old women this Easter. Without daddy, she said. Gamma has new glasses and seems to be adjusting well to them. She’s good about wearing them. She also likes to do pre-school homework. She was complaining today that she never sees me enough.
The adults aren’t any better. Alpha’s as tired as I am. My father-in-law fell off a ladder and hurt himself slightly last night. His wife made him get out of bed in the middle of the night and chase mosquitos. But he didn’t look so bad when I saw him. And Alpha and I went for a run after dinner, it went a lot better than I thought it would, although I felt silly in those tight long pants runners wear, like a court jester. Inhaled a lot of little bugs.
Yeah, so anyway. Everyone else is asleep here now; I’ve been working on a couple projects and listening to my ears ring in the quiet house, and the computer fan hum. Tomorrow I’ll do it all over again, fog lights on.
etc. weird days in Austria:
Police were a little befuddled when a 4yr old tyke called in to report on his grandma’s zwetschkenknoedel .
I myself have not yet grown used to zwetschkenknoedel, but I married into an Austrian grandma having family so I have something of an appreciation… at least I’d never call 911 on them.
thank you so much for that link, jessica. that story was a teaser on the radio night before last here – you know, where they say, “more on the boy who called the police on his grandma’s zwetschenknoedel after this” and play another half-hour’s worth of lame music – and since Beta had been so tired the day before (from staying up late reading a juvenile fiction book) that she nearly fell asleep in her religion class (doesn’t everyone?) i finally said, look, if the zwetschenknoedel story doesn’t come on after this shakira song you have to hit the hay. and it didn’t come on, and i made her go to bed. so she was disappointed she didn’t get to hear about the zwetschenknoedel. when i told her this morning you’d sent the link, she was somewhat placated.
We had the zwetschenknoedelstory on tv last night. I like the ring of the word, btw. zwetschenknoedel zwetschenknoedel zwetschenknoedel zwetschenknoedel!
wasn’t that a movie with michael keaton?
Is that a zwetschenknoedel in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Dutch has a word for wrong way drivers too: “Spookrijder” (Ghost-driver)
Zwetschkenknoedel ranks up there with Schnitzel and Fernseehen…
ehm… right. Readibng two posts and then reacting might not be the best idea…
One would more likely be asked “is that a zwetschkenknoedel in your pocket, or are you afraid of me?” ‘Cause they’re the size of baked plums, basically. Not so big. Plus they tend to ooze and dribble. So you’d have a small bulge of a thing leaving a dark wet spot on your pants. Not so sexy. ;D
Jessica: luckily one of us knows the essentials of Austrian cooking :)