You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2008.
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| From tale of three cities |
I should be blogging more. Everyday there is a moment, a story, a glance that has me taking mental notes, crafting opening lines to a post, or just longing to share. But it’s cold. A very un-October cold. And I feel a bit like hibernating before we even wind back the clocks. My contact with the world has been sporadic at best over the past few weeks. Too often, I’ve found myself disappearing into my studies or my books or my knitting, closing out everything and everyone else.
Such is the typical effect of gray skies on me.
Today’s gray skies are having an opposite effect, though. I don’t want to hurry home. Instead, I want to hurry across the ocean to a city where gray skies are part of the scenery. I want to be in this city that offers elegant coffee houses where waiters wear tuxedos and lattes drown in whipped cream. I long to be in a city where the local bar is so homey that I can’t imagine ever being homesick–warm decor, dogs curled up quietly on the floor, homebrewed beers, comfort food on the table.
Today’s gray skies make me yearn for Vienna… and all that I love there.
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| From tale of three cities |
It is still haunting me: this city. I spent just over 24 hours there. I ate McDonald’s for my first meal. I was continually baffled by the currency. I never even figured out the proper way to say hello; my pronunciation guide defeating me in a matter of minutes as I tried to distinguish one accented vowel from the next.
Yet I loved it. And I can’t get it out of my mind. The beauty. The graffiti. The gothic buttresses. The Soviet style blocks. The side of the city called Buda. The side of the city called Pest. History was blended in to the morning haze that lifted to reveal clear blue skies. History was in the 12th-century ruins of Margaret Island and the controversial monument in Liberty Square. History was in the eyes of those who had known communism and lived to tell the tale. History was in the very stones that the youth who had never known communism rode their skateboards over.
Since I’ve been back, I have scoured Amazon for books about this history, so much richer and darker than the history of the country I call home.
Visiting Budapest was like spending an afternoon with my Aunt Annie. Aunt Annie was born in 1890. She lived to be 105 years old and sharp as a tack until the day she died. She could tell you stories about the 1904 World’s Fair. She had tales of adventures to Italy and France back when single women rarely traveled from St. Louis to Italy and France. She had met a pope (though I forget which one). She must have known someone in nearly every 20th century war our country fought. She watched the city of St. Louis fade in influence and glory over a century. She was maybe 5 feet tall with shoes on. And yet her teary blue eyes are the closest I can come to an analogy for Budapest. For what haunts me even now is the perseverance, the overwhelming sense of experience to be found there.
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| From tale of three cities |
Let it be know that if I ever own a restauarant along that ever so stunning stretch of the Danube in Budapest, I will provide patrons with fleece blankets. Tucked away against the cool October wind, the blanket will warm the body of a that idealistic young woman while the wine warms her belly, the view dazzles her eyes, and the company–that very special person sitting across the table cuddled in his own blanket–warms her heart.
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| From tale of three cities |
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| From tale of three cities |
I’m struggling to start this post because I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about Europe and breakfast for me. It’s not so different than the combination of peanut butter and chocolate–not only do the two things just go together, they have the ability to completely alter your outlook on life.
When you are the type of person who likes their eggs only in cake form, you learn pretty early in life that breakfast is not your meal. Not that I never ate breakfast. I didn’t have much of a choice. But that didn’t mean I had to enjoy it aside from those rare special mornings when I would talk my mom into a Saturday morning waffle or dad into making the post-church run to Dunkin’ Donuts.
But get me out of America, and I love breakfast! You don’t have to con me with those adorable little boxes of cereal to entice me to pull up a chair at the morning table. Just show me a spread of cheese and meat and bread and bacon and coffee, and I am ready to kick up my feet and settle in for the long haul. As soon as those feet of mine touch down on foreign soil, I start seeking out shococrossaints (ah, german), palacinky, espresso, and pastries.
I always return invigorated–a constant rediscovery of how wonderful mornings can be. That’s probably why I found myself stocking up on the ingredients for whole wheat apple muffins and orange juice last night. Maybe it’s the pace of life there. Or just the pace of vacation life. Or maybe we can blame cafes for just being so darn adorable. But between you and me, I think its the cheese.
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| From tale of three cities |
How are you? It’s been so long. Too long! We have so much to catch up on. I still haven’t told you about my visits to here, here, or here:
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| From tale of three cities |
And please forgive me, but I certainly haven’t found time to share the discovery of this pattern and this pattern that have me itching to pick up yarn or this recipe and this recipe which have me wanting to set my knitting needles right back down and dash to the kitchen.
Nor have I had a spare moment to share the news that I was published here.
And there may never be the time or place to catch you up on the bottles of wine that have become decadent staples of the evening meal or to reminisce about relationships so treasured slipping through my fingers or the myriad ways that my mouth has gotten me into trouble lately…
Tonight it isn’t about any of that. Tonight it isn’t about much of anything except taking a deep breath, wiping away the tears, and eating a most delicious cupcake. Because if three-dollar chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting an inch-and-a-half high can’t remind us that this life be pretty darn good, then what’s the point?
I try to keep this a politics-free safe zone. When you call Washington, DC, home, the politics-free arenas of one’s life are few and far between, so you have to embrace them as they come and hold on tight. But I have been reading and writing a lot on this topic elsewhere lately and as today is the last day in most states to register to vote, I’m taking exception to my safe zone rule:
And if you’re still feeling political after that, pick up one or both of these books to read.
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| From for blogs |
It took some doing. Lots of pep talks, maybe a few whispered prayers, and much consulting of higher powers. But I did it: I successfully knit something that was not intended to be wrapped around my neck (the iPod cozy doesn’t count as it was essentially a mini-scarf stitched together on the sides). But this hat! This hat has left me inspired. Bring on cardigans! Bring on socks!
Okay, maybe not socks.
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| From for blogs |
A big thank you to Copycat for sharing the pattern. She also currently has very cute mittens in her etsy shop.
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| From Road to Damascus. |
Apple picking has been in the back of my mind all month, trying to force its way through the school work and work-work and the happy hours and the weddings closer to the front. Never moreso than when my parents called me on Sunday afternoon from Eckard’s Orchard, the apple picking grounds of my youth. They had news for me: There was an alternative energy option for making the trek from your car to the apples now–the tractor-pulled wagon was no longer the only way to get from point a (parking lot) to point b (the apple trees).
Before we go any further, I feel I should clarify by pointing out that the apple picking grounds of my youth are in Illinois. Illinois, USA. Middle of America. Illinois.
We’re clear?
Good. Then let me continue.
It seems, according to my relatively reliable mother and father, that the orchard now offers transportation to your fruitful destination via camel.
Yes. Camel.
I’m still puzzling over that one. But in the meantime, camel or no, I’ve got apples on the brain. Perhaps I can find time to make this (from the purl bee)? Or bake these (from smitten kitchen)? Or maybe I’ll just finally pick up a print from the black apple and call it September…
