Dinner With Friends

It snowed last night. About six inches, I'd guess, but you know how men exaggerate.

About 4:30 we took off to Peter and Vivian's place for dinner. It's a holiday here (Ascension? I can never keep Austria's 5689 holidays straight) so the streets were relatively uncrowded; no rush hour traffic because no one had been at work.

B: It's E-P-I-P-H-A-N-Y!!! As I said about a dozen times! And you could have added that tens of thousands of children are visiting people's homes around Austria right now, disguised as the magi, ringing bells everywhere, or else reciting poems, collecting money for a cause. This year they are collecting money for projects helping the indigenous population of India - whose fate resembles that of American Indians.

John X: I appreciate these comments very much. This information enriches in me in a way that makes it easy for it to go in one ear, and out the other. Thank you! >g<

Peter and Vivian live on the 4th floor in one of the old-fashioned apartments you see here sometimes----hardwood floors, always in a herringbone pattern.

Their daughter, L, is going to law school. It's different in Austria----you don't need an undergraduate degree. You just go right into law school from high school. Part of the reason for this is, the average 18-year-old, college-track European high school kid is every bit as well-educated as the average 22-year-old American college graduate. They simply demand more from their students. In Austria, if you don't show college chops by age 10 or so, they direct you toward the trade school route.

So. We had good conversations around the table. Dinner was roast lamb, potatoes, beans, and a kind of cucumber salad made with sour cream. Beer to drink, and champagne. For desert later, chocolate liquor, schnapps, and Vivian made a Sacher torte---excellent chocolate cake. I'm not much of a desert man, but I ate some. Delicious.

They have two cats, both about 12 years old, both sweet...but I really fell in love with the orange male tabby. He was a muscular fucker, and very friendly----bumping his head against my hand when he wanted to be petted, rolling around on the floor, swatting playfully at my hand from time to time, and his purr sounded like a Harley-Davidson at idle. I took a lot of video of him. I miss my cat back home...

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Back at B's, before settling in, we lit the candles on the Christmas tree one more time. We sat on the bed and stared at the tree. The light of 30 or so candles filled the room, and after a few minutes you could actually feel the heat. We just sat there, staring at it, and talking quietly as we watched. Sometimes a candle would hiss and pop.

We fetched this tree from a hillside in the country, brought it home, set it up, and decorated it. We've enjoyed its light several times since then. Tomorrow we take the tree down. I've said before I'm not much on Christmas or holidays or rituals of any kind, but I did enjoy this Christmas very much.

Maybe kind of sappy, but I said a silent "Thank you" to the tree. I will miss it, as I missed all the people who have vanished from my life and who I was thinking of as B extinguished the candles, one by one.

You remember, then you continue. You try hard to Be Here Now.