schneebedeckte Erde

A violetly-tinged greyish skyscape. More snow is on the way. No snowmen will spring from the stuff lying on the ground now. The trees, undusted, are stark. Black branches creak in the chill wind.

Birds are careful not to fly alone. They keep together in the air. I haven't seen one land yet.

ungeschickt

This year seems to be particularly awkward for folks around here. Why? I don't know. A co-worker stopped me in the hall after lunch:

"You have a happy!"
[My response ~ because I can be ornery.] "A happy what?"
"(!) holiday."
"Which one?"
"Oh for Pete's sake!"
[grinning]

Overheard at the post office:
Clerk: "Your package should be there by Christmas. Any stamps today?"
Customer: "A sheet of the Hanukkah stamps, please."
Clerk: "(!) That'll be $8.80. You have a ... nice ... day then. A Merry Han~ ... A Merry Hanukkah Christmas!"

der erste Schultag

This is a picture of my Schultüte (my First-Day-of-School-Cone, also known as a Zuckertüte, a Candy-Cone). I crawled through my mother's house last weekend looking for it at the behest of my blog buddy, Einbildungskraft, aka Beth.

It is in surprisingly good condition. Only the top rim has been nibbled by attic creatures.

It seems that in 1810, on the first day of primary school in Saxony and Thuringia, godparents presented their godchildren with large handmade cardboard and cloth cones filled with chocolate, small toys, and school supplies. At the time, youths were given cookies baked in alphabet shapes upon beginning study of the Torah, and it is conceivable that the idea of the School-Cone stems from this Jewish tradition, which was to remind children of the lines in Psalm 119: How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

My memories of the first day of school are a wee bit fuzzy. Morning photos, a brand-new abacus, the tall wire fence around the military base school, and the festive dinner after school with a slew of relatives there to congratulate me ~ uncles, aunts, Opa Willi, Oma Gretel, my Great-Grandmama Anna and her youngest sister Paulinchen, Bácsi and Néni, good friends of my parents, and Christine. Christine, Paulinchen's granddaughter, was 11 years old at the time and I thought she was the coolest girl in the world (still do!). The only disappointment was not being able to attend the school she was in.



A 1912 photo of Anna and Paulinchen with their mother is in an April post.

Erwachsen

In our relations with other people we want to be cultivated, superior, mature, so we use the language of maturity and we talk about, for instance, Beauty, Goodness, Truth .... But, within our own confidential, intimate reality, we feel nothing but inadequacy, immaturity ...

Ferdydurke
by Witold Gombrowicz
1937