On the Threshold of February

I frankly dread the months from January to March every year, ever since I became a teenager. But one advantage of working with many others is the feeling that all of us are in the birdcage of darkness and cold and seasonal illnesses together, and longing for springtime to open the door latch. It's worse, of course, to colleagues who come from friendly climates than it can be for me. It still is nightfall before 5 p.m., the mornings are still half-lit, and it is only in the past week where I noticed the song of one or two birds and the yellow-green catkins in hazel bushes. Otherwise the only green at the street side is the funereal ivy and half-dead grass and evergreen trees, although even needle trees can be a disappointment like the leafless larch I passed this afternoon. Courtesy of my aunt, I've seen the latest cover cartoon of the New Yorker, which is an annotated calendar of the dismal days of January, and it is quite accurate.

In the morning I woke up between 9 and 10 a.m., I believe, and felt that I had slept enough, rest being important to me to help recover from the work week. Then I made a 'healthy' brunch of couscous: couscous made in salted water without butter or oil, onions and yellow bell peppers and sticks of zucchini fried with paprika and dried basil and black pepper, vegetable bouillon, and two poached eggs. Much to my surprise, since the healthy food that I improvise is generally a thing not even its cook can love, two of my brothers liked it and ate the rest.

Then the siblings and I travelled to the Bergmannstraße to get our prerequisites in order for a planned trip to Canada. I think I'm becoming parochial and unused even to other quarters of Berlin, because I had a powerful 'I'm in hell' feeling again. The area around the Bergmannstraße is gentrified, to seize the first word that might come to mind, and I think that creatives and intelligentsia flock to it. But its fashion boutiques, craft stores, children's toy stores, cafés, expensive import shops, music shops, etc., also pander to almost every First World Problem you can think of. As I was beginning to insist — tediously — to my family, pure beef is not good enough on this street. It needs to be grass-fed beef prepared by a world-travelled chef who sears it on a specially crafted Italian gridiron and flavours it with green peppercorns that are only grown (organically, like the cattle) on a single field in Nepal, and a black-aproned, experienced waiter presents it fashionably on an elegantly rustic black slate.

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In the late afternoon, my brother and sister and I went to the birthday party of a colleague, which I much enjoyed; and I read a little more of the introduction to Aristotle's Politics on the way there; we walked all the way home; then Mama and some of us filled out newspaper crossword puzzles at home; Ge. heated a pot of hot chocolate; and now I'm wasting time on the internet.