The Last Day of October 2021

It was the transition day back from Daylight Savings Time today. I'd thought it would be suspended in Germany after the referendum and European Parliament decision a few years ago, only found out this morning that the EU member states had disagreed. Clearly a bit of a gap in my news reading!

After breakfast, Ge. and I cycled to a garden colony again. It was such mild, sunny weather that we regretted our jackets and Ge. took off his helmet. My muscles felt incredibly sore, I was out of breath, and I must have done something to my knee because it twinged; my brother pointed out after a while that my bicycle seat must have slipped down recently — it was far too low for a healthy seated conformation.

But once we turned onto the paths of a park, sunlight pouring everywhere, grass glimmering greenly, leaves forming tapestries on the asphalt, and many pedestrians and cyclists doing the same thing we were, I began to warm to the exercise.

As usual, I scanned the fence lines. Fairly early on I found three apples in a basket hanging off the side of a fence for people to take, and happily selected one. I was going to put a coin into it, but the man who was crouching beside a low orchard tree in that yard, pruning it, as his son kicked around a ball, looked over and insisted that the apples were free. Other than that, the only other fruits we saw on offer were six wormy-looking apples that had experienced their prime at least a week or two earlier, plus three that appeared to have been mauled by a little creature. (It still bore out my idea that the best day to seek surplus fruit in a garden colony is on a Sunday afternoon, when people who are too busy the rest of the week have had time to potter in their plots.)

It was not quite the case that 'the sedge had withered from the lake, and no birds sang' due to the lateness of the season. But small grapes had blackened on the vine, neglected apples were hanging in trees — shining bright ochre-yellow or yellow-green like jewels, or mouldering on the ground in disgrace —, the sedum did not have the dusty pink flowers and thriving aqueous green leaves any more, the few remaining dahlias are tufted at best, sunflower heads brown and downturned, and I think the asters were turning rather pale and overblown.

We liked how the gardens had different characters. A few regimented ones were practically like mini golf courses. A few seem to harken back to vacations or longer journeys in southeastern Asia. A few are just freewheeling, others are a patchwork of little plots that seem like community gardens. And there were one or two that were like forgotten witches' or cottagers' houses in a children's story book, and I felt really compelled to go back and sketch them. A slightly perturbing sight in one of the plots was a massive German flag, although Ge. said it was upside down so might have a self-parodying purpose.

***

In the afternoon I prepared a second bowl of Halloween candy from the stash that Ge. and J. had bought. We have eaten an unconscionable quantity of sour green apple rings and worms, coke bottle gummies, wine gums, licorice snails, licorice all-sorts, gummy bears, and green gummy frogs. What's more, we also have a bowl full of chocolate bars that Ge. already arranged this morning. But we didn't expect trick-or-treaters and we didn't get any.

Instead, I've hopped ahead and have been looking for Christmas present ideas. Due to supply chain issues and ecological considerations, I'm not 100% sure how I will proceed, but presume that I will be ambling around amongst the small neighbourhood shops so that I can see what exactly is really in stock and where supplies are already on the ground. I'm still not really in favour of turning a generation of fellow Berliners into some equivalent to modern-day servants of the 19th century, fetching and carrying for the supine majority, either in the postal services or in the food delivery services, especially because I am worried about the long-term class-psychological effects. But this is my own grumpy 'hot take' — and I won't force anyone to agree!

In terms of healthy food, Mama and Ge. also collaborated on a late lunch of liver fried with onions and apples. The liver was not too bitter, I didn't eat too much, and altogether it was a flavourful and nourishing meal that I'd like to have more often if I didn't lean heavily vegetarian lately. Especially as we had leftover lamb's lettuce on the side.

A Saturday in 1932, Late October

For the year 1932 in my historical experiment I didn't do much, as I felt a little exhausted after a fortunately mellower week at work.

The week before I'd actually finished reading the lists of the year's events in a certain online encyclopaedia. The news revolved around the Great Depression, 37% for the Nazis in the German parliament, and the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. It is weird to think how things change and remain the same: for example, May Day in Berlin is still tense in the 2020s (I think I mentioned in this blog in the past how the grocery chain store underneath my employer's office would have its windows boarded up the day before). But! fascists and Communists aren't killing each other at such events any more.

*

I was woken up at 10:45 a.m.ish today because of a telephone call for my mother. It was a good enough time to start having breakfast, so Ge. bought croissants and J. brewed coffee, and we all stayed awake.

It was a lovely, sunny day, although the leaves of oak trees standing in the east wind outside our apartment have gone quite uniformly brown and were drifting poetically through the air today — truly the cusp of November. But as mentioned I felt exhausted and didn't go out at all.

The programme was basically just to avoid doing things that people wouldn't have done in the 1930s.

I tidied my desk e.g. replaced dried-out ink with new ink in the ballpoint pens, put new felt stickers beneath the legs of my chair and attempted to freshen up the leather of the seat with a mixture of whipped egg white and sugar (do not really recommend except if there's a knack to that and you have it).

In terms of books and magazines, I read The Tale of Pigling Bland by Beatrix Potter as well as an educational environmental supplement (about bicycle vs. car traffic, electric batteries vs. hydrogen fuel cells, and the future of ecologically-friendly aviation) to a German fashion magazine. Reading more of Bertrand Russell's autobiography was another idea, because I realized yet again that I am fairly ignorant of the UK after 1910ish — my obsession for Victorian and Edwardian literature did not carry me far past this year. But, after failing to make it through a letter to Russell from Norbert Wiener about geometry because my brain wasn't up to it, I left that alone fairly soon.

On the piano I played the toccata from Bach's Partita No. 6 and tried to sightread passages from Maurice Ravel's Miroirs, and played another page and a half of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, wondering ungratefully when the hell it would end.

Besides I refilled the batteries for my mother's digital radio, after giving up on making any of our analogue radios work. It should come in handy for the later 1930s.

Lastly, I mended clothes.

It all felt somewhat virtuous.

But I'm struggling with both the obvious fact that being realistic at this stage of the historical experiment is both impossible and undesirable, and the less obvious fact that it is hard to find good social history sources online for the UK post-WWI, likely due to European copyright laws.

Tomorrow, at least, is Halloween.

I suppose the last thing to mention is that more Covid-19 disappointment is setting in. Because only ~66% of Berlin's residents have two vaccinations, and incidences are rising to over 100 new cases daily per 100,000 people, the percentage of ICU patients who have Covid has risen above 10% again (even after March 2019, it's been under 3% at times) and breakthrough infections of vaccinated people keep being reported, I don't feel inclined to meet people in person any more. And I am not sure whether my social skills will survive the pandemic, or whether I will start grunting instead of talking, finding a nice cave to live in, and shunning humanity. An early symptom perhaps is 'email depression' — for the past few years I think I've been reasonably good about responding promptly, and now it takes ~5 times the usual interval for me to check my inbox, read the emails, and reply. On the other hand, I can highly recommend having 1-to-1 video calls; talking regularly with my teammates is really bringing a scrap of happiness back into my work life.

I am beginning to conclude that this really is the usual 'it'll be over by Christmas' fake-out. Judging by WWI, therefore, it might actually be over in 1923. Judging by WWII, it might even only be over in 1925.

1929, Hot Chocolate, Autumn, and Soup

In the morning I knew that we were out of cornflakes. So rather than go with anything more typically 1920s Britain, I made coffee, porridge, and boiled eggs for breakfast. Mama is off travelling in Thuringia, and Ge. was working an early shift, so it was just J. and I who ate, drank and chatted.

Afterward, I read a Beatrix Potter story and read a page or two of The Age of Innocence; then came a shopping trip; then it was time to prepare an afternoon tea.

Today the tea was simple: scones, lemon curd, sliced cucumber, and French breakfast tea.

Then it was time for me to meet with three colleagues to go to a nearby café.

Once we'd gathered and had begun walking to our destination, we glanced in the windows of a bookstore and a children's toy shop, lingered near a flower shop, and made eye contact with one or two stooped ladies in headscarves and cloaks who were making their way along the generally busy sidewalks.

We ended up sitting outside in an invigorating (one might also say chilly) breeze that swept from the east. Few of the other guests lingered, probably encouraged to keep things short by the temperatures. Mei. justly commented that lately it's been summer in the sunshine, autumn in the shade, and winter at night. The first burst of brown leaves has appeared in an oak tree near the apartment, for example. Three of us drank hot chocolates from sturdy white porcelain cups, stirring in a paper tube's worth of sugar if we wanted to, while the fourth had coffee.

We ordered crème brûlée, too. The dessert was served atop a coal-back slate: crumbly bits of walnut that had been freshly cracked (little flakes of husk were amongst them) and a thin, dark caramel-coloured rolled wafer that also looked housemade were laid beside a large and low brown ramekin that held the crème brûlée itself.

I took a moment to bask in the happiness of having so many good restaurants and cafés in Berlin, where the people who make the food take a delight in their productions and don't just dish it out apathetically. The custard was a lovely consistency and the crust was warmly flavoured and nicely crackly. —

Admittedly I'm not the hugest fan of using flat slates as dramatic dishware; but, as one of the colleagues might say, it's very aujourd'hui.

We chatted. I felt a little verstimmt because of apparent emotional exhaustion from the last week or two at work (and a renewed onslaught of passive aggression that I'm trying to dig myself out of). But hopefully it didn't come across too much.

Afterward, Ge. and J. were on their trip to Tempelhofer Feld. They had left behind the teapot over a tealight to keep it warm, and plopped our tea cozy over two scones for the same purpose, which was touchingly thoughtful. Before they returned, I made supper. It was a 1929 cauliflower soup recipe from Philip Martineau's Cantaloup to Cabbage cookbook: the water that cauliflower had been cooked in, oats, fried onion and bread, parsley, egg, and (in the original recipe) the sour cream that I had forgotten to buy.

For dessert we had raw figs, passionfruit, and agave syrup: a historically inaccurate salad. It was accompanied by leftover lemon curd from the afternoon tea. Besides we ate the vanilla ice cream and chocolate-covered popsicles that Ge. bought. For the purposes of the 1920s experiment, we agreed to pretend that the ice cream was from an ice cream truck.

The plan is to eat pancakes tomorrow.

I feel lazy in my execution of the 1920s Saturdays lately. I ignored the stock market crash because it only happened late in 1929 and people still seemed to be heavily in denial about it at the end of the year. Maybe I could have gone for a ride on the Die Welt balloon in honour of the Graf Zeppelin circumnavigating the globe, however. Seeing a film in a local theatre, or attending a performance of the Threepenny Opera, ... that would have worked too. To be fair, I did watch an entire Clara Bow film on YouTube in the preceding week: The Saturday Night Kid. But once the 1930s begin next week, I will hopefully be more inventive. I wonder how challenging it will be to figure out what good things happened in that decade.

As for the weather, there have been beautiful red and pink and yellow sunsets lately; my siblings and colleagues have been sharing photos of them often. We have a full shipment of coal bricks in our hallway, so we are well prepared for maybe half a winter, once it arrives. In the meantime: Canadian Thanksgiving is on Monday.

A Day in 1928: A Market, a French Lunch, and Historical Transport

It is early October but only a few trees have begun to be splashed with yellow, a few maple leaves mostly green with spots of warmer colour drifting to the sidewalks, and a few red leaves like beech or alder and Virginia creeper.

I walked to the Marheinekeplatz in Kreuzberg to buy groceries for the '1920s' experiment, which ended up just being cauliflower, gold-green grapes and a wildly expensive set of Provençal candies that looked like pointy macarons. The Bergmannstraße was busy. For the first time I walked behind the market hall and found the open-air market, with its knitted goods, trinkets, antiques and vintage items. A few shoes and dishes looked like they might be from the Twenties, but because our apartment is already so full I didn't buy any. I was mainly here to see a relative who is at the market on Saturdays, and it was nice to find her and have a chat.

On the way back I popped into a French brasserie and bought two filled baguettes in paper wrappers, from a long glass counter full of French cheeses and sausages and a quiche that the salesperson had just popped in. I was willing to be surprised, but the salesperson stuck his head into the kitchen and hollered in French to ask what was in the baguettes, and the chef 'Magalie' answered back. And I asked for a red wine to go with the baguettes, and he gave me a light Pinot Noir after hemming and hawing over the bottles in the shelves.

I've known the brasserie since it opened. It stood right beside the bookshop and they let my mother take over a tray of their china espresso cups plus the freshly baked croissants that she sometimes bought to fuel herself and whoever was dropping by. And often when one passes, patrons are sitting outside it speaking in French, so the shopkeeper clearly knows his business. It does feel a little like knowing someone from their infancy and feeling pleased with how well they're doing.

That said, it still feels weird to have enough funds to be able to buy freely from its more expensive section; my obsession with the advantages and disadvantages of capital continues.

We had a light lunch at home afterward: baguettes (the one with thin slices of yellowy sheep's cheese, beet greens and other greens, sun-dried tomato kept in oil, and garlic-infused olive oil was especially delicious), water, tea, and wine.

Then I telephoned Uncle Pu and we chatted about French fries, how he spent his Friday in Berlin, work, and when we're going to visit him again.

And after that, Ge. and I went to the Technikmuseum in Kreuzberg.

It was the first time I've been there. It would take such a long time to confirm the facts, that I won't write about it much for fear of committing pseudo-journalistic malpractice.

To keep things short: it had plenty of exhibits from the 1890s to the late 1920s, interesting material for my historical experiment. It added puzzle pieces to my mental picture of Berlin across the centuries, too.

Quite footsore after browsing amongst the pre-1918 aircraft (enhanced by Ge.'s professional knowledge of airplanes) and trains, and the sugar industry section, with a few glimpses of antique bicycles and the ship exhibits, Ge. and I were tempted to eat something on the way back home to restore our energy. Families were strolling past — I won't say smugly, because that would be unfair — with ice cream in their hands.

Instead we walked past the red rose hips, tall Canada goldenrod, overblown clematis seedheads, greywacke plant beds, dark autumn berries, bristling nettles, ripening blackberries, etc., of the parks in our neighbourhood, until we reached home. The sun gleamed beneath the gray-blue clouds at the horizon, and one or two photographers with long professional lenses on their cameras were still stalking about to take advantage of today's bright, late summer lighting.

At home we reheated pizza (not very 1920s) and had more red wine and the grapes I'd bought earlier (1920s enough). And had some of the After Eights and the rest of the caramel candies from yesterday. And then I was so drowsy that I took a long nap.

Goodbye to a Week and to Two Colleagues

This afternoon my work team and I marked two events: Firstly, one of our teammates will leave us to join a data science team still within our company. Secondly, and more drastically, one of our colleagues will be leaving the company, and Berlin, altogether.

So we took over the kitchen in one of the company offices and brought food and drinks, and stayed there until past 9 p.m.

We toasted each other in prosecco and white wine, also drank beer and locally bottled fruit juice and water; our Greek teammate had made her first vegan chocolate cake and was typically modest about the delicious result; and I brought in a sponge cake. Then we had After Eights, pistachios, red beet chips and chickpea chips and lentil chips, nacho chips, guacamole, flatbread with hummus and a feta cheese dip and a tomato dip, Portuguese bread buns with caponata, and the soft caramels that we used to always keep in our team's office room.

We learned more about each other (past and present), exchanged gossip, and reminisced about former times and former colleagues.

One aftereffect of social distancing was that a few gatherings I've had with current or former colleagues have felt like 'classics', one-in-a-lifetime experiences that are hard to improve on. It will be hard to forget the walks and meetings we've had, with a feeling of genuine togetherness I think we didn't often achieve before the pandemic. The small dramas (riot police, Brazilian teammate cutting their finger with a knife, etc.) that occurred along the way made them even more memorable. Minus the dramas, it's quite heartwarming.

It sounds — and is — quite cheesy, but one thing I realized after my father's death (when I knew that few people could believe in me as much as he did or lead me as much to try to be kind and honest, but it became clear how many people could be supportive and affectionate and good) is how deep the human capacity to feel platonic love is. I didn't believe in it while I was a teenager or in my twenties; I felt tolerated or endured rather than liked, and I guess that influenced how I felt about others and about human kindness in general. But every now and then the proof of it is hard to miss.

When I returned home after cycling through the early autumn night, my uncle (whose birthday it was) had already left, but sister T. was still there. So we ate chocolate mints and caramels, and chatted, until it was time for some of us to go to sleep. It's been a long week and, for example, I'd only eaten a salted licorice herring and a few crumbs before the evening party. But I am finding little islands of respite.