A Trip to the Cafeteria, Trees and Sonatas

Yesterday I received an email from Berlin's press and information office: the press conference this afternoon — about a new report by an expert commission that's looked into the legalities of releasing the biggest private Berlin real estate companies into public hands — is for accredited members of a specific press council only.

This meant that my schedule was lighter, although I was mildly disappointed that I couldn't attend.

After pedalling along a route that was (in stretches) thickly carpeted in yellow and green linden leaf petals with fringes of dark rainy moisture, I arrived ten minutes late for my 8:30 a.m. Greek university class. We had already begun the next chapter and were reviewing vocabulary about the Greek political system on the national and municipal level.

Wednesdays there are always two back-to-back classes. It took almost all that time until I was finally awake...

At quarter to noon I roamed back to my bicycle and was gradually pushing it out of the sheltered area when I saw my mother strolling in my direction on her way to the cafeteria. Are you in a hurry? she asked. — I was not!

So we went to the cafeteria together, each had a bowl of lemon pudding, she sipped a coffee while I had a hot chocolate, and we compared notes about our studies and our plans for the rest of the day. It was a nice interlude!

And then I cycled back home.

I wondered if the lilac leaves alongside the path were truly bigger now that this summer's drought has given way to a few thundershowers, or if I was imagining it. It also became clearer to me that the winds of the thunderstorms had damaged the plane trees along the way: drifts of leaf litter clumped around drains like heavy though small clouds, shattered tree fruits and broken twigs lay underneath and beside the parking cars.

Ge. was at home when I returned, we briefly chatted, and I gulped down a snack before heading off to Tempelhof Airport, where I spent what I think was an hour sorting through a bag of donated children's and adult women's clothing.

There's always a risk of 'looking a gift horse in the mouth,' but I hope it's all right to gossip a bit about the donations:

Many of the children's clothes didn't seem to have been laundered properly, and had a disagreeable smell. I draped them off the edges of huge sorting tables to air, while I sorted the rest. The ones that were still stinky by the time I wanted to go home, I regretfully tossed into the textile recycling bag.

The donation site has also seen a heavy influx of thin, white, disposable plastic boiler suits from the UK. The ones that are smutty and no longer in their original packaging, I threw away. But the rest I added to a pile on one of the 'odds and ends' tables.

After that I returned home and, catching up on email and the news, sent off another job application. In between I played the piano and practiced singing. Feeling quite smug at the job application achievement, I worked well past 9 p.m. on one of my book projects, which is about social history.

But a whole chapter of grammar exercises needs to be done before tomorrow morning's Greek class, which I entirely neglected...

On the piano I've begun looking at a volume of Scarlatti sonatas that I probably only looked at once before. A few sonatas are already in our other scores, since Scarlatti wrote tons of sonatas and they're often thrown together in different constellations. I wished very much that I'd begun practicing the 'new' sonatas when Papa was still alive, as he'd have liked them. We listened to Horowitz's recordings often, though, so maybe he didn't miss out on much.

Here is one of my favourite 'new' ones:

https://youtu.be/Bd0TRy41Fxg