Last But Not Least

She's here, she's here! Tali Amelia is here at last! Our daughter. The Noodle's little sister. Everyone's sister, if you take the broad view. 

Tali arrived in a hurry just before noon on Sunday, the 18th of October. We're not sure what her nickname will be yet, because we still need to get to know her. What we do know is that she is still and alert. She has ten fingers and ten toes. Her belly is pink and smooth. Her belly button remains unknown. She has dark, almond-shaped eyes and black hair. She seems wise and centered (it's all downhill from here, my love). Her skin is warm and smells of cookies and jasmine. 

We love her, we love her, we love her. 

Welcome to the party, tiny one. 

Good grief, we get to have some gorgeous (and definitely related) little girls. 

Nava at 1 day, July 2013

Tali at 1 day, October 2015

My Brother is Here, Plus Socks

And what have we been up to lately? 

Let me tell you! 

Well, a week ago we went out to the Danube with friends and family to belatedly celebrate Nava's birthday. Because I am rubbish in many ways, I apparently took only one photo. Here it is! 

Thanks for coming, y'all

I also baked an orange-almond cake and spent much time and effort writing a Happy Birthday message on it. It looked like I did it drunk and left-handed, but I figured my illiterate one year-old probably wouldn't care. In the end it was a moot point since the cake got lightly squashed in the cab and all the words were peeled off along with the aluminium foil covering. So it goes. 

Poorly lit cake photo, prior to brutal smooshing.

Nonetheless, the cake did a fine job holding up a single candle and subsequently transporting ungodly amounts of butter and sugar into everyone's bodies. 

We also used this fine opportunity to release the last five tadpoles into a stand of rushes on the side of the river. It seemed sort of safe, in that it was at least ten feet from a school of approximately 10,000 carp. Some guy who was watching with interest assured us that the tadpoles would be eaten within hours. I did not enjoy his attitude. However, it is true that I had to keep redirecting one of the little swimmers into the rushes and away from the fish. He (she?) seemed quite keen to die, really. 

We did not release any baby frogs. This is because they were all dead. Well, except one. One went missing and is only presumed dead, because of how we have two cats and zero ponds in our apartment. Overall, I don't want to talk about it. 

In happier news, this past weekend my brother Elliott arrived from Los Angeles. It's his ten-year high school reunion. This is significant for me in that it means I am super old. How have those little babies been out of high school for ten years? It blows the mind.  

My brother from the same mother. And father. Also, yes we have a fan and an air conditioner. What about it.

Post-reunion face. Day four.

We are, of course, delighted to have him moping around hungover every morning and cheerily recommending that we cook/go out to eat yet another heart-stopping, rib-sticking Austrian delicacy, generally consisting of pork and onions and potatoes. 

After eight consecutive meals the likes of which I generally try to space out over six weeks, I said: "I need to eat a salad for lunch today. Seriously." 

"Ugh, I'm only here for a week," he said. "YOU can have salad." And then he ditched me to have lunch with someone else. Quite astonishing. 

But really, I see him far too seldom and I wish he lived here. I love my brother. 


And also, Miss Noodle has figured out that socks belong on feet. She just doesn't know how to get them there. Behold: 

Snowed In (Excuses for Being a Bad Blogger)

I have been a very bad blogger. Two weeks! All of this lazing around at my parents' house is taking its toll. I'm becoming sluggish. And there have been many fun distractions - my friend Denia was here, then my glorious Aunt C. and then scattered other good times. But what really threw me off schedule was the ice storm last weekend.  

I live in a cold country. From October to late March, temperatures in Gumpen Village Street regularly fall far below freezing. Precipitation precipitates. Water races from heaven to earth in every form it can, sometimes in two at once. Snow is merely its most aesthetic manifestation. We also do driving rain, fierce sleet, the pissing mist (a personal favourite), and marathon drizzle that soaks the bones and rots the heart. 

But while such weather puts a dark damper on the Austrian soul, it doesn't actually stop the business of doing things. The moment snow or sleet is announced, a literal army of trucks hits the streets strewing gravel. Snow is cleared as fast as it lands and shopkeepers come out to salt their sidewalks. There are, of course, exceptional blizzards that shut the city down, but for the most part workers go to work. School kids go to school. Stores open, trucks make deliveries, trams and subways go about their business, and airplanes take off and land.

So what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks, Dallas. Obviously a warm municipality cannot be expected to restore vital services quite as fast as cities up north. But still. Last weekend was a poor show. 

We woke up on Friday morning with no electricity and temperatures slowly sinking inside my parents' house. That can happen after a big storm, right? I didn't realize this was a semi-permanent state of affairs until my dad said we should get packed. Sadly for Denia, who probably expected some Texas sunshine and, you know, electricity, we weren't entirely able to deliver. She eventually got a warm roof over her head, but it wasn't ours.   

In fact we were all under a much nicer roof, provided by the lovely Hahsler family, who kindly let us play with their used baby things, gave us beds to sleep in, and allowed us to rummage through their kitchen cupboards and drink their coffee (and wine) and eat their food and scatter our bags and baby formula and snow shoes throughout their house. We were grateful and warm and happy to be off the streets, which were glazed with rock-hard ice. 

(I guess we just didn't think we'd be out of our house for three nights and four days. Yes, that is correct, three nights and four days. Come on, electricity company. Git yer self together. Jesus managed to rise up from the dead in less time than you needed to resurrect an electric pole. Denia had left and my Aunt C. had come and nearly gone again by the time power had returned to the Hunt residence.)  

But of course, we couldn't let Denia leave without putting her life in danger. So on the first night of the storm we decided to take an epic journey to Arlington, which is part of the Dallas Metroplex and ordinarily but a 30 minute jaunt from where we were staying. 

An old friend from high school, Hania, was in Arlington to attend a conference. Denia and I had made dinner plans with her before the Icepocalypse, and were not about to give them up. Perhaps sensing that his vehicle was in grave danger, and because he bathes in awesome sauce, my father offered to drive. 

When we set off at around 6 P.M. we still entertained a grand plan of picking our friend up and bringing her to a restaurant in Dallas, then driving her back before returning home ourselves. As we bumbled along at 20 miles an hour, our plans were slowly downgraded. 

First we considered taking her to a Dallas eating hole that was slightly closer to the highway than originally planned. Then we discovered that the whole stretch of highway was shut down. Oh dear. As we slipped and slid through downtown Dallas, we decided it would be best to just have dinner somewhere in Arlington, near her hotel. 

An hour later, and we still were not even close. At what felt like a dog-sled's pace we plugged past endless darkened car dealerships and strip malls and bizarrely well-visited taco places, with nothing to break up the tedium except the odd 18-wheeler doing a little heart-stopping tail waggle as it tried to change lanes ahead of us. We passed ever more vehicles abandoned by the roadside. The highways and overpasses were either deserted or backed up for miles. At some point we gave up and decided that if we ever made it to the Sheraton Conference Center we would be content to just eat there. And give my father an award for Most Awesome Dad of the Year. 

The good news is, Hania was worth it. We probably spent five hours on the road but seeing her (and spending some quality time sans baby) made up for it. Well, it was worth it for me, anyway. Thanks again, Dad! 

Wandering around the Arboretum on Dad's birthday.
Nava is wearing Mom's gloves. I love my family.

And speaking of my dad. Yesterday was his birthday. To celebrate, we had barbecue and wandered around the Arboretum in the sunshine, which returned just in time. I love you, Dad. You are the greatest.