Coffee doodles

Will starts his day brewing a pot of coffee in our moka machine. We have two - a 3 cup and a 1. When we go on vacation we often take the largest, just in case coffee is in short supply. Will uses the small for his early morning brew, and it is blackened with use.

I love the 1930s design of these machines, and thought of the pot as the perfect doodle subject after our visit to the Josef Lada exhibit at Obecni Dum (Municipal House) today. Josef Lada's line drawings are inspirational, to say the least, and the thirties were prime time for him. I can just imagine him having a cup of coffee from one of these, carefully poured and steaming.

Mikulas Eve

Mikulas (or rather, Mikuláš) came to our house Wednesday night, and we have the candy to prove it. This morning I realized our Christmas count down was fueled by four advent calendars filled with chocolate. (We began with six, but I gave one away and took the other to my office for food emergencies.) On the top of our pantry the sweets-stash wok brims with bags of bon bons from the babysitters and neighbors, and the candy C earned singing songs to Mikulas trios is buried in the back of my top dresser drawer. If you break in tonight you now know where to find the goods. You're welcome to most of it, but do leave the Josef Lada advent calendar - it’s my favorite.

Caroline was in heaven all Mikulas evening, practicing her songs, opening her candy bags, walking to Namesti Miru with her friend Paige to meet the saint and his friends. She was proud that this year she was brave enough to face up to the kids dressed as devils, angels and the long bearded bishops who all seemed to sport hockey sticks wrapped in aluminum foil. This year she sang at their first request, first a Czech nursery rhyme, then her own Christmas song in English.

She sang in whispers by herself, but when she sang with her friend, their shyness disappeared and they belted out Rudolph to the last trio of the night, a grownup group in film studio costumes who blessed the girls and handed out yet another advent calendar (a Catholic edition with bible verses). As we walked away, the devil in their trio grabbed a ten-year-old and ran down the street with the boy flung over his shoulder. Mikulas followed in hot pursuit, advent calendars in one hand, hockey stick in the other.

A Lada Winter? Come, Spring

It’s easy to agree that it has been a long long winter here in Prague. A few weeks ago we flew off to more southern parts, hoping that by the time we came home again the snow would be gone for good and spring in its place. Instead, we barely missed the biggest snowstorm of the winter and flew home on a plane packed with people who had missed their flights the day before and were ready to remove themselves from the hard comforts of JFK even if they had to arm wrestle for a seat. There was a collective sigh of relief when Smetana burst out of the loud speakers as we landed in Prague and I thought that, perhaps finally, someone on the plane might start smiling. Then I looked out the window at the snow drifts and decided our fellow passengers might have a point.

In commiserating over the winter last week, at least three of our Czech friends (and Radio Prague) pointed out to me Jaromir Nohavica’s new song now available on his website. "Ladovska Zima", or "Lada Winter", invokes the beauty of an old fashioned winter as illustrated by Josef Lada (children on sleds, quaint and beautiful views) and then teases and fusses along with us, will it ever be over, enough is enough already with this white mess (bílé svinstvo). You can download the song from the nohavica website, here. It sounds even sweeter now that the sun has melted most of the "svinstvo" away.

Oh, and if you noticed the template change - Blogger is messing with their system apparently and the result is playing havoc with my old template. I'm going to hold onto this one for a bit before I try to switch back, or update to something new, it is time for spring cleaning after all!.

Josef Lada image courtesy of Radio Prague.