The Silliness is On!

I now pronounce it officially Silly Season! Circumstances have made it impossible for me to pretend it's still regular season. It's ok to go be silly now.

Yesterday was Mikuláš, a xmassy predecessor to xmas which is celebrated here in the Czech Republic. We started the day regularly enough, going to visit the kitties, fed them food Cooley refuses to eat, saw old friends, and some new kitties and the official cat lady, who in broken English told them all their names (not the real names, the names other people all them) and a bit of history.

It got dark, and colder so we popped into a cafe we occasionally visit. Had relaxing liqueur coffees with light ambient jazz playing in the background. There was a slight disruption to this peace as a couple with a huge pram (with child inside) squeezed past me, forcing me to move my chair.. I know, the nerve.. but I got over it.

A little later a sooty devil came in, followed by two angels and St. Nicholas himself, took a table and sat down. We were completely unfazed by this, as it's exactly the day of the year one expects to see these characters. They were joined shortly after by another angel, but an angel that made us sit up and take notice, she had an elaborate headdress, big silver wings and a tiny violin. "She's a musical angel" I noted, with interest.

She began to play and I retracted "musical" from my that. It wasn't bad exactly, just.. as I said it was a tiny violin (or whatever instrument the one that's smaller than a violin is) and played only high notes, and a few songs she played I believed hadn't been practiced so much, that's all. The child however, had a stronger opinion on this free show. She started crying, that is screaming the way children do when they're displeased with something, so we had a bit of an opera going with the tiny high pitched violin on one side, and noisy (and high pitched) child on the other.

This was the moment when the season officially became silly. That is, sillier than my "regular" seasons, and believe you me, that is considerably silly.

We stayed a while longer, simultaneously amused and horrified at the spectacle, the only other thing of note that occurred during that time was another couple with a huge pram, this time squeezing past Erik came in. I was sure that this new child was going to join the opera before long, but he just slept, and slept.

Meanwhile, the parents of the other child were trying to soothe her, to get her to stop crying but to no avail, she calmed down for a short time while the angel stopped playing and decided what to play next, which should have been a tip off to anyone paying attention, but the music went on and so did the wailing.

When it became enough (after about 10 minutes) we left. To Namesti Miru we went, to continue the silliness. There were a lot of people, not too many characters but we indulged in a hot wine and took silly ghosty shots of our heads, a giant christmas tree and a few devils and St. Nicks. Overall it was pretty silly.