Good news

When I work I like to be busy. There is nothing worse than being bored, not having enough to do. There were times in my working life when I experienced that, however strange it might sound. Some people complain all the time that they have too much to do, but seriously, when I watched them they seemed less than busy. And even it they did long days in the office, it seemed to be a lot of facetime.

Anyway, I was working today again in the old peoples cafe, and even though there were only seven customers the whole afternoon, it certainly wasn't boring. I was talking to the regulars, one is a 101-year-old with all her brain cells still active. She is the only one who remembers to switch to high German when speaking to me. Otherwise it's "öppis", "alytte", "schaffe" and I dunno what. I get to practise my smile a lot when there, not wanting to always remind them that high German is my preferred language (that sounds funny!).

One of the other oldies (who looks older but is about twenty years younger) asked how she became so old. The answer was surprising. With hot tea and rum. Turns out she had a lot of colds when she was a child and the cure back then was just hot tea and rum. Very good news indeed. Plus the fact that her family had a small wine field, and they made their own white wine. Even better!

The two oldies I've gotten a bit closer too than the others, are really very sweet, and very openminded despite their age. Tolerant, open to new things, and worried about the state of the world. It's quite daunting to think about that they grew up when there was no electricity and no running water.