Advantages of autumn: mosquito and wasp-free end of summer

Week two after the House of Representatives election, and if you don't want to cry, you have to laugh. After all, why have a signal group in which screenshots of the best jokes from X and threads are distributed? First there were the civil war-like scenarios in which Berlin was taken over by a socialist power and the last economic liberals barely made it out of the city by helicopter evacuation. From now on, Prenzlauer Berg will only be supplied with gluten-free bread via care packages.

Now, on a lighter note, it's about Elif Eralp's crimes. The mayoral candidate is said to have once jumped over the turnstile at Sanifair, thrown stained glass into the white glass container or falsely claimed in the shoe store that she already had waterproofing spray at home.

The sound of autumn: The chestnuts have been falling from the tree in my backyard for days and at an ever-increasing rate. Every time one hits the ground it sounds like a match on the tennis court. Plock, plock. The summer was great, and now the pain of saying goodbye is even greater. As R. said recently: There are ten months of darkness ahead of us, and that was only a slight exaggeration.

When I was on the way to the cinema with A. after school on Thursday, he explained to me with the wisdom of a nine-year-old the advantages of autumn, which in his eyes could be summarized as follows: no mosquitoes, no wasps. You can also watch films much better now and at least in that respect I agree with him. He really likes the new film of “Emil and the Detectives”, which is probably mainly because he recognizes some of the filming locations. In particular, the scene that takes place in the Badeschiff, where he went swimming in the summer, appeals to him because of its realism. The people at the bar, he says, really only speak English. For some reason I suspect this problem will sort itself out with socialism coming soon.

Then the news that J. will be heating up his mobile, wood-fired pizza oven on the Schöneberg Langenscheidt Bridge on Saturday evening. He's wanted to do this all summer, now is probably his last chance. So we meet in the middle of the bridge that is closed to car traffic. A table, a few rickety camping stools, wine, pastis and remaining sunshine. The children turn the firewood into building blocks and the oven spits out pizzas every quarter of an hour. People on bicycles drive past left and right, look, someone says: “If you can, you can.” That's exactly how it is.

G. says that his younger son, who has just started school and is stacking building blocks at his feet, no longer addresses him as “Dad” but only says “Yo, ey, Bro”. Grown on concrete, what should you do? When it's dark, a few teenagers come to visit. A. recently said about her 14-year-old twins' cosmetic preferences: "They find us embarrassing. But so do we."

The girls who have come to visit, handbags clutched in their armpits, explain to us unsuspecting adults with remarkable patience the nature and functionality of their adhesive eyelashes. No, it is not real hair, but plastic. Yes, you can go to sleep with it on. No, it's not expensive if you buy them at the drugstore and stick them on yourself. When all the pizza dough is gone and the wine is gone, we drive home.

The next day, J. posts a picture of the Langenscheidt Bridge in the afternoon in the Signal group. Someone has followed our example and is having a picnic in the middle of the road.