The "Seafood" Diet

I've gone from being a nurse to a physical therapist. I took Grady to see the surgeon in Zurich yesterday, who seemed pleased with his progress despite the fact that he's still limping quite a bit. I guess that's to be expected only 10 days after surgery. Grady was especially happy to have his stitches removed, which must have been bothering him because he's actually been calmer than usual over the last two days (that is something to celebrate, believe me!). I just have to laugh at what I'm supposed to do now to help Grady in his recovery. Three times a day I'm supposed to do a little therapy with his leg. First, I have to put a heat pack on his elbow for 5 minutes to help him relax (yeah, right). Then, while he's sitting up, I'm supposed to bend his front, right leg (at his elbow) back and forth for about 5 minutes. The vet made it look so easy. Somehow it's not quite as simple when I try! This is a 65 pound black lab, mind you. I'm sorry, but he's just not capable of sitting still for five minutes while I fiddle with his leg. It results in him jumping and barking and me giving up. And three times a day? Good thing I don't have a job with all the care I'm supposed to give this dog!

I really like this vet. Too bad he's not closer to Basel otherwise we would use him as our regular vet. I guess driving an hour each way whenever Grady needs to see a doctor is really not that reasonable. Anyway, we had sort of a funny exchange at one point yesterday while he was making notes in Grady's record.

Vet: "Is he on a special diet?"

Me: "No, is he supposed to be?" (remembering that the week before he mentioned it might not be a bad idea for Grady to lose a few pounds)

Vet: "Yes, he should be on a 'seafood' diet."

Me (suspecting that the vet might be trying to tell a joke in his non-native English): "A seafood diet?"

Vet: "Yes, a seafood diet. If he sees it, he can eat it."

Need I say more? He's a lab. He already eats everything he sees.

Zwiebeln und Kartoffeln

I'm such a sucker. There's no way I can ever refuse the people who come door to door selling their fresh produce. The most common these days is a man selling raspberries, which are amazing-- fresh and delicious. Then there was that one time I bought way too many apples. This afternoon, someone rang our bell. When I answered the door, an old Swiss lately rattled off something in Swiss German, which I absolutely didn't understand, but figured she was selling something because I saw neighbors gathered around a big farm truck that was parked on the street. So I did my usual "I'm sorry, I only speak a little German", and "Was haben Sie?" (meaning what do you have). She responded very clearly and enthusiastically: "Zwiebeln und Kartoffeln!" I do love onions and potatoes, so I figured why not. At least I talked her out of the 10 kilo crate of potatoes and opted for the 5 kilo bag instead. I think that's a bit more reasonable for me. She kept saying (in English): "Look, look, they are very nice". And they are. The nice thing about Kirk not being here for dinner is that I can cook anything I want! So I will be having Zweibeln und Kartoffeln for dinner tonight.

Friends

While there are lots of little things I miss about being back in DC, there are probably two things that I especially miss. One is our house (which I drove past...it's still really strange to see other people living in your place, although it's nice to see the yard looked OK). But the other is being so far from family and friends. We've been fortunate enough to make some really good friends in Basel, but there's something irreplaceable about the close group of friends you've been with for a number of years. Being back and seeing friends last night made me realise how much of the little day-to-day stuff (e.g., kids growing up) that you miss out on when you're far away, even though the phone and email are godsends when it comes to keeping in touch. I'm still glad we're staying for another year, but it's also really nice to be back, even if it's only for a day. And now, off to NYC...

Jet lag ramblings

Well, it's 5:30am in DC and I've given up trying to sleep any longer (my body feels like it's close to noon), but it's also too early to go searching for a bagel and coffee, so instead I'll post some musings from my travels yesterday:

-- Riding the shuttle to the E gates at Zurich Airport, two young blonde Paris Hilton-wannabe types are sitting near me. Also sitting near me is an American dude, probably mid-40s, bald, wearing a safari vest, long basketball shorts, and sandals with white socks. Dude turns to one of the Hiltons, points at her shirt, which reads "BLONDES DO IT BETTER", and asks "is that really true?" She says yes, and he replies "well, I guess I'll have to find out...heh heh heh)". Ooooh, did I ever feel unclean after witnessing that exchange. (Later on the flight I could see at the very back of the plane that the same dude was chatting up one of the flight attendants, and all I could think is that they must have to undergo special training on how to repel the advances of creepy strangers in flight attendant school.)


--Watched Madagascar on the flight...not quite as clever as some of the other big animated films of recent years, but still worth watching, especially on a 9-hour flight.

--I've heard Miami is even worse, but Dulles Airport outside of Washington is a lousy "welcome to America," especially now with construction underway.

--When you get off the peoplemover at customs/immigration at Dulles, there are immediately announcements that use of cellphones is strictly prohibited, along with signs every three feet or so. Whether or not this actually makes sense is beside the point; if you learn nothing else upon arrival, you learn cellphones are verboten in that area. So naturally an American executive- or sales-type ahead of me had to be firmly admonished because he was chattering away on his phone while waiting to clear immigration. Welcome home!

--Getting off the plane felt like walking into a sauna, which I think says more about how chilly and wet Basel has been this summer because it was a pretty nice day (mid-80s and only moderately humid) by DC-in-August standards. I don't even want to think about my first full summer back here. I may never leave the house.

--It looked like fully half the planes at Dulles belonged to Independence Air, which I had never heard of. It's funny how little things like that remind you that things do indeed change in your absence.

Hurricane day

I woke up this morning to learn that our area of our condo (Perdido Key, FL) will likely escape the worst of Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, the fabulous city of New Orleans is facing the terrible devastation of a category 5 hurricane. It's kind of crazy to think about an entire city being built below sea level, isn't it? The last time I was in New Orleans was in the spring of 2003. I have one really distinct memory from that visit that will always stick with me. My Dad always loved the Dixieland jazz that New Orleans is so famous for. In fact, as he had once suggested, we arranged to have a trumpet play "When the Saints Go Marching In" at the close of his memorial service. It was just his style. It was about 6 months after he died that I was visiting New Orleans on that work trip in 2003. I was taking a stroll through the French Quarter soaking in the sights and sounds that the city has to offer and all of a sudden a Dixieland jazz band started up on a street corner. What did they play? "When the Saints Go Marching In", of course... what a memory... It was almost as if my Dad was there.

It's probably a good thing that I have to take Grady to Zurich this morning to have a check-up with the elbow surgeon because otherwise I might just sit in front of the TV or computer watching live coverage. At this point, what more can they say? Everybody knows it's coming, and everybody knows it's going to be bad. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see what happens. I wish nothing but the best to everyone along the Gulf Coast.

Not your typical Sunday

Living in Switzerland, Sundays tend to be lazy, restful, hang-out around the house kind of days. That's because everything is closed, and you're really not allowed to make much noise (eg. mow the lawn, run the vacuum). Lots of times (if we're in town and not traveling over the weekend) Kirk will go into work on Sundays, and I do laundry (which is allowed because we live in a house and not a multi-family apartment building) and cook and maybe go for a walk. But today was not your typical Sunday. I spent the bulk of the day with my friend Sabrina and her girls traveling around various parts of the city cheering on her husband Bill who was running in the 1st ever Basel City Marathon. It was beautiful day to be a spectator, although perhaps a bit to warm to be running a marathon. My favorite part of watching a marathon in Switzerland is all the people yelling "hop, hop, hop", which I guess would be like Americans yelling "go, go, go".

Later in the day, I joined our friends Jeff and Marlis at a classical piano and violin concert featuring Mozart and Beethoven sonatas. Our friend Christine is a professional pianist, and it was the first time we'd ever seen her perform. It was beautiful and a nice change from my usual Basel activities. Afterward, we wandered downtown where there was some sort of international food and craft fair wrapping up. We were searching for food, but most booths were just packing up. Perhaps there's a law in Basel about quiet hours starting at 8:00 pm on Sunday nights. Anyway, we found a little Thai food, and it all felt quite surreal to be eating Pad Thai and drinking a Singha while sitting on a bench next to the Elisabethen Kirche in Basel.

On a totally unrelated note, I just received a text message from Kirk that his plane has landed safely in DC. I'm glad to hear that he made it there in one piece and I'm very jealous that he gets to see some of our DC friends tonight! I very rarely get sad and lonely in Basel because I love living here, but I've been feeling a bit melancholy this weekend knowing Kirk will be seeing some of very dear friends who I miss a bunch. I miss you guys!

Going home

If all had gone according to plan, I would currently be on a plane over the Atlantic heading for Washington, DC. Instead, the (hopefully) 24-hour bug that wiped me out yesterday means I won't leave until tomorrow. So what was already going to be a quick trip home will now be even quicker. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing friends, as well as my brother and his family (including nephew Lemuel) between meetings in DC and New York. And of course, if my stomach is up to it by then, maybe I'll get to eat some of the ethnic food I miss so much being here...

Hurricane, again?!

Could it really be possible that another hurricane could hit the Florida panhandle?? Not even a year after Ivan's devastation, Katrina is gaining strength and looks to be headed that way. Our poor condo hasn't even rebuilt yet from Ivan (the building had survived but the interior has had to be completely reconstructed). I know I really shouldn't be selfish here, because the condo our family owns is just a vacation and rental property, and there are so many people in Florida who have lost so much more over the last year with the terrible hurricanes. But regardless, I am being selfish. Enough is enough. The contractors are working hard to rebuild our condo, and we've finally made the decision to sell it, and another hurricane really won't help the construction process or the chance of it being sold. We can only hope that Katrina weakens before making landfall on Monday.

On a related note, don't you hate it when a bad hurricane has a good name? It sort of ruins that name forever. Ivan was OK because I don't know anyone named Ivan and you can easily say "Ivan the Terrible" or something. But why Katrina? I have wonderful memories of our old chocolate lab named Katy, which was short for Katrina von Schloss Solitude. That was her official AKC name. We got her when I was in 8th grade and she died in 1994 when I was living in Washington. Please don't name a hurricane after her!

A funny man

In reading the Madison news online this morning I saw that a hometown boy is being remembered in Hollywood this week. Chris Farley, who grew up in Madison and died in 1997, was honored yesterday with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. What a funny man. I'll never forgot how lucky I was to meet him. It was in 1994, or maybe 1995, when I was working on Capitol Hill. My boss at the time, who was a Congressman from Wisconsin, recruited Chris Farley to come to Washington and perform a spoof of Newt Gingrich in front of all his colleagues. This was right in the midst of his Saturday Night Live days when he starred in hilarious skits like Chippendales and something about "living in a van down by the river". Anyway, he came into our office upon arrival in DC and we all got to chat with him. I'm sure I'll never meet anyone else like him in my lifetime. He had such a gift to make people laugh, even if all he said was "hi". I seem to remember one of my colleagues took a picture of all of us together (there were maybe only 10 people who worked in the office), but I don't recall ever seeing it. I think I'll have to do some investigating to find it. These brushes with fame must be remembered!

Nurse Gretchen

As if caring for one patient (Grady) wasn't enough, Kirk has joined the ranks of the sick and wounded in this house. Who knows what hit him. He came down with some bug early this morning and actually called in sick to work (well, I emailed work for him to alert them to his illness) and hasn't gotten out of bed yet (it's 6:45 pm). The unfortunate thing is that he was scheduled to fly to DC tomorrow to spend a couple days visiting friends before going up to New York for meetings next week. Now he's had to change his travel plans and fly to DC on Sunday rather than tomorrow. At least he's a good patient and easy to take care of. I've warned him that if he acts up he'll be wearing Grady's satellite dish.

When will I learn

How many times do I need to get caught up in the rain in Basel before I learn that the weather changes here at the drop of a hat? It's becoming a real problem with me. We're having dinner tonight with some new friends who just moved here from NYC, so I thought it would be nice to bring them some flowers for their new apartment. I took a walk this afternoon to the nearby Blumen selber pflucken flower field to pick some beautiful gladiolas (at only 1 CHF a piece!), and while cutting them down the clouds opened up. The sky didn't look so bad, so I thought it would just be a passing shower, but it wasn't. I got totally soaked, all the way through my clothes. At least I had a hooded sweatshirt on so I could keep my head dry. I wonder how many people drove passed me as I walked home wondering who would be crazy enough to be out picking gladiolas in weather like this...

I'm mean

Gretchen very kindly and with great sensitivity indicated that she wouldn't put a picture of Grady with his sattelite dish up on the blog. I, on the other hand, being a typically callous and insensitive pig of a male, have no such reservations. (I'm sorry, but as sad as he looks, it is funny to watch him bump into things. And don't even try to pretend you wouldn't find it amusing too. Dogs + clumsiness = funny.) Although I still think the shirt was the highlight, and I'm bitterly disappointed that it didn't stay on...

Plan B

In the ongoing saga of Grady and his elbow, we've now gone to Plan B to aid in his recovery. When I took him out this morning for a short walk, first his bandage fell off, and then his legs slipped out of the shirt, making it impossible for him to walk. I guess he and Kirk just aren't the same size. In an effort to keep his incision dry and protected (at the vet's urging), we had to pull out the satellite dish this morning. You know what I mean, the big lamp-shade looking collar that some dogs have to wear to stop them from licking their body parts. We had actually brought one with us from the US, and now I'm really glad we have it. He doesn't like wearing it, of course, but at least we know he can't reach his elbow with it on. There won't be a picture of this stage of recovery because I refuse to subject him to any further humiliation.

No complaints

As much as we complain about the perpetually wet and gray weather these days, as it turns out we're comparatively lucky. There has evidently been quite severe flooding throughout much of Switzerland over the past week or so, to the point that some of our favorite places are now inaccessible. I've not been down to see the normally placid Rhine yet, but supposedly it's really churning since much of the flood water ultimately ends up in the Rhine. And yet, since we don't have any Swiss TV channels, we didn't know this was happening until CNN ran a story about it this morning--it's kind of odd to find out what's happening in your own backyard on an international station.

The latest in Grady's ongoing humiliation

As if it wasn't bad enough that he had to wear a big purple bandage, tonight we took it to a whole new level. We finally removed the big bandage, only to replace it (at the vet's suggestion) with an old shirt of mine. I guess the idea is that it keeps his stitches covered, but in reality it just gives us and the neighbors something else to laugh at.

We're number 8!

While perhaps not quite as dramatic as the University of Wisconsin being named the nation's top party school, it was nevertheless nice to see my undergraduate alma mater finish highly in an alternative survey. Go Tritons!

Now that we're staying...

I really, really, really don't like our couch. It's too big, it's ugly, it's falling apart, and it smells like a dog. It's actually quite comfortable, but that's about all it has going for it. At this point I'm almost embarrassed to have anyone over to our house for fear they'll sit on the couch. I think it's OK to have such hatred for this couch because we didn't buy it, we inherited it. The Americans who lived in our apartment before us left it for us, along with several items with a plug (eg. iron, toaster, microwave, TV) that would have been of no use to them back in the US. OK, so I guess we did "buy" it, but it was an outrageously low price considering all the stuff they left for us. At first, we were quite happy to have the couch because we slept on the pull-out sofa bed until our furniture shipment arrived from DC. And I've tolerated it since that time knowing this is just a temporary living arrangement. But now, things have changed and I'm really sick of it. Of course we're still here just temporarily, but somehow 3 years feels much more permanent than 2. It occurred to us the other day that, you know, we could buy ourselves a new couch while we're here. We have one couch still in storage in DC, but we got rid of our second couch-- the old, "dog" couch-- before moving here so we might as well buy one here and take it back with us.

Now I'm obsessed with getting a new couch. I've lived with this one for a year and a half, but now that we're considering buying a new one I want it now. I always love an excuse to go to Ikea so I think I'll start there. I suppose I should also check at a couple of the furniture stores downtown but I dread the thought of how something would cost at anyplace other than Ikea. I have a feeling the big challenge will be to figure out how to get rid of the old couch. I wonder if there's anything like Goodwill at home where you can donate old furniture, or if anyone picks up old furniture for donations a couple times a year like many organizations in the US. I'll have to do some investigating. When we moved here and we wanted to get rid of the old couch I told the guy who was painting the inside of the house for the new renters: "If you can get the couch out of the house, you can have it", and it magically disappeared.

I also have two other "now that we're staying" projects. The first is to switch to some sort of normal cable system so that we can have more TV options such as BBC and maybe even the Swiss channels which we don't get because we're on our landlords' satellite system. Then I need to decide what to do about my German lessons. I had planning to start phasing them out, knowing that German really won't do me much good back in DC, and had gotten quite excited about the prospect of no more lessons. But now that I'm staying I suppose I should continue, at least once a week. I'll have to come up with a plan before my lessons start again in a couple weeks.

One step at a time...

Perhaps everyone is sick of hearing about Grady and his recovery from elbow surgery. But regardless, I have to share the valuable lesson I just learned when I tried to walk him all the way around the block. The lesson is that he's not ready to walk all the way around the block yet! He taught me this by lying down on the sidewalk, and then rolling around on his back, and then lounging on his side, for a total of about 5 minutes. We were less then a 2 minute walk from our house at that point, but I guess he didn't care. He had had enough of this walking business. So I just stood there for about 5 minutes as he took a break, and I'm sure all our nosy neighbors were staring out the windows wondering what that crazy American woman was doing with her sick dog. Thanks Grady. Point well taken. From now on I'll stick to walking you just down the street and back. No more around the block walks until your elbow is healed.

Intelligent design

'Nuff said...

Friends of Grady

As if he weren't spoiled enough already, tonight our friends Marlis and Jeff actually stopped by with a fruit basket for Grady. He's already started in on the grapes...


(And no, he's not really as evil as his eyes look.)

Uh, yeah, that's what I was trying for

Today at the coffee machine I ran into someone who works on my floor who told me that my outfit was "botanically correct." Evidently he thought my cufflinks were like plant stems, and my tie was floral. Seeing as how I'm happy if my tie even vaguely matches my suit--let alone cufflinks--I didn't really know what to say. (And no, I don't think he was trying to hit on me...)

Is it really August?

What's wrong with this picture... it's August 22 and I'm drinking hot chocolate. Couldn't we have just a little more summer?

Me and my Spätzle-Ass

You may recall that a couple months ago I bought a Spätzle-Ass while visiting Adelboden. Last night I tried it out for the first time, and it was a bit of a mess. The dough is super easy to make-- just water, eggs, flour and salt-- but somehow it became such a production. Maybe I was doing something wrong, because it seemed to be more complicated than it should've been. The Spätzle-Ass just fits over the top of a pot (like a lid) and you push the dough through the little holes on the lid so they fall into the boiling water and cook. That's really all there is to it. But the dough was sticking everywhere, and it was getting completely caked onto the lid which made it difficult to push anymore dough through, so eventually I just gave up and we ate only the stuff I had already made (leaving half the dough in the mixing bowl). It tasted OK, but it was really nothing special, so from now on I'll stick to buying the pre-made, ready-to-cook stuff at Coop. Anybody know any good tricks to aking Spätzle?

Update on G-dog

While Grady is still limping along (I alternate between calling him "Hopalong" and "Pegleg"), he's doing much better overall than he was the other day. He's already eating like a lab (i.e., as much as possible) and hopping up on the couch (we've given up trying to stop him), and we've even been able to take him out for a couple of short walks. When we got out the leash this afternoon, he even sprung three feet in the air like he usually does, which was horrifying given that he still has his big purple bandage, but encouraging that he's got that much energy. Perhaps most surprisingly, he hasn't yet tried to chew off his bandage...I would have predicted he'd try to have that thing off in the first 24 hours--48 hours, tops (maybe it's because Gretchen is regularly applying baby powder to his leg). So thanks for everyone's good thoughts; he seems to be well on the road to recovery...

Kultur

One of my great regrets in life is that I never learned more about art and music when I was growing up. The arts aren't exactly a strong point for most American schools, and to be frank, while there were lots of great things about growing up in America's Finest City, it wasn't exactly a hotbed of high culture, especially living out in the 'burbs. I'm aware of this every time we go to museums here. Like today, we went to the Fondation Beyeler here in Basel. It's such a great building and setting that you could display a bunch of childrens' crayon drawings and it would still be world-class. Needless to say, that's not what they display. Right now they have two special exhibitions: Picasso and Magritte. We wanted to focus on Magritte, and while it was really interesting, I have to say I felt like such a cultural neophyte amidst the thousands of people who were intently studying each painting and presumably saying intelligent things about each one, albeit in German or French. Meanwhile, the extent of my commentary consisted of "I like that" or "I don't understand that one." (As an example of our intellectual discourse, at one point we came across a painting that was divided into four sections, and Gretchen said "that makes me think of a pizza quattro staggione." I'd like to think I had a clever and intelligent retort, but no.) You'd think it would help to read the program, for example for this painting:

Magritte had good reason to describe this work as pivotal for his development. Not only, as he said, did the painting have no "aesthetic preoccupation," but it emerged from a sort of inner necessity, as if under the influence of the unconscious mind. Above all, Magritte employed his characteristic visual language very systematically here -- a descriptive, object-affirming representation, but one whose "neutrality" recedes behind his overriding concern to convey content, and is further reduced by the material presence of sheet music and cutout silhouette...

I'm sorry, but when I read a description like that I just say "huh?". I suspect as long as I live in Europe I'll have a certain cultural inferiority complex...

Igel sighting

Last night when we were driving home from dinner, a hedgehog went lumbering in front of our car. Luckily he was in the middle of the crosswalk, so I of course stopped. There's something undefinably charming about hedgehogs, and I don't think I'm alone in saying that since there are posters all over Switzerland with pictures of hedgehogs that basically say "Let Me Live" (i.e., don't run me over), and there are also posters at the airport for an organization called Pro Igel. (As it turns out, the German word for hedgehog is Igel, pronounced "eagle". We learned this last year when we mentioned to our landlord that we had seen a hedgehog and he said "oh, an Igel" and we were like, "no, it was a round thing crawling on the ground in the garden," and he was like, "yes, an Igel," and we were like, "no, it wasn't a bird, it was a little fuzzy rodent." We eventually got it.)

Anyway, last night was a BIG night for wildlife around here, because shortly after sparing the cute little Igel's life, a fox darted in front of our car and hurdled a fence into one of the community gardens. Then, in the middle of night when Gretchen took Grady out she stepped on a slug--I've never seen more slugs than I have this summer in Basel--in her bare feet. Who needs the zoo?

My new treasures

I did it. I unpacked the monster suitcase that I was dreading the most. Thanks to Mrs. TBF, I was reminded that there actually is one good thing about unpacking-- discovering all the new treasures I bought myself while in the US! If there's one thing that I did more than eating while in Wisconsin, it was shopping. I generally hate shopping (for clothes, etc) in Switzerland. I can never find anything I like, or that fits me, or that's reasonably priced, except for sometimes at H & M. I actually own 5 pairs of the same style of capri pants from H & M in 5 different colors because I was so thrilled to find something I liked there.

I remember reading on The Big Finn a couple months ago about how Mrs. TBF bought 6 pairs of shoes on a recent visit back to Chicago. I was very impressed. Well, guess what? I also returned to Switzerland with 6 new pairs of shoes! Perhaps even more exciting is that I bought 7 pairs of pants. I absolutely hate shopping for pants. I have the worst time finding pants to fit me. I'm too short for my size (can you figure that one out?), but I also don't fit into the shorter petite sizes because my frame is definitely not in the petite category. So I was on a mission to find pants on this trip. Good thing I have a friend here in Basel who likes to sew because I need to ask her to hem a couple pairs of them for me!

Other treasures in my monster suitcase (other than clothes and shoes) included a new supply of Crest and Dial soap (two of my favorite American brands that I can't live without), 3 new books for Kirk (he keeps an ongoing list of books he'd like to read so it's always easy to pick something out for him), the new Ben Folds CD for Kirk, the new Black Eyed Peas CD for me, Season 5 of Sopranos on DVD, a few new movies on DVD, pet meds for Grady (much cheaper at pet stores in the US), real Q-tips, and (should I be embarassed to admit this?) the complete first season of Party of Five on DVD. I used to love that show. I watched the first couple episodes last night, and I still like it, but boy, is it cheesy. I had forgotten about that aspect of it.

Poor Kirk. After reviewing our credit card bill last night he may never allow me to take a 3 week trip back to the States again!

T-I-R-E-D

Here's my conclusion of the day:

A long flight from Chicago to Frankfurt + not being able to sleep on red eye flights (unless in Business Class, I know, I'm a snob) = Jet Lag

Spending the night on the living room floor with a 65 pound dog recovering from surgery so that I can carry him outside everytime he needs to pee only two days after having returned from the US + still fighting jet lag = A totally delirious hausfrau

Does this give me an excuse to continue procrastinating my unpacking??

Tough guy

Well, Grady had his surgery today and he was a real trooper. (As a matter of fact, I would say he handled the whole thing better than Gretchen, who has had a rough time of it.) We took him to Regensdorf (near Zurich) first thing this AM, then spent the day exploring that neck of the woods--up to the Bodensee (which was rather underwhelming, to tell the truth, except for the little town of Arbon, which we rather enjoyed...we were just bummed because we forgot our passports--a common theme for me these days--and so missed a chance to have a Switzerland/Germany/Austria day), then through the countryside to Rapperswil, then along beautiful Lake Zurich to Zurich itself, where the highlight was the stained glass windows by Marc Chagall at the Fraumünster. We even managed a self-portrait with the towers of the Grossmünster sticking out of Gretchen's head like a couple of horns.



But anyway, back to Grady. The reason we were out all day wasn't because we wanted to strand him alone at the vet, but rather because we couldn't pick him up until late in the day and if I was going to take a vacation day (they wouldn't let me take a sick day for my dog's surgery...go figure), I figured I may as well not spend 8 hours sitting in a vet's waiting room. When we got back to pick him up, they brought him out and the poor guy had obviously had a rough time of it. His entire leg was shaved and covered in what looked like a full-length purple cast (actually a bandage). He was understandably limping quite a bit and the vet told us he had several bone fragments loose in his elbow--which he was kind enough to give to us as a souvenir (what are we supposed to do with them...make a necklace?). On top of that, because he was intubated during his surgery, he can't bark (wait...maybe that's not such a bad thing). So the next few days are going to involve lots of carrying him up and down stairs, probably a few messes in the house, and feeling sorry as he limps along with his sore purple leg. But if it's any consolation, at least he doesn't have to wear one of those satellite dishes on his head--although I must say that's always good for comic relief.

Unpacking

There's only one thing I don't like about traveling, and that's the unpacking. I don't mind the packing, the flying, the overall stress of getting to the airport and making all the necessary connections on bus, train, or airplane... all that stuff is worth it because I love traveling so much. But this afternoon I'm trying to find anything else I can do around the house in order to continue procrastinating unpacking. Is that weird? I never seem to be able to just put stuff away after it comes out of my suitcase. Undoubtedly I'll have stacks of clothes sitting around for a while. And it always annoys me that some of my clean clothes will need to be washed again because they get so wrinkled and have that weird travel/luggage smell when they emerge from the suitcase. Kirk just called from work and said "You haven't unpacked yet?" But now that he's coming home I can cook dinner instead of unpacking!

The big day is almost here

Tomorrow is Grady's long-awaited arthoscopic surgery. We'll take him to a specialist somewhere near Zurich (Regensdorf, I think) where he'll have a small bone fragment removed from his elbow. Sounds fun, doesn't it? I'm dreading it. Nobody likes to take their pet in for surgery, do they? Not to mention the anticipated cost. I'm sure it won't be cheap. Nonetheless, I'll be happy to get it over with because Grady is really limping badly now and we've even had neighbors (who we don't know) ask us what's wrong with our dog. My nice husband is taking the day off to go along with us so hopefully I won't be so frazzled. Assuming all goes well, it'll just be outpatient surgery and Grady will be able to come home with us tomorrow night. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Food, food, and more food

One of our DC friends recently commented to me that our blog is always about food and traveling. Well, duh! We do a lot of traveling and we love food! I suppose I need to blog a bit about my recent travels to, and eating in, Wisconsin. I did a lot of it over the last couple weeks (eating that is), and believe me, none of it was healthy. I love Wisconsin food, but I would seriously have to learn to control myself if I were ever to live there again. Considering this was my first time back to Wisconsin since last August, however, I felt justified in eating anything and everything that I wanted. That included a fair bit of frozen custard from Culver's and Kopp's, a few delicious brats topped with sauerkraut, Nueske's bacon (a local favorite), a Clasen's morning bun from Brennan's, lots and lots of cheeseburgers (probably my most missed American food), and, yes, cheese curds (both fresh from the Madison farmer's market and fried from the Wisconsin State Fair). I even enjoyed some good Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese food during my visit. Believe it or not, all you nay-sayers, Wiscconsin does actually have a good selection of Asian cuisine (certainly better than Basel).

Many of my noteworthy eating experiences were at the Wisconsin State Fair, which I visited last Saturday in Milwaukee with my sister and her family. Amazingly enough, it was our first visit ever to the State Fair. From what I could tell, eating is the main source of entertainment at the fair, unless you're really into farm animals. I liked seeing the cows and goats, etc., but we're not farmers so I'm really not interested in what makes a winning holstein. The amount of food booths at the fair is really remarkable. The number of things they serve deep-fried or on a stick is even more impressive. I did try ordering a pork chop on a stick, but unfortunately they were sold out so I got a pork chop sandwich instead.

This food booth sums it up pretty well. Wisconsin is "The Big Cheese", after all.



For all you cheese curd fans, here's Natalie and I loving the deep-fried delicacy.



I took this picture for Kirk, who really hates sauerkraut. I'm not sure how they fry it, nor did I try it.



It's sweet corn season in Wisconsin right now, and I think I ate more corn on the cob over the last two weeks than in my whole life. The best was at the Three Lakes Firemans Picnic where you can dip your cob of corn in a big tub of melted butter. Here's my sister's family enjoying some corn at the fair.



Last, but certainly not least, we wrapped up our evening at the fair with the world famous cream puffs. Apparently, this was the 81st anniversary of the cream puff at the Wisconsin State Fair, and this year they sold 348,082 cream puffs over the 11 days of the fair. They are HUGE, and both disgusting and delicious all at the same time. We shared 2 among the 6 of us and still threw out a few bites.



Bennett finished up by licking the plate of cream at the end, and his expression pretty much sums up how I felt by the time I left Wisconsin on Monday. No more eating for me!

For the record

Just so you know, I will never swim in the Rhine River. I guess yesterday was the 25th Annual Rheinschwimmen here in Basel, and this year an estimated 1200 crazy people participated. I grew up swimming in lakes, which many people (my husband included) find disgusting, but they can't be as dirty as a river that flows through a city with several chemical/pharmaceutical plants. An article about the Rheinschwimmen in today's Baslerstab includes a quote from an "amused" American tourist who commented on the swimmers: "... are they crazy?" My thoughts exactly.

I'm back!

Did anybody miss me? After a wonderful 2+ weeks in Wisconsin, it feels good to be "home" again in Basel. The best part of coming home was having my husband waiting for me as I got off the train from Frankfurt and greeting my neurotic, yet lovable, dog back at our house. I missed them both a lot! I've been very absent from the blogging world over the last couple weeks, but have to say that I suprisingly didn't miss having regular access to the Internet. It was sort of a welcome break, I suppose. Once my jet lag wears off a bit I'll write a bit about a few of my Wisconsin experiences (those not already covered by Kirk) and even post a few pictures. My brain is too hazy to write much of anything today...

The eagle has landed

Gretchen has arrived safely in Frankfurt and right about now should be sleeping off the effects of her long red-eye flight on a train somewhere between Baden Baden and Freiburg. Yeah!

Bizarro

If I told you the temperature was in the 50s (mid-teens C) and raining at noon, and that it was the first day of school, you'd probably guess it was mid-September, right? Welcome to Basel in the middle of August. (Meanwhile, at the other extreme I felt great empathy for our friends back in DC when I read that they have had 28 days over 90F/32C so far this summer...and if you've never been to DC in the summer, let me tell you, that's not a dry heat.)

Assume nothing

So today is evidently Assumption Day, which I knew nothing about until my Aunt Fran, who teaches religion at a Catholic high school in Boise, very patiently explained a bunch of the Catholic holidays to us wayward Protestants after seeing the Issenheim Altarpiece at the Musee d'Unterlinden in Colmar, France. I'm guessing a lot of "Hail Marys" are being said around here today. So anyway, near as I can tell, Assumption is not a holiday in Basel (which I guess is more or less evenly split between Catholics and Protestants), but it is in some of the more Catholic surrounding areas. For some reason, they decided at work that this made it worthy of a holiday, but not a whole day, so instead we're here until lunchtime and then we get to go home. That kind of seems like a cop-out to me...I mean, if you're going to have a holiday, don't go halfway--give us the whole day off. But I guess I'll take what I can get.

In other non-Virgin-Mary-related news, Gretchen flies home from Wisconsin this afternoon and arrives tomorrow, so my bachelor days are numbered. Which is good...not only do we miss her, but Grady and I are getting on each other's nerves, and you can only eat so many calzones from Coop in a three-week period....

Goin' to the chapel...

So this afternoon my fellow temporary-bachelor-friend Bill (his wife and kids are in Lebanon) and I went to see Wedding Crashers, and we gave it two thumbs up. It's a standard Hollywood summer movie-- mindless and predictable, but in a good way, and just plain funny. So if you want a good laugh and don't need to see a masterpiece, check it out. (Vince Vaughn was so funny that I think I'm going to have to watch Swingers again tonight...)

Flashback

Last year around this time I was in Zurich for the Street Parade techno dance extravaganza. I mention that because this year's Street Parade is today, and while the weather is pretty nice following last night's rain, I think it's one of those glad-I-did-it-once-in-my-lifetime-but-don't-need-to-do-it-again kind of events. But I'm sure Zurich will be bouncing to the techno beat well into the night...

Like clockwork...

The past few weeks we've had absolutely gorgeous weekdays. I'm talking 25C/77F with no humidity and not a cloud in the sky. Couldn't be any nicer, and this is coming from a native Southern Californian. Which is all well and good if you can get out for a walk at lunch, but otherwise it's mostly a big tease. Then every Friday around 5:00 or 6:00pm, all of a sudden the clouds roll in. It's as if the collective desire to enjoy a nice weekend as the end of work Friday approaches has some kind of adverse meteorological effect. (Oh, sure, that may sound strange, but since our cleaning lady told me this week--evidently in all seriousness, according to the French co-worker who referred her to us and who has already had this conversation with her--that our unseasonably chilly mornings have been caused by satellites.)

Bern

Since I had never been to Bern, I figured I owed it to myself to at least take a quick walk through town. It certainly helped that it was a nice day and that Bern is nicely situated on a hill surrounded on three sides by the Aare River.



I've realised that the Swiss German cities I've seen--Basel, Zurich, Luzern, Bern--all have a certain sameness about them. That's not a bad thing--they have the advantage of not having been bombed during the various European wars, so their old towns are really well-preserved and cobblestoned and quaint and scenic. They have their unique elements--images of bears everwhere in Bern, church spires by the dozen in Zurich, the Alps hovering over Luzern, more cultural diversity in Basel--but it's kind of a "seen one, seen 'em all" kind of thing. I'm sure denizens of those cities, which have longstanding rivalries, would be horrified to think they bear any similarity to the others, but hey, that's one man's view. So anyway, Bern was quite nice other than the main pedestrian street being dug up for road construction (the entire road system in Switzerland seems to be under construction every July and August, but unlike the States, they actually seem to finish before winter here).

I've always heard that Bern is known for its bears (hence the name, evidently). Well, sure enough, just across the river from downtown are Bärengraben (bear pits) with real live bears. And these aren't your little garden-variety herbivorous black bears like we have back home. These are big-ass brown bears that look cute and cuddly and docile but would happily tear you to pieces without thinking twice about it. This is especially appropriate since the BIG NEWS in normally bear-free Switzerland this summer has been a bear running loose down south.



While you may think of bears when you think of Bern, I'll bet you also think of...this:



As I was wandering past the Parliament on my way back to the train station, all of a sudden a bunch of elephants came marching through. Because, you know, what could be more Swiss?

Painless

Thankfully my visit to the embassy today was uneventful--I'm glad I didn't have time to read the comments on my previous post before I left this morning or I would have been angst-ridden before I even got there. While I wouldn't exactly say the service was friendly, it also wasn't surly. I was only inside the embassy for maybe 30 minutes, but I think it helped that getting pages added to your passport is probably the easiest and least bureaucratic procedure possible. They also use a number system now to take people in order, which seems obvious but after reading Mrs. TBF's comment evidently wasn't always the case. Anyway, a few observations:

--It must really suck to have to get a US visa these days. Not only is there all the extra scrutiny and waiting time, but you also have to wait in line outside while US citizens get to waltz right in.

--It must also really suck to live near a US embassy. I suppose the extra security is necessary in this day and age (I couldn't even take in my car keys because they've got an alarm remote on them), but I would think having streets blocked all around your house would be a royal pain. (The embassy was in the midst of a residential neighborhood.)

--A friend was at the same embassy a few weeks ago and every other person there had their passports stolen (separately) in the train station at Geneva Airport. So let that serve as a warning if you fly in and out of Geneva.

--There are worse ways to spend a beautiful Friday morning than riding a train through the Swiss countryside and walking around a beautiful city.

Feeling diplomatic

If all goes according to plan, tomorrow morning I'll board a train for Bern to visit the US Embassy to get more pages put in my passport. Since I've never been to Bern, I'm sort of looking forward to it, although having read the rants by Dictator Princess about her travails at the embassy, I'm hoping it's relatively painless...

On a lighter note once again

Thanks to Stacy (probably our leading source of interesting links) for passing along this gem: a kit to make your Doberman look like a poodle so that it won't be singled out for being dangerous. That's one impressively stoic Doberman...Grady would never have sat still long enough to let us try something like that.

On a more serious note

This is definitely not for everyone (as a matter of fact, it may not be for anyone), but this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine had an in-depth article about dying and hospice care. It was almost spooky how familiar much of it sounded after going through it with Gretchen's mom and family last year (although she hasn't yet read it and might think I'm crazy for even suggesting that). Anyway, if you're interested in something a bit heavier than my usual mindless banter, I recommend giving it a read.

Note to the neighbors

Dear little Swiss children (and their enabling parents):

Swiss National Day was more than a week ago, and while a good time was clearly had by all on the festive occasion, it is apparent that some of you still have leftover fireworks that you are using on a nightly basis. While I'm glad that these bring you such joy, my dog, Grady, does not share this view. He would be most appreciative if you could be so kind as to save your fireworks until next Swiss National Day, or at least until New Year's Eve. If this keeps up, he will need anti-anxiety medication and I will need hearing aids courtesy of Grady's uncontrollable barking. Besides, I'm sure there's a law against that sort of thing.

Danke schön,
Your friendly neighborhood stick-in-the-mud expats

Seen by Gretchen in Wisconsin

--At the Three Lakes Firemen's Picnic this weekend, a rather overweight man wearing a t-shirt that said "WOMEN WANT ME, FISH FEAR ME".

--In the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel last week, this picture of pig swim races at the Wisconsin State Fair (note the family sitting immediately behind the pigs...after being away for a year, Gretchen has realised that cheese curds + bratwurst + frozen custard + beer = rampant obesity):

Fleeced

While the East Coast of the States has been mired in the typical hot and humid July/August steambath, this morning when I walked Grady it was 45F (7C). I'm sorry, but is it early August or late October? I actually had to bust out the fleece.

Road signs, part 3

A quick one this time. I think this may be my favorite sign. It's like "holy crap, there's something ahead that's so bad we can't even tell you what it is":

Road signs, part 2

Almost everything about driving here is eminently orderly and civilised (except when I violate rules that I don't understand). My one major frustration is the lack of speed limit signs. When you enter Switzerland there is a big sign that says something like "120/80/50". OK, so 120 on the motorway--got that. Presumably it's 80 in the country and 50 in the cities, although where these boundaries are is unclear, but that's manageable. The problem is that on the motorway, when the speed limit changes there will usually just be one sign announcing the new limit (typically down to 100 or 80). If you miss the sign for whatever reason, you're potentially screwed. (Tunnels are an exception--that's the one place they give frequent reminders so you don't speed.) Then, when the reduced limit has been lifted and you can resume driving 120, you get one of the following signs:

So they don't tell you what the speed limit is, just what it isn't (and in the right-hand sign, they don't even tell you that). This is especially difficult on smaller roads. It's not 50, but is it 80? 100? There are no further reminders of the limit--if there are no speed reductions, they will never post a single sign. When you live here you eventually figure that out, but for people driving through on their way to Italy (i.e., half the population of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium during the summer), Switzerland has a bit of a well-deserved reputation as a speed trap. I still view every drive I take where I don't see the flash of a speed camera as a rousing success.

Road signs, part 1

It only took me a year-and-a-half to notice this (I guess I'm a bit slow that way), but road signs on the motorway here never indicate direction, but rather point you in the direction of particular cities. So instead of a sign saying "EAST", it will instead say something like this:


Back home signs will often just say "I-66 West", whereas I guess they assume that you know Swiss geography when you drive here. (Oh, that's the other thing--there's hardly any reference to motorway numbers here. Technically all of the motorways have a number, but you usually don't know what it is until you're actually on it.) For example, yesterday I knew I wanted to head south from Zurich, but of course the signs only gave me options for Luzern or Chur, both of which are south but only one of which was correct (actually, there was also an option for Winterthur, but I knew that was north). Luckily I guessed correctly that Chur was the one. I'm still trying to decide if this says anything deep and meaningful about our respective cultures. In some ways the Swiss system seems tailor-made for the States, given many Americans' geographical ineptitude (e.g., several years ago one of my students thought Canada was south and Mexico was north...this despite living in Los Angeles, just a couple of hours north of Mexico). And to their credit, at least they usually pick obvious cities to orient yourself, unlike when we were in Italy and the signs would point you in the direction of some tiny village 50km away so you constantly had to memorize every city and town that was even vaguely in the direction you wanted to go.

Whatever happened to...?

One of the little hidden rewards of my afternoon drive is that for the first time in ages I listened to Joe Jackson's Body & Soul. I'd forgotten how good that CD is. Kinda jazzy, with one of the saddest breakup songs ever ("Be My Number Two"), and of course the timeless reminder that--despite what you may think--you can't get what you want till you know what you want. Back in the '80s he was almost on a par with Elvis Costello in the pantheon of intelligent and popular songwriters...what happened? Meanwhile, we're force-fed a steady diet of Phil Collins on local radio. No justice in this world, I tell ya.

Cricket

Reading Dictator Princess' question about cricket reminded me of how much enjoyment I've had over the past couple of years trying to make any sense whatsoever of that fair sport. It also reminded me of one of my favorite sections of Bill Bryson's book about traveling around Australia, "In a Sunburned Country", in which he describes listening to cricket while driving across the outback:

After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry. It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players--more if they are moderately restless. It is the only competitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning.

Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each delivery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with it out to center field; and that there, after a minute's pause to collect himself, he turns and runs full tilt toward the pitcher's mound before hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before him wearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to handle radioactive isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg. Imagine moreover that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartens him sufficiently to try to waddle forty feet with mattresses strapped to his legs, he is under no formal compunction to run; he may stand there all day, and, as a rule, does. If by some miracle he is coaxed into making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all the fielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug. Then tea is called and everyone retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortify for the next siege. Now imagine all this going on for so long that by the time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue. There you have cricket.

Doh!

Today started out looking a bit bleak after raining overnight, but around mid-day the sun peeked out so I thought I would get my lazy butt out of the house and take a drive. I decided I would to the Rhine Falls, which I've never seen, and maybe continue on to Stein am Rhein if I was feeling especially ambitious. I was feeling good because I'd plotted everything out, brought a few CDs and the camera, filled up the tank...then I was near where I was supposed to exit and realised I'd forgot one critical item: my passport. Even though it's in Switzerland, to get there from Basel you have to drive through Germany.

So I could either: (a) turn around and go home and mope; (b) go a much longer all-Swiss route to get there; or (c) drive somewhere else in Switzerland. Needless to say, I went with option (c) and decided to go down to Lake Lucerne (or as it's more accurately known, the Vierwaldstattersee. The only problem is that I only had a vague idea how to get there, and consulting a map when doing 130 kph on the motorway is less than ideal. Oh sure, I suppose I could have pulled over to look at the map...AS IF! See, one of the nice things about Switzerland is that if you get lost, chances are you'll eventually find a sign pointing you in the right direction, and what the Swiss consider to be rough parts of town are laughable by big-city American standards. So I kind of improvised my way through Zurich, eventually found the road in the direction of Schwyz, and eventually found the lake outside of Brunnen. It was a pretty spectacular drive from Brunnen through Gersau, Vitznau, Weggis and Küssnacht, except for the weather. I only stopped once to snap a couple of blurry pictures, but I want to go back and see it again, preferably on a sunny day. So even though I didn't see what I had originally wanted to see because of my little passport snafu, I still have to give it a big thumbs-up.

Wisconsin cuisine

Gretchen continues to have a great time in Wisconsin and, of course, to miss me like the deserts miss the rain (to quote Everything But The Girl). She was telling me that the other day, in addition to picking up a bag of fresh cheese curds at the Farmer's Market in Madison (which I'm assuming were suitably squeaky) for the drive up north, she went out with a friend of hers that night to a restaurant in the urban mecca of Eagle River to sample one of the local specialties: cranberry meatballs. Evidently these are meatballs which have been stewed in cranberries (a local specialty, as Gretchen will proudly tell you) and sauerkraut. Serve them at your next dinner party!

Ignorance is bliss

Today I got yelled at by a lady and I have no idea why. I was driving through our neighborhood, where the streets are fairly narrow so a lot of time only one car can pass at a time. I came to one such spot as this woman was approaching in the opposite direction. I was clearly there first so I rolled right through, and when I passed her she made a bunch of exasperated hand gestures and appeared to be yelling something at me, with the clear implication that I had just done something wrong. Suffice it to say I didn't roll down my window and ask her to tell me in English. Was she supposed to have the right of way because she was driving west and I was driving east? Because she was older than me? Because her car was bigger? Because we were in Basel-Land and my license plates are from Basel-Stadt? Just when I think I have this driving thing figured out something like this happens, but at least when you don't know why someone is chewing you out it's pretty easy to ignore.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

So I spent the evening of Swiss National Day at a barbeque, where The Big Finn (with apologies to Gretchen) proved to be a true grillmaster. In addition to the fine food and libations, as the fireworks started and the rain moved in, TBF busted out a humidor filled with Cuban cigars (a guilty pleasure for Americans, for whom all things Cuban are illegal...and boy, is that boycott ever working wonders!). It was my first cigar in years, and it reminded why I liked them--then, when I woke up with my throat and mouth feeling and tasting like wet burlap, it reminded me why I don't smoke them very often. Best of all, I learned today that I was being introduced in jest as their gay friend--I guess that's what happens when you're the only one single guy at the party (and in fairness I was wearing very Euro-looking shoes, although I didn't have my man-purse).

Hearing about the incident with the s'mores at the barbeque reminded me of one time when I was a kid and we were roasting marshmallows around the campfire. My marshmallow caught fire, and the most logical way to put it out seemed to be to wave it in the air. I guess I got a little over-aggressive in trying to put it out (I never liked my marshmallows too charred), because the next thing you know I was flinging burning marshmallow bits across the campfire. I have a clear image in my head of everyone diving to get out of the way of little flaming bits of marshmallow like it was napalm or something. Ah, youth...

Sounds about right

After getting my good news today, what could be more appropriate than to hear this little gem on the ride home: "But I'm gonna be where the lights are shining on me...Like a rhinestone cowboy (ba-BUM-BUM!) riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo..."

(Actually, the only vague connection I can think of between Basel and "Rhinestone Cowboy" might be the cows, but for some reason it just fit the mood. And believe me, I'm not one to get exultant--this line from "Tender Mercies" always stuck with me, much to Gretchen's consternation: "I don't trust happiness. Never did, never will.")

Good news!!!

I just got news today that we will be staying an extra year in Basel! This is a very nice and mostly unexpected surprise--I had been hopeful, but was not optimistic that my bosses back in Washington would agree to an extension (maybe they figure I can do less damage the farther away I am?). So now we'll be here until February 2007 rather than this coming February. That sounds like a long time, but we've been amazed how quickly the time has passed (especially with Gretchen spending most of the first six months back home). As much as we really miss our friends and family back home, another year here should be ideal, at which point I think we'll be quite eager to get back to the States. So those of you who have been procrastinating about planning a trip (you know who you are) have been given another chance...

Trouble in Switzerland?

This seemed to be the big local story today: evidently yesterday there was quite a scene with a bunch of rightwing extremists at the main Swiss National Day celebration. (Must resist temptation to make cracks about rightwing extremists and the dominant US political party...) But on a nicer note, none other than the Dalai Lama is down with the Swiss.

(Which reminds me of the great quote from Bill Murray in that cinematic masterpiece, Caddyshack: "So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald...striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one--big hitter, the Lama--long, into a 10,000 foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? 'Gunga galunga...gunga, gunga-galunga.' So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say 'Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.' And he says, 'Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your death bed, you will receive total consciousness.' So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.")

The latest from Wisconsin

Gretchen hasn't had much computer time, but thanks to the miracle of modern technology (as her mom once said in amazement when Gretchen called me in Basel, "you just push the buttons and you get Switzerland!") I've had a few updates. Near as I can tell, she is: (a) having a really good time; (b) seeing lots of people; (c) shopping to her heart's content; (d) not allowing herself to be jet-lagged; and (e) dealing fairly well under the circumstances with her first visit back home since her mom passed away last year. But she has still somehow not yet managed to eat cheese curds, frozen custard or bratwurst. Tomorrow she heads up to the cabin up North to relax, except when she does the all-night Relay for Life with her sister to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

(Oh, and of course she misses me terribly...she didn't actually say that, but I'm pretty sure I could hear it in her voice. Or maybe it's Grady she misses.)

Bundesfeiertag!

Happy Swiss National Day! Be sure to eat some Swiss cheese or chocolate or something today in honor of our temporary home. Fellow local expats/bloggers The Big Finn and Mrs. TBF realised that I was in a state of temporary bachelorhood (with Gretchen on her Tour de Wisconsin) and very kindly invited me over to enjoy the festivities at a barbeque at their house. I'll be sure to go easy on the tequila this time around...