Ist es möglich, in Englisch zu sprechen?

I may have mentioned before how much I hate talking on the phone. That dislike is multiplied manyfold when it means speaking in German (possibly Swiss German) about anything I'm not well versed in in terms of vocabulary (I'm pretty good at symptoms of illness that toddlers and their parents tend to have, as well as talking about things that are broken in my apartment). When it comes to work-related things, I'm hopeless. I have Google translate open on my browser, but it takes one or two unfamiliar words from the other end of the line to knock me off my game completely and default to "Is it possible to speak in English, I apologize, please thank you."

Today there are two German calls on my list and they are the sorts of things (one for work, related to the university, and one about bank charges and apartment deposit info) that are so hard for me to actually sit down and do that I get to watch a movie if I want if I just make these two calls. There have been so many times that an interaction in German just went south, as soon as the person I'm talking to didn't understand either what I was asking or was classically bad at simplifying their own vocabulary and slowing talking. Seriously, people, have you not ever played charades or talked with a child? You can't just slur all the words together, or assume that I'm just poorly intentioned.

Well, I just made the first call, which gets put in the "good experiences where no one yelled at me" pile. The first person I called at the advertising division answered, was older, I thought "crap, I'm going to crash and burn", and when I asked the "Can we speak in English?" question, said "Nein, Spanisch, Italienish oder Deutsch." I almost cried out in happiness - Spanish I can do. Spanish, I have a personality and confidence in, even if my vocabulary is limited. I can get along well enough, and I don't break out in a sweat. Turns out, he was in deliveries, and the guy in charge of advertising schedules spoke English. And was nice. And informative. And I feel great about the call.

The next one, is our old rental company. And the woman I'm calling is actually friendly, but she is also not of the "I'll meet you halfway with simplified German". So, I have my three questions sitting on the Google translator window, and I'm about to jump off the cliff again.

Here goes.

Happy New Year, sink full-o-dishes

I got to wash pots and pans, while an afternoon pot of coffee got itself ready on the stove just now. It was pretty wonderful.

Both my beloveds are asleep, one in each bedroom, and the dog is still with the sitter for a few more days. So I had the kitchen to myself. And the living room, and the dining room. Just me. A cup of fresh, strong coffee on the window ledge, the NYTimes crossword and a mechnical pencil near my feet, a new Barbara Kingsolver book on my iPhone. I'll do the dishes for that kind of solitary time anytime.

We took a different approach to Christmas this year, which meant a really short trip to North America. And no "getting over" jetlag. A was awake from 2 or 4am through midday most days, which meant so was one of us. The "box of baking soda" item on the fridge list for American goods to bring home remains unchecked. We almost just stayed in Zurich, since we'd had a long trip in fall, and the travel (especially said jet-lag skews about 5 days on either end, usually all for me and the pistachio). But my South American family decided to go for a white Christmas this year, and it was A's first chance to meet them all, and our chance to see them after 5 years. It was hectic, tiring, full of people and laughs and kids and food and great.

And I don't ever want to do such a short trip to North America with a small child again.

But we made it back here in time for New Year' Eve. And had a small party, which was actually the exact right size. Two other couples and 3 other kids. A full house for our apartment. The apartment with the killer view of the valley and the city and the lake, which meant about 100 min. of fireworks in all directions starting at 11:00pm last night. By 10pm, I was starting to worry that I'd oversold the fireworks view to our guests, only a pop or a flash here and there happening. But, no worries. By 11:30pm I'd realized that I'd undersold it. Cars were parking in our neighborhood so people could go up the hill to look over the valley. Fireworks were going off east, west, below us, above us, about 5 per second. By the time the city started its show, I was almost done with beautiful, multi-colored lights. And the kids, the littlest ones, made it the whole way through to 12:40pm. A did not. She fell asleep in her stroller on balcony, covered in down blankets and footie pajamas by 11:15pm.

So here's to a new year. A new chance at practicing slowing down - writing a blog instead of clicking through horrible TV channels, calling an old friend instead of going shopping, doing my back exercises, and noticing the passage of time. Of being aware of moods and their transience. Of practicing not doing too much. Of making my temporary home country a better place with things I bring to the mix, instead of just despairing about what is here already.

And now, 12 hours later, M and A are asleep, and I have the place to myself. Both the washing machine and the dishwasher are running, sounds which make me feel even more soothed. I can flip through the earmarked pages of my physical copy of Bitch magazine, drink my coffee, and sit down to write a blog post on an old laptop that got resurrected last night to show kids' videos because none of our new computers have CD drives anymore. Ahhh, the passage of time.

Grey grey grey, ding!

Fall in Zurich.

Not so much sunlight. Cold and damp.

A good time to put in some halogen bulbs, bring out the fuzzy slippers and pajamas. And start catching up on Project Runway. I finished my dissertation conclusion with a reference to the judges on Project Runway, and how random their advice was each week - you didn't design outside the box enough, you went waaay too far outside the box, not enough color, too much color....These people are not much for standardized, consistent feedback. Granted, by now, 10 years into the show, even I know that you don't use fabric items for the candy challenge. C'mon, designers, have you not watched all the shows before applying?

Motivation can be tough in this weather, too. Especially when you are working alone a lot. So this fall, by lucky accident, the online work date is back in my life. Thanks for happening upon my office on the wrong week for the talk you were looking for, P. When I was finishing my dissertation, E and I would do 45 min. work sessions with a chat window open. We'd state our goals for the time period, (I'm going to wokr on 1., 2., and 3....) and then go work for 45min., with a timer set. Ding! Then we'd check in, by text or video, how the time had gone, take a 5 or 10 minute break, and start again. Sometimes 4 times in a row. It was how I got my dissertation written, even sitting at home. I wouldn't have made it without that peer pressure. So P and I did this on Monday, and it went well. Knowing that someone else is also working, having to write down your goals, all those things that don't happen when surfing the web in search of motivation, that is what makes it so powerful.

A photo of a small town in Missouri. Nothing to do with the post, except for all that grey. 

And my favorite quote from that time - that writing leads to motivation, not the other way around. It is part of why I keep this blog. Because some days, if I can just get writing, even about a topic as boring as Zurich weather, it gets me writing, and then I'm off the couch, looking for my socks and boots, and on my way to work.

The stretch limo is waiting

Ricidulously fantastic potato pancakes. Which are really just a vehicle for sour cream.

I've been away from Zurich for a month now. In the US, for family medical issues (that have settled and are ok now), family visits, and a wedding. And for that month I was on a lot of main caregiver duty, because M only came for the last 10 days. I had help from grandmothers, and from some good friends, which kept me going. Mostly to JCPenney's or Target, places I would wander, trying on cheap, not so well-made clothing. I went to Whole Foods and stocked up on pancake and cookie mixes. I must have hit a DSW shoe store some 3 times, and unfortunately for A, those times she was with me. I think we've finally determined (on her part, too) that she does not, in fact, "like shopping", kind of like "I no like Istanbul, Mama."

I spent too much time in, and on the way to and from, stores. I spent too much time feeling worried that I would offend people who I didn't visit enough. I spent too much time trying feel like I was living in the US, shopping where I used to, visiting many people I know, trying to re-establish connections that there wasn't actually enough time to re-establish. 

I also connected with different people, though. Some I hadn't known as well, and made some deeper friendships. I spent time making loud, funny noises with my mouth, with A, in an attempt to make it the last 20 miles of a long days of flights and car rides. I worked on speaking up about what I would like, and what I didn't like to those with whom I sometimes have a hard time doing this. 

And I ate about the weight of my carry-on in potatoes, butter, sour cream and bacon at the rehearsal dinner for my cousin D's wedding. I drove about 5 different manual and automatic cars (and gained some 5 extra no-walking pounds) over 4 weeks, some rented, some borrowed, and lost just a bit of my soul every time I was at a Hertz Rental office. But I gained back some soul at a small, independent kids' shoe store in Chicago's north side, and at any place that served pancakes or french toast. I went to Toast in Chicago twice. Twice. For a food snob, my culinary desires in the US tend to gourmet comfort food. Chicken and waffles, Baja style shrimp tacos, Peanut Butter cheesecake, and anything from Toast. I mentioned that place already, yes?

Pretty good Kugelis. Also, vehicle for sour cream, thank you very much. Perhaps the leftover butter/bacon/sour cream sausce, too.

When you need a cab to the airport from the Chicago 'burbs, one option for the family bursting at the seams with luggage is....a stretch limo. "Mama, this is a biiiiiig taxi!" she said. M and A practice their "no paparazzi" moves.

I'm home again. And trying to both get back into life here in Swtizerland, and get over jetlag. Tonight is a bit bigger setback than I hoped, although it seems to be just me awake, which I'm pretty happy with. I did a lot of complaining over in the US, while I was wincing at pretty much any television content, about the lack of soul here in Switzerland. I've decided that it is time not only to seek it out actively, but to be the instigator of some such soul, when possible. A coffee shop + kids' bookstore + place-that-makes-breakfast-all-day-long-like-Toast is probably not in my cards, given that I do not care so much about cooking as I do about eating, or making coffee as I do about drinking it. But, depending some relationships, expanding how I (how we) participate, is now due. I have a few projects in mind. We'll see how they start off and I'll share a bit more here when they are underway.

A change in the weather

Well, at least I hope it is coming. It has been a cold, cloudy, wet summer here in Zurich, and this coming week is supposed to finally be getting above 70 F. And after all that low-sugar drama last week (which I am still trying to keep up a bit, while M joins in for his own reasons), I realized last night while I was doing dishes that...I was doing dishes. While M gave A her bath. I wasn't on the bed, just trying to recover for 10 minutes enough energy to put her to bed without all my body screaming to go to sleep. That I had enough energy and was just feeling, well, normal.

And again today. I'm not exhausted by the time we try to put her down for a nap, and although I do sleep for an hour, I haven't been feeling like it is all I can do to make it through the day. How long has it been since I've felt this way? Not even noticing the doing of a load of laundry because my back feels ok and I'm not so tired. Or that I decide to get some dishes done because there is some energy left just after I've had A for a while.

It feels good to feel this normal. Life has not been this normal for a while. My body definitely hasn't. And I haven't given myself a break for that. Until now, when I've realized that I just wasn't up to many daily tasks and I was doing my best to do what I could. I don't know if it somewhat due to the sugar I've stopped eating so much of, but it is also because my back is doing better. I'm still trying to not look at my iPhone constantly when I'm on a bus or tram, and to move around more. And my reproductive system seems to finally be calming down a bit from the miscarriage. I didn't realize how long that could take, either.

 I'm the last one up tonight, as the only member of the family to have had a nap (well, ok, the dog always takes the nap and the early bedtime), and I feel awake. I've started a new book (The Foremost Good Fortune) about a woman who moves with her husband and two small kids to China for a year. And has great doubts about it all, and talks very early on in the book about how she has a place she goes to in her head when she gets overwhelmed by her extremely active 4 and 6 year old boys. So she doesn't yell as much. And the world feels like a smaller place to me again as I hear from someone else telling me her struggles with motherhood.

A is continuing to talk more and more, and as she is really getting good at this potty training thing, she has decided to name her poops according to size. There was a Mama, Papa, Baby and puppy poop tonight. And then after dinner she decided we should all go into the living room and dance to the NPR music broadcast by wiggling, spinning, and shaking our heads yelling "No!" as loud as possible.

It is enchanting to see her own ideas and personality coming out. Her imagination, if you let her have it and just go along with it, and her ideas. A few weeks ago, during some meal, I told her to close her eyes to really taste something we were eating. Probably after a trip to a farmer's market, or in Amsterdam. And she took to it. And completely got on board with the idea. She tell us now sometimes to close our eyes. We all sit there, actually tasting cherry tomatoes as sweet as cherries, or a great cucumber or plum.

Oh! Plum season is back and once again I am in love. I've never liked the plums we got in the US. The purple, sour ones. But here, they are magnificent, and the purple ones are only one of 10 varieties you see for a few months each summer.

It is getting cold on the balcony, and dark. Time to think about going to bed. After all, the old lady who seems to be accompanying her cats (or someone else's cats) on a walk down the street is headed to the little plot of grass at the end of the block where the old man who used to let his dog poop on the sidewalk will be waiting for their evening canoodle (as M puts it), is on her way to the rendesvous. Closing time.

Autumn is on its way

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This is a strange concept for me, that it could start to get cold in late August. That decade, plus, in Tucson completely reset my internal sense of seasons. It should be over 100 F from May through October, as far as my body is concerned.

Mix this with a healthy dose of already being acclimated to cool-ish summer temperatures in a country where air conditioning in residences is rare, and I can't wait for this week's 90 F and sunny to end at the same time as I am horrified by the forecast for rain and 65 F by weekend. I think I may only like 73.5 F and partly cloudy for weeks on end right now.

Anyway, the windows and curtains and metal shutters are all closed throughout the apartment since 10:30am this morning, in hopes that the heat won't make it in the rooms very far by the time we get home from the river, and then they'll open briefly until dusk, close again for mosquito feeding hour, which is also known as "Let's go eat M to a pulp" and the night.

A's water toys are packed, as are her swim diapers, and some snacks, for our almost daily trip to the river. The water is a glorious 77 F, and clear greenish-blue. The current isn't too fast, but it makes you feel like you're swimming in something thicker than water, half-set jello according to my friend I. There are shade trees and toddlers and everything you need to spend 4-5 hours escaping the heat.

I've stopped taking many photos recently, somehow there is just too much life to live and not enough time to even take out the iPhone, so let me finish with a few scenes from our trip a few weeks ago to Milan. Fish, street art (commissioned and not), and design were big themes on this trip.







We stayed in yet another AirBnb great find, an apartment where the owners had twins, so we had everything we needed for the stay - didn't even bring a stroller. Which is the height of travel-with-toddler ease, let me tell you. And the apartment was near the biggest green space in the city, with four off-leash dog parks for the dog (who came with), something she hasn't seen since we moved to Zurich. They don't do dog parks here. We followed most of the latest NYTimes "36 Hours in Milan" guide, which provided equal parts great food and gelato, and design museums and other such destinations. All who went had a great time. Ok, except maybe the rental car that got us there and back and got hit in the lot it sat in the whole rest of the time. In true name-your-favorite-stereotype fashion, the lot attendant had no idea how that could have happened, even though we had left it parked for him in the middle of the crowded lot and it was parked in a space when we picked it up.

I think I'm starting to like this town.

Look outside any window facing Europe and you might just see a glow in the sky. That would be me. After today's day.

9:30am ride cute little funicular 2 minutes down the hill to the central tram stop
9:40am meet N for a great cappuccino and juice at Henrici
10am go with N to the Migros Fitness Park Hammam downtown
1pm leave Hammam and go get another good coffee and some European style cheesecake at Schwarzenbach

2-6:30pm play with A at home, because it is raining outside. Not a single tear. Fun afternoon.

That time in the Hammam was three whole hours of no cell phone, quiet spaces, Moroccan tiles and embellished metal bowls to hold my washcloth. We wore cotton sheets. We sat in steamy, lavender rooms, and soaped and washed. We sat in other, hotter, steamy cinnamon rooms and sweat. We laid around on a hot dry cement bench, in a room lit only by a few Moroccan lanterns, and felt our back muscles melt. We got a 30 minute soap foam and warm water massage, and a 20 minute thyme mud scrub, a light lunch on chaise lounges in a room with a fountain and peppermint tea, and then another, hot stone and oil massage. I don't think I've ever been as clean as I was when I left the building. Three whole hours of paying attention to my skin and my body and just being.

All inside what is a bit like Switzerland's Target, except it is a cooperative. I doubt there is a Target in the world where I could leave feeling so serene. I doubt that there are even Target executives who ever feel that serene.

So yes, I'm liking living in Zurich a bit more today.

"The American Way of Life"

On the homestretch to writing my thesis, E was my writing partner. We'd meet online, with chat windows open, fill each other in on what we were about to work on, set our Zen-bell alarm clocks and work for 45 minutes.

Ding!

We would take a 5-10 minute break, either go get some coffee in our respective kitchens, or do a debriefing on how our work had gone and anything that had been problematic.

Then the alarm programs would be reset and Ding! another 45 minutes.

Sometimes we did just one or two sessions, but other days, when there was a looming deadline, it would be 5 or 6 sessions. It was the only way I got so much done in such a contracted period of time.

And I think it worked so well because of a quote that E brought to one of our sessions..."Writing leads to motivation, not the other way around." It was that first 5 minutes of the first 45 minute session which were the hardest.

So here I am, trying to put this into practice again. I'm still ramping up to get back to work after a month of debilitating back problems, but I really want to get back to producing something from my dissertation that is accessible (and palatable) to more than just my committee members. I'll try to write about my work a few days a week, but just sitting down to write every day is the best way for me to start again.

Since Mondays need to be slowly settled into whenever possible, I'm aiming for fun photos and light topics. Like the maple syrup bottle at our table at brunch yesterday. M and I had a lunch date, courtesy of our babysitter, and we opted for comfort food, at Bohemia, instead of the anxiety producing exercise of roaming Zurich's old town in search of a menu and ambiance we liked. Pancakes and eggs benedict won.

And on our table was a brand I'd seen already on peanut butter here in the stores. "Nick: the easy rider." That's a brand? Complete with red, white and blue fonts and stars. What we couldn't decide was if it was really ignorance of Americana, or a deliberate aim at kitsching it WAAAAAY up. Or something in between. Did the company know that the branding was weird and at best American-derivative?

Who knows. The pancakes, although outrageously expensive, were pretty good. And on a cold rainy sunday, in a Cuban-ish restaurant/bar, American enough.