Happy holidays from our orchid

8 01 2011

Now that the holidays are well behind us, I took a final look at all the greeting notes I received before packing them away in a shoebox.

In the age of at-home, three-step, do-it-yourself printing and publishing, there seems to be a strong trend towards arts & crafts for grown-ups. And don’t get me wrong – I do appreciate the thought and effort that goes into making a home-made card. Something like that is quite special, for both the sender and the recipient.

But I’m finding more and more of these greetings are plastered with photos of the sender’s children – in the snow, on the beach, playing with pets – with warm greetings from them, too.

 

The 2010 Xmas card harvest (sans kiddos in order to protect their identities).

I do find it rather odd that not my friends, but their kids are wishing me – someone they probably don’t know from Adam and couldn’t give two shits about – a Merry Christmas.

The most egregious example of this was a card with a photo of a 4-month-old infant. The caption: “(Name of Infant A) wishes you happy holidays.” Does Infant A even know what a holiday is? And is Infant A consciously aware of “happy”? (Beyond sleeping and suckling, that is.) And don’t you think he might also ask himself someday: who the hell are these people he is allegedly wishing happy holidays to?

And all these proud parents think they are doing something totally unique. Infant A’s parents probably honestly thought their card was the most ingenious and cutest thing on earth, because of course Infant A is the smartest and cutest kid on earth.

But I received three of these this year, featuring Children A, B, C , D and E, all under the age of 4, in an assortment of poses (sitting, eating, crawling, looking out the window) and all with similar wording.

So parents, imagine your child-free adult friends receiving their 27th holiday greeting card with nothing in it but kid photos. A typical reaction would be: “Wow. More pictures of… babies. Yay.”

One couple I know sent me a whole 2011 desk calendar with photos of their kids! (OK, the kids are teenagers and the calendar itself is actually very beautiful and well done, but it was the last holiday greeting I unpacked, and the final straw that prompted me to write this post.)

So, fine, whatever – send me pictures of your kids for Christmas if you must – but it would make a real difference, at least to me, if you sent pictures of YOURSELVES, too! The adults in the family! In most cases you and I have known each other and were friends loooooong before your offspring was a twinkle in your eye, and a human on the planet.

YOU are the people I have a history with, not your kids – they came later. YOU are the people I love and cherish. YOU are the folks who have accompanied me on this long and winding road. YOU are the people who have helped make me who I am.

After receiving all these photo-cards of kids we hardly know (and one or two from kids we do), R. and I got to thinking about what motif we should put on our own Christmas cards next year. We really value our DVD player, and our skiing equipment, and our cars, and our sofa, and our dining room table. Or how about that potted plant we love so much? It’s the only other living thing in our apartment, after all.

"A dormant orchid wishes you a Merry Christmas!"

You’re right, our friends with kids would probably take offense. So I guess I will stick with sending greeting cards bought at the After-Xmas-Sale on December 26th the year before (70% off!) as I have done for the past two decades or so. Less work and more politically correct than pretending a plant can talk like a baby.


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Categories : Americana, EuroTrash, Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

The art of skating on Hollywood Beach

28 12 2010

If you have never been to Hollywood, Florida, I highly encourage you to go. Not to be confused with that… other Hollywood over on the… wrong coast… Hollywood, Florida is a great beach town (an “All-America City” Award winner in 2007) nestled between flashy Fort Lauderdale in the north and metropolitan Miami in the south, between the Everglades in the west and the Atlantic Ocean.

The French Canadians have already discovered this little corner of paradise and judging by the number of Quebec license plates on the streets, it seems that the entire province migrates down here when it gets cold up there, turning it into Chicoutimi-sur-Mer, USA for six months of the year.

The beach promenade, or “Broadwalk,” has got everything you’d want on an ocean boardwalk – including free wireless access! – even if its not actually, you know, made of boards. (Webcam here.) There are cool little restaurants, an old-fashioned band shell, and shops selling all sorts of cheesy, loud beach stuff that looks fashionably out-of-place anywhere but the beach. All that’s missing is a Starbucks franchise.

You can even answer emails on your laptop, if you must.

The promenade has two clearly marked lanes: one for pedestrians and the other for cyclists, wheelchair athletes, skateboarders, and my kind of folks – inline skaters. Altogether, the path is about 25 feet (8 meters) wide and stretches the length of Hollywood Beach – about three miles (5 kilometers).

So true to my nature, I had to take a spin. Happily, I laced up my skates for the first time since singing in the Berlin rain at the end of September. Having survived THAT two-hour taste of hell, it was time to remind myself of what attracted me to this sport in the first place.

Of course I hadn’t calculated on the 30 mph winds coming straight at me from a storm system in the south (didn’t hurricane season end a month ago?) that was sending dark clouds over the coast. Fighting weather is one of the most thankless tasks on earth, let me tell you.

But hey, back in Zurich it was snowing, so I guess I was ahead of the game.

Discounting weather, a second occupational hazard for the skater-in-pseudo-training along the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk is simple human stupidity. As in: individuals oblivious to their surroundings who enter the visibly marked bike path with their brains quite obviously in neutral, if not completely absent and/or non-functional.

Okay – kids on bikes, say, and old people on walkers don’t count. To be fair, they have no idea what they are doing anyway so it is up to the entity moving faster than a snail’s pace to watch out for them.

But it’s the seemingly sensible adults whose erratic and unpredictable behavior is the biggest danger to wheeled athletes just minding their business and quietly doing their laps along the beach. Like human bowling pins, these dense living beings meander into and then stand perfectly still in the middle of a roadway that is not theirs, as if waiting to be picked off for points. These are indeed prime candidates for the Darwin awards.

Free space for free skaters.

Of course, no one would argue that the world would be a much better place if it had a few less French Canadians in it. On the other hand, the last thing I really need is another eight screws in my arm.

So from now on, primarily for my own health and sanity, when on skates, I will hit the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk no later than 7am – early enough to enjoy a glorious sunrise over the Atlantic, and secure in the knowledge that the snowbirds are still snoring away in their overpriced hotel beds, sleeping off their overpriced hangovers and digesting last night’s overpriced poutine.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Skater Girl, Sports that can kill

Scrooge, the Grinch and me

23 12 2010

It’s Christmas and I’m not really inspired to write anything witty or, well, inspirational. Sorry. If anything, the spirit of this season-that-will-not-end has made me more cynical and bitter the longer it lasts.

I have been assaulted by Christmas decorations in stores since two weeks before Halloween. Every day I am subjected to multiple renditions of “Come, they told me, parumpapumpum …” and stupid advertising for giving the gift of liposucton or car insurance or 60-inch flat-screen televisions, sung by artificially jolly voices to the tune of “Deck the Halls” or “Let it Snow”. That is waterboarding for the soul and should be declared inhumane. Where are the activists from Amnesty International when you really need them?

This is Florida, people, THERE IS NO SNOW! THIS HELL WILL NOT FREEZE OVER! E-V-E-R! Even if all you Floridians have to get out your fleece gloves and wool caps when the temperature drops to below 65 degrees F (+18 degrees C).

So I’m the Grinch this year. Teaming up with Scrooge… and all the other literary figures that plot to steal/destroy/pillage Christmas. Fine – take it away… make it disappear.

And yes, dear happy parents, if I would have kids, it might be different – even if just for their sake. But remember, kids are often most underestimated by the adults closest to them. Your children will also figure out pretty quickly what is real and what is play-acting. And I’m not just talking about Santa Claus here.

During this festive season of communal commercial cheer (ka-ching!), it takes a lot to actually admit you are miserable. So I’m laying it out here for all to read. I can’t stand Christmas. And this year, I’m particularly sad, frustrated and upset. For myself and for those close to me who have to fight battles no one should be placed in the position to fight, especially not at Christmas. I’m angry at the injustice of it all.

If you also feel this way, its okay, you’re allowed to be grumpy this time of year, even if the rest of the world tells you you’re not. Please don’t be a pressure cooker and keep it all inside.

Just, if you do plan, against better judgment, to spend the holidays hanging around people you’re related to but barely know, it would probably be helpful if you concentrate on fileting the turkey and not each other – by avoiding emotionally loaded topics like politics, religion, unfulfilled expectations, lifestyle choices or hair color.

For me, I’m just hoping the next couple of days will pass quickly so that we can get back to normal and go on living our lives. 2011 seems like a happy number to me – those two 1’s at the end signify to me the best of the best. Number One followed by…Number One!

Somewhere between now and then I promise to climb out of this bottomless pit of grief, self-pity and sadness, and I shall return to inspire you.

Wishing you a peaceful weekend, in whatever form it may take. I will be at an Orlando theme park, escaping reality.


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Categories : Americana, Blood relations, Cruisin', This & that in the real world

“So where is Bulgaria again?”

20 12 2010

Every time I come stateside it amazes me how little Americans know or care about what goes on in the rest of the world. For many, geography beyond the next state line is quite simply non-existent. The U.S. is the planet’s 800-pound (political, diplomatic, economic and military) gorilla, and regular folks seem comfortable in their ignorance.

My earliest confrontation with this was when I was a kid and had just returned to New Jersey from Asia with my family. A new school friend asked me where I had moved from. “Singapore,” I said. She asked back: “Is that somewhere in Pennsylvania?” Uh, no, it’s not.

New perspectives on the world

Over the years, following 9/11 and all those wars that Americans fought overseas, I would have thought the concern with people, places and issues abroad might have increased. In the past decade, millions of American military families have had to tolerate their loved ones’ long deployments in dangerous places up to 12 time zones away.

But sadly, even though the world has shrunk to the size of a laptop, geography still seems far from many Americans’ priority lists. And even though their ancestors pretty much all came from somewhere else – creating the social fabric that is today’s United States of America. 

One of the security guards at our condo building is Alex from Bulgaria. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met and somehow I just can’t imagine him ever pulling a gun if he had to defend the building from armed thieves. Admittedly, my own knowledge of Bulgaria is limited, but at least I can identify it on a map and tell you the name of its capital. (Sofia.)

The other day, I overheard Alex speaking to one of our neighbors.

“So where is Bulgaria again?” she asked Alex.

“Well, it’s in Europe,” he answered patiently.

“Yeah, but where in Europe?”

“Ummm, kind of in the middle… East of Serbia, North of Greece, South of Romania.”

I’m not sure these quite accurate geographic coordinates helped her much. The puzzled look on her face when she wished Alex a good night seemed more complex than before.

The next morning at the bank I picked this up at the window next to me. A middle-aged customer said to the teller: “I’ve never had a passport, you know. I used to be able to go to the islands without one but now you need one. That’s ridiculous! Isn’t that ridiculous? I’ve never needed a passport! I think it’s a nuisance. I don’t even know where I could get one.”

Lady, a whole lot of people want one of these. Too bad you are not one of them.

Speaking as someone who has owned a passport since she was five, I’m just wondering what it’s going to take to make Americans realize that they are not living at the center of the universe.


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Switzerland is great, but…

5 11 2010

When my company transferred me to Zurich in 2004, I was ecstatic. I thought I had hit the jackpot – Switzerland had the reputation of a being clean, safe, neutral little corner of paradise. Year after year, Zurich consistently ranks high up in Mercer’s annual “Quality of Living” Survey as one of the top three “most livable cities in the world”.

At the time, I told a work colleague I had purchased the “Rough Guide to Switzerland” in anticipation of my move. He answered sardonically, “Evelynn, there is nothing rough about Switzerland.”

And he was right for the most part. I eased into society with a few little boo-boos along the way, but really, I couldn’t complain too loudly. The Swiss have perfected the art of, well, being perfect.

Is this not...just... perfect?

But over the course of six years, the perfect Swiss have lost a teeny bit of their luster. And I have discovered that while I really do enjoy a very high quality of life here, there are a couple of things that really piss me off. Of course there are many, many worse places on this earth to be. But still.

Here are just five things I really dislike about the Swiss (in no particular order):

1) Schwiizertüütsch – If you thought German sounded bad to the untrained ear, well Swiss German is a further bastardization of language. Fortunately, I learned (high) German at home, and was spared the torture of being force-fed “that awful language” (Mark Twain) in a classroom. But when I arrived here, it took me a full year to figure out what people were saying to me. Swiss German sounds like it stepped right out of the middle ages. And the most frustrating thing about it (for a foreigner) is that there is no ONE Swiss German. Every village has its own distinct dialect (i.e. Züritüütsch, Bärntüütsch, Baseltüütsch…). Any Swiss person can determine the origin of any other Swiss person’s dialect within an instant of them uttering their first word. After six years here I’m just happy I can follow a conversation.

2) Exaggerated honesty – There is a wonderful salad bar at our canteen, you load up your plate and pay for it according to weight. Standing in the checkout line one day, I absentmindedly began to nibble on a crouton. A gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You can’t do that! That’s stealing!”

3) A love of firearms – At last count, there were 218,000 semi-automatic military assault rifles lying around in attics and closets across this pristine and seemingly peaceful country. After being conscripted into basic training, most young Swiss men must serve in the reserves for several years. His (legal, state-sanctioned) weapon becomes his best friend. In public, on public transportation and at home. And after every accident, suicide or homicide involving a military weapon, there are isolated calls that this insanity must stop. Since the beginning of 2010, reservists have been granted permission to store their weapons at an armory rather than at home for their kids to play with. So far, only 452 individuals (or 0.2 percent) have taken up this offer.

Great toy, if it wasn't so lethal.

4) Fondue –  Instructions: Spear diced cube of stale bread with a long two-pronged fork, drown in hot, stinky liquid cheese, attempt to swallow, chase with cherry schnapps (Kirsch). As one American friend says: “It’s not really a meal. All it does is occupy space.”

5) “HANDS OFF MY BANK SECRECY LAWS!” – Ah yes, those gnomes of Zurich, still driving the rest of the world crazy after all these years.

Otherwise, it’s a great country. It has to be or else I wouldn’t still live here and I wouldn’t have married one of them. I’ll write about the good stuff some other time.


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