It rains a lot here in Suisse Romande and there is often thunder and lighting that goes with it. This turn of events has revealed to us heretofore unknown character traits in our two Siberian huskies, Moose and Tasha.
They are beautiful dogs - blond coats with big white plumed tails. Magnificent specimens that do justice to their wolf heritage. Here in Commugny they are greeted on the streets with unrestrained enthusiasm: Manifiques! Belles Betes! The french love their dogs, so much so that we have been invited by restaurant owners to bring them in to dinner with us - a very common practice over here. But that has nothing to do with the rain and thunder that have posed such intriguing problems for us.
The first good thunderstorm freaked Moose and Tasha out so much (they were both outside when the evening storm started) that Tasha managed to crawl into the house through a cat door barely big enough to squeeze a bread loaf through, and Moose pushed through some wire fencing and jumped off a seven foot high ledge so he could beg to get in at the front door.
Once they were in Moose proceeded to stand next to the bed on my wife's side and try to persuade her to let him crawl under the covers with her. He kept trying to nose his way in the bed. That's cute when the cat does it but a seventy pound drooly, dog-breathy, panting, wet, muddy husky is no bedroom charmer, and we had to sternly order him to lie down, which he finally did. Over the next hour he managed to worm his head underneath the six inch space beneath our bed and lay huddled there all night.
Tasha, we discovered, just finds it too wet to go tinkle outside and waits, for hours if needs be, until our attention is diverted and then sneaks into some hidden corner of the house to go pee pee. When we stand at the door and order to go outside she sits forlornly at the door, ears flattened against her head which is bowed down against her poor little chest, tail tucked under her hunched behind looking utterly miserable as if to say "please don't make me go out there! It's wet! It's cold! I don't want to get my bottom wet!" When she does go out she slinks around in pathetic misery without going until we relent and let her back inside. This is a cousin of the wild wolves that once ruled the forests of North America as well as Northern Europe? Of course if she and Moose escape from our yard on a rainy day (without thunder) they will stay out for hours and get soaking wet and mud covered without giving it a second thought.
Luckily we have a service room in the back of the house with a concrete floor where we have put the pee pee papers for her and she happily sneaks in there thinking, I imagine, that we don't know what she is up to. Fair enough. At least she isn't ruining our carpet.
So this morning, after another thunderstorm last night, Moose lay with his head jammed under the bed and Tasha lay smugly in the corner, having sneaked into the furnace room in the early hours of the morning. We got up and I called them by their new nicknames: "Hey PeePee, hey Thunder!" They looked up at me happily, a little wag to their tails. Time for breakfast. Life is good!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Eet Eez Nut Posseeble!
End of February 2010
Well, hell... This didn't turn out at all like I expected. I came over here a month ahead of time and secured a house, scheduled the rental furniture delivery, all of the utilites were set up, and rental cars were lined up. I envisioned myself like Napolean - hammering Wellington in an overwhelming frontal assault and then, in a dashing pirouette, turning and dispatching Blucher. We would move in the first week and take care of the basics and then seamlessly resume work and begin living the European lifestyle the following week. Upon my arrival, however, my glorious dash out onto the battlefield instead amounted to little more than a lurch out of the gate into hip deep mud, fog and cheese.
Even though I lived here for a 12 month stint many years ago I had forgotten how much the French love to say Non! They love the way the word feels in their mouth and on their lips. They positively revel in the way the sound vibrates in their nose. Non! It is simultaneosly a glorious musical trumpeting of the exercise of power, and a satisfying abdication of responsibility in matters of any effort. I am sure it is the underlying basis to the myth of Sisyphis - struggle mightily against mindless bureacracy and at the end of each success be rewarded with yet another gauntlet of entanglements.
We arrrived Tuesday and planned to stay in a hotel for two days. Our household goods and belongings that had been shipped over by plane a week ahead of us could not be delivered on Wednesday because "it had arrived too late!" (?) Then we were told "eet eez nut posseeble" on Thursday because there were important forms and paperwork that must be completed first. Next it was not possible on Friday because there had been unforseen delays. The weekend was flat out because, alors, almost no one works on Saturday and absolutely no one works on Sunday. Monday??? May Non! "I am sorry but eet eez nut posseeble!" Why? Because, well, it was complicated. We rolled into the second week still living out of our carry ons with only two changes of clothes. As the delays mounted, with no apparent resolution in sight, I had a flash of inspiration. I would tap our French connection in order to clear up the problem. We had a French administrator on our company team, Francois, most certainly skilled in bureaucratic skirmishing, who said to call if there were any problems.
I gave him a ring and heard in his voice the thrill of the bureacratic challenge. Who was the obstructing party? They had failed to deliver since when?!? He would look into the matter toute de suite! The tone in his voice was exciting - after being stonewalled for a week we were now going to kick some derriere!
Amazingly I received a call a few hours later from the delivery agency. Would we be available early that afternoon to take delivery of our shipment? Heh heh! That's right buddy! Surprise! We brought in some local heat. It turns out that the word here for getting things done, and also, not surprisingly, a synonym for fighting, is debrouiller - literally to cut through the fog - and there seems to be no end to it: arranging to take posession of the rental cars, the heater that doesn't work, getting a television/stereo and interfacing it with the cable and computer service carrier. Sigh. I need to take our French connection out and pick his brain.
What exactly did he say to the delivery agency to make them jump? I suspect that he is able to mock his fellow Gauls inability to master their work challenges and thus poke them in their inflated yet tender organ of their Vanity and Pride. My attempts to mock them would probably do nothing save make them deliriously smug. In the meantime I need to resign myself to the fact that this is going to take a good long while to sort things out. So while we wait we'll sit back and drink wine and eat cheese - French, of course!
Well, hell... This didn't turn out at all like I expected. I came over here a month ahead of time and secured a house, scheduled the rental furniture delivery, all of the utilites were set up, and rental cars were lined up. I envisioned myself like Napolean - hammering Wellington in an overwhelming frontal assault and then, in a dashing pirouette, turning and dispatching Blucher. We would move in the first week and take care of the basics and then seamlessly resume work and begin living the European lifestyle the following week. Upon my arrival, however, my glorious dash out onto the battlefield instead amounted to little more than a lurch out of the gate into hip deep mud, fog and cheese.
Even though I lived here for a 12 month stint many years ago I had forgotten how much the French love to say Non! They love the way the word feels in their mouth and on their lips. They positively revel in the way the sound vibrates in their nose. Non! It is simultaneosly a glorious musical trumpeting of the exercise of power, and a satisfying abdication of responsibility in matters of any effort. I am sure it is the underlying basis to the myth of Sisyphis - struggle mightily against mindless bureacracy and at the end of each success be rewarded with yet another gauntlet of entanglements.
We arrrived Tuesday and planned to stay in a hotel for two days. Our household goods and belongings that had been shipped over by plane a week ahead of us could not be delivered on Wednesday because "it had arrived too late!" (?) Then we were told "eet eez nut posseeble" on Thursday because there were important forms and paperwork that must be completed first. Next it was not possible on Friday because there had been unforseen delays. The weekend was flat out because, alors, almost no one works on Saturday and absolutely no one works on Sunday. Monday??? May Non! "I am sorry but eet eez nut posseeble!" Why? Because, well, it was complicated. We rolled into the second week still living out of our carry ons with only two changes of clothes. As the delays mounted, with no apparent resolution in sight, I had a flash of inspiration. I would tap our French connection in order to clear up the problem. We had a French administrator on our company team, Francois, most certainly skilled in bureaucratic skirmishing, who said to call if there were any problems.
I gave him a ring and heard in his voice the thrill of the bureacratic challenge. Who was the obstructing party? They had failed to deliver since when?!? He would look into the matter toute de suite! The tone in his voice was exciting - after being stonewalled for a week we were now going to kick some derriere!
Amazingly I received a call a few hours later from the delivery agency. Would we be available early that afternoon to take delivery of our shipment? Heh heh! That's right buddy! Surprise! We brought in some local heat. It turns out that the word here for getting things done, and also, not surprisingly, a synonym for fighting, is debrouiller - literally to cut through the fog - and there seems to be no end to it: arranging to take posession of the rental cars, the heater that doesn't work, getting a television/stereo and interfacing it with the cable and computer service carrier. Sigh. I need to take our French connection out and pick his brain.
What exactly did he say to the delivery agency to make them jump? I suspect that he is able to mock his fellow Gauls inability to master their work challenges and thus poke them in their inflated yet tender organ of their Vanity and Pride. My attempts to mock them would probably do nothing save make them deliriously smug. In the meantime I need to resign myself to the fact that this is going to take a good long while to sort things out. So while we wait we'll sit back and drink wine and eat cheese - French, of course!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
It's a small, small world
We like things small here in French Switzerland (Suisse Romande): small cars, small restaurant portions, small bathing suits on both women and men (that's right - we're talkin' speedos on middle aged men as well as old geezers) , and really, really small washing machines. As in microwave sized. The first time you see one of these washer dryer combos you think "huh?"
You can wash, say, 3 pair of underwear and a couple pairs of socks at a time, or a sheet and a pillow case, or maybe two towels. Oh yeah, and the machine washes your laundry for about 4 hours at water temperatures of about 300 degrees, just to make sure your clothes get really, really clean since, because it's such an ordeal to wash them, you wear them until they can stand up in the corner by themselves and talk french back to you.
I haven't figured out the virtues of this aspect of Swiss life. Our Swiss friends gripe about the tiny washers and dryers, too. You have to wash laundry every day to keep on top of things or revert to clothes wearing strategies from your days of living in a college dorm - recycling the least offending articles available until finally strangers and even friends begin to look at you suspiciously and you have no option but to wash your laundry. This helps explain the certain robustness in clothing and body odor that one often notices over here.
On this same note regarding puzzling Swiss technology I have to mention a shopping expedition from a few days ago. I went out looking for mosquito preventatives the other day since we have mobs of mosquitoes in our rain soaked backyard which is bordered by our picturesque and slow flowing neigborhood stream. They try and come in and join us for meals and sleep any time the windows and doors are open.
Besides citronella candles and torches our neighborhood Jumbo (think Home Depot) offered a wide array of ultrasonic mosquito repellers. I asked the salesman if the ultrasonics were any good and his eyes darted all over the place as he explained it was a matter of personal preference what one used to keep mosquitoes away. Having never heard of such a thing I went home and researched this technology on the web. Numerous research articles concluded that ultrasonics are, at best, useless for repelling mosquitoes, and are more than likely to increase the frequency of their biting!
You can wash, say, 3 pair of underwear and a couple pairs of socks at a time, or a sheet and a pillow case, or maybe two towels. Oh yeah, and the machine washes your laundry for about 4 hours at water temperatures of about 300 degrees, just to make sure your clothes get really, really clean since, because it's such an ordeal to wash them, you wear them until they can stand up in the corner by themselves and talk french back to you.
I haven't figured out the virtues of this aspect of Swiss life. Our Swiss friends gripe about the tiny washers and dryers, too. You have to wash laundry every day to keep on top of things or revert to clothes wearing strategies from your days of living in a college dorm - recycling the least offending articles available until finally strangers and even friends begin to look at you suspiciously and you have no option but to wash your laundry. This helps explain the certain robustness in clothing and body odor that one often notices over here.
On this same note regarding puzzling Swiss technology I have to mention a shopping expedition from a few days ago. I went out looking for mosquito preventatives the other day since we have mobs of mosquitoes in our rain soaked backyard which is bordered by our picturesque and slow flowing neigborhood stream. They try and come in and join us for meals and sleep any time the windows and doors are open.
Besides citronella candles and torches our neighborhood Jumbo (think Home Depot) offered a wide array of ultrasonic mosquito repellers. I asked the salesman if the ultrasonics were any good and his eyes darted all over the place as he explained it was a matter of personal preference what one used to keep mosquitoes away. Having never heard of such a thing I went home and researched this technology on the web. Numerous research articles concluded that ultrasonics are, at best, useless for repelling mosquitoes, and are more than likely to increase the frequency of their biting!
Just shows you even in super sophisticated Swiss Romande there are corporate marketing cons and lots of hapless consumer suckers. Somehow that feels reassuring to my American sensibility. We aren’t the only poor schmucks in the world who are at the mercy of consumer marketing.
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