Donnerstag, 26. Juni 2008

morning cat

I don't like to chat in the morning. I find the question "how did you sleep" immeasurably offensive. I have a routine of meditation stretching and coffee drinking which I must follow before introducing myself slowly to the world. Not so, for my husband.
There was a time when I believed that intruders were in our home, or that my husband was cultivating some gam radio hobby only in the early hours of the morning. I later realized my husband's voice, in all it's conversational tones, was being addressed to our Cat, Deliah. To hear him properly may give one a migraine. At least at those times when he appears to be trying to reason with her. He'll even ask her what it is that he has done, pressing more times than is polite for someone with the understanding that she can and will not be answering back. Sometimes, I begin to feel a bit guilty about this. The pleading anthropomorphising seems to be really saying "Where is my proper consersation partner? Wher is she? Come here?"
This said I was astonished to hear that he had pushed our cat's nose into her urine when it lay outside the box. I was surprised because he normally seems so keen on talking it out with the poor cat (in the background I mock his ideas of feline dicipline). She'll be batting pens, notes and computers off of his computer or any surface that may support them and Ivo will say in a playful tone "Deliah! Mach das bitte nüüt." Seeming to plead with this animal, who I always thought must understand only English.
The real proböem with the nose-to-urine shove was the location. The cat had trotted into the shower (located conveniently next to her litter box) and, instead of drinking from the tap or puddles as per usual, took a piss. For my liking, an easily washable surface like a tub is much better than, say, a carpet or the corner of a closet. I mean, I get the message of "hey! don't pee outside the box" and all, but this was no such commentary. This was Deliah's favorite gossip-partner, the man who sings songs about breakfast time and explains in three paragraphs why we don't play with pens, grabbing the creature and directing her head.
Ivo seemed annoyed by my lack of outrage that the cat had "made" in the shower. Between bites of cereal I asked "had you just peed in the shower?"

Mittwoch, 11. Juni 2008

am I a slouch?

I always thought that I was no slouch. That I was aware and empathetic. Not so, I have come to discover. I read my paper and hear my podcasts and consider myself informed. I know what the gas prices are in middle America and what the milk costs in New York and DC. I know that the nations of the world met over pasta with cream of pumpkin and shrimps. Yet, things still don't touch me in the same way as when it's more obvious.
Naple's trash slash mafia issues recently came to the fore-front of my social-life. At a family-function, my brother-in-law's girlfriend wasn't there because she was working with German trash-removers to figure out how they could get involved there.
Disgustingly more personalized was the petrol-strikes in Europe. I bike, I buy local and heat is included here, so I am not too often aware of gas problems here. Like most other nations, Swiss government taxes upwards of the equivalent of 5 dollars American, to every gallon of gas. (Of course, we buy it by the liter, here, though.) I knew that trucks were blocking ports and highways on the continent, but I wasn't directly effected until my morning grapefruit. I like a grapefruit. I enjoy a grapefruit. I buy grapefruits from either Italy or Spain. Israeli grapefruits don't interest me. Nor so those from South Africa. The world is suffering for hunger and I realize that when I refuse a grapefruit from another continent, my morning is not empty. I was, however keenly aware of the petrol-problems of Europe the other day when I read the produce sign "Grapefruit U.S.A" USA?! This is not my Switzerland! What the hell are they doing shipping grapefruits from the states?
Every morning that I am without a grapefruit I feel like a small and selfish woman. I miss that grapefruit, I do. What the hell? I drink my coffee and eat an apple and think "you lucky bastard. You comfortable weich Ei."
I want to do something. What should I do? How should I mobilize? How do I help. I've never felt more guilty, than I do without my sour puss.

Sonntag, 8. Juni 2008

Euro cup

Today I went for a lovely little walk around a lovely little lake in a lovely little nearby outskirt of Zürich. I went to the train station to do some food shopping and realized that, thanks to the Euro-Cup and our plethora of visitors, the small supermarket on the way home is open on Sundays this month.
Last night we needed to get to the Kulturmart really early in order to get places for the free public-viewing. As I was walking to the Theater, I realised that the people that I was seeing through restaurant and bar windows were probably settled where they would remain for the first Swiss games. Anyone strolling in the street was pretty much guaranteed not to be watching the game that night, unless it was in the comfort of their own home.
This afternoon, I was walking in my neighborhood and saw, and heard, that most Swiss sports fans were yet again cloistered away. This time it was far earlier and this time it had nothing to do with the ill-fated Frei or his teammates. The shouts issuing from my neighbors windows were too early to have anything to do with the soccer match tonight in Austria. It was Roger Federer's loss in the French Open that left these typically nature-loving natives indoors this afternoon.
Will sporting events this summer lead to ill health in Switzerland?
Stay tuned to find out.