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10 Lessons Learned in Switzerland

1)  Buy a first-class rail pass. That was Handy's idea. I would've gone for the cheap seats, but as we quickly learned, the first-class cars were much more comfortable, cleaner, less crowded, and had panoramic windows to better view the countryside, which was the whole point. And we got great photos from inside the train..like these!

2) If you don't read German, you're pretty much screwed. The translator app on your American iphone is useful only in America. Although "Toi Toi" is self-explanatory!


3)  The transportation system in Europe is FAR superior to anything I have experienced in the U.S. However, it's best to figure out and agree on a schedule before boarding a train. There isn't much time to make a decision, as the trains stop at the station for just a couple minutes and then off they go. In Bern, I had learned enough German vocabulary to figure that the train we wanted was delayed, but we were at the right gate, so when the whistle blew Handy hopped on the train, pulling me in after him. The door clipped me on the heel...that's how close I came to plunging to my death under the wheels of the wrong stinkin' train!

4)  If you get on the wrong train, don't panic. There's always another train to where you really want to go.

5)  Life without a constant barrage of advertising is blissful. No billboards, no neon signs, no McDonald's, no Walmart. Love.


6)  You don't have to pay $2 for a clean bathroom. All the bathrooms in Switzerland are clean. In fact, everything in Switzerland is clean. We saw a park employee scrubbing an ashtray in a bucket of soapy water; an ashtray that in the U.S. would never be cleaned...ever.


7)  Speaking of ashtrays, everyone smokes. Everywhere.

8)  If you're the kind of person who wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of sturdy, "sensible" shoes, you need to rethink that position. Even cute flats don't cut it. Take your hiking boots.








9)  The Swiss are reserved, much like Yoopers. But if you make the effort of communicate, you will find them to be charming and fascinating. Even the children, who speak several languages.






10) Don't approach a police officer with a machine gun. Just trust me on this one.

Too Much Information!

Sitting in the waiting room at the chiropractor's office this morning, a man about my age sits down next to me and says, "You ever have the shingles?" My first thought was the $20,000 we spent last year to have a new roof put on our house, but while I was dismissing that thought, the guy pulls up his shirt, and pointing to the far side of his ample belly, says, "See? Right here. Shingles!" I practically had to sit on his lap to see what he was pointing at, but sure enough, he had a nasty rash going on.

I should mention that I am currently in South Carolina where everyone talks to everyone about everything, unlike what I'm accustomed to in the U.P., where no one talks to anyone about anything. So a stranger insisting that you check out his hairy, rashy belly would not be weird if you were from here, but I'm not, so I was startled if not downright freaked out.

"I have a mild case," the guy says, "but sometimes I get an outbreak that likes to put me down for a good while." OK, so he's going to keep talking. I asked him if the chiropractor is treating him for shingles. No, he's just there waiting for his wife. I hope she hurries.

After he told me all about his shingles, he moved on to infections he's had from swamp water, different snakes he's killed, every fish he ever caught, and why he hates paying taxes. Then one of my little granddaughters showed me her My Little Pony and while I was inwardly thanking her for interrupting shingles guy, he launches into a whole dissertation on the many horses he has "broke" in his day.

Finally his wife comes out and he gets up to leave.  But first he stops at the front desk and asks, the receptionist, "You ever have the shingles?"

On Being an Ant

Today's blog entry is brought to you by Princess 2, who is in the 1st grade and wrote this Pulitzer Prize winner for school.

65 Is My Age, Not the Speed Limit!

I learned how to drive when I was 14, so you'd think by now I'd have the hang of it. But my driving skills have not developed in any significant way over the years. In fact, I've gone from pretty bad to "Jesus! You almost hit that guy!" I recently drove from Gulf Shores, AL to Collinsville, MS with my daughter and 3 of her children in the car....at night.  I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that my oldest grandson said, "I don't know what happened, but every time I woke up we were about to die." I will say that I didn't see any deer at all, so when my daughter said that I nearly plowed over about five of them, I believe she may have exaggerated.  There were plenty of other near misses, but it's a 3 hour trip, so stuff is bound to happen. When it was over, I wrote myself a note to avoid driving at night. That should fix everything.

But how in the heck did I manage to do this?

It happened while backing out of my own darn garage! Which I've done thousands of times!!  I was pretty mad at myself that day. Of course, it was largely Handy's fault, as many things are around here. He put the snow blower in the garage a little right of center, so when I pulled in I had to inch over a little bit. Then pulling out, I forgot I had inched over and WHAM!!  $400 in less than a second.

The Right Tool for the Job

This was my first toolkit. I bought it a couple years ago so I could do little things around the house, like hang pictures and tighten loose door pulls.

And look at the cute case!

My husband, aka "Handy" called it my "nail kit," as in manicure.  In retirement, the more time I have on my hands, the more I want to do things I don't know how to do. When that happens, I either figure it out or break something. But without a doubt, the most aggravating part of tackling a "home improvement" project is finding the right tools.

There's a balcony off our master bedroom, a nice little spot to sit in the sun on the rare occasion that we actually see the sun up here on Lake Superior. We used to have a bird feeder out there, which Handy had mounted on top of this post.

I have no idea why he thought he needed a log 15" around to secure a bird feeder, but there it was, sticking six feet in the air for no apparent reason. I decided to remove it, thinking all I needed was a screw driver. Upon closer inspection, as you can see from the photo below, a screwdriver wasn't going to help. I had no idea what the hell would remove whatever that thing is, and there were two of them holding the post to the balcony.  I took this photo and went down to our local True Value Hardware store, where I said I needed a tool to remove two of these things. "Oh!" the guy said. "You need a torque bit." Of course...why didn't I think of that!

 He walks me to an entire aisle of these things:

 

There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them. And he says, "What size do you need?" as if I would know. He says why don't I bring one of those bolts down and he can get me the right size. And I'm thinking if I could get one of the goddam bolts out of the post to bring it down, I wouldn't be here! I kindly informed him that the only two bolts I had were tightly screwed into the post I was trying to remove.  "Hmmm..." he says, "Well, we have these key sets to determine the size."

I had never seen anything like it. They were definitely not keys. Folded up it looked more like a Swiss army knife, but after staring at it for about a half hour I said, "OK, but after I figure out the size I need, how do I get it in the drill?" Seriously. I asked him that.  I'm sure he was thinking, lady, just leave the post alone. But he was patient and explained. The key set was $18. I bought it, went back home, figured out the size bit I needed, went back to the hardware store, and purchased the correct bit for $2.27.

In the end, it took me all of about 30 seconds to remove the post. But I spent 20 bucks and an entire morning finding the right tool.

Words, Words, Words

I used to teach Hamlet to my AP English classes. I liked to consider myself a wizard of words and emphasized to my students how inadequate popular American lingo is.

I guess when you live long enough, everything is a cliche. Even saying that is a cliche! But since it's been bugging me, here are some words and phrases that I am SICK of hearing:

Starting a sentence with, "SO...." or "Look...."

VENUE.  Nothing happens at  place or a location anymore.  It's always at a venue.

Wrapping one's brain or head around an idea.  The first time I heard that one, I thought it was sort of clever, but hearing it several times a day is just stupid, especially when someone gets it wrong and says they can't wrap their arms around it.

SURREAL seems to be the only word people can think of these days to describe something unusual, fantastic, unbelievable, awesome, dreamlike, or weird.

People saying they are "blessed" when something good happens.  Blessings come from God.  If your house survived a tornado, but your neighbor's house did not, why would you think you were "blessed" and your neighbor was not?  You were lucky, or maybe your house was better built, but thinking you were "blessed" is the height of arrogance.

IMPACTFUL.  This makes me cringe!  I noticed about 5 or 6 years ago that people were using the word "impact" as a verb, as in "The snow will impact the whole city."   Over time, it has actually become a verb.  I can live with that, but "The storm had many impacts on people," "The storm impacted many people," or "The storm was extremely impactful?"......Unacceptable!

ON THE GROUND.  It was probably CNN that started "boots on the ground" to signify soldiers in combat, but now everyone says it for everything, like the local weather guy saying, "I'm here on the ground in upper Michigan where it is snowing heavily." I guess it's better to be on the ground than up in the air, especially when it's snowing.

The other night Handy asked me, "which is correct, disburse or disperse?" What I saw in my head was "Disburse" (as in the disbursement of funds) and "Dis purse" (as in this handbag)...and you'd only get that if you live in "da U.P." So I said, "Dis purse isn't even a word." Imagine my chagrin as he checked the dictionary to prove me wrong. I'm hardly ever wrong about words, but, like Hamlet, some of them drive me nuts.