Reboot

We're back.





And we're baaaaaad.

It's the little things that count

In no particular order, here are some of the things that have made me very happy this week and hopeful that spring is really coming.

I saw a big basket with a Christmas Rose like this in it at a floral shop in downtown Zurich and loved it. But didn't buy it. I went on a do-it-yourself quest this week and came up with the flower at Guggenbühl and the pot from Jumbo.

I finally threw away my holly wreath that had been on the wooden chair outside the front door. I know it is a little late in the year for a helleborus, but this is sure pretty.

Another do-it-yourself project (there were three of those this week) was to re-decorate this big dish on the low board in the living room. It is still a little early to be Easter-y, but I like the hen and eggs at the bottom, which are recycled from a buy-it-yourself decoration from last year.

This picture is sideways and I don't know how to fix that [note to self: ask Tanya how to fix that], but the main thing is that there are yellow blossoms coming out on these tree branches.

I also took out my winter candles from the lounge and filled the glasses with little Camellia bushes with white flowers. If they really end up blooming, I think it will make a pretty change of scenery outside my kitchen window.



My "winter" blanket has been joined by a lighter, "spring" silk and linen throw on the couch. Holger doesn't really get this one and thinks there is an actual finite number of how many blankets a couch needs, and that number is 1. I, on the other hand, think why artificially constrain yourself if there is more than one throw out there worth having?

This last one both Holger and I agree on: you can finally see a lot of our tulips and bulbs we planted last fall coming out. Holger walks up and down the yard every night checking it out, as though by sheer will power he could make these things come out. I am so happy it looks like he isn't going to be disappointed!

Wanna Race?

So during vacation time, I'm no longer running solo. Nico is my new running buddy, and we've been having fun hitting the road together this week. Nico looks sharper than I do. But I may be faster.



We've tried out racing a couple of times now to see who can make it to this little farm house first. Picture it sitting in the middle of a bottom line on a square. Picture Nico and I standing just opposite the house in the middle of the road on the top line of the square. I run to the right, Nico runs to the left, and we race opposite directions around the "square" to the farm house. (I know; it's complicated, and I don't have a picture.)

Gillian runs around the square twice, once with me and once with Nicholas.

So far, I've managed to lose every time, but only barely.



End result, 2.4 kilometers at 8:30 minutes per kilometer. Beat that!

What is my love language?

Today, I've decided it is acts of service. so Holger could have easily brought me home a bouquet of flowers if he was in the mood.

How much funner is it that he brought home four pots of hyacinths and planted them for me himself. Because he knows I like the smell.

Sex and Chocolate

You know me. I love small luxury goods of any kind. But what you may not realize, and the point is it doesn't necessarily need to be expensive to be delightfully, surprisingly luxurious.

On Valentine's Day Holger and I went out on a date downtown. It was wonderful. We went on a long walk through the old town and had a relaxing, grown-up dinner at The Terrace. But that's not what this story is about.

While we were wandering, we walked in to Agent Provacateur and Holger bought me a bottle of perfume. It is too bad you can't upload a scent like you can a movie or a photo, because this one is amazing. But that's also not what this story is about.

As the sales lady put the perfume into the bag, she also gave us two chocolates for Valentine's Day. And these chocolates were delightfully, surprisingly, unsurpassingly luxurious.

Look at the box. I love the shape and the sharp corners. Swiss perfection. Look at the embossing. It's elegant. The box is made out of heavy linen paper - you wouldn't be surprised to find jewelry in it. I think it is gorgeous. I wonder what other treasure I can find to put in it.

The chocolate itself was an unexpectedly bright, almost neon pink color. Loved it.

And inside, smooth, rich, half-solid chocolate infused with rosewater. I also wish it were possible to upload taste. The truffle was bitter flowery but chocolaty too. It wasn't delicious, but it was memorable. And, it was beautiful: a small, unexpected luxury at the bottom of my Valentine bag.

Tourist attraction

Often when I go into the city I stop by Byer's jeweler to have my watch maintained. It is a very fancy store, so I usually leave Gillian just outside the door. (The funny thing is, they would probably be happier if I would leave Lucas just outside the door and take Gillian inside with me, but that is a different subject altogether.)

Anyway, it never fails, when I come out, there are always a couple of tourists standing around my dog taking pictures of him. I'm not making this up. They think my dog is a tourist attraction.

And so I thought I would share the attraction with you today as well. He's a good looking dog!

Do you know who my husband is sleeping with?

By the looks of things tonight, it isn't me. I clearly should have reserved my place earlier and not stayed at my computer so long.

Nestlé saves the day

So in my post yesterday I unwittingly forgot to mention a crucial detail. Holger's key chain looks important. In addition to the Vespa key, house key and Toureg key, it has a Credit Suisse key on it with a bunch of numbers that mysteriously change every twenty seconds.

So someone finds the key chain lying on the sidewalk where it must have fallen out of my pocket when I was walking Gillian. This person takes a look at the key chain and observes this is no ordinary key chain and looks (loose translaton from German) "very important." Given this fact, the key chain finder rationally decides not to take the keys to the police.

Instead, he takes them to...

Because the keys looked "very important."

I am still considering what this mini study in human psychology says about either German police stations or Nestlé generally or the fact that both the police officer and the Nestlé employee I spoke with found this chain of analysis perfectly logical. But, I am glad to know Holger's keys are now in a safe place.

It wasn't me, it was my pants!

Saturday we drove to Singen, Germany, to look for a new car. Holger and I walked around outside the dealership a few minutes, and when we decided to go in, Holger gave me the keys to the Toureg and told me to bring the boys and the dog in the store. So I got everyone out of the car, put the keys in my jeans pocket and walked Gillian to the sidewalk for a leak before we all went in.


Thirty minutes later as we are walking out to the car, Holger asks me for the keys. I didn't have them. We spent the next hour scouring the car dealership and that little strip of sidewalk looking for the keys. No luck.


I went with the boys (no coats, though, those were in the car) to McDonalds and sat for an hour waiting for ADAC to come and unlock the car and turn it on. They came, but they weren't able to open the car.


So we looked for the keys another hour. No luck.

But it wasn't my fault - it was my pants. The back pockets have a button on them, so I couldn't put the keys in my back pocket.






I put them in the front pocket, which wasn't deep enough for a big set of keys. I figure they fell out of my pocket while I was walking Gillian. And then someone picked them up and took them away.

In the end we had to take a taxi from Singen to Hedingen to get the other set of car keys, and then back to Singen to get the Toureg and drive back to Hedingen. No passports, no car seats. A three and a half hour oddessy and a lot of money to pay for that taxi ride. Status as of this evening: keys still missing.

Rising above it all

So I've had a pretty crappy last couple of weeks, filled with some sad, non-bloggable worries that have kept me pre-occupied and kind of down. I say this first of all because it is true, and secondly, because you might otherwise think I am superficial and materialistic when you read this blog. You still might end up thinking that, but you will hopefully at least admit I have good taste.

Because it is easy, because it is fun, and because I have a lot of them, I will blog about high heels. And I don't mean the kind of high heels you first wore when you were fourteen, or the kind of high heels you buy to go with your new skirt. I am talking about delightfully, impractically, unnecessarily high heels that inspire a unique kind of courage when you are walking on cobble stone streets and that you rarely find the right occasion to wear.

These are my high heels. The normal heels aren't really worth a picture.

This is one of the least economically sound collections of anything I own. I have gotten fewer wearings per dollar spent on these shoes than practically anything else I own. But I have also gotten a lot of pleasure out of owning these shoes and thinking about the possibilities of where one might actually get dressed up to go wearing shoes like these.

The funny thing is, most of these shoes almost didn't happen.

Take this pair of L.A.M.B. shoes from one of Gwen Stefani's early collections. I fell in love with them, immediately bought them, and then spent the next two weeks stewing about how impractical they were and too expensive for how often I would wear them. I rode to the Salt Lake City airport to go back to Zurich with these shoes on my lap the whole time, agonizing over my decision not to pack them and have my mom take them back. After we had checked all the bags in, at the last minute I dramatically reversed the decision, crammed the shoes in my carry on, and handed my dad a fistful of money to pay off the shoes from my mom's credit card.

I knew these shoes were going to bring me a lot of good luck. They didn't bring my dad a lot of luck, though. He misplaced his wallet in all of my airport shoe frenzy and spent the better part of the day looking for his wallet before he found it I think in the side of the car. This is also the only pair of shoes I have ever actually fallen down in. It was at my 20 year high school reunion, and there weren't even any cobblestones involved. That wasn't so lucky. I still love the shoes.

Fast forward a few years to Christmas 2010 when I saw this pair of Betsy Johnson shoes online that I fell in love with and also thought I needed to have. Once I got them and tried them on and Brittney confirmed they were "must haves," I also started worrying that they were too expensive to keep and I didn't know where I would wear them. (Which Brittney also quite rightly pointed out was a consideration that had never kept me from making other frivolous purchases.)

With these shoes, I actually did end up taking them back after Christmas, with Holger stopping at Nordstrom specifically to return them. I hinted and asked him every ten steps I took toward the shoe department whether I shouldn't just keep them, but Holger was in a practical mood and confirmed the shoes needed to go. And so they did. When the clerk at the shoe counter asked me what was wrong with the shoes, I sobbed out, "Absolutely nothing - they're perfect and I love them!" The clerk was confused by this, as were the other people standing in line, but he gave me my money back, and the shoes were gone.

I called the store back and re-bought the shoes the next morning. I'll spare you the details of the logistical hurdles that needed to be overcome to get the shoes delivered back to me in time to make the flight back to Switzerland., but suffice it to say it would have been easier and cheaper to just keep them in the first place.

These Stuart Weizman shoes were a good buy from the start and are the only shoes that were never in danger of being taken back. I wear them with a dark grey suit for work and feel like a million bucks.

This is my highest pair of shoes, and I also waffled through a week of my parents' visit one spring over whether or not I really needed to be this tall. They work, though, because your ankle is all caged in and you can't crumple over so easily. I wore them to a meeting in London last June and made it all over town - including cobblestones - that evening without toppling over. A real triumph.

These are new shoes from the spring DVF collection. I love the color - citrine - and summery feel. The only problem is I'm worried the satin bows won't stay tied and will always be slipping down. I also never told Holger I bought these, and I feel a little bit bad about this.

These shoes are from Bally. I'm generally not a huge Bally fan, because I think their shoes are pretty staid and conservative (but reliable and solidly Swiss-quality made). But, these had a really nice heel, and I liked the color. And this is my point. I have been looking at shoes this color from Christian Louboutin for a long time now and wishing I had the courage or the pocketbook or the occasion to buy the Rolls Royce of high heels. So very likely every time I wear this pair of shoes, I will be wishing they were Louboutins and not my B-string Ballys. That's shallow.

What isn't shallow is that I think my shoes are fun and I feel like a million bucks when I'm wearing them, even when it's just to see the ladies for book club or Valentine's breakfast.

We speak no Americano

So Lucas' thing every night is to wait (impatiently, as of 6:00) for Papa to get home and do la-la-la. Not everyone can do this, and those who try are generally found to be lacking in the proper technique. That having been said, my brother Derrek might come pretty close if he had the chance.

La-la-la involves pressing a lot of buttons (which I usually can't find) to find the song "We speak no Americano" from Yolanda be Cool in our bottomless music library, making sure the music is only playing inside the house and not on the deck (which I usually can't figure out), and then turning up the volume very, very loud (the one thing I am good at). Then, we run around the house: circles around the kitchen island, through the living room, behind the couch, across the lounge, out on the deck when it isn't raining, and back around the kitchen island again. Multiple times.

No one knows why We speak no Americano is the song this running must be done to every night, but we have stopped questioning it and have accepted this is our anthem.

And in the end, Lu is worn out, red faced and delighted by it all.

There is no upside

There is no upside to not having a car. Case in point - I was super organized for once and made hair appointments for the boys two weeks before I knew they would look like sheepdogs. We were supposed to go on Friday evening. Once again, I was super organized to have everyone home, aligned to the plan, all my calls at work done for the day (okay, nearly done, but at least one I could put on mute for the last 15 mintues), and everyone into the garage early enough to get us there on time.

And then, yes, you guessed it: no car.

So now this is what Lucas will have to look like for another ten days until we have a new appointment.

Take me with you!!!

This is the one sight that just drives me nuts, as I tell anyone who will listen to me. Every time Gilli hears the sound of the car pulling out of the garage he comes running to the front door to look out and watch me drive away, like he can't believe I'm really deserting him. Very sad.

Sunny Sledding

So for this post, I thought thought I would put out there something we did together, rather than the individual activities like the last post. We recently went to Sattel to enjoy some mountain sunshine and let the boys go sledding.

Lucas loves going on the lift, although this picture doesn't really show it.



He absolutely loves sledding down, although this picture doesn't show it either. But at least I have a picture.



I, of course, don't do sledding because it scares the crap out of me, even when the snow is mushy and not icy. Steep is still steep and you can't break very well on a sled. This is where I sat reading my book enjoying the sunshine while the boys sledded down. No one was there to take my picture while I was sitting there, but at least you can see my shadow here.



After the boys went sledding, we walked across a new crazy long metal hanging/swinging bridge. I got totally seasick walking on it with all these other people because the bridge was totally swaying. I knew we couldn't fall off, but it was still a weird feeling.






This is Nicholas screaming and crying because we walked a short loop around the hill back to our sleds instead of just re-crossing the bridge. [Note to self: check whether anyone ever posts the less pleasant parts of their day on their blogs. I don't want to be the only one.]



Finally, here we all are happy together and walking back up toward the lift and our stuff. I loved the blue sky; we don't get so many of them in the winter here.

Saturday Night Fever

It turns out I don't have anything to blog about, which is why I don't do it. That, and the fact that it involves a lot of cables I'm not familiar with to get pictures uploaded on the computer, and then you have to find the pictures, and all of that is after you take the pictures and figure out something to take a picture of. I also don't blog because my week Monday through Friday is obsessed with staring at a computer screen amd blogging is more staring at a computer screen, except I don't know what I'm doing, whereas at work I generally do.

Anyway, there is a school of thought that says if you blog you might be more interested in and aware of and willing to capture what is going on around you. So I thought I would give it a try with a very simple topic: what are we all doing on a Saturday night. Here is how it looks.

Holger and Nico are playing Halo, which should be forbidden, but somehow it's not.

Lucas is DJ-ing on Holger's iPad and eating Fasnachtskuchen and getting powdered sugar all over the table, chair and floor.

Gillian is sleeping in his favorite, weird (unattractive), preying mantis position in the living room.

I am debating how my blanket should be draped over the side of the couch and noticing these tell-tale short hairs that make me think Gillian has snuck up on luxury and laid on it when no one was looking.

And this is me. I looked a lot cuter at one point today. But that was a while ago.

Now if I just knew where the cable was, I would charge the camera so I could blog again some day.