Stream of Consciousness

So, today I cut all the men’s hair.  Orrin screamed like we were torturing him.  In a bit of poor planning, the vacuuming of the floor and the cleaning/mopping of the bathroom happened before the hair cutting, so that was unfortunate. 

In other news, Orrin is pretty much walking!!!  It is soooo cute!  I swear, babies learning to walk is one of those things that no matter how many times you see it, it’s still the cutest, funniest little miracle ever.  He’s still not confident enough to do it all the time, but when we start him off he goes great!  I knew he would be good, because he’s been almost there for such a long time.

In other news, it’s rainy and COLD!  Silly weather.  But as Hazel told me, “Abril, Abril, macht was er will.”  Meaning, April does what he will.  And I’m really okay with it because we are heading South on Wednesday.  Yahoo!!!!!  Wednesday is also Brett’s birthday.  He’s turning 33.  What an oldie.  I say that every year because I like to mock him, and because I get to feel young compared to him.  :)  Whenever I asked him what he wants for his birthday he said a motorcycle.  So I think I’ll get him a matchbox motorcycle.  But actually, he already bought himself a new computer.  He tends to buy himself his presents.  He changed the oil in the van today.  I remember the first time he changed the oil in the van here in CH he said, “Man I feel so much better now that I’m no longer an irresponsible vehicle owner.”  The van wasn’t overdue for it’s oil change or anything, he just felt weird not having done anything to his vehicle.

In big news, we’re staying in Switzerland.  Not forever, but for a few more years.  When I said Brett and I were trying to decide what to do with our lives, I really meant it.  It was a really really hard decision.  You see, the robot Brett has been working on for the last two years is at a point where the accuracy is such that they can start experimenting soon on real live humans.  And Brett’s boss wanted to start a company together to commercialize it.  Which obviously means staying for a while.  It’s a pretty fantastic opportunity for Brett, and while we wanted to be closer to family, there were really no guarantees that we would get a job very close to family (if we got one at all).  So I think that’s partly why it was so hard to choose- the known vs. unknown.  I could go on with all the lists of pros and cons, but I won’t.  Anyhoo, here we are.

You know what this means?  It means you all have more time to come visit!!  An American friend of mine just posted this video on her blog and said, “Come visit me- I live in the most expensive city in the world!” and while I can’t say that, I can at least say I live in the 13th, and that’s worth something, right? (Also, it’s really cool watching the little part about Bern and being so very familiar with all of it.)

So I called up the mom of one of Hazel’s classmates who I have met briefly once before.  She is from England and so I asked her if she had many English books (for kids) and if she wanted to do a little swap, and she said sure.  So we went over and had a nice time.  It was interesting- she’s from England and her husband’s from Portugal (actually Madeira, an island just below the Canary Islands which I looked up when I got home and it looks gorgeous), and they met in Switzerland.  She speaks German, but learned it in Germany.  She told me when she came to Switzerland, people would speak High German for her, but she thought it was Swiss-German because it sounded different, but of course really it was just High German with a Swiss accent.  So she said she’s only just now, after being here 4+ years, starting to understand the Swiss German.  She said that normally she always asks people to speak High German, but for whatever reason, she didn’t ask her neighbors in her apartment to, so they always speak to her in Swiss German and she always smiles and nods, and now that it’s been 4 years, she can’t very well go back and say oh, I don’t understand you, could you speak in High German.  Ha ha.  It made me laugh so much.  But she says she’s actually understanding now a lot more finally. 

And she has three daughters, the oldest is a year older than Hazel and the youngest is Ethne’s age, and they have all gone to Swiss schools and lived in Switzerland their whole lives, and she says that now they almost always speak German, and she has to designate certain days to be English-speaking days, and that her youngest –who is 5- can’t actually speak English very well.  She’s all mixed up with German and English and can’t really make English sentences.  She said her older girls could by her age, but since they always speak to her in German, she just hasn’t got it.  And she how strange it is that language makes up so much of a person’s identity, and how weird it is that her children’s identities are different from her own.  Anyway, interesting stuff. 

I should probably knuckle down and learn German.  But it takes so much effort, you know?  Too bad I’m not 5 years old and going to kindergarten every day.

In other news, I saw this picture on Pinterest the other day, and I kindof fell in love with it:

I love how young she looks and pretty and happy, but mostly I love the way he’s looking at her.  Wow.  Love it.

While I’m putting up pictures I love, here’s another.

And this one’s pretty sah-weet too.

The end.