Thursday, January 26, 2006

Do I Have Too Much Time On My Hands?

Our Coopzeitung (the weekly grocery store newspaper) arrives in our mailbox every Wednesday like Swiss clockwork. Not only does it announce what's going to be on Aktion (discounted) during the week, but it also has various articles offering household tips, etc. for the good Swiss hausfrau such as yours truly.
Although I should practice my German by reading the paper from cover to cover, I'm a faul Scheisse and I tend to just zip through the paper looking for the "hidden" coupons. Yes, the Coopzeitung people are a sneaky lot, I tell ya. They print coupons in the strangest spots, I guess, just so that you'll look at the paper from cover to cover and not just look at the sales ads. Once I found an ad for 20% off a purchase of 100 CHF or more. So, I went to the Coop armed with said coupon and ended up spending something like 100.25 CHF. That showed 'em!
Anyway...while I was zipping through the paper yesterday at lunchtime, a strange article caught my eye. It was an article on a cool way to fold dinner napkins. Not only did the article catch my eye, but I decided to plunge into the wonderful world of beautifying the dinner table. Here are the results of my efforts (with paper napkins instead of cloth dinner napkins...) with the instructions that I tore out of the paper:

Now as if this wasn't enough hausfrauery, I also ended up doing a Google search on napkin folding and I found that there is a plethora (about 416,000 hits) of websites devoted to this rather geeky, anal, and underappreciated pursuit. I clicked on the first site and I was sucked in immediately. Who knew that there are so many ways to fold a napkin. I especially like the comments at the bottom of the page where a napkin folding groupie writes:
Dear Robbie: I have been looking [at] several different sites about napkin folding, and I must say that yours is very impressive with actual photos to show what the completed project looks like. Line drawings just don't give a decent impression. Kudos to you! Sincerely, Jan K.

I had to add the [at] because Robbie warns me a few lines down not to reprint, publish, or display content...without permission, and I don't want to be sued. Please also note the section where Robbie states that she? spends 4-6 hours per day maintaining the website and...SOLICITS DONATIONS!!! Wow! I guess the answer to my original question (Do I have too much time on my hands?) is no.
But...it appears that somebody does!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Haha - I love it that you can call yourself the housewife. P has such a hard time when I call him my beautiful housewife. Instead he insists on me calling him the house husband. But housewife on man just sounds so much better... I guess you just have some artistic tallent in you.

CanadianSwiss said...

I think I have a book about that somewhere (but where?) in German (which will help you pactise as well), but before I bring it over, I'll have a look at that site.

Gretchen said...

I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who reads the Coop magazine. And the Migros magazine which arrives on Tuesday as well. I especially like the question of the week in the Migros magazine!

CanadianSwiss said...

Hey TBF - Check on the left menu bar of that link. You'll find recipes for pet treats such as Feline Fishballs and Garlic (!!) Dog Biscuits! This would certainly be worth a blog entry! :)

Michael Lehet said...

nice napkins (I know leave it up to the gay boy to point that out to everyone!