Local celebrity???

I just returned from bringing King to the vet for his bloodtest. The fasting, ride to and from the vet, and blood test went fine.
Tonight, before we go to the Kansas concert (Mrs. TBF's just sooooo excited. Yeah, right!), I'll call Dr. Buser to find out if there's anything wrong with King. Hopefully he still has a few good years in him. Afterall, I did just spend about twenty francs on netting for the balcony to keep him from...well, you know.
As I approached our parking garage, I saw an elderly man with a big beer-belly waving to me. So, I waved back. He looked confused, and when I looked in the rearview mirror, I noticed that he stared at my car for the longest time. Here's why:
We live right by this restaurant called the Bottmingermühle (Bottmingen's mill), and the owner has the same exact Jeep that we have. It's the same year, same color, same interior...everything's the same except the license plate. The owner of the restaurant (which our neighbor Suzanne calls the "Myuuulaayyy" which I find really funny), is this 50ish gentleman with a big beer-belly who tends to wear white t-shirts. Today, as I was passing in front of the restaurant in the Jeep wearing a white t-shirt, the beer-bellied pedestrian, who obviously frequents the joint, must have thought I was the owner of the restaurant. Upon passing, he realized I was an imposter...and then he probably proceeded to call the police to tell him that the "Myuulaayy-mobile" had been stolen. Not really. My guess is that he walked across the street to this restaurant to check things out with the owner, who probably then told him that it's not illegal for other people in Switzerland to have the same vehicle as him.
Anyway, this isn't the first time this phenomenon has happened. The first time it happened was back in March when Mrs. TBF's mom was visiting. We were driving to the grocery store, and she said: "...there's some old man waving at you!" I kind of put two and two together, and realized what was going on. It's happened a few times since then, and I find it all rather amusing.
On a sidenote: The absolute best thing about the "Myuuulaayyy" (she kills me!) is that it closes at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, and it doesn't open again until Monday. THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED ON SATURDAY NIGHT!!! Can you believe it? I've never heard of anything like it before in my life! There's a bowling alley in the basement, for God's sake!!! They'd make a killing on Saturday night just from beer sales. But, no! They're closed. I can understand Sunday. But, Saturday??? Mein Gott! You've gotta love the Swiss!

In a nutshell...

Friday, June 17, 2005:

I went to IKEA. Among the things I bought was a houseplant and stainless steel pot. I bought a similar sized houseplant and pot at a local Swiss nursery a couple of weeks ago, and it cost 200 CHF. The plant and pot combo from IKEA was...80 CHF. Go Sweden (...sorry, dad!)!!!

I bought pet supplies at Qualipet. Included in my haul was a netting system that will hopefully prevent King from plummeting to his death from our fifth-floor (fourth-floor in Europe) balcony.

I didn't feel like working out, but I still went to the gym. I listened to Rammstein and System of a Down on my...I mean, our...iPod. Three hours later, I walked out of the gym with incredibly bloated biceps. Ahhhhh, the power of heavy metal!

We're worried about King (our cat). He hasn't been eating properly, and he looks kind of skinny. So, I made an appointment for him to see Dr. Buser on Monday. King must have overhead me talking to Dr. Buser on the phone, he proceeds to eat us out of house and home over the weekend.

Friday evening, Mrs. TBF and I went to John and Rammy's house for supper and to break in their new Weber patio fireplace. Something I ate gave me incredible gas, and after a couple of beers I had fun asking people to pull my finger in order to help me release some of the aforementioned gas (Mrs. TBF: does that count as something I shouldn't write because your co-workers read my blog? Just checking.). Fire...good!


Saturday, June 18, 2004:

Mrs. TBF went for a manicure/pedicure, and then we met at the Swisscom store. After nearly five years of being cell phone free, TBF is finally strong-armed into getting a cell phone so that Mrs. TBF can keep in touch with him while he is in Finland next week. Mrs. TBF - happy. TBF - not happy. Technology has changed in five years. TBF does not totally understand how phone works. Mrs. TBF will have to show him. PIN code???? What's that???

Seeing that TBF was not happy, Mrs. TBF suggested going home and preparing some veal kidneys for lunch (isn't Europe great?). TBF eats kidneys on balcony while worrying about King plummeting to his death. The netting will have to go up soon. Veal kidneys - good. Cell phone - still evil!

On Saturday evening, we went to Jarl and Sharon's house for a going away party. They're moving back to the U.K. It was an excellent, catered soirée (figured out how to type French letters on Mac. Wendy: thanks for the tip, but the keystrokes you sent me are for a PC, not a Mac. Thanks anyway.). I worked some German language "schtick" with the ladies who were BBQing. They told me that my German was good, and they piled extra meat on my plate. Swiss catering ladies - good! Cell phone - still bad, and sitting at home on dining room table not being used! Highlight of the evening??? When we commented on Henry's new sunglasses, and he decided to put them on while holding a glass of champagne...spilling entire glass of champagne onto his right shoulder leaving a big wet mark. Henry...funny!


Sunday, June 19, 2005:

TBF called his dad to wish him a happy Father's Day, and found out that his Uncle Leo in Finland died. The funeral will be on the Friday when TBF is in Kauhava with his father. TBF no longer owns a suit. A navy blue jacket and Dijon mustard colored pants will have to do for funeral clothing. TBF hopes Finnish relatives understand.

Mrs. TBF and TBF sit on rooftop garden and enjoy sunny, 30º weather. TBF puts SPF 6 sunscreen on his head, neck, and shoulders. The rest of his body ends up slightly sunburned.

On Sunday evening, TBF and Mrs. TBF went to Kirk and Gretchen's house for a BBQ. Bill and Sabrina were there also. TBF met Kirk and Gretchen through his/their blog. Bill and TBF met at the gym. Bill works with Kirk. Kirk and Gretchen live right by John and Rammy. Small world! The BBQ was a lot of fun, and I just finished eating leftover lemon-poppy seed cake this morning with coffee. It's all good!


Monday, June 20, 2005:

TBF brings King to see Dr. Buser. Dr. Buser seems to feel that King is just getting old (he's 17) and losing muscle tone and doesn't require as much food because he's not as active as before. Dr. Buser also advised TBF that King will have to return tomorrow for a precautionary blood test after fasting for twelve hours. A healthy King is good. King who has fasted for twelve hours and is forced into his car crate for a ride to the vet for a blood test.....VERY BAD!!!


Oh. oh... This nutshell has become very large. It's time to stop.

I'm feeling a bit paranoid...

I'm not really sure why, but the last couple of times of gone over the border, the border guards have pulled me over and asked me for my passport. Last week, when I drove into Germany, they had me pull off to the side of the rode while they went into their little booth with my passport. I could see them in my sideview mirror looking at every page of my passport and typing stuff into a computer.
Today, as I was returning from grocery shopping in France, the Swiss border patrol had me pull off to the side after asking me for my passport AND my drivers license. Then, one of the men wanted to look in the back of the Jeep to see what I bought. I was under all my duty-free limits, so I had nothing to worry about. After a brief debate where I had to convince him that duck breasts counted toward the poultry limit and not the red meat limit (he had to ask his superior), he thanked me in Finnish by saying "kiitos". Apparently he recognized the origin of my last name.
My guess is that there is some big bald fugitive hiding out in Switzerland and I happen to match the description. Or, maybe they're just kind of bored. I was, afterall, the only car pulling up to the border crossing at the time.
And, on another topic...
Mrs. TBF and I have now lived in Switzerland for almost five years. There are MANY things I prefer about living in Switzerland as opposed to living in the U.S. However, the one thing I miss from America probably more than anything else (other than being able to regularly see family and friends) is... good old American dry cleaning. Although it does cost twice as much here than it does in America - it's not the cost that bothers me.
The first thing that bothers me is that if you walk into the dry cleaners and there are two people in front of you in line, it's going to take close to ten minutes before you're served. It's just INCREDIBLY slooooooooooooowwwww! They look at just about every tag on every garment to see the cleaning instructions. It's a dry cleaner for God's sake...just dry clean it!!! What's the problem??? Then, they have to put a number tag on every single piece that you're having cleaned. The guy two in front of me in line must have had his wife's entire winter wardrobe on the counter. There were scarves, and wool pants, and a down jacket....AAHHHHH!!! Then, the lady behind the counter would say something in French that I understood to mean "...for this garment we have two cleaning possibilities" ....AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Then, the guy didn't have enough cash, so he had to pay with his credit card ...AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The lady in front of me was having the most bizarre stuff dry cleaned. She had this ruby red ruffled dress, and then a matching corset-like bodice with about thirty buckles on it...no cleaning instructions... "...for this garment we have eighty-four cleaning possiblities!" .....AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then, it was my turn - no questions, no looking at the cleaning instructions, I paid, she told me it would be ready tomorrow afternoon - I felt gypped.
The second thing that bothers me is that the cleaning is just not as good as it is in the U.S. At Village Cleaners in Barrington, Illinois, Mr. Kim would always take care of TBF (and still does when TBF returns to Chicago). The clothes would come back perfectly cleaned and pressed. My "extra-heavy starch" request would always be honored (I'd tell him that I wanted to be able to slice lunch meat with the shirt cuffs). The clothes would actually look better than new. French dry cleaning - kind of pressed, but some wrinkles. The collars and cuffs usually look like they need to be touched up. Starch is pretty much unheard of...you get the picture.
And here's the worst part of it...French dry cleaning is about ten times better than Swiss dry cleaning. Swiss dry cleaning costs twice as much as dry cleaning in France, it takes up to TWO WEEKS to get your stuff back, and it's pretty wrinkled when you do get it back some time the following month. Swiss dry cleaning is so slow and so expensive that I'm convinced it's better just go to the U.S. with six month's worth of dry cleaning, have it cleaned there, and then just bring it back. The cost savings will pay for the airline ticket, and you'll have it back at the same time as you would from the local Swiss cleaners.
I guess I'm complaining a bit today, so I guess I just have to look at the positive side of all of this. The dry cleaning experience here is not comparable to what it is in the U.S., but it still beats the ultimate horror - ironing my own clothes.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just saved at least 5,000 CHF!!!

I went to Art Basel today. It's an annual contemporary/modern/abstract art show at Basel's convention center, and let me tell you...it's quite the freak show! I saw your usual artsy folk dressed in black, smoking cigarettes, and acting like they were important or something. But, I also saw some real freaks. The best freaks were a man and woman walking arm in arm, with shaved heads, and identical outfits - fishnet hose, fuzzy pink neon shawls, very heavy eye makeup, etc., etc. And, they had to be over fifty years old. FREAKS!!!
My favorite piece from the "...I could do that!" category was a plastic ice cube tray that was screwed to the wall (flat side facing the wall), and somebody (apparently the "artist") had written "I'm very thirsty" on the back of it with black magic marker. FREAKS!!!
I noticed that there were a lot of "works" that were pretty much just a canvas that had been entirely painted black. Man, what I'd give to have copyrighted the "black painting" a few thousand years ago....I'd be rich!!!
Another theme I noticed was a white piece of paper which somebody had scribbled on with a black magic marker (probably the "artist's" child), slapped a cheap frame around it, called it "untitled", and then had the nerve to charge something like 5,000 CHF for it! One of these "works" even showed a price tag of 8,000 Euros, and the frame was 500 Euros EXTRA!!! CROOKS!!!
So, on my way home, I remembered that I had a couple of IKEA frames that I bought for 10 CHF each a couple of years ago for no reason other than the fact that they were on sale. Upon arriving home, I went down to our storage locker, blew the dust off of one of these frames, took off the backing, and scribbled directly onto the inside of the glass with TWO markers - a black one and a blue one. I scribbled with the black one using my right hand, and I used my left hand to scribble with the blue marker. Therefore, I decided to name my "masterpiece" - Left/Right. Come to think of it...I should have called it Right/Left! Given the fact that I used two colors and actually titled the piece, I think my artwork should go for at least 7,500 CHF. My version of the "Black Canvas" is next. That one will actually take me about thirty minutes from start to finish, so I'll probably have to ask about 10,000 CHF for that one.
No checks or credit cards. Cash only, please! I'll accept Swiss francs, Euros, and U.S. dollars. Thanks!

I think I need some vegetables!

Over the past few days, my diet has consisted of mostly meat and other fatty foods - and it's beginning to take it's toll. It kind of reminds me of October, 2001 when we met our friend Dave in Munich, and after a couple of days of consuming nothing but beer, meat, potatoes, and sauerkraut, he said "...I think I need a carrot or something!" That's exactly how I'm feeling right now.
Our ex-neighbor Tom, who now lives back in America, spent the night at our house on Friday and Saturday nights. I grilled up some veal chops on Friday night - and so began the meat/fat odyssey. For lunch on Saturday, we ate at Gifthüttli (a Basel landmark) and I had some Älplermacaroni. It's basically pasta, potatoes, lardons, and a bechamel sauce that's grilled under the broiler. On Saturday night, the three of us went out with Geraldine (who was in town visiting from the U.K.) and I had a buttery pasta starter followed by a pizza (I guess there were some vegetables on that). Then, on Sunday, we had a bunch of friends over to celebrate Andy's birthday.
Mrs. TBF made some foie gras; pasta with a sauce consisting of crabmeat, butter, and heavy cream; a zucchini and leek tart with a wild rice crust; and I barbecued a bunch of beef and lamb chops. This was all follwed by Mrs. TBF's ice cream cake with an Oreo cookie crust (sorry people...ancient family recipe...can't give it out!). Of course, we washed this all down with champagne and wine (a 1982 Burgundy that we all bought for this occasion while we were in Burgundy a few weeks ago).
If this wasn't enough, yesterday I went golfing (I actually didn't golf...just drove the cart) in France with John, Henry, Andy, Pat, and Phil, and I had steak for lunch. Then, Mrs. TBF and I had leftovers from Sunday night for dinner.
So, as you can see, I've kind of overdone it in the rich/heavy foods department over the past few days. There are just a few leftovers to get through tonight, and then I think I can get back to a more reasonable diet. Of course, there's the new McDonald's "Road To America" promotion going on here in Switzerland. So, I guess I'll have to try one of the new burgers for lunch today.
Hey...I think there's some lettuce on the burger. That counts as a vegetable...doesn't it?

Military precision...

I have a very strict schedult today to which I must adhere. It started out this morning with Mrs. TBF and I going to Geant (How the heck do type French letters on a PowerBook? I have to figure that one out!) in France to do a bit of grocery shopping. We're only allowed to bring 500g of duty-free meat per person back into Switzerland, so we needed two bodies in the car so we could bring back 1 kg.
I dropped Mrs. TBF off at the office and then I headed back home to unload the groceries. I was going to unload the groceries and then head over to Lang (a butcher shop), but I saw a parking spot right in front of the shop, so I parked my car and went in to buy seven racks of lamb. Incidentally, while I was at Lang, I noticed that they have USDA ribeye steaks for...get this...7.50 CHF per 100g. That comes out to about $27.00 U.S. per pound! I used to eat a 1.5 lb. ribeye steak just about every week right before we moved to Switzerland. That same ribeye here in Binningen would cost me $40.00 U.S.! I think I'll save the money and just fly to the U.S. every few months and gorge on steak while I'm there.
After returning home, I unpacked the groceries, ate a little bit of late breakfast, and now I'm going to pack my bag and head off to the gym right after I finish blogging.
After the gym, I'll go down the street to the Asian Market and pick up some frozen lump crabmeat that Mrs. TBF needs for a recipe on Sunday, and then it's back home to finish up yesterday's house cleaning marathon.
Tom's in town. So, he'll arrive this evening, we'll have some dinner, and then he's going to spend a couple of nights at chez M. et Mme. TBF's house.
It's 11:29. I allowed myself blogging time until 11:30. Ciao!

I ran...I ACTUALLY RAN!

I rarely run. Four knee operations have ensured that I live a rather slow moving existence. But, last night, I actually tore into a full-on sprint.
Mrs. TBF had a business dinner last night at the Gundeldingerhof Restaurant in Basel's Gundeli neighborhood with a bunch of her colleagues. I have to say that I was jealous because I really like eating there, and spouses were not invited. So, I decided to just settle down to a couple of hamburgers prepared for me by Helmut and a couple of beers. Later in the evening (it was actually when I was blogging my rant about my bad hamburger bun experience), the phone rang and it was Mrs. TBF inviting me to join the group at the restaurant for an after-dinner drink.
I threw on some clothes, looked at my watch, and realized that I had about two minutes to catch the next tram - otherwise it would be a fifteen minute wait.
I barreled out of the front door of our building, jumped down to the sidewalk from about the fifth step, looked back to make sure that I hadn't shattered the sidewalk tile (or any of my bones), and walked at such a brisk pace that it barely qualified as walking.
As I turned the corner around the Migros grocery store, I saw that the tram was already at the stop - about fifty meters away. My first thought was: too late! But then some primordial instinct took over and, before I even knew what I was doing, I was sprinting directly toward the tram.
The tram began to move ever so slightly, but I forged ahead undeterred. At this point, the tram driver must have seen this large blur of Finnish flesh heading directly at him and he not only stopped the tram, but he also opened the door for me! As I passed in front of him - leaping the last couple of meters for good measure - I gave him a wink and a nod and disappeared into the tram where I was met by about ten pairs of staring eyes. Even the couple who were making out stopped to stare.
About ten seconds after I sat down, I realized that I my heart was beating pretty hard (but not pounding!), and I definitely felt about a gallon of adrenaline coursing through my veins. I also realized something else - RUNNING IS COMPLETELY OVERRATED! It's way too much work.
Anyway...I walked into the restaurant about fifteen minutes later where I had a nice time with Mrs. TBF and her colleagues. And, I'm happy to report that I didn't have to run to catch the tram home.

Dear Quality Bakers...

...of Garrel, Germany:
Your "Mega Burger Buns" hamburger buns SUCK!
Every year, when I make my unbelievably good TBF burgers (this year I'm making them on my new Weber Genesis grill - his name is Helmut!) for the first time, I'm aghast at your company's sheer disregard for quality control. I feel that it is my manly right that the first bite I take out of my TBF burger should not result in my top-bun shattering into no less than 14 pieces. This is an unmitigated outrage.
My friend Andy (he has a PhD in one of the sciences) tells me that the reason this happens is because of your refusal to use enzymes in the baking process. Please begin using said enzymes immediately. If you used the same attention to detail in the baking process that you use in translating the ingredients list on the back of the package into 20 languages, perhaps this correspondence would not be necessary.
I will, from now on, buy only Harry's hamburger buns at Geant in France. My friend, Dr. Andy, assures me that they use his company's enzymes (doh!) in the baking process. Thank you for your time.
You suck!
Mit freundlichen gruessen...
TBF

Mrs. TBF's going to be really excited about this one...NOT!

Last night, instead of helping Mrs. TBF clean up after dinner, I told her I had to go into our T.V. room so that I could listen to Rich Williams of the band Kansas being interviewed on Planet Rock. After she was done cleaning up, and I was still listening to the interview, we discussed the menu/shopping list for a dinner party we're having at our house this Saturday evening. Well...she talked, I half-listened and occasionally shushed her when I couldn't hear the interview, and...the long and short of it is that a menu and shopping list were assembled (I think).
One of my duties for this dinner party involved me having to go to a butcher shop in Binningen called Lang so that I could check out about getting a certain cut of lamb. As I was walking from the bus stop to the butcher shop, a poster with the word "KANSAS" jumped out at me from my peripheral vision. It turns out that they are playing at a concert venue in Pratteln called Z-7 (about 15 minutes from our house) on Tuesday, June 21st. I am soooooooooo there! Styx is actually playing at the same club on the following Monday, but I'll be in Finland. Kansas on Tuesday...leave for Helsinki on Thursday...what a week that will be. I'm livin' da good life!
Oh yeah...and I bought some lamb.

Unbelievable!!!

After drinking beer and gorging on festival food this past Saturday at the Lausanne Beer Festival, I figured that I must have gained about five kilos. However, I weighed myself at the gym this afternoon and to my surprise found that I was even lighter than I was after my recent bout with the flu - 104.9 kilos!!!! That's 231 lbs.!!! I can't believe it!
Oddly enough, I was actually weighed at the beer festival. This group of young ladies was walking around the beer festival celebrating the upcoming wedding of their friend who was dressed up as a pregnant nun. For some reason, they were walking around asking men to step on a scale, asking them where they were from, and then logging this information onto a sheet of paper they had on a clipboard. They seemed pretty excited when I walked up because they probably thought the scale might break. I told them jokingly that I thought I weighed 120 kilos and was rather concerned when their scale showed that I was 115 kilos. I told them that my clothes must weigh 10 kilos. Their scale WAS wrong. I weighed myself on two different digital scales at the gym today, and both of them showed 104.9!!!

I'm a lead foot...

...because I was caught speeding THREE times in two days by speeding cameras. These are obviously new cameras because I was caught on roads that I drive on all the time while never paying attention to the posted speed limit. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even sure what the speed limit was on these streets. But, now I know.
I was caught on May 30th at 16:23 going 39 km/h in a 30 km/h zone and on May 31st at 10:35 going 36 km/h in a 30 km/h zone on Bodenackerstrasse in Bottmingen. The "competent Swiss authorities" take off 5 km/h as a margin of error, so I received two tickets of 40 CHF, the second one for going 1 km/h over the limit (that's about .62 mph...just over one-half of one mile per hour!!!). Also on May 31st, I received a ticket at 11:20 on Reinacherstrasse in Muenchenstein for going 59 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. That amounted to another 40 CHF (about $32 U.S.).
The thing I really hate about these speeding cameras is that you get caught speeding if you just accidentally go over the speed limit. In both of these cases, I was probably driving on roads with very little traffic just minding my own business. I wasn't in any hurry, just enjoying the scenery, and then...FLASH! It's all totally cut and dry. They have a picture of you speeding, and that's it - you pay the fine. I guess there's a way to contest it, but if they have the picture I don't think there's too much you can do about it.
So, needless to say, we took the train to Lausanne this past weekend where we had a really nice time. Our hotel -which we arrived at at about 7:30 p.m. on Friday evening - was really nice. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the hotel on Friday night and slept-in until about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. After grabbing a quick bite to eat at a little sandwich shop by our hotel, we took the bus to the Musee de l'Art Brut where we checked out art that was produced by schizophrenics and other people with some serious "issues." After the art museum, we had a nice al fresco lunch, went back to the hotel to freshen up, and then met our friends James and Lenka at the Lausanne Beer Festival.
This is the fourth year in a row that I've attended the festival. It's right on the shores of Lake Geneva and it's just a great annual event packed with great beers from around the world, excellent festival food, terrific scenery, live music, and French-Swiss people who definitely enjoy life more than the German-Swiss people of Basel.
Every time we go to the French-speaking part of Switzerland, we marvel at how different it is from the German-speaking part. Let me tell you right now...if we ever had the chance to live in the Lake Geneva area of Switzerland, we'd do it in a second!!! And, we'd probably live there for the rest of our lives - it's that good! Plus, I've heard that they don't really have many speeding cameras in the French part of Switzerland. That's just icing on the gateau.

Damn we're healthy!!!

I didn't mention that Mrs. TBF went for the results of her blood test from her check-up of about a month ago. Her cholesterol came in at a very respectable 4.23 (anything under 8 is good). That translates to about 160 on the U.S. scale. By the way, the U.S. is the only country that uses the scale where anything under 220 is considered good. The rest of the world - including Canada - is on a completely different standard. According to Dr. Schwarz, the U.S. pushed to get the whole world on a world-wide standard, and then they decided to not go along with everybody else after the entire world had switched to this new standard.
Anyhoooo....I say that Mrs. TBF's level was "respectable" because it did not equal yours truly's alarmingly good level of 3.19 from about a year ago. That's about a 121 on the U.S. scale. I remember Dr. Schwarz kind of looking at me as if I were some sort of X-Man when he told me this level. There was some talk about how he expected it to be high because I'm a big man. After revealing to me that I was in excellent health, he proceeded to tell me that I had "...no dietary restrictions whatsoever." And, I have followed his advice by continuing my strict regimen of limiting myself to no more than two servings of red meat PER DAY, fatty food, beer, wine, cigars, Pringles, etc.
I do have to give credit to my parents. They also have very low cholesterol levels, and I'm sure that they passed on the gift of low cholesterol genes to The Big Finn.
To DA GOOD LIFE!!! Cheers!!!

Make up your mind already...

For the past several nights, I've been waking up in a puddle of my own sweat. So, yesterday I decided it was time to take off our thick duvet and sleep with just a light cover sheet. What happened? It was significantly cooler last night and I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning frozen solid to my bone marrow. Not caring about anything other than self-preservation at this point, I spooned Mrs. TBF while saying "...c-c-c-c-c-cold!!" You see, she had wisely anticipated the approaching coolness by going to sleep under a light duvet. I warmed up right away and fell into a blissful sleep.
At about 7:15 a.m. I emerged from my 2+ hour hibernation with a nice hot cup of coffee on my nightstand. Does Mrs. TBF take care of me, or what?

Eight pairs of shoes...

That's what Mrs. TBF had in her suitcase when she returned from the U.S. yesterday afternoon. Along with the shoes, she had a bunch of new clothes, three bathing suits, an iPod shuffle for me, two sleeves of tennis balls, and other stuff I'm not remembering right now. As I was loading her suitcases into the back of the Jeep at Basel Airport yesterday afternoon, she let out a quiet but demonic "...ha, Ha, HAAAAA!" because she knew that our streak of sneaking goods into Switzerland with a value way over the duty-free limit of 300 CHF was still intact.
After returning home, Mrs. TBF unpacked, showered, and then we enjoyed a nice meal AND FIRE on our rooftop (Is it rooftop, roof top, or roof-top? Help!). Yup, that's right...we had our first fire at our new apartment and it went without a hitch. We didn't start anything else on fire, and none of the neighbors complained. It was nice and relaxing fire, albeit a bit warm since the outdoor temperature was still in the upper 20s. I'm sure the Swiss neighbors thought we were nuts. Hey, but who cares?
After several days of heat and sunshine, today's cool and rainy weather is a welcome relief. Rammy and I went back to the nursery in Germany where I bought my BBQ last week. She bought a Weber patio fireplace and some plants for the garden. I just bought some garden plants. The plants are quite a bit cheaper, and the selection is much larger, in Germany than in Switzerland.
I just read what I wrote. God, it's boring. I think I'd better stop writing for now.

My intentions were good...

I accomplished almost nothing on my "Things To Do List" yesterday. My plans were big, I tell you, but things got messed up right from the start. And...I'm not taking any of the blame.
I woke up at 10:15 a.m., and I figured that I'd have a couple of cups o' Joe and then get crackin' on that list (I'm sure my friend Dave in Chicago is in full cringe mode right now because of my spelling and grammar. He especially loves my use of "..."!).
At 10:35 a.m., while I was on my second cup of coffee, the phone rang. It was Andy, and he told me that he was going to pick me up in twenty minutes. "What are we going to do?", I asked. "We're going to pick up Sam (Andy's son) at the skate park, go have some lunch, and then go watch Sam's soccer game", was Andy's reply. Not remembering at this point that I even had a "Things To Do List", I told him that I'd be ready in twenty minutes.
When Andy arrived, I told him that I had to be home in time so that I could go to the dump by their closing time of 5:00 p.m. and drop off all the cardboard from my Weber grill and unload a bunch of garden clippings in their compost pile. After Andy gave me a "No problem!", I jumped into his car without a care in the world.
So, we did exactly what Andy said we were going to do. We picked Sam up at the skate park, went to McDonald's for lunch since we were a little pressed for time, and then we went to the Reinach soccer field. At this point, I discovered that Sam's game was actually about a half-hour drive from Reinach and that the Reinach soccer field was just a meeting point.
To make a long story short, we ended up going to Sam's game and Andy dropped me off at the apartment at...5:05 p.m. This means that I still have a huge garden bag full of clippings sitting in the roof top storage area and a pile of cardboard sitting in the foyer. Since the dump is only open on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, I guess that means it'll have to wait a few more days.
But I figured that the day was still young and that I could still tackle a few items on my list. I called me neighbors - Corey and Suzanne - about storing some wine in their storage unit. It turns at that their storage unit is on level -2 in their building and our unit is on level 0 (that's the ground floor in Europe) in our building. Their unit stays nice and cool all summer and our unit is already getting to be too warm for storing wine. I brought some wine over to their unit, we took a few of their things over to our storage unit, they came upstairs to look at our new grill, I asked them if they wanted to have a drink, they invited me over for dinner (I brought my steak that I was defrosting and grilled it on their balcony), and I ended up getting home at 12:45 a.m.
Needless to say, not much was accomplished off of the "Things To Do List". Well, there's always tomorrow. Wait a minute...it's already "tomorrow" afternoon. Andy just called to see if I wanted to go to the pool. A Jehovah's Witness just rang my buzzer and asked if I wanted to talk about the problems facing the world today (I opted for literature in my mailbox)...No....NO....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I've got to get some things done around the house. Mrs. TBF arrives at Basel Airport in a little over two hours, and I have to at least create the illusion that I did SOMETHING while she was away.
The time is NOW!

Helmut is in the house!

I've decided to call my....I mean, our...new Weber grill - Helmut. I bought it in Germany, and I figured that Helmut is a damn fine German name. It was a toss up between Helmut and Horst, and Helmut won by a whisker.
I'm happy to report that Helmut has taken his spot on our balcony, and he's looking good. I'm sure the tenants in the apartment building across the river are staring in amazement, and that's fine. Let's just see how they feel when the wall of BBQ smoke wafts their way.
It took me about two hours to assemble Helmut even though the man at the store in Germany told me it would take about fifteen minutes. Now it's just a matter of getting rid of all this packing material. I have mountains of cardboard, so I guess I'll have to go to the dump tomorrow afternnon.

Vay-bah!

I went over the border into Germany with our friend Rammy a couple of days ago, and I bought myself a "Vay-bah" (that's how you say Weber in German) gas grill. Now don't get me wrong, I love my Weber charcoal grill. But, Mrs. TBF and I just thought that it might be nice and convenient to have a gas grill on the balcony for quick use during the week. I'm still going to use the old kettle grill. As a matter of fact, I already had a little talk with the old grill on the roof garden and told him that he's still going to get a lot of use (I get kind of lonely when Mrs. TBF is out of town).
Anyhooo...Rammy and I drove over to Lorrach to this nursery/garden and patio furniture store called Schmitt, and checked out what they had to offer as far as grills go. As it turns out, they have a big Weber section with all sorts of grills to choose from. Rammy pointed out the grill that she had in mind for me to buy, and I ended up telling her that it was "...a grill for fags" (sorry...very politically incorrect!). I mean, this grill had probably enough capacity to BBQ a chicken breast - and that's about it. But let's not pick on Rammy - she's only about four-foot eleven and I'm sure she doesn't really quite understand the sheer volume of grilled flesh that it takes to feed TBF.
I ended up opting for the second largest of three in the Weber Genesis line. I blew by the low-end model because it just didn't offer enough in the way of BTUs as far as I was concerned. The second and third models are basically the same. The only difference is that the top model is completely made of stainless steel (and it's 600 Euros more expensive than the middle model). I kind of hemmed and hawed, and then I asked the salesman what he thought. He said that he would save the 600 Euros, and then put it into accessories.....SOLD!!! I walked out of there with the grill, a cast-iron searing plate, a grill brush, a nice cover, and a "free" grilling cookbook written in German that the salesman gave me "...so that you can practice your German!" All this set me back ONLY 1,117 Euros. I don't even want to think about how much less this stuff would cost in America.
They did have an incredible stainless steel grill that wasn't a Weber which cost something like 4,800 Euros. So see Mrs. TBF??? I could have bought that one instead which means that I saved us about 3,700 Euros. I'm always looking out for us!!!
The grill is still in the car. I'm going to take it out later today, assemble it in the garage, bring it up in the elevator, and then set it up on the balcony. Then begins the ordeal of trying to figure out where I can buy some propane around here. At the very latest, we should be up an grilling by early next week!!!

I know it's late...

...but I always have trouble sleeping when Mrs. TBF is out of town (she's in New Jersey). The fact that I took a nap from 4:30 p.m. to 5:55 p.m. isn't helping matters any either. I remember very clearly that it was 5:55 p.m. I woke up, looked at the clock, realized that my German conversation class was going to begin in twenty minutes, pulled my pants and shirt off of the top of the door, pulled them on fireman style, fed King, and ran out the door. I ended up only being about four minutes late for my class. There were only two of us in the class today, so it didn't really matter that I was late.
So now, zoom ahead several hours later, after speaking with Mrs. TBF at about midnight our time, I made the mistake of going to the iTunes sight to download some songs. I've started keeping a list of songs to download, and here is what I've downloaded tonight:

Tom Petty - Runnin' Down A Dream
Joe Cocker - With A Little Help From My Friends
The Who - Who Are You? (...can you tell that I watched CSI tonight??)
Lou Reed - Perfect Day
Coldplay - Trouble
'Til Tuesday - Voices Carry
I was going to download Bad Company - Feel Like Makin' Love, but they only had a live version and I want the original.

So far, I've downloaded about thirty songs from iTunes. I've held back because I want to get all our CDs onto the iPod before I go really crazy buying songs for iTunes. Our iPod currently has over 1,500 songs on it, and I've only loaded about a third of our CDs.
Mrs. TBF just informed me tonight that she bought an iPod Shuffle this afternoon for me to use at the gym. It only holds about 250 songs, but that should be plenty for working out. I've already begun a "TBF's Ultimate Workout" playlist for the gym. It's going to include a bunch of hard rock/heavy metal songs to get me pumped up for working out.
Man...it's almost 2:00 a.m. I've got to stop this insanity and go to bed. I have a lot to do tomorrow, and I won't get anything done if I'm sleeping in until 10:00 a.m.!

My brush with celebrity...

As you may recall, Mrs. TBF had a brush with celebrity a few weeks ago in Singapore when she ran into chef/author/T.V. personality Tony Bourdain. Today, I spotted a real-live celebrity in Basel.
After my German conversation class, I thought I'd walk over to Starbucks for a coffee. As I passed Mr. Pickwick's Pub - which is right next-door to Starbucks - I saw Nick Oliveri sitting at a table enjoying an al fresco pint with a couple of rock and roll looking dudes. Who is Nick Oliveri you ask? Why he's the previous bass player from Queens of the Stone Age, currently playing in Dwarves and Mondo Generator. I didn't talk to him, but I'm 100% certain it was him.
If you ask me, Nick Oliveri beats Tony Bourdain any day!

Amazing...but not surprising!

Here's something I just read in my "Reference.com On This Day" daily e-mail:

"In the last National Geographic Literacy Survey, about 11 percent of 18-to-24-year-old citizens of the U.S. could not even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent. More young U.S. citizens in the study knew that the island featured in the TV show "Survivor" wsa in the South Pacific than could find Israel. Each year thousands of schools in the U.S. participate in the National Geographic Bee using materials prepared by the National Geographic Society. The contest is designed to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography."

I think the contest also served to increase public awareness about the state of a lot of American schools.

105.6!!!

That was what I weighed at the gym today...105.6 kilos. That's 233.3 lbs!!! That's the lightest I've been in ages. I guess that's what happens when you have the flu and can't eat normally for a few days.

They're really cute...

...but what the heck am I supposed to do with them? I'm talking about the mother duck and her three little baby ducks that are walking around our roof-top garden.
Last night, I went up to the roof to snip some chives, and this duck was sitting on the door mat right in front of the door leading out to the rooftop. It started quacking at me, and then I noticed three little baby ducks walking away from her. I have no clue where they came from. I had just trimmed some of the shrubs on the roof-top the day before, and I had seen no sign of a nest, eggs, ducks, etc.
My first instinct is to respect nature's natural selection and to not help them in any way at all. Afterall, if the mother is stupid enough to hatch them on our rooftop, then maybe that's nature's way of weeding out a dumb member of the species. However, I'm sure there's some Swiss law requiring me to save them - not to mention the fact that various neighbors in the tall building across the river are going to start ringing my doorbell to tell me about the ducks - so I feel compelled to do something.
Mrs. TBF said I should at least put out some water for them so they don't dehydrate. I actually came up with the rather dastardly idea of grilling up some duck breasts, cubing them up, and then putting them out to see if they eat it...at which point Mrs. TBF quickly pointed out that they're vegetarian (...how does she know all this stuff???)
What am I (Mrs. TBF is conveniently away on a business trip) going to do? Since there's no mention of "duck care" in our rental agreement, I'm going to tell Frau Fidi (the building super), and let her worry about it.

Easy Jet to the rescue!

Mrs. TBF and I just finished booking a trip to Italy's Amalfi Coast for late August/early September. We had talked for several weeks about booking this vacation, and we made our final hotel/timing decisions this past weekend.
This morning, I checked flights on swiss.com and found that there was NOTHING available between Zurich and Naples during the last two weeks of August. Alitalia was an option, but Alitalia (at least for me) is never really an option - too many strikes and too many financial woes. Mrs. TBF called me from work, and we kind of began resigning ourselves to the fact that maybe it just wouldn't be happening. She was able to book the hotels, but we just weren't having any luck getting a flight.
Then, on a whim, I decided to check Easy Jet (one of Europe's low-cost airlines). I began checking flights from Basel to London to Naples, and then Mrs. TBF discovered that they now fly DIRECTLY FROM BASEL TO NAPLES!!! We had no idea! Now, we don't have to go to Zurich Airport...we don't have to make a connection...just a nice, direct flight out of Basel's no-hassle EuroAirport. And, the best part about it? It only costs us a total of 185 CHF for the round-trip flight...FOR BOTH OF US! That's about $150 U.S. for two people! We spent more than that on gas for the Jeep when we drove to and from Burgundy last weekend. It would have been about four-times more expensive on Alitalia, and probably even more on Swiss. How the heck do they do it? Well, I no it's no-frills and that we'll be herded into the plane like cattle. But, who cares? I can handle a couple of hours of discomfort just as long as they get us there and back safely.
We're going to Amalfi!!!

Enuff z'nuff! Or is it?

The lingering after-effects of my flu, and the crappy weather we've been having in Basel - ENOUGH ALREADY!
Fortunately, my health seems to be improving, AND I just looked at Basel's weather forecast and discovered that the weather is going to be making a dramatic improvement beginning tomorrow - maybe too much of a dramatic improvement.
By Wednesday, the temperature is going to soar into the low 30s (Bob: That's about 88 F. Bob's a friend from Chicago who complained about me exclusively using the metric system on the blog!), which means that we're going to go directly from cool and damp to hot and sticky. I like sunny and warm, but I'm not crazy about sunny and hot.
Hot weather in Basel is a real inconvenience for a heavy sweater such as yours truly. As you've probably heard me say many times before, air conditioning is basically non-existent in Switzerland. That means that when I go to my German conversation class and it's 35 degrees outside, I ride a tram that's about 40 degrees, arrive at the class all sweaty, and sit in a classroom for an hour that's about 38 degrees (Bob: that's about 100 F). I always bring a small dish towel so that I can mop the old chrome dome, and I also use a little fan that I bought in Spain. I know it's kind of gay, but nobody ever says anything to me. I think they see the heat-tormented look in my eyes and realize that any comment at all could result in their being checked-in to the Hotel Whupass!
Now, I don't mind sitting in a hot room if it's a sauna and sweating is the intended purpose. But, if the main reason for being in this hot room is anything other than sweating (i.e. learning, shopping, eating, sleeping, etc.), the "too hot" part distracts me by becoming my primary focus and causes me to become quite irritable (I'm sure Mrs. TBF is rolling her eyes up into her head right now after reading what amounts to the understatement of a lifetime!).
But hey...what can you do? I've lived here for almost five years now, and it gets hot every summer. So, I just make the best of it. When I'm at home, I pretty much live in shorts with no shirt and I sit in front of a fan. When I leave the house, I wear the lightest possible clothing and make sure to bring my dish towel and Spanish fan. We eat dinner out on the balcony and sleep with the windows wide open - plus I have a fan blowing on me about 30 cm (that's about 12 inches) away from my head.
I guess I can't complain too much. It wasn't really that long ago that I used to have to wear a shirt and tie when the weather in Chicago reached the 90s (there Bob...ya happy?), and the humidity would be about 88%. I'd make sales calls, and one of my customers would inevitably choose this specific day to give me a tour of their cutting-edge blast furnace, or something of that ilk, that would result in me sweating out about one-third of my body weight in five minutes only to be absorbed completely by my t-shirt and white dress-shirt. Naturally, this would be the first call of the day, and then I'd hop in my company car, blast the air conditioning, and emerge about fifteen minutes later with a nearly frozen shirt. This freeze/thaw cycle would last for a few hours until I couldn't take it any more , and then I'd just blow off the rest of my work day (usually right after having lunch with a customer) and go swim laps in the pool at my health club.
All this talk about heat is starting make me feel warm. I think I'll go set up the fans around the apartment. I'll be too sweaty if I wait until Wednesday to do it.

I didn't wake up until 4:30 p.m. today...

...because I have the flu. Actually, I got up several times starting at about 4:00 a.m. to go to the bathroom (I won't disgust you with the details).
I was just telling somebody last week that I escaped being sick all winter. As a matter of fact, I haven't been sick since October when I had a cold. I guess I jinxed myself.
I really feel terrible, and I'm kind of disappointed about not being able to go to my French lesson tonight - Mrs. TBF's going to go it alone.
I hadn't eaten all day, so I decided that I needed to get some food in my stomach. I opted for some water crackers, and I have to say that they definitely do not rank at the top of my list of favorite things to eat.

I'm sorry I had to be the one to tell you this...

I just came home from my German conversation class, and I'm happy to report that I broke the news to my German teacher that....Europeans stink!!!
The topic today was "Man and Nature", and we somehow began talking about water conservation. The teacher asked if we thought it is an important issue, and both me and this Canadian lady in my class both took the position that it is important but the Swiss go overboard when it comes to water conservation. He kind of started talking about how Americans use so much more water than Europeans, and I felt the need to come back with an "...at least Americans and Canadians don't smell." He seemed shocked until the other three people in my class - Canadian, Thai, and Malaysian - sided with me. I said that I rarely smell body odor in America and Canada, but I smell it in Basel about every 15 seconds during the summer. The Thai woman chimed in with "...the Swiss stink!", and the Malaysian man followed with a "...worst body odor I've ever smelled in my life".
We assured the teacher that not everybody in Europe (including him) stinks, but he seemed a little taken aback. I hope I didn't ruin his evening. Better yet...I hope he tells one of his stinky friends, and they reassess their hygiene regimen.

Weekend in Burgundy.

A bunch of us (eight adults and five children) took a road trip to Burgundy this weekend. It's about a three-hour, fairly easy (when you can just follow somebody who knows where they're going) drive from Basel to Burgundy. We left on Saturday morning at about 8:30, drove through bad weather via Geneva, and arrived in Fuisse (of Pouilly-Fuisse fame) for a late lunch.
Now I know I've said this many times before, but the French know how to eat! As far as I can tell, they pay absolutely no heed to calories, cholesterol, temperance, etc. - which is all well and good as far as I'm concerned.
Among the things I ate this past weekend: snails, pigs' feet, frogs' legs, goose liver, tete de veau (translation: face of the calf/veal...which is basically the calf's cheek-meat wrapped around various sweetbreads), cheeses with various mold forms that have yet to be identified by man, and wine...Wine....WINE!!!!
When you go to a cave in Burgundy, the wine just keeps flowing. We sniffed, swirled, swished, sucked, gargled, slurped, tasted, bought...and then just hopped into our cars and drove off to the next place to do it all over again. Then, we'd stop for our three-hour lunch, waddle out of the restaurant, and slog along through endless miles of vineyards to the next cave where we'd start the process all over again.
We'd arrive at our hotel during the late afternoon or early evening where I'd proceed to take about a 60 to 90-minute nap. I'd wake up still feeling pretty full, and then it'd be time to go eat our four-hour dinner. I'm not joking. The dinners are multiple courses, and the food and wine just keeps on coming. The highlight for me was always the plateau de fromage. On Saturday night, the cheese board was basically one of those things that the eunuchs would carry Cleopatra on. But, instead of being made of gold and supporting Cleopatra, it was made of wood and had about twenty different cheeses on it. Oh...and the waiters... weren't eunuchs.
Kudos and thanks go to our friend Rammy for pretty much arranging the entire trip for all of us. Also, thanks to John (maybe his real name...maybe not) "the international wine and art smuggler" who led certain unmentioned people back into Switzerland via an unmanned border crossing (imagine that U.S. Department of Homeland Security) so that "they" wouldn't have to pay any duty on said purchases.
The weekend is all pretty much a blur of tastes, smells, and scenery. And, I'm looking forward to doing it again....SOON! But, for now I'm going to really have to hit the gym hard this week. I'm feeling a bit bloated and sluggish (maybe due to my lingering cold), and I think I need exercise, a sauna....and maybe a good dose of vegetables!

Crunch!!!

I finally took a "bite" out of my new Apple Powerbook with the 17" screen. It's easy, it's great, and I'm already hooked. Plus, I finally set up the iPod I bought last November. I went to iTunes, set up an account, and proceeded to download my first two songs.
What are they, you ask? Why, they're Radar Love and Twilight Zone by Golden Earring, of course. I don't really know why I say "of course". The reason I downloaded these two particular songs was because I wanted to see if I could find something that was relatively old and somewhat obsure. These two songs fit the bill, and it took me about 5 seconds to find them.
Now, I'm basking in "classic rock nirvana"! First I'm going to load all our CDs into the iPod, and then I'm going to go about downloading a bunch of songs that I don't have on CD so that I can set up the ultimate classic rock play list.
ROCK ON!!!

It never fails...

Whenever Mrs. TBF is out of town on business, somebody decides to call me at 7:00 a.m.!!!
Mrs. TBF is in New York for a couple of days, and this morning - the phone rang at about...7:00 a.m.!!! We don't keep a phone in our bedroom, so I might have been dreaming. However, I'm about 99% sure that it was actually ringing.
I ended up getting out of bed, went to the office, and checked the call log on the phone because I thought that maybe it was Mrs. TBF calling me at 1:00 a.m. in NYC. For some reason, there was no number under the "answered" or "unanswered" calls which means that the person decided to hang up before the answering machine picked up the call (or, our phone's not working properly).
Now, I'm not mad or anything....but, please don't call our house this early in the morning unless it's an emergency because I really need my eight hours. And, if you do call us and we don't answer the phone....LEAVE A MESSAGE!

7:00 a.m. phantom caller...IDENTIFY YOURSELF!!!

Is it wrong...

...that I look forward to receiving my Migros Magazin (Migros is a grocery store chain here in Switzerland) in my mailbox every Tuesday?
I couldn't care less about what's on sale. Afterall, I prefer shopping at Coop. What I really look forward to reading is the "Single der Woche" (single of the week) page.
Do I have fun, or what?

I'm going to Kauhava!

My dad was born in Kauhava, Finland, and that's where I'll be going at the end of June. My dad's going to be in Finland for a month, so Mrs. TBF and I are going to meet up with him in Helsinki on June 24th. Mrs. TBF's going to stay in Helsinki for the weekend before heading back to Switzerland, and then I'm going to head up to northern Finland to spend a week with my relatives (I have many...my dad is one of 16 children!).
Mrs. TBF and I were in Helsinki in 2002 for a long weekend, but I haven't been in Kauhava since 1985 - and before that it was in 1966. When I was there for a family reunion in 1985, I remember promising a couple of my aunts that it would absolutely not be 19 years until my next visit. I'm happy to report that I'm keeping my word - it's been 20 years!!!
I'm really looking forward to this trip. First of all, Mrs. TBF and I really enjoyed our trip to Helsinki in 2002, and this trip should be extra fun because it will be during the Juhanus celebration. Juhanus is when the Finn's celebrate the summer solstice.
In Helsinki, it'll be no darker than dusk at any point during the night, and I think the sun won't even set in Kauhava (or if it does, it'll just be for a very short time). I remember waking up at about 2:30 a.m. when I was in Kauhava during July, 1985 and the sun was shining brightly through the bedroom window. It's pretty strange. You're dead tired, but you feel like you should be getting out of bed.
I'm also looking forward to seeing relatives that I haven't seen for twenty years, and...I'm really looking forward to practicing my Finnish over the ten days I'll be in Finland. It's pretty amazing how quickly the language skills deteriorate when you don't use them. It'll take me about a day to really get going again, but I expect the Finnish to be pretty good by the time I come back to Switzerland.
Of course, by then I'll have forgotten all my German and French which means I'll be struggling/confused in multiple languages. Trés bien und sehr gut!

Another year....another Cinqo de Mayo Party!

This past Saturday night, we had what I would consider our best Cinqo de Mayo Party since we moved to Switzerland. We had about 25 guests, Mrs. TBF's food was great, and the drinks flowed freely. The only thing that wasn't good about it was the weather. But, that's pretty normal for our Swiss Cinqo de Mayo parties. The weather kept us from using the rooftop garden, but it probably also kept us from disturbing the neighbors which, in turn, probably kept the police from showing up at our door.
I think what made this party especially fun for us was the fact that we had a very mixed group of people. Previous CdM parties were pretty much neighborhood soirées (...French lesson later today!), but our guests at this party were made up of old neighbors, some of Mrs. TBF's co-workers, people we know from outside of our old neighborhood, and even some out-of-towners.
The most common question I heard throughout the night was a slightly slurred "....what the Hell do you put in these things?!?!?" (referring to my Margaritas). This was usually followed some time later by an even more slurred "....I need your recilpe flo sleez Mergrititaaas!" So, here it is:

Mix equal parts of Tequila, Grand Marnier, and Rose's Lime Juice.

Wet the rim of a glass with lime juice.

Roll the rim of the glass in crushed sea salt.

Put some ice in the glass.

Pour the concoction over the ice.

Squeeze a lime into the drink.

Enjoy!

The recipe actually calls for 2 parts Tequila, 1 part Grand Marnier, and 1 part Rose's Lime Juice, but I think it's definitely strong enough (and tastier) if you use my recipe.

I also made my Mexican Iced Teas, but they weren't as popular this year as in year's past. Here's my recipe for M.I.T.s (they're basically Long Island Iced Teas with the addition of Triple Sec):

Mix equal parts of Gin, Rum, Tequila, Triple Sec, and Vodka and pour a shot or two into a glass over ice.

Squeeze a lemon wedge into the glass and drop in the lemon.

Top off the glass with Coke.

Enjoy.

As for the M.I.T.s, you can just mix all the alcohol together and leave a bottle of it in the fridge so it's always ready for unexpected guests. Then you just pour a little into a glass over ice, squeeze in a lemon wedge, top of with Coke, and your guests are served in less than a minute.

I've been informed by some of my guests that they woke up with hangovers on Sunday morning. Sorry! I guess I should warn people that these drinks go down very easily, but that they really pack a punch.

Maybe next year I'll put a little warning label on each Margarita glass.

Will that be one lump....or two?

After enduring years of my nagging, Mrs. TBF finally gave in and made an appointment to go to the doctor for a check-up. I went for a physical last year, and ended up finding out that I needed a bunch of vaccinations. So, this morning was Mrs. TBF's turn.
I dropped off my better half at the Praxis Reinacherhof, and told her that I would be back in about thirty minutes after running a couple of errands. About forty minutes later, I walked into the waiting room to find Mrs. TBF sitting there with a glass of water and a big bump on her forehead. As it turns out, she went into the bathroom after her blood test, passed out, and hit her head on the floor/wall/something. Poor thing! Is it my fault? I'm the one who nagged her about going for a check-up.
We went back home, and she rested for a little while. Then, I drove her to work at about noon. I guess she's not feeling that bad if she was able to go to work.

Hey...We're speaking French!

Well...sort of. We had our first French lesson earlier this evening, and I have to say that we walked out of it feeling pretty excited. Of course, we're envisioning being fluent in about four weeks - which, of course, will just not be the case. The teacher told me that my French accent was very good (must be because I'm Canadian!), and she said that Mrs. TBF "...has just a bit of an American accent." HA!!! Stinkin' American...PFUI!
We rode home on the tram after our lesson, and naturally Mrs. TBF had to ruin a perfectly good French-high by asking me when we should do our homework.
Stinkin' American....PFUI!!!

Burn baby...burn!

The weather in Basel was unbelievable this weekend with temperatures of about 30ºC and clear skies. And, I'm happy to report, that I received my first sunburn of 2005!

Our ex-neighbors Andy and Di have an annual birthday barbecue for their daughter Alie, and I ended up being the "grill master" once again this past Saturday evening. I guess it was a combination of the sun and the "sheen" on my skin from the heat of the grills causing a magnifying effect that resulted in my "famer's tan." The burn wasn't too bad, but the top of my head is a little sore. I'm sure the skin on my scalp will be peeling by the end of the week...always a pleasant sight.

We're looking forward to a good week. Mrs. TBF has a five-day weekend coming up since Ascension Thursday is a holiday here and Novartis is closed on Wednesday and Friday too. Also, we begin our French lessons tonight, and our Cinqo de Mayo Party is coming up on Saturday.

That reminds me, I better get going with the oiling of the teak patio furniture!

Tick...tock....tick...tock...

I subscribe to a daily "On This Day" e-mail in order to quench my thirst for useless trivia. One of the things listed for today involved our alma mater - Northwestern University. Here's one of the useless bits of trivia I picked up today that is now "...adding another strand to the old Duder's head.":

April 28, 1994 - Northwestern University announced the discovery of the gene that controls the "Biological Clock" (Circadian Rhythm).

When I saw the words "Circadian Rhythym", I was immediately reminded of another day in history - March 6, 2002 - to be exact. This little snippet of stupid banter comes from our "Quote Book."
We began keeping a book of quotes when we moved to Switzerland in 2000. Basically, the purpose of the book was to write down quotes by us and our neighbors that were blurted out after drinking a few beers on the patio. Typically, somebody would spout out some words of wisdom (at least they seemed wise at the time), and then somebody else would say: "...get the book!" There is only one rule: One quote per person per 24 hour period. So, my quote from March 6, 2002?

"I've never consciously fought the Circadian Rhythm."
- TBF 06.03.02 21:49

I have no idea why I said it, but somebody else at our patio table obviously thought it to be worthy of "the book."
Now, as I'm looking back over the book, I notice that most of the quotes are either verging on the edge of insanity ("Hey, I'm a seed - a watermelon seed." - James F. August 1, 2001), or too vulgar for a family oriented blog such as mine (TBF: "Hey John...I think Paul needs mouth-to-mouth resucsitation [sic]." Paul: ...choking & pointing at Mariah Carey on T.V... "I need [Canada's national animal] -to- mouth resuscitation!!!). This last quote being one of the more tame.
The Quote Book's been a bit idle lately. I think it's time I dusted it off and put it in an accessible place. Who knows what future words of wisdom will grace the book's pages.

Mrs. TBF's brush with celebrity...

I just spoke with Mrs. TBF, and she ran into a celebrity at her hotel in Singapore. It was none other than....Anthony Bourdain.
Unless you watch the TV Food Network or UK Food Network, you might have never heard of him. But, as it turns out, we watch his show - "A Cook's Tour" - all the time. If you haven't seen his show, I recommend that you watch it. It's really informative and entertaining at the same time. Not only do we watch his show, but Mrs. TBF is actually currently reading Tony's (I feel that we're on a first-name basis now) book - "Kitchen Confidential." Man....are we cooking geeks, or what?
She said she saw him coming out of the bar at the hotel and she looked at him and said something like, "....oh my God...I watch your show all the time." He spoke with her for a few seconds, probably recognized a total cooking geek when he saw one, shook her hand, and (in my opinion) probably RAN FOR HIS LIFE!!! Just joking about the "RAN FOR HIS LIFE" part. I don't really want to experience a frying pan upside my head when Mrs. TBF gets home on Friday.
I'm now laughing to myself as I think back about my earlier conversation with Mrs. TBF. It went something like this.

Mrs. TBF: "Guess which celebrity I saw in my hotel lobby this evening. It's somebody you really like!"

TBF: "Jon Anderson from Yes."

Mrs. TBF: "No!!! ...not a musician!"

TBF: [Damn!!! I guess that counts out Geddy Lee!] Jeff Bridges???"

Mrs. TBF: "Not an actor."

TBF: "President Bush?"

Mrs. TBF: "No!! [chuckling].

This banter went on for eons, and then she finally gave me enough clues so that I was able to guess Anthony Bourdain (sorry...Tony). Now, when I think back about it, it's kind of funny that the top three celebrities that come to my mind are: Jon Anderson, Jeff Bridges, and President Bush.
I mean, Tony's no slouch...but he's no Jon Anderson.

I am the God of Hellfire!!!

Well, actually, I just assembled our Swiss patio grill/fireplace on our rooftop garden. It's this big concrete monstrosity that weighs about 400 kilos/880 pounds, that we had moved from our old place to our new place in January. Fortunately, it comes apart into about 15 pieces. The Swiss use these things to grill food, but we have always just used it as a patio fireplace because I don't really want the thing to get all greasy.
The thing is a real bitch to assemble. Some the pieces have to weigh a good 50 kilos, and the concrete is rough. Also, some of the screws were a bit rusted and didn't want to go in. Thank God for WD-40! I must admit that the old muscles are a bit sore today, and my hands are a bit scuffed up. Plus, the manicure I got last week in Chicago is totally trashed (...right now my dad is shaking his head wondering where he went wrong!).
I'm not really sure if we're allowed to use this thing on our rooftop or not. But, it's assembled, and I'm planning on using it. I've asked a few Swiss people whether or not this thing is legal on rooftops or not, and nobody can/wants to really tell me for sure. I asked the building superintendent, and she said gave me kind of a "semi-postive" thumbs up. So, that's good enough for me. Really, the only people I'm worried about are the people who live in the 15-storey building directly across the river from us. What I'm worried about is that they'll see fire on the top of our building and call the fire department. But I guess I'll just have to worry about that when/if the time comes.
In the meantime, when it warms up just a little bit more (and the rain stops), we'll be lighting a fire. I'm hoping for this Friday night.

An amazing thing happens...

...when you bring knives in to be sharpened - they're sharp when you pick them up. And by sharp...I mean REALLY SHARP!!
I brought our knives in to be sharpened for the first time since we bought them almost ten years ago. I think it's recommended to have good kitchen knives sharpened by a professional at least once per year. So, I guess we were a little overdue. Yesterday, I picked them up at the little knife store that's right by my gym (it's really convenient how everything is located right by my gym), and.....damn!!!! Before: they could barely slice a tomato. Now: I can drop a tomato onto the blade and it's sliced right in half.
Now, the only trick is to avoid a repeat of February 14, 1989 when Mrs. TBF arrived at our home in Elmhurst, IL after a 4-hour commute (due to a snowstorm) from work to find me standing in the kitchen, holding a blood-soaked dishtowel around my thumb which I was holding above heart-level to try to stop the river of blood that was flowing from the gash that I incurred when I was trying to get fancy slicing up an onion. I had seen a cooking show where this Asian chef was slicing an onion sideways, and I thought I'd do the same. I took a very sharp knife, grabbed the onion, hacked at the onion sideways, and the blade went right through the onion straight into my thumb. I remember it bleeding for hours, and oozing for a couple of days.
About a week later, I went to the doctor for a physical and showed him the thumb. He told me that I definitely should have had stitches (damn I felt tough!), but that it was too late now. Actually, I probably would have gone to the hospital crying like a sissy when it happened, but I figured that it would take hours in the snowstorm, so why bother?
Besides, if I had had stitches, I probably wouldn't have the cool scar on my thumb to serve as a reminder of the time I tried to get fancy with a sharp knife. And...the slicing into the thumb debacle would have just been postponed by sixteen years. And...I would have had the hassle of going to a Swiss hospital to have it stitched up. And...the Swiss doctors (as they do) would probably have insisted that I spend at least three nights in the hospital for observation.
I guess I'll just try to be careful with the knives!

Short, but sweet!

We're back home after a great (but short) weekend in Amsterdam. The weekend was made all the shorter by the fact that our Swiss flight left about 2½ hours late on Saturday afternoon, and we didn't make it to Amsterdam until about 6 p.m., thus reaffirming Mrs. TBF's opinion that Swiss Airlines sucks! All we had time for on Saturday evening was a one-hour canal cruise and dinner at our hotel - both of which were excellent. Our room rate included a multi-course dinner. I always hesitate to take these offers because I always think that it's going to be a rip-off. However, this was not the case at the Hotel de l'Europe. It was an excellent "surprise" multi-course dinner, there was a different wine with every course, it took about three hours, and we were stuffed. I would highly recommend the hotel because the service and location were excellent. Enough for the free advertising......!
We had perfect weather for sightseeing on Sunday. It was sunny and about 18ºC. We went to the Van Gogh museum, but we only spent about 45 minutes inside. It was just too nice to spend too much time in a museum. After the museum, we walked. We saw the usual touristy sights, shopped a bit, and pretty much just enjoyed seeing all of the "in-your face" sin that Amsterdam has to offer. We didn't really have a plan. Just a little shopping, stopped for a drink here and there, etc., etc. Something that I found really strange was the number of Finns that were in Amsterdam. I heard people speaking Finnish throughout the day. I mean, I must have heard Finnish being spoken in my vicinity more than ten times during the day. Then, back at the hotel, a desk clerk saw my last name and began speaking Finnish to me. It was strange.
On the advice of our Top Ten Amsterdam book, we went out for dinner at an Indonesian restaurant (there are a lot of Indonesians in The Netherlands) called Tujuh Maret which was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. I'm happy to report, that this restaurant continued our streak of never having had a bad meal in Europe. We ordered the "Indonesian Rice Table" which was basically two different types of rice with about two dozen little dishes containing different types of toppings ranging from mild to spicy. They were all good, but the spicy toppings did bring on a full-blown Big Finn sweatfest (a common, but not-too-pretty, sight). I can now speak from experience - Indonesian food is spicier than Swiss food! We walked back to our hotel after dinner last night, packed, went to sleep, woke up this morning, had breakfast, checked-out of the hotel, took a taxi back to the airport, and we were back in Basel before noon.
I'll have to stop now. King is very annoyed that we left him alone this weekend (although I'm sure he likes it when Uncle Dave takes care of him). He's been rubbing against my shin for the past fifteen minutes, so I think I should pay a little attention to the old guy.

Cigars, tennis, and palm trees...

I've been unpacking little by little today, and I came across a ziploc bag containing two cigar humidor sponges (each one enough for a 50-cigar humidor) and three Drymistats (each one enough for a 25-cigar humidor). I'm not sure when (if ever) I'll have 175 cigars in my humidor, but I'm damn ready in case that day ever comes.
Two other strange purchases that I unpacked today: seven tubes of tennis balls (Mrs. TBF says they're double the price in Switzerland) and Nair face cream (since I couldn't find Nair For Men).
For the past few years, the ever-increasing density of ear hair has served as a harbinger of my impending middle-age. A few months ago I noticed an ad for Nair For Men in FHM magazine, and I thought that maybe I should look into it. To tell you the truth, I actually forgot about it until I went out to lunch with a couple of ex-coworkers - Dave and Ed. When I saw Ed, I noticed what appeared to be two medium-sized palm trees growing from his earlobes (give him a break...he's in his 60s), and I was instantly reminded of the need to buy a hair-removal product. After lunch, I stopped at Dominicks and bought some Nair. Later, I told my sister what I had bought, and she said, "...I kind of noticed you had an ear hair thing going on!" I guess I needed it worse than I thought.
I can't believe Mrs. TBF hasn't said anything about it in the past. I guess it just goes to show you that love is truly blind!

Did you miss me?

I just flew in from Chicago yesterday and MAN ARE MY ARMS TIRED!!! Well, at least the nieces like that joke... My flight left Chicago almost three-hours late due to electrical problems. That's always a comforting announcement when you're sitting in a plane on the tarmac....NOT!!! The pilot had to bring the plane back to the gate to be worked on. Then, during the flight, the intercom kept cutting out during the announcements, and I couldn't watch Matrix Revolutions because the screen had some kind of intereference (I guess they didn't solve all the electrical problems). Fortunately, I was able to watch "Spanglish" which I have to say was a pretty funny movie. In fact, I watched it twice and I have to give it The Big Finn Seal of Approval. I thought Téa Leoni was really good, but I thought Cloris Leachman was GREAT!!! That makes three good movies on my last three overseas flights. I watched "Anchorman" when I returned from Chicago last November (I laughed so hard on the plane that I had tears rolling down my cheeks and people were staring at me), and I watched "Meet the Fokkers" on the way to Chicago last week (it's one of those rare sequels that's better than the original!).
Anyway, I amazingly made my connection in Frankfurt with a couple of minutes to spare, and I was back in sunny Basel at 1:30 p.m. Actually, my luggage didn't make the connection, and that was probably a good thing seeing that I had bought a bunch of new clothes, shoes, etc. and I didn't have to walk through customs with a bunch of luggage. Instead, I just walked through the nothing to declare lane with my new 17" Powerbook in my backpack, and a small carry-on. I just checked my credit card online, and let's just say that the amount of stuff I brought back into Switzerland was "a bit" over the 300 CHF duty-free limit. We'll just leave it at that.
So, I had a good time in Chicago. I won't bore you with the details, but it was nice eating giant portions at the restaurants, seeing a huge assortment of clothes in my size at the various department stores, and of course seeing family and friends. I even saw my friend Carl whom I haven't seen since 1993.
Tomorrow I'll be back at Basel Airport. Mrs. TBF and I are going to Amsterdam for the weekend. So, I have to finish unpacking and then pack stuff for this weekend. We get back on Monday, and then Mrs. TBF leaves on Tuesday for Singapore.

Looking very Pope-like!

Dig it!
Sorry. I couldn't figure out how to put these pictures together in one post...
Here's a picture of Renee - my sister-in-law.
I've always kind of chuckled when Renee has insisted in the past that she's related to Pope John Paul II. I just figured that lunacy came with being Polish. But, when I take a close look at this picture...I definitely notice a resemblance.
Please note that Renee is also wearing a Yellow Freight hat. Funny... Just yesterday, I spoke with another friend of mine who lives in Florida - Bret - and he told me that he just pulled a Yellow Freight golf ball out of his golf bag the other day.
Now I'm trying to remember...Did I ever actually give any of these sales promotions to customers?

Let the fun begin!

Dig it!
Here's a picture of Perry. He's my brother-in-law, and he lives in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Perry and Renee's house is about to receive an "extreme makeover" to say the least. I'm very amused to see that Perry and Renee are wearing Yellow Freight hats. I worked for Yellow as a sales rep from 1986-1993. At any given moment, I probably had about 50 of these hats which I gave to customers (and occasionally to friends and family members). I am proud to say that I do not even have one Yellow Freight hat in my house today.
If Perry and Renee still have Yellow Freight hats that I gave to them at least twelve years ago, then I would venture a guess that they have a lot of packing to do before they vacate their house!

Everybody should just speak English!

It certainly would make things a lot easier for me. I saw this article on Yahoo today. It seems that English is definitely on the rise in Switzerland. When I was at Berlitz yesterday signing us up for French lessons, I asked the lady in charge which language was studied by the most students at the school. I was expecting her to say German, but she said English. Apparently a lot of Swiss people go to Berlitz to study English so that they can get better jobs at international companies. I'm actually surprised that only 21.7% of Swiss people use English in their workplace. I guess it's probably because a large percentage of the people working in these places AREN'T SWISS! Plus, if the survey reported the percentage of Swiss people who actually SPEAK English instead of just speaking it at their work place, it would probably be something like 80%. This, of course, includes all of the Swiss people who say they speak "a little bit" of English.
Here's a typical conversation with a Swiss salesperson in a store:

TBF: Sprechen Sie Englisch?
Swissy: A little bit!
TBF: How much does this cost?
Swissy: That's an interesting philosophical question. Perhaps you should examine the juxtaposition of your conflict rather than extrapolating various nuances of an obliquious nature.
TBF: Huh?

Sometimes when I ask "...sprechen Sie Englisch?", they answer: "Of course!"

At this point, I run for my life.

Hey, Mrs. TBF - SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mrs. TBF is currently somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on her way to New York. So, she has no idea that....I SIGNED US UP FOR FRENCH LESSONS TODAY! We've been talking about it, but we hadn't really come to a definite decision as to when. So...today I changed all that.
After working out at the gym, I walked across the street to Berlitz (which is conveniently located right above Paddy Reilly's Irish Pub) and signed us up for 24 WEEKS of 90-MINUTE LESSONS...TWO TIMES PER WEEK!!! Actually, Berlitz is pretty flexible. We can work around Madame TBF's busy travel schedule, and we have a year to use all of the lessons.
I'm excited about it! I have considered it my duty to learn German since we live in a German speaking area. However, I always looked at it as a chore. Even though I enjoyed the actual lessons and conversation classes, I never really had that much interest in it (sorry...Christian, Esther, entire staff at SKK, and every German speaker I have ever met!).
And, to tell you the absolute truth....we're Francophiles. We like to travel in France, I grocery shop in France every week, we like French food, I like French beer (sorry Christian), and I even like the French people (gasp!!!).
So there you have it! At the end of this month, we're going to begin parlez vous Francais-ing! I'm going to learn what the hell these things mean - é, â, à, ê - and how you pronounce them. Sacre bleu......I guess I'll even know what this thing - ç - means before too long.
First things first...I have self-tests sitting on our dining room table so they know where we should begin. I had one year of high school French vs. Mrs. TBF's several years of French (including university-level French Literature In French). I looked at the test, and I think I understand about 1% of it. It's possible that I may have to take a few lessons on my own to reach her level. I'll keep you posted.

Did I read this correctly???

I just read that the Chicago Bulls are the playoffs for the first time since the end of the Jordan era. To tell you the truth, I haven't really been following them too closely. I had no idea what their coaches name is until I read it today.
Every now and then I would just check the standings to see if they had won ten games yet for the entire season. This year, I'd check from time to time and I actually saw that they had a chance to make the playoffs. And, now they have!

My morning Mantra...

I drove Mrs. TBF to Basel's EuroAirport this morning, and we left the house at 6:05 a.m. for her 7:00 a.m. flight. On the rare occasion that I have to drive this early in the morning, there is only one thing that goes through my mind - "Must...stay...on...road!" Those are the words that I kept repeating to myself during our fifteen minute drive to the airport. And, I'm happy to report...I did!
I must say that it's incredibly convenient living less than ten kilometers from the airport. We pulled out of our parking garage at 6:05 a.m., I dropped Mrs. TBF off at the departure area at 6:20 a.m., and I was pulling back into our parking garage at 6:35 a.m.
Mrs. TBF is off to New York for a meeting. She'll be there until Wednesday evening, and she'll be back in Basel on Thursday afternoon. Then, I'll be leaving for Chicago on Friday morning. My flight on Friday leaves at....get this...6:05 a.m.!!!! I hope I remember to...."stay....on...road!"
Mrs. TBF is flying to NYC via London on British Airways. That is her new carrier of choice. She hates Swiss and doesn't really feel like always having to take the train to fly out of Zürich. She's worried about United, and she pretty much has to connect in Frankfurt to use them. So, she's started flying from EuroAirport on BA and connecting in London.
Our growing concern over United's future resulted in Mrs. TBF cashing in most of her United miles to fly me to Chicago this Friday. She used something like 180,000 miles to fly me in Business Class (I'm a total diva when it comes to flying. I demand to fly Business Class overseas!!!!) to Chicago. The only problem is that I have to take the early flight to Frankfurt so that I'm assured of making the connection time to Chicago. That means I'll have to wake up at about 4:30 a.m. this Friday morning (9:30 p.m. Chicago time). I'm sure I'll be a wreck by the time I arrive in Chicago. Fortunately, I'll be picked up at the airport and I won't have to worry about "....staying...on...road!"

Sind wir auch mit Pfiff?

Mrs. TBF and I went out to eat this past Friday night at Au Premier which is on the floor just above Zum Braunen Mutz at Barfüsserplatz in Basel. After having a quick drink with Jeanette and Simon, Mrs. TBF and I walked over to Yoshi Sushi with the intention of having a nice sushi dinner. When we arrived there, there was a sign on the door which said "Ausverkauft" which means that they were sold out. Can you believe it? It wasn't that late - probably 9:00 p.m. or so and they were sold out.
So, we kept walking. We came upon Zum Braunen Mutz which is a popular Basel beerhall. It's a great place to go if you want to eat sausage, drink beer, and fart non-stop for the twelve hours immediately following your dinner. Fortunately, the intense smell of cigarette smoke that permeates your clothes, skin, bone marrow, DNA, etc. will cover up any unpleasant smell of flatulence.
As we stood outside of ZBM, we noticed the menu for the upstairs restaurant (Au Premier). We had heard that there was another restaurant upstairs, but we had never been there before. We decided to give it a try. And? We're glad we did.
Au Premier is a nice, quiet, white tablecloth kind of restaurant with a good food and wine selection. We had a really nice dinner, and we really enjoyed the food (although Mrs. TBF thought it was too brightly lit). I had a sweetbread entreé (that's appetizer for everyone who's reading this in the U.S. I have no idea why Americans call the main course the entreé...it basically means the entrance to the meal...the starter, if you will.). Then I had the Palette de Poissons (kind of a fish sampler platter). I can't really remember what Mrs. TBF ate. Although, I do recall her eating fish. We washed this all down with a nice bottle of Sancerre (that's maybe why I can't remember what she ate), and then had a nice dessert.
On my way out of the restaurant, I picked up a card and I noticed that the slogan on the card read: "Die Brasserie mit Pfiff". I have seen this "mit Pfiff" before, and I could never really figure out what it meant. To me, it meant "with fife." So, feeling a bit buzzed, I charged back into the restaurant, found our waiter who spoke English, and asked him what "mit Pfiff" means. He said it means "with fife." "Yeah...but...what does that actually mean?" I asked him. He couldn't translate it to English, so we went to ask another person. She couldn't translate it either, so the three of us went to somebody who they said spoke the best English of anybody in the restaurant (he might have been the owner...I'm not sure.). They asked him in Swiss German what "mit Pfiff" is in English, he looked at me and said: "It means...with pep." Mystery solved!!!
Now, every time I do something, I tell Mrs. TBF that I'm doing it "mit Pfiff." This morning, I made coffee "mit Pfiff", fed King "mit Pfiff", emptied the dishwasher "mit Pfiff", etc. (mit Pfiff).
I think she's beginning to get annoyed...."mit Pfiff"!!!!

The Big Finn vs. FOTOAUTOMAT - It's a draw!

Two out of four ain't bad!

I just came across this strip of photos under a pile of papers on my desk. They were taken at a passport photo booth in Basel not too far from my gym on March 11, 2005.

Mrs. TBF and I applied for new Swiss drivers licenses, and we needed to send in passport photos with our applications. I decided to go to this photo booth that is about a two-minute walk from my gym. First of all, let me say that whoever owns this photo booth is MAKING A FORTUNE. Whenever I walk by it, there are about 5-10 teenage girls and boys laughing, having their pictures taken, and just having the best time. I guess Basel must be lacking in entertainment for teenagers.
Anyway...I was very fortunate that when I needed to use the services of this photo booth, there was nobody else there. I put in my two francs, and started to read the German instructions. As you can see from the first picture, I was still reading the instructions with a somewhat troubled expression on my face and I wasn't ready for the blinding flash of light indicating that I had just been photographed. Then, just as I was reading that the camera took four SEPARATE pictures....FLASH!!!! Doh!!!!! Fortunately, the synapses in my brain engaged quickly enough for me to be ready for the third and fourth pictures. Unfortunately, the top of my head was cut off and the pictures were unusable for my license. Plus, I found out later that the photo size was wrong anyway. So, I just went to another booth the next day and took another photo.
Seeing that I didn't want to waste a couple of francs. I figured I'd post the pictures on my blog so that I'd get some return for my two francs.

I can't believe it!

"Sole Survivor" by Asia is playing on Plant Rock right now. I just wrote about it earlier this morning. What a coincidence! Veleicht muss ich ein Lotto Ticket kaufen!!!

Thanks...

Thanks to everybody who sent messages after Dominique died. A couple of days after we put her down, we took another old pet into our house - my mother-in-law Jo.
Jo was here for three weeks, and she just returned to Chicago yesterday. It was nice having our old pet here for a few weeks, but now it's just me, Mrs. TBF, and King (our cat). King is relishing his role as the sole survivor of pets. Which brings up an interesting thing that happened after we put Dominique to sleep.
During Dominique's last weekend, I played the song "Sole Survivor" by Asia, and I told Mrs. TBF that this was going to be King's new theme song. After we returned from Dominique's last visit to the vet, I put on Planet Rock for a little distraction. A few minutes later, Mrs. TBF walked into the room and said: "You won't believe what's playing on Planet Rock!" You guessed it...it was "Sole Survivor" by Asia. What were the chances? It's not like this is a song you hear very often on the radio. King must have called in a request.

Dominique....May 14, 1991 - March 14, 2005

Dominique went to heaven this morning at 9:15 a.m.

We made the decision to put her down this past Friday when she was finally diagnosed with chronic kidney failure. She had really been going downhill all week. We even noticed her health deteriorating over her past couple of days.

This past weekend was very emotional and very difficult. Dominique had unquenchable thirst, and she drank "gallons" of water. During the evening, we had to take her out every forty-five minutes for a pee. During the mornings, she was OK. She was very tired, so we just stayed on the bed with her a lot so we could be with her. We tried bringing her out for a couple of walks, but she was only interested in walking (very slowly) for a few minutes. During the evenings, she would begin pacing and drinking water every couple of minutes. Even though she was drinking a lot, she was dying of thirst because her kidneys could not process the water any more.

We're heart broken, and we've shed a lot of tears. But at the same time, we're happy that she lived to be almost fourteen years old and we have lots of pictures and great memories. We've already begun looking at our photo albums and rehashing great memories. We think she lived a great life...and on two continents!!! How many people can say their dog lived in the U.S.A. and Switzerland, and traveled to France, Germany, Lichtenstein, and Spain?

We're going to miss her terribly, and she'll always have a place in our hearts.

The Town Drunk...Swiss Style.

On the way to my German conversation class shortly after noon (12:11 to be exact), as I boarded the tram, I noticed what could be the politest and most orderely town drunk I've ever seen. Public displays of drunkeness are fairly rare here, and I made sure I chose a seat with a clear view so that I could enjoy the show.
I noticed the 60+ year old man holding a bottle of Coop Lager (the cheap store brand beer) the instant I got on the tram. He was unshaven, but other than that he looked fairly well kempt. He had on neatly pressed clothes, he didn't smell, and he happily greeted every person (including me) who stepped onto the tram. My first reaction was to avoid the guy, but as I said before, I wanted to be able to see what was going to take place on my eight minute tram ride.
As the tram began moving, the man began a soliloquy in slurred Swiss German which - while being very interesting to listen to - was completely incomprehensible to me. This gibberish continued for a minute, and then the tram slowed down at the next stop where an unsuspecting woman boarded the tram and sat right next to the man. This was going to be interesting...
The moment the tram began moving, the soliloquy began again. Now, if this had been in America, the lady would probably have made a noise of disgust and then moved to another seat. Afterall, who wants to sit next to a drunk? But not in Switzerland. The lady politely sat next to the man, and she pretty much ignored him. At one point, the man reached into his pocket, pulled out a bottle opener, and carefully popped the bottle cap off of his beer - of course he carefully put the cap in his pocket so that he could put it in the proper recycling container at some point in his bleary-eyed future. While he was putting the bottle cap into his pocket, he accidentally nudged the lady sitting next to him. He slurred out some form of apology, and the lady told him it was not a problem. At this point, I would definitely have moved to another seat because I knew what was coming next.
Because the lady talked to him, the man considered it an open invitation to begin telling her his life story. He began gesturing with his arms. Then, he pulled a little piece of paper out of his pocket and began reading and laughing out loud. A few seconds later, he began whistling what were apparently bird calls for some long extinct bird. All this time, the lady just politlely sat next to him and did not move.
Unfortunately, we arrived at my stop and I had to get off the tram. As I stepped off the tram, I looked back and saw the man offering the lady a sip of his beer. She answered him with a simple, "Danke, nein". Although she was beginning to look a little uneasy... she still did NOT move to a new seat.
As the tram began moving toward the next stop, I saw the man's arms begin gesturing again. The lady just sat there looking straight ahead.