Four shades of bikes

Ok, so I was blogging about the woman who visited me earlier today. Being nice, as you do meeting somebody the first time. But I did tell her that should she move in with me, I might not be so nice all the time.

Threatened to blog about her four bikes. Yes, she told me she has four. Bikes. I mean, who needs four bikes? Excuse me, that's ridiculous. A bike for me is a two-wheeler that takes you somewhere. For people who wants to take the difficult road, rather than use their legs or the excellent tram/bus/boat/train-system that Zürich offers.

But I guess to challenge me, she sends me a email explaining the four bikes: "Road bike (porsche), mountain bike (suv) touring bike (van) and city bike (smart)".

Exactly! Your guess is as good as mine.

Live with a woman?

Lately I've been thinking of renting out the guest room again. Like I did in my old flat. I think it would be nice to have somebody to talk to on a daily basis, as well as sharing some of the cost.

Mind you, I'm not the type who wants to be social at all times, I'm not living alone for nothing, but once in a while it's nice to share and maybe cook together.

Today I had a woman over. I have never lived with a woman before, but when I saw her ad looking for a flatshare, and above all her age, close to mine, I realized that why not?

So she came, we had a glass of wine and talked for an hour and a half. She's nice, even though we are very different in personality, I think we got along well. She could very well be a person I could learn to trust. And this is important to me. I don't like people who play games, or don't live up to promises.

So we'll see. She's currently browsing a number of flats. If she's choosing to move in here, you'll for sure hear more about her.

Burning hair

Who needs a haircut, when you can just burn your hair yourself? Haha, was just sitting in front of my computer, smoking a ciggie and all of a sudden I smelled this burning aroma. Looked at my ciggie and saw a bunch of hairs, sitting at the top of it.

Not that I go to the hairdresser that often. I think last time was more than a year ago. I mean, it's not like I need to maintain a proper hair-do. Most of the time I just use a clip to keep the hair together.

But still, burning your hair might not be the best idea.

265 g of bio-mayo

Ever since I started to enjoy these eggs delivered to me from a free-roaming farm, I have become a bit obsessed with where eggs come from. Not the chicken and the egg kinda enigma, but that eggs in products I buy are not from "Bodenhaltung", i.e. chicken that cannot roam free.

So I had a bit of a dilemma the other day when searching for mayonnnaise. I know, you can make it yourself, egg yolks, olive oil, whatsit, I've watched enough masterchef shows to know but that's not me. I do cook a fair bit of food myself, but I'm not stretching it to make my own mayo yet.

Anyway, turns out that all mayo's are made from "Bodenhaltung" eggs, except for the bio one. Hmm.

Generally I think that "bio" is put on the label to make it sound good, and to charge three times the price of not bio, but in this particular case I fell for it. Not that anybody would taste the difference.

And another thing, why is it 265 grams? Why not 250 or 300? To make it more difficult to compare to others?

Still not convinced about this bio shit, but I do care about the chicken. Definitely worth looking into.

Goners

About once a year I go through my email-list and my phone in order to decide whether I want to keep the contact information or not. The general rule is if I haven't heard from them for a year they are deleted. But that's a rule with some exceptions.

Long-term good friends always stay, even if we lost contact for a while. Some relatives are kept, even if I don't hear from them often, not all of them mind you. Some people I'm thinking I should contact to ask if they're still alive, but haven't yet, I keep.

But the others are goners. The people I met once or twice, and exchanged numbers with, gone. The people I used to know pretty well, but have lost contact with for one reason or another, gone. The people who have irritated me enough, or I just don't like anymore, gone.

So, if you don't hear from me, you know why ;).

Mystery

The body is a mystery. Well, at least mine is. Since I bought my (tiny) scale, I have weighed in every morning and I have found out that even though I eat about the same amount of calories, and do the same amount of sports, the weight can differ up to 800 grams from one day to another. How is that possible?

Yesterday I had a bit of an eating binge. Well, at least in comparison to other days. It was like I was hungry still, no matter how much I ate. So I allowed myself to eat about twice as much as normal.

Yet, this morning the scale showed exactly the same as yesterday! I really don't get it.

A nun

I just saw a documentary about a woman, 19 years old, who chose to join a monastery. One of those strict ones where you only are allowed to speak two hours a day.

First of all, she came from a family with nine kids. The parents were super-religious having their own chapel in the garden. And the Mum saying "I would be so proud if all my kids were to become priests or nuns". Hello, how sick is not that? I mean, if you want that why didn't you become a nun yourself?

Second, the poor brainwashed woman who chose to live with "god", wanted to help the world. She had seen that there were so much bad going on, and so many people being hurt, that she didn't know where to start. So she chose not to help anyone at all.

In the monastery there is no television, no internet, no radio, no communication with the outside world except for a few times a year when she's allowed to meet her family through a grid. Like in a prison. So how can she help people? She has no idea what's going on in the world, she has chosen not to participate, not to take any decisions, not to be a part of anything that's going on. Through prayer?

HAHAHAHAHA! Munks and nuns, you are losers. You help nobody except yourselves.

Eating like a bird (or rather two birds)

Had two (female) friends over this evening for balcony hang and a bite to eat. I know from experience that they are not big eaters, but today they took it to new heights. I had only prepared a few savoury pastries with a shrimp filling, a few sandwiches and a salad, but even so, half of it was left.

One might think that I cannot cook, or that my food isn't appreciated, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. So I decided next time I'll invite them, I will serve two crackers on a plate. One each. That should teach'm!

Coop surprises

It is not often I get positively surprised, but today it happened. Last week I was buying a liter of strawberries at Coop. I buy strawberries a lot, but earlier in the year the berries were imported from Spain or Italy. So I was happy to see local produce.

That was until I tasted them. They had a strange flavour, like chemicals mixed with something old. And the consistency was like fluid. So I threw them all away. Five francs down the drain (or more accurently in the bio-bag...yes I know, it's another story).

Because I felt cheated I wrote a note to Coop through their website, thinking I was gonna be ignored but to my surprise I got a phone call a few days later asking if the strawberries I bought were "bio". I answered they were not. Normal Swiss strawberries. The woman said I would hear from them via post. Yeah, I thought, right. Of course I will. Not.

Today I received a letter, paper-form, you know that old-fashioned way of communicating, and whaddayaknow. A long letter (ok, probably pre-produced but still) sent to me personally saying how difficult it is to monitor all fresh products that Coop sell every day. Which I can understand. And that they were very sorry, and hope that I will remain a customer.

As a cherry on top of the cake, a voucher to the value of ten francs. Well done Coop! And yes, I will remain a customer.

I so wish more companies would take their customers seriously. For now, I will for sure favour Coop before Migros.

Monday feast

Just a little Monday feast for two.

New neighbours

I wish I had a recorder, in order to document the laughs/noise/shouts that is going on in the neighbourhood. Love it.

And they were clever, the neighbours, they invited everybody around including myself.

Everybody brought something to eat, something to drink, and eventually there were more than enough. Bratwurst, potatoes, salads, sweets and there was no end to it.

It was a great evening, and it's lovely to see the younger generation partying like there was no tomorrow! And I got to see my balcony from a different view. Plus I got to pet Lola, a very cute and very little rabbit.

No longer friends

It's a bit of an emotional time for me. I am about to cut somebody who used to be very close to me out of my life. Don't get me wrong. It's taken me a long time, years in fact, to get to this decision.

Nevertheless, it is a bit heartbreaking.

Last time I did it, was with a very close friend for about 20 years. But when she visited me, spent a whole evening talking about how much she hated her mother and all the wrong-doings she apparently made, while my mother was in the hospital dying, I decided it was time to cut the cord.

I knew her mother, and she was a perfectly good woman, caring about her daughter. Besides, my former friend borrowed money from me and never paid back.

It comes to a point when you had enough. And this is my point.

Still, it's sad but I'll get over it. You know, when you have already gone through the worst thing that can happen in your life, you realize you can live through anything. Not always pleasant, but hopefully you become stronger in the end of it.

After all, who wants to have friends who always put you down and make you feel unwelcome and not good enough? Not me, that's for sure.

Mini-Zürich

It was an interesting day today. We went to see Zürich in miniature. In the governmental body that handles Zürich building construction they have a model of Zürich. It contains all the existing buildings in brown, and all the ones that are in planning in white. The height difference in the city is displayed, and looking closely it is made of very thin wooden slices, cleverly laid out on each other.

The whole thing consists of squares, that we think can be moved around if another building is to be added in the middle. Unless they have child labour that can walk on the wood with tiny feet, but after a brief discussion we dismissed that option.

However, I can see a lot of improvement being made. Like a glass floor on top of the construction so that my house (or any other house for that matter) could be seen more closely from above (it was now in the middle), like better lighting, like trams and trains, like having the right colour on the houses and on the forest. I was told by my friend who happens to be in the building business that the forest was actually made by cucumber! Surprising. Dried cucumber but still. And it was brown, not green.

Anyway, this is definitely an underutilized tourist attraction!

PS. My house was about 5 cm. Still the best in Zürich if you ask me :).

Being stingy pays off

I wish I had a pedometer again, today has been a good day. First I tried jogging for 20 minutes this morning. It was as boring as I remember doing it like three decades ago. However, it did get my heart rate up, and I wasn't exhausted after. Slow jog mind you.

Then I was gonna go for a cruise on the lake. Normally I'd take the tram that goes directly from my place to the harbour, but then I remembered I no longer have a travel pass. It expired and I chose not to extend it, since I don't use it that often.

So I decided to walk all the way to the city, stop off to greet a friend, then on to the boat. Did a short cruise, it was a bit windy, then parked again and stayed there for a while. After all, I need to improve on my tan.

After that I walked back to the main station, so that I could get a "Kurzstrecke"-ticket, a ticket that is cheaper but you can only travel 5 stops.

So a great day, and it only cost me 2.60 CHF!

Oh, and I saw this swan feather, made me think of Forrest Gump.

Ice!

Had a bit of a snooze late afternoon, and woke up by a scrambling noise. Immediately I got up, talking to the cats, saying "what have you done now?".

Then I realized I had a guy here earlier today, fixing my ice machine that's been broken for a while, and hurray, it now produces ice again. So the noise came from ice cubes dropping into the container.

Yippee! Can now make proper frozen drinks again, and yes, I did apologize to the cats.

How to take back a promise, anyone?

Jeez, what have I done? Was talking to a friend who lives nearby today about jogging. He does it, I do not. And he complained he doesn't do it as often as before, 'cause the guy he used to do it with moved away. That was two years ago :).

I'm not sure, but I might have promised to give it a try. I blame it on the sun and the wine.

Gad! Me jogging?

Now I've gotta do a try run to see if it's actually possible. And I take comfort in the fact that I'm fairly fit these days, and he doesn't look it. Still, this is a huge challenge.

Long lunch

Spent the afternoon having a really long lunch with friends on their terrace.

The discussion topics went from constipation (turns out I'm not the only one having had these problems, in exchange of my story I got to hear from their experiences, being advised never to take a pill in an American apartment where the walls are paper thin), to Zürich in miniature (yes I gotta see this!) and almost an argument on skin care (me: "you are beautiful, quit talking about surgical intervention", to her "yes, but some of these cremes really do work" to me "now they're not, you're falling for the marketing" while the husband was staying out of this particular discussion, although nodding to my arguments).

Anyway, it was an interesting afternoon with great friends.

Saturday night fun

Not to read for sensitive people!

Lately I had an ailment that's been bothering me, so I stopped by the pharmacy to get some medicine. Coming home this evening I thought a good dump would be a nice Saturday evening treat. Yes I know, it's a funny way to spend your time, thinking about all the thousands and millions of people out there partying.

But hey, you just wait, and you'll be there too.

When opening the package of a medicine I used before but only very occasionally, I realized these were some big tablets! And before I tried to swallow one, I read more carefully and figured out they were suppositories. Aha!

Not very pleasant but I placed one where it was supposed to be, then sat down for a drink and to watch some telly.

Ten minutes later I was in agony, sitting down on the toilet waiting for the thing to happen. Nothing. Only air. A few minutes later I started sweating, like profusely, getting dizzy and felt like I would faint.

One and a half hour of pure pain and slow release. Nah, these pills have gotta go. If I would have lived in America I could've probably sued somebody, but no. The list of possible side effects were there, but I'm not the one who thinks I would be affected.

And all this started since I began to eat healthy and doing sports. Something is wrong in this equation. Maybe my body misses all these E-numbers?

Beauty sleep

I love having friends to visit, including them staying over. But I gotta admit, this week was a bit of a strain. Every morning I got awaken by two furry ones "drilling" themselves under my duvet since there was a stranger in the house. He got up between 6.20 and 6.30am, and that's a tad earlier than I normally get up.

Three out of four mornings I got up too. Having a coffee and a chat. And after that it's difficult to get back to bed.

Tonight however, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna sleep like a log. Catching up. After all, I need my beauty sleep!

There's a cat under my bed

This week I had a friend staying over. Not that I've seen a lot of him, what with working and going out every evening and all. Like I used to.

Anyway, this evening he came home, we had a drink together, and then he wanted to go to bed.

"There's a cat under my bed", he was complaining, not understanding that it was a big, in fact huge compliment. My cats do not take to people easily. The fact that one of them was under his bed was an enormous improvement.

And yes, he left the door open to the guest room while he wasn't there so that the cats had a chance to sniff through everything. I am so glad I didn't have to!

Vtx is the new Orange

I dunno know. I'm skeptical. Got a phone call today from my internet provider. Many years ago I signed up with Orange, and recently they sold their internet connection part to Vtx. Which made sense since Vtx has provided the service as a supplier to Orange all these years.

Anyway, they called today and offered me double Mb's and ten francs off the bill on a monthly basis.

When I get offers like that, I have a hard time trusting them, but hey! Orange hasn't exactly been generous so why not? Ten francs saving a month is not to be frown upon.

But the connection has bloody well gotta work. Good thing I have the name, email and number to the sales guy.

Lobster-look

I have a good life. 32°C in the air, 20°C in the water. Today I swam for the first time this year.

And honestly, I cannot think of anything better than an afternoon on the lake, friends, food, drinks and great weather. I'm now having that sexy lobster-look.

To top it all off, we visited my fav place for a drink and a chat. A very good day indeed.

Homeless shoes

You know, once in a while it's nice to mix with the other side, like the homeless. So tonight I invited one of them for dinner.

We got an insight to how it is in the psycho-world, and why psycho-something professions are needed. We nodded and understood nothing, since we were of the opinion that if you have a problem you talk with friends.

But they liked the food, hot chili chicken with other stuff. And the cake from yesterday! Which I presented as the nouveau Schwedentorte :).

Modern cake

Having a few friends over tomorrow, so decided to prepare the cake already today. After all, it takes some time.

So this is a modernized version of "Schwedentorte", that green marzipan cake you've probably eaten in Ikea. I think Gordon Ramsey would be proud. Or not.

Truth is, there was something wrong with the marzipan I think, 'cause after trying 5 times, sweating and swearing (friggin' hot today) I couldn't roll it into a decent round piece to cover the cake with. Funny that, since the other times I made this cake it was much less problems.

Well, I hope they'll be impressed tomorrow. At least of all the effort I put in.

Basement happiness

I am so happy about my basement being clean and spider-free. I am in my basement almost every day, there is wine to be fetched, carton to be deposited to wait for the monthly pick-up, occasionally an umbrella to picked up when it rains, cat sand to be brought or books to be stored.

Now when I go in there I feel relief. It's clean, it's organized and nothing I have to feel bad about anymore.

It's funny, since it was a somewhat easy task, but it took me almost five years to do. Ok, there were stuff in there needed to be removed in order to get enough space to clean, but still.

Now it's done and I feel good about it. Next task is to go through all the papers, letters and postcards and whatsit. I always had a feeling if somebody took their time to write to me I couldn't throw it away. Now I will re-think and one of these days it'll happen. I'm almost sure.

Endurance

I've gotten tired of doing sports twice a day, so now I've changed pattern. I'm happy to still doing sports in the morning, getting sweaty and then shower. But in the evenings I want to stay clean, not sweating but still doing something. Endurance.

Like standing on one leg for two minutes (much harder than you think, try it!) and then change and stand on the other leg for another two minutes. Obviously, I'm gonna increase the time but today was the first day.

Also sitting, but without a chair, makes your leg muscles burn. And lifting those (tiny) weights 50 times in the air, or out from your body, has rendered me upper arms without bingo wings!

But sadly, the weight has now stayed more or less the same since a month. I blame it on muscles weighing more than fat, and am not really upset about it. I feel healthier, more energized and have actually reached my goal weight that I set from the beginning. Plus I eat chocolate and fatty things now and then.

However, it would be a challenge to get another 3 kg's off the body. Gotta go shopping for soup tomorrow :).

Hole in my head

The other day I got a phone call, one of these usual ones where they want to sell you something. But this was different, the woman was speaking my mother tongue, and in the end when she had talked a hole in my head, I finally agreed to meet with this "independent agency" to have a look at my health insurance. After all, hadn't done that in a while.

Today the guy came. He spent fifteen minutes telling me why my current insurance is bad, and fifteen minutes on why his proposal is much better. Independent my ass.

Ok, the price was slightly lower but he had not included something I find important, dental insurance and when a dug a little there would be this and that added to get to my current coverage.

Half an hour of my life that won't come back.

This friggin German language

In the group I was hanging with today, they spoke German. Most of them were fluent also in English, but between themselves of course they spoke their native language. I was laughed at, trying my version of their language.

But you know, I choose to interprete it like I'm pretty fluent and I make a few mistakes. I mean, if I was a total disaster in speaking German, they would've been understanding and trying to help me out. Well, at least that's what I hope.

Yum!

I like to not do like everybody else most of the time. So today I met up with a group of friends, and they all ordered a brunch plate, whereas I enjoyed a huge cheese plate all by myself. Delish, and way too much to finish!