Prepping

Scary times, this is. And I'm not a prepping person, even though I experienced losing all my frozen food some years ago when my food center stopped working in the middle of the hot summer. But it was just to go to the shop and buy food every day, and that was it.

Strangely enough we have a bunker in our house, apparently it was a rule when the house was built. But I can tell you one thing, if I were to bring my two cats and share it with six adults and three children, with one toilet and two mattresses, and all this on 12 square meters, I would rather meet the enemy face to face.

Not making fun of the situation, all sane people are on the right side of this "war", if there is a right side in any war. Let's just hope it's over soon, and we can all live in peace, which I'm sure 99.9% of all of us want.

The good and the bad (nothing ugly)

Lately I’ve been good and bad.

Good in going jogging 3-4 times a week, enjoying seeing deer, squirrels and other so called wildlife. Fortunately no bears, elks or other dangerous species, which makes it even more enjoyable.

Bad with regards to reducing smoking. I go jogging in the morning, and on the way back I go and buy a pack of cigs. Which doesn’t always last the whole day. But I’m trying.

I applaud promiscuity

Recently I saw a tv program about genealogy, where semi-famous people were looking for their roots. I have to admit I'm not too interested in this, except for the people I know or have heard of in my own family.

I mean, they were all looking for drama, for having a king or queen, or a murderer in their blood line, but who cares? I am what I am, and they are what they are, no changing that.

But it made me think of my own heritage. My grandmothers mother, who I vaguely remember, she must have died when I was very young, was born in the late 1800's. She got pregnant and gave birth to my grandmother when she was only 15, and unmarried. In those days it was not something you did and got a medal for.

But without her being "open" I wouldn't sit here today. So I applaud her. And she did get married to the father of the child later on. But that didn't stop my grandmother from doing the same thing :). Four children with three men! A lot of people have said I'm like her, except for the children of course. Good thing there weren't birth-controll pills in those days!

Early or late

It's really weird this change of day and night with me. I used to be a night person, always cranky in the morning and alive and very awake in the evening/night. Now it's changed. I'm waking up earlier and earlier in the morning, wanting to go running in the forest (or similar strange activities like sporty stuff). I don't get it. Hopefully it's a phase.

This morning was extreme. I woke up at four (ok, went to bed early but still). It was dark and I was snoozing until five. But then of course the cats were up, they have a sixth sense, so whenever I start moving they are too.

So went up, had a coffee and was considering going for a run. Stopped myself, thinking I was out yesterday and am going out tomorrow. Don't be a freak, be normal.

At about seven thirty I was kinda getting tired again, so thought I'd have another hour of sleep. Hah! The cats have two different ways of getting my attention. The wee one jumps up into the bed, sits in front of my face and miaows quite loudly. She's the one who is not afraid to tell me what she wants. However, when I grunt and turn around she usually goes away. At least for the moment.

The other one has a more refined strategy. She starts with walking all over me, literally, and when I don't react she sits next to me, poking me with her paw. When that doesn't work the claws come out and she scratches me, gently mind, no blood, but still very irritating when you try to sleep.

So yes, I think I'll go to bed early tonight.

Life rocks

Every day I am grateful for the life I live, but today I was a little more so. It started out with a sale at my local Denner (they are renovating and therefore closing for three weeks) with 30% on everything. Can I just say I wasn't alone there at eight in the morning. But I got the stuff I wanted, mainly cat food, and even got some help to carry it home.

Then I was with dog the whole day. We did a vitaparcours round in the morning, which is really funny with a companion. She's a real darling and I had to laugh a lot. She looks at me when I'm doing the exercises like I'm crazy, she might have a point there, and when we get to the little lake in the middle of the forest, she goes absolutely bananas and wants to swim.

Then we had a little rest, all the four of us. Two cats watching the "monster", but when they get too close the dog retreats. Clever dog. Trust me, never play with a cat, they always win.

After that doggie and I went for a walk into town, and of course she went bathing every chance she got.

In the afternoon we met up with the dog owner, and went for a premiere cruise on the lake this year. It was gorgeous. Warm, sunny, practically no wind and few people. And we had wine and sandwiches and music.

I was thinking of how lucky I am. I am healthy, I have good friends, I have a boat, I have animals around me and I live in the best city in the world. There is nothing that can top this!

PS. And I'm almost up to 25,000 steps today. An added plus to a perfect day.

19 minutes!

I did it! I jogged/powerwalked the round in 19 minutes, which means good. 17 minutes is regarded outstanding, and that's my next goal. But there is no rush so to speak.

Tomorrow I'll have a dog with me, and that might slow me down a bit. It's not like I'm competing, I just enjoy feeling more healthy and agile.

At the same time, my cig producer has launched a new packaging and is therefore selling them at a discount. Gotta stock up!

Good and bad, yin and yang, plus and minus. Guess that's life.

Jump to the next level

You know that I've been thinking about horse-jumping since I first started to ride again, and I now feel that I have reached the level where I am confident enough to try. However, I want to make it as a reward, so first on the list is to become Swiss, and apart from having a huge flag-waving party, I'm gonna book a private lesson and jump my heart out.

Also, it wouldn't be a good idea to jump, hurt myself and limp into the city hall office. Knowing ze Swiss, they want financially sound, healthy people with a good knowledge of Switzerland.

So yes, that's what I'll do. Swiss - jump - then I'll have to think of what's next.

Thumb up

Today I was scheduled to have yet another private riding lesson, but 'cause of circumstances it got cancelled and I was asked if I instead wanted to join a group in the evening. I did want.

It was different, the others knew each other, had different levels, and of course being in a group of four is something other than being alone with a teacher. Not only that, I got the biggest horse there was. 1.78, had to stand on a thingie to get up.

But it all went reasonbly well, even though I much prefer to have a horse that is not taller than me. 50 minutes of riding takes a toll on me I tell you. Even though I'm fairly fit by now, it is a long time trying to manoeuvre half a ton (?) of a living creature.

Jumping off I nearly fell backwards, but managed to compose myself. Probably because I didn't want to look stupid in front of others.

Afterwards I wanted to give the horse his carrot, but he had another lesson with a new student, so I went to his box to put it there for him to enjoy for later. Only the barn was closed and it was dark, so when opening the door I hurt myself quite badly. Cut my thumb. It was bleeding like hell. But a bit in shock I still went it in, sucking my thumb, and emptied the carrots in his food bowl.

Coming out I realized I needed help, but there was nobody there. No staff, and the next lesson had already started, so I pressed my other finger against my thumb, held it high and with my left hand fished out my mobile phone and called a friend. And lo and behold, he was home on a Friday evening.

Ten minutes walk from the barn, holding my thumb high up while still pressing (haha, a taxi that passed by slowed down, thought I was flagging him down), and my friend had gotten out the plasters.

First he opened a bottle of spirits to clean the wound, then we put on three plasters. Then he gave me a glass of water and glass of wine, and immediately it felt better.

But by the time I got home it had blead through, so now I'm sitting with eight plasters, the last three extremely tightly wrapped around my thumb. It was actually a pretty deep cut. Like you could flap over a piece of skin. Oh dear.

It won't stop me from riding again, but it might stop me from bringing carrots.

Hereditary?

I believe that heritage and environment have an equal weight in who we are. For example, for most of his life my Dad used to take a half-hour nap after lunch every day. He used to run his own little company, and come home for lunch every day. Then half an hour on the sofa, taking a nap. Then I didn't think twice about it, it was normal.

And as it has turned out, I'm the same. For the last say ten, fifteen years or so, I have a serious energy dip in the afternoon, when all I want to do is sleep. Nowadays I can, and I fall asleep very easily, then wake up and have loads of energy. Evenings and nights are when I'm most alive and energetic.

So I dunno know whether to thank my Dad, or to say that I'd rather had inherited another habit. But in the end it doesn't matter. He was who he was, and I am half of it, like it or not.

I'm a nobody

I am so extremely happy I am not famous, or even known to the public. I read a lot of news, as well as blogs.

I'm thinking about Obama, who now has a struggle with the republicans, meaning he will not be able to get anything through in his last two years as president. Everybody loses, it becomes a standstill, which in my opinion is worse than going forward.

I'm also thinking about a famous blogger who recently posted an item about her swimming with dolphins, and immediately got anti-comments about how bad that is. Not that I approve of swimming with dolphins not being free, but still. Not being able to do anything without being scrutinized must be horrible.

I mean, all of us are making mistakes now and then, it's human and unavoidable, politicians as well as all other famous or infamous people, and with the press today they are not getting away with anything.

One might argue that if they choose to be public, they must accept the criticism, but I think sometimes it's gone overboard. Imagine the stress these people must feel. I'm not surprised it's a turnover amongst politicians worse than in big corporations, and that's quite bad, I know from experience.

Just saying. I am so happy being an unknown, a nobody, a person behind the scenes. And grateful that I can blog without being judged. Well, except for the occasional sarcastic comment from friends of course :).

That smoking thing

I know I'm sticking my neck out here, not really being devoted to stop smoking, but I am making baby steps towards a healthier life.

Let's not be fooled here, I loooove smoking, I love my cigarettes, I love the feeling they are giving me, but I am not stupid. I realize they are essentially bad for me. However, I do also believe that it's not as bad as it's made out to be, since a lot of smokers get to be 80, 90 or even older.

That said, I believe that smoking less than I currently do would be a good thing. I have started to change my behaviour a little bit, like when I'm sitting in front of my computer, moving the cig pack away so that I have to stand up in order to reach it. And when I go food shopping almost every day, I leave the ciggies back home.

It was funny, I met with a friend the other day, and he had gone to psycho therapy, in order to learn to change his behaviour, and he had been told the exact same thing. Change your behaviour with little things. I call it common sense, some people need therapy.

Ah well, I make no promises, other than that I will try. And that's not a bad thing.

Every life is worth saving

Or is it? I don't have any experience with war, other than what I've read or heard in history lessons or through the media, but I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of the population would agree with me that the world would've been better if Hitler, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Idi Amin, Kim Jong-Il and the likes hadn't been born.

How many Bill Gates's, Richard Branson's, Stephen Hawking's, Nelson Mandela's (my personal fav's), Mother Teresa's and Desmond Tutu's have been killed through wars?

Nobody knows of course, since a life taken cannot be judged by those still living.

Sometimes when I walk through a graveyard, I see stones with names and the age they were when they died, and my mind goes to why. Especially if they were young when they passed. Who would they have been if they had still lived?

Here in Switzerland there is a political party called SVP, who hates everything foreign and everybody who wasn't born here is not welcome. Personally, I wanna ship them all to North Korea, which I believe is a regime that would suit them like hand in glove.

Now I just have to send in my application for Swiss citizenship, then I'll take SVP on :).

But what I wanted to say with this blog item was to ask if there is any proof anywhere that wars do work? Do they accomplish anything in the end? Ok, so Saddam and what's-his-name in Afghanistan were killed by America, but did it get better? Did the world benefit from World War I and II?

My belief is that it didn't. And that Israeli and Palestinian thing that's been going on forever, is it making life better for the people there? Absolutely not.

Religion and power hunger, that's the problem if you ask me. And food for thought, very few women are involved in these fights.

Over and out from an atheist.

Early bird

I had a really funny morning. I went to sleep last night earlier than usual, around 11pm and woke up at 4pm. Went to the bathroom, and normally I would have no problem going back to sleep immediately. Not today. So at 5.15 I was up and about. Really strange feeling.

After having spent the whole afternoon on the lake with swimming, a picnic, nice talks and some wine, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna sleep really well tonight.

I won!

It seems like these days I am happy with the smallest things. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Ikea asking if I wanted to participate in a lottery getting a ticket to the launch of the new catalogue. It is very seldom I answer these type of emails, but I thought this time, why not?

And today I got a phone call that I've been selected.

Secretly of course I'm hoping for a giftbag, but at least there shall be something to eat and drink for free. However, knowing Ikea and their cost philosophy I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

But the best thing of all, I "won" something!

I am invited!

Today I got an invitation that made me really happy. It was from the old peoples home where I volunteer. They have a 30 year jubilee this year, and we, the volunteers and the workers there are invited to join the celebration.

First when I saw the program I thought it was a choice. Either a ferry ride on the lake, a showing of the Masoalahalle in Zürich zoo or a dinner, before realizing it was all three. Wow!

It reminded me of when I, early in my career, was working for a medical state-run clinic, and we got exactly nothing. Not for Christmas, not for New Years, not for Easter, never anything. Not even sweets to go with coffee. Ever.

After that 4,5-year stint with the clinic, I left for the capital and joined an American commercial firm. Two months after I started working there we had a so called kick-off. Four days in the north with everything for free. Travel, skiing lessons, hotel, food, drink and fun. I couldn't believe it! Where did all the money to pay for this come from I wondered. But because I worked in finance I soon after figured it out. But imagine my delight, young, inexperienced and all this served to me. For free! I couldn't believe my luck.

And now I have almost the same feeling. Mind you, I know it's not that big of a thing, but to me, it's grand. It shows me that they appreciate my volunteering, and of course, that in Zürich there is still a lot of money.

Focus

I admit, I lack a bit of focus in my life for the moment. Earlier in my life it's been mostly having my eye on the career, always looking for the next big project, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, the next salary raise. I like money. Not so much for having it, but the freedom it buys me.

Then it was the project of building my house. I say it like it's my house, but only 22% of it is. Nevertheless, it was a humungous project. Apparently. It took 15 months to build the Zürich opera house, but 20 months to build "my" 4-apartment building. Some things were better before.

It was a challenge. I had never bought a apartment before that wasn't built. I had to choose everything from floors to walls to bathroom tiles to kitchen and appliances and on it went to handles on the built-in wardrobes. I learned what the standard height of toilets are, and lots of things I had no idea was important. And all of this I had to do long before the house was built. Imagination (and the sad computer-images that the architect provided) made it to what it is today.

And I am happy. Apart from one little detail, I am extremely proud of my choices. My home is my castle these days.

But. I lack a focus on where I'm going from here. I need something to strive for. Lately I've been into this losing weight business, and maybe that was a good thing for a while. I think I lost about 10 kg's in four months (Jan-Apr), and then have maintained it for another three. A friend told me the other day that if I want to lose more, I should go on, and it would be like starting again.

Should that really be my next goal? It sounds a bit...well little. Shouldn't I reach for something bigger?

The thing is, I have been sitting on my ass (mind you, being happy doing so) for some years now. But I keep on thinking, what's next? What should I be focusing on?

I have no clud. Ideas, anyone?

That direction gene

Some things never change. I took a walk today to a suburb near me and took the tram route. I know the way there, have been there many, many times.

The reason was I wanted to visit Aldi, a cheapo I think German store, that a friend has raved about. I was a wee bit disappointed with what they offered, but ended up buying a chili plant. I hope it's hot.

When I came out, I decided to take another route back in the direction I thought was right. And it was. Almost. I ended up walking a tad longer than I had to, but ended up at home. Eventually.

Reminded me of the time my Mum and I were in a department store in a foreign city, exited through the garage and got completely lost. Yes, I have inherited the no-sense-of-direction-gene from her. Thanks so much Mum!

On the other hand, I also inherited a lot of other skills and talent from my Mum, so I think as long as I'm aware of it, I can live with the lost gene.

No electricity for a week

I was out walking today with a friend and for some reason we got to talk about lifestyle. Maybe because we were sitting in a restaurant at the top of Zürich, at a perfect summer day, looking out over the city and the lake while sipping a glass of cold white wine.

Anyway, later I was philosophing about how it was when I grew up. And him too for that matter, being older than me. My feeling is that people nowadays are ungrateful and unaware how difficult it was in earlier days.

I'm not saying I had a difficult childhood or that I was abused or anything like that. I'm just saying that we (I) had to try harder back then. Not everything was immediately accessible or within reach with a click on the keyboard. Nor did we have credit cards. Back then it was first working hard, then earn some money, and after that a choice how to spend it. If at all, it could also be saved.

And I was speculating in how people nowadays would survive without electricity. I'm not that old, so I grew up with electricity, but still. It's a mind-blowing idea. Imagine not having electricity for a week.

Getting up in the morning, oh no, computer doesn't work. Then you may want to switch on the coffee machine, oh no, doesn't work. Cook breakfast? Forget it. It's summer and the stuff in your fridge or freezer is gonna go quickly. Stove and microwave are off. Call for a take-out? Yes, if you have charged the battery on your mobile phone. Chances are they cannot deliver, 'cause of no electricity.

Watch telly? Hard without electricity. Shopping? Probably not, since the electronic payments won't work.

I guess there is a reason that every country which had a major electricity break-down for a half a day or so, have a baby-boom nine months later. Or why poor or "developing countries" have such a young population.

It was just a thought, but nevertheless, I think it would be educational for everybody (who doesn't already) to live without electricity for a week. I know I would survive, but would you?

Life is good

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate life right now. A day like today with 27°C, sunshine, on the lake with the city on one side and the snow-clad Alps on the other.

Coming home with a handsome tan and a fresh kebab from the best shack in town.

Yes, life is good indeed.

First cruise of the year

I was loading pics from my phone today, when I found this beauty. A tiny bush that was planted outside "my" house almost five years ago is growing into a beautiful tree. I believe I took the pic some months ago. Is it a magnolia?

Then we went on the lake today for the first time this year. Not bright sunlight, but like 28°C at 6pm and a great first cruise.