fourth of july

Fourth of July, the most American of holidays -- it's so important that we get a long weekend off for it, which I spent...

...going to Switzerland. It just so happened that there was a huge party in Zurich that weekend, so there were carnival rides and fireworks, and the celebration was probably bigger than whatever I would have ended up participating in had I stayed in the States to celebrate.

You know it's a party when they have flags everywhere:

And not only carnival rides...

...and pony rides (who needs a normal carousel when you can make one out of real ponies??)...

...and man-powered tram rides...

...but also camel rides:

And you can't really call it a good party unless there's a scary corn stand:

And just for good measure, to make sure that people don't go too wild, the ticket inspectors were out in full force (there are nine in this picture at one tram stop alone, and there were three more that I couldn't get in the shot):

This is Zurich's way of saying: "Have fun, just make sure you have a valid tram ticket while doing so."

overkilt

Just to show that the man in the previous post was not a unique fluke, here is a guy we spotted a few weeks ago at a cafe. Note the white socks, black boots, ponytail, skirt, and sheepdog (which has bows on its head, though they may be hard to see in this picture).

Welcome to my strange little world.

license to kilt

What is it about California that makes men think that wearing skirts is a good fashion choice? Is it the hippie culture? The high concentration of software engineers? The weather?

I'm not against men wearing skirts, if done properly. I admit that there is something appealing about a hunky Scotsman in full regalia, but that is a far cry from the skirt-wearing men of Silicon Valley.

Take, for instance, the man in this picture, taken in the wild today on a trip to Whole Foods:



He is wearing a wrinkly skirt with a sweaty Indiana Jones hat, a Hawaiian shirt, black socks, and brown sandals. He is shopping for oral hygiene products. And that woman is making the same look of awe and trepidation that I was probably making as I snuck the picture.

Why, California? Why?

cheap and cheerful

America, do you realize how fortunate you are that food here is so cheap?? I went out to a sushi restaurant for dinner last night, and the total tab, including a generous tip, was $308, which might sound like a hefty bill, until I add in the fact that there were fourteen of us there, so that we each paid $22 to gorge ourselves to the point of bursting on rolls of every kind: soft shell crab, salmon, yellowtail, lobster, spicy tuna, you name it, we had it, and all with top-grade fresh fish. In Zurich, that much money would probably get you second-rate sushi for four people.

The night before, my boyfriend and I went and got three live lobsters steamed for take-out, and the total was $37. We ate nothing else for dinner, just lobster and butter, and there was food left over, so really, $30 was probably enough for the two of us to over-stuff ourselves on lobster.

That's just ridiculous. In a good way.

long distance

You know what's kind of weird about living in California? You can fly for hours and hours east or west, and still be in the same country. Or you can drive all day, and still only make it as far as Vegas.

a different kind of blog

I've decided to try to record random (and not-so-random) acts of kindness that the universe chooses to do to me. Let's see how this works, since I've never been a "glass half full" kind of person, mostly because I don't like water.

check, please

I was never a big fan of checks. They seemed so random and insecure. I often lost track of my checkbook in my apartment, which was annoying enough, but the thought of losing a checkbook out in the real world is worse. Losing a checkbook is worse than losing a credit card, because it's much harder to cancel the lost checks to make sure that someone doesn't run around using it to pay for things, and it's worse than losing cash, because there is no fixed value of the money you might lose.

Once I moved to Switzerland, I rarely used checks, since everything there is done with online transfers. I had a few checks left for my American account, and used them for random American bills that wouldn't take online bill pay. When I moved back to the States, I used my last two checks to pay my first month's rent and security deposit on my apartment. I didn't bother ordering new ones, because I pay all of my bills online, and I set up a recurring transfer and payment for my rent.

Well, now I'm moving, and the new landlord wanted my first month's rent and security deposit right away. No credit card, no online transfers, no PayPal. And I don't own a checkbook. I had to go to the bank and get a certified check cut there. I actually had to look up the bank online to find out where it was, because I never go to the bank. It all felt so primitive.

Seriously, America? Why are you still using checks??? Get over the check thing, already, and move into the 21st century.

(For the record, when anyone I know needs to pay me money, I actually tell them that I don't accept checks, because who has the time to go to the bank to deposit them? Cash, wire, or PayPal only, please.)

in a california minute

I had a total Bay Area moment yesterday when I went to the grocery store. I was walking out of the store carrying my groceries (in a reusable bag that I had brought myself, obviously), and saw a dad carrying his kid towards the store. The kid was at that age where he's just starting to talk and learn words for things. I always thought that the words you teach kids at that age are practical things like milk, bed, mommy, daddy, yes, and no, and then you might move on to fun things like doggie, kitty, truck, or car.

Nope. As the dad walked walked slowly past my car, he was saying, "Look, it's a Prius. Can you say Prius? Priiii-usss. Prius. Can you say Prius? Prius!"

just in time for tax season

I love my friend Wendy's blog about moron tax. I pay tons of moron tax myself, which unfortunately doesn't count towards the stuff that the IRS wants, and this week, she has posted an account of one of my moron tax payments.

hair-brained

When I was young, I suffered from bad hair, both forced upon me by my mother, who didn't see the point in paying for a haircut when we had many pairs of functional scissors at home, and brought upon myself, when I was going through my years of curly hair envy.

Since then, I've always second-guessed and third-guessed my hair options, and have mistrusted any haircut that was too close to home. In college, I didn't get haircuts in Cambridge, but instead went into downtown Boston to get my hair cut by junior stylists in salons that seemed posh from a student perspective. In law school, I refused to get haircuts near my apartment, and made pilgrimages down to the West Village to get my hair cut by a Japanese man in tight jeans, whose English comprehension skills were questionable, but whose haircutting skills were solid. In both cities, my haircuts were accessible by public transportation.

In Zurich, I tried to stick to that guideline, but after two unpleasant experiences, one in which the salon charged an exorbitant (read: typical Swiss) amount for a so-so haircut, and another in which the stylist gave me a terrible mullet (read: typical Swiss haircut), I declared a moratorium on local haircuts, and spent the rest of my time scheduling my haircuts to coincide with my travel plans. In four years, I rarely went to the same hair stylist, but got random haircuts of varying success in Helsinki (where the stylist asked me how I got my dark hair color to look so natural), Paris (where the stylist did not speak any English, and I realized that my hair-related French was quite limited), San Francisco, and New York, among other places.

You'd think that I would be able to settle down and get a steady stylist again, now that I'm living near a major city that speaks my native language, but my hair-brain thinks otherwise. I'm about two months overdue for a haircut, but am not so excited by the two people I've tried here, both of whom were very reasonably priced and gave perfectly acceptable haircuts (it's not hard to cut long, straight hair in a decent manner) -- I think my hair just has wanderlust.

True to form, or at least the form of recent years, I've booked a hair appointment to coincide with an upcoming trip to New York. We'll see how it turns out, or if my hair will demand another excursion to somewhere newer and more exciting.