Welcome to Torrey and Claire!

Dennis's family has a funny little tradition: on the first day of each month, they try to beat one another to being the first to say "white rabbit."  Wikipedia claims that this is a common game, but I suspect that maybe Dennis or his mother wrote that article, just to justify their silliness.  All the same, they do have a lot of fun, sending each other late night e-mails or being casually arranging casual video chats on the first of the month...you know, for no reason whatsoever.  And then they pounce.

Ella, now that she can read a calendar, has become an enthusiastic participant, too, and she has a bit of an advantage because she is an intermittent but stealthy player.  And, in typical Ella fashion, she takes the game a step further: one month she put on white bunny ears and hopped around the house on the first, and another she found a "White Rabbit" brand candy and saved it until the right day.  Two months ago she was thrilled when she noticed this in a store window.  June 1st came and went and she forgot the date entirely. Once she realized that she'd missed her big chance, she asked me, every remaining day of June, how many days were left until July 1st.

Grandma Geels finally got her special email this morning.  Your play, Joani.

So Ella was quite pleased with herself this morning, but she came home from school shaking.  Erzhan, that boy that I mentioned a few weeks ago, and one of his friends had cornered Ella on her way home and had her up against the fence, hitting at her. Ella wasn't hurt at all, but she was scared and angry.  She said she hit him back to get free and had run all the way home.  I was shaking, myself, by the time she finished telling me her story.  And you can bet I walked her back to school after lunch.

So her teacher and I had a little talk.  She explained that this boy had come to Switzerland newly, himself, three years ago, so this is the first time he's been more powerful than another kid, and that is probably why he's been bullying my daughter so horribly.  And I think that's awfully sad, because, if that's the case, he, of all children, should know how she feels.  But I guess that's not always the way the world works.  Anyway, the teacher said that she would have the two boys write letters to their mothers, confessing what they had done, and Ella said she spent a good portion of the afternoon talking to the class about behavior and kindness. Oh, man, I hope it helps.

I still felt better being at school to walk Ella home, so the boys and I spent a couple of hours between lunch and the end of school, playing at the nearby community center playground, waiting for 3:30.  Joey found himself a muddy little corner of the sandbox, and he didn't budge until it was time to leave, happily filling and dumping his trucks, creating dusty worlds. Alex alternated between playing with his brother and asking for pushes on the swing. 

Warm as it was, the boys were thirsty by the time we had to leave, but they were in luck: today was free syrup day at the playground.

Yet another think I'd never heard of before moving to Switzerland.  I've never seen a kid with a lemonade stand here, but. apparently, often in the summer, playgrounds will have syrup stands for the children.  The syrup is just a little liquid flavoring that they add to the water: the one that the boys had tasted almost like honey.  I sure it's probably healthier than Koolaid, but I don't generally feed that to the kids, either, so Alex and Joey couldn't believe their luck, being handed a tall, cool glass of sugar to drink.


Ella left school saying that the afternoon had been much better, and we all hustled home, for a very happy reason.

Some friend of ours, Torrey, who worked with Dennis in the Kirkland Google office, and his lovely wife Claire, just moved to Zürich earlier this week, in search of adventure.  Torrey had arranged for a transfer to this office, and Claire will be studying at the one of the universities in Zürich, the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, or ETH.  Dennis and I are thrilled to have some old friends in town, and we finally got to see them this evening.

The kids reveled in the visit, too, mostly because they got to watch extra Friday-night television while I threw together dinner.  But Joey, particularly, was more interested in prospective friends.  Claire got down on the floor to talk with him when she arrived, and he spent the rest of the evening periodically coming back to say hi to the nice new lady and maybe showing off just a teensy bit.  He brought her his fancy stamps and some cars: heartfelt offerings of a two-year-old boy. At one point, appeared at our elbows wearing a set of vampire teeth.  All his best moves.


Torrey and Claire have been following along on our adventures as they planned their own move.  At one point, Torrey absolutely made my night by quoting me to myself: "I read somewhere that the process of moving to Switzerland is incredibly complicated..."  And if that's not flattering, I don't know what is. 

Of course, I have no business being an authority on everything, as Torrey and Claire will no doubt discover for themselves after a few more weeks of living here. But hopefully they'll be able to confirm, at least, that this really is lovely place to live.  Wilkommen in Zürich!