Johanna Writes

Comic Quilting!

Have you all seen Snippets? It's the new(ish) online zine for the crafty website Cut Out and Keep. Issue 3 just came out and I've got an article in it about the crossover between comic books and quilts! Go check it out!

Kiss Kiss Kiss

So the party was a smash if I do say so myself. Of course the dance routines were few and far between but there was singing and much consumption of beer, dip and cupcakes. What more can you ask for from a party? The next day I was invited over to my Swiss friend Susana's house. Sadly, due to lack of good communication (in other words, my crappy French), I didn't realize that the she was in fact, hosting a big brunch with several other couples and mountains of food contributed by all. Because of this, I brought nothing. Not even Mr. D who I hadn't realized was invited as well. “As usual I'm two steps behind,” I sighed ruefully. Later I figured out that I'd said something more akin to “As usual, I'm two staircases behind” which is in fact, a much more accurate description of where I stand these days.

For one thing, I still can't manage to pronounce Lausanne while speaking French in a way that anyone understands what I'm talking about. I remember going through this in the early days of Japan. Specifically I remember one day when Mr. D and I were looking for the Muji store in Shibuya. We must have asked about 10 people where it was and no one could understand what we were saying. Mooooo-ji. How hard is that to say? Later on we learned to say in in a way that people could understand although I still feel that we said it in exactly the same way as in the beginning. It's one thing however, to not be able to pronounce the name of a store correctly and quite another to not be able to pronounce the name of the city you live in.

Life in Switzerland is something that I still haven't really adjusted to. Basically I've realized that I've moved from one rule-obsessed country to another. The only problem is that the rules here are completely different. Like in Japan, they didn't give a damn when you did your laundry but here, you can only do it on certain days of the week and NEVER on Sundays. In Japan if you tried to kiss someone as a way of greeting, they would react as though you'd just poured acid all over their faces. Here, you're supposed to do it not once, not twice, but THREE times. Totally overkill if you ask me and I'm really missing the awkward bowing of the days of yore. I definitely wouldn't say that I've fallen in love with Switzerland and it's culture (although the chocolate and fondue are seductive indeed), but I am enjoying several aspects of the lifestyle here. I've met some nice people and I sort of enjoy the slower pace of life. There are annoying things as well. The fact that everything is closed between 12 and 2pm, after 6pm and on Sundays can be trying. I thought I would have gotten used to the whole city shuts down on Sundays thing from growing up in Utah. I now realize however, that Salt Lake City is a veritable Mardi Gras on Sundays compared to Switzerland. In Lausanne there is literally only one pharmacy open in the entire city that day and naturally the diapers they sell there are about 15 times more expensive than anywhere else in the city. I know this from personal experience. As for bookstores, restaurants, etc. Forget it. Stay home. But don't do your laundry.

Two Years Old!

I'm in the midst of preparing a birthday party for Nico. He's two! One of the difficulties of living in a foreign country is never being able to find what you need. Sometimes it's just because you don't know where to look and sometimes it's because what you're searching for simply doesn't exist. Very often when you finally find what you're looking for, say a small bag of pecans, they turn out to cost the equivalent of a good portion of this month's student loan payment. 

I had the same difficulties in Japan and very often with the same items. Chocolate chips, Cheerios and Cheddar cheese were tough to come by and it turns out that the Swiss are equally apathetic about all three. How these two cultures can go about their daily lives as if these foods were not vitally important to survival is beyond me. When I do manage to come across them, they're in such small portions that they can easily be demolished in a single 3am kitchen raid. It just doesn't make sense.

Naturally in my efforts to prepare a birthday party, I was in need of several of these hard to come by items. I never did manage to find the chocolate chips and have now resorted to chopping up some old (and most probably very stale) baking chocolate squares which I've been carting around with me for years. Now that I think about it, that was a completely illogical thing to do considering that I'm living in one of the world's centers of chocolate making. Too late now I suppose.

The party itself will be a small affair, mostly attended by various research colleagues from Mr. D's work. Just the sort of attendees that everyone dreams of for a toddler's birthday party. My original idea was to have a Bollywood Birthday party with Bollywood films and music, Indian food, spontaneous break outs of synchronized dancing and so on. Sadly, as the date became closer I became less and less ambitious and in the end I decided that I'd make a cake. And that's it.

Now at the last minute I have of course become wildly optimistic yet again and have decided that instead of just a cake, I'll make two kinds of cupcakes, oatmeal cookies, a cheese and fruit plate. Plus dip! Of course the party's in less than 12 hours and I don't even know if what I bought is oatmeal but it looks the part so I'm hoping for the best. In a way I'm feeling a bit sad now that I didn't stick with the original Bollywood theme. Seeing our 12 computer scientists party guests break out into a jazzy Indian dance routine might have made all the work worth it. Instead I'll just pop some Winnie the Pooh party hats onto their heads and hand them an oatmeal cookie.