Looking for the positive

7:30 delivery on time

8:00 sandwich at the épicerie – good price

9:00 e-mails half working

10:00 still sunny, trip to the dentist, no trouble finding a parking

11:00 teeth clean – and no dental work needed

12:00 lunch

13:00 read a couple of magazines or should I say finished

14:00 still sunny, time to work a bit

15:00 nothing terribly urgent to be addressed

16:00 coffee

17:00 signed contract to install photovoltic pannels on my roof

18:00 bite to eat

19:00 into town – spring evening

20:00 Verdi’s Requiem

Now that was a day full of positives !

Also booked two day cards for train travel with one friend and another trip to Southern France to visit yet others. Didn’t really even have to look for the positives in a day that came in more on the plus ledger than the minus. And, oh yes, emails for some mysterious reason working again !

Dependencies or...

Cut off from my world.

It’s a very scary thing to not be able to communicate via the regular channels, which - in my case - would be e-mails.

At some point yesterday afternoon my main e-mail address went down. No panic – this has happened before. Was busy so didn’t get around to looking at the question again until the early evening: still not possible to pick them up via my normal route. Again, no panic – I can go on line like I do when I am travelling, pick them up (or at least toss the unimportant), leaving them on the server for when my program is again working. Glitch, big glitch: I wasn’t able to do that either as it simply posted xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx   “this account is unavailable”! Yikes.

But never mind, I had watched one of my favorite programs “The Chase” then “Long Lost Family” so when the same happened on my mini computer before I went to bed I thought, never mind tomorrow is another day.

This morning same thing and process all over again. I did re-boot the router (obviously not the problem as I could go on line for anything else!), shut down my computer a half dozen times, re-configured the e-mail settings: all to no avail. 

At which point even I caved and called the hotline.

Very pleasant girl; wonderful music whilst I was waiting – I did enjoy that experience: kudos to Swisscom!  We tried several things, including trying to access the webmail from another browser (I use Firefox, but still have Safari on my computer) – again all to no avail.

After a bit – again lovely music, pleasant service lady – she finally had to tell me that she was going to have to refer it to their “secondary service” and that it might not be quick…

Help, I’m in a communications limbo.

Can I survive?

OK that’s also forgetting that my fixed phone works, my cell phone as well, I can post to Facebook, I can still Skype, but my lifeline of e-mails is temporarily unavailable – amazing how scary that actually is! I really never realized how dependent I am upon e-mails for keeping connected to family and friends never mind news of all sorts and professionally as well (no e-mail no contact with my tax advisors; no e-mail no contact with old clients; no e-mail, no e-mail, no e-mail).

OK this is a wee bit stressful so think that I am going to have to go have a good lunch – oops forgot that I still have something viral going on and that not much tempts me: add to the stress.

Just barely managing to hold on to my sanity, I know that I will laugh tomorrow about how I feel today – that still doesn’t make it funny right now.

E-mail where are you?If this goes on long, I'll have to re-do the current configuration and take the secondary e-mail back out of the account so that I have at least one working e-mail address.

I would hate for it to come to that - lunch. Perhaps it will miraculously re-appear whilst I am dining.

http://studyinabroad.info/admin/productimage/1390556378computer_sigma.jpg

Communication: punctuation and typos

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words. -William H. Gass, writer and professor (b. 1924)

This particular offering by Wordsmith (http://wordsmith.org) got me to reflecting : how true. If we could only be more precise in our words, if we could only communicate better, how many of the world’s problems would be – if not solved – diminished.

My housemate is a writer – a published writer – but I know that when she writes an e-mail or even sometimes posts on FB that often one has to know her to realize what she meant.  The latest was « What was going to be a trying day, like most days with Rick turned out to be fun afterall.” Now, this is her husband, a husband that she loves, what she probably meant was “what was going to be a trying day, like most days (involving authorities), turned out with Rick to be fun after all”. Oh the importance of a comma or two. Sorry D-L.

I tend to write – and sometimes talk – just as weirdly as witness the following examples:

• cats = no burning blames - ok flames
• Also swept up 4 bags of leaves from my baloney (oops balcony)
• Making many trips to recycle the blottles (hmmm…. Think I drank one to many there)
• Complicated the lives we need. Oops meant obviously to write lead! But then again perhaps that was my unconscious speaking.
• Pendling brochures (and that is actually pendel from the Scandinavian languages or German meaning to commute or to swing as in pendulum) – o.k. peddling brochures
• Frieds (friends) going out to eat.

Readers of all ages, cultures and walks of life enjoy criminal novels, autobiographies, historical both fiction and non-fiction: some love poetry, others prose, yet others science fiction or any of the other modes of writing. We both learn from our reading and are influenced by our reading (especially when it comes to the half truths, non-published facts or otherwise distorted media publications).

Our world can be explained, we can get assistance in our understanding of the surrounding world through well-written articles, books and essays. I thus entirely agree that the true alchemist is now the person who can explain the world in words – who can put into words our thoughts, feelings, longings and accomplishments. Who, with words, can paint a picture of what was, what is and what will be, or can be.  

A "wordle" - you can make your own at http://www.wordle.net/create

A day away from the computer…

This could get addictive as I am now on my second one of minimal computer time.

It all started with the moon set yesterday morning.

After that beautiful happening the day dawned gloriously blue and cloud-free.  
 

Coffee with a friend as usual followed by a trip to the grocery store from which I returned with a very colorful bag of vegetables and fruit (guess my body thought it needed to get into some vitamins) and nary a junk-food item.  Did quickly boot up the computer, but as there were no e-mails that had to be answered, just as promptly shut it down, threw in a load of wash (remember younger son had returned from a week’s skiing) then decided that it was really way too nice a day to be inside so grabbed a quick bite of lunch on my way to one of my favorite walking spots.  One can see both the alps (including Mont Blanc) as well as the Jura mountain chain and the paths wander through ground that is being returned to its original swamps.  A big plus was that they have recently trimmed back (or rather totally cut down) most of the reeds and surrounding field crops so the views of bird life are much easier. As well as the fairly common to this region mallards I also managed to see both a great white egret (I think, but my more bird-watching-gifted friends can feel free to correct me) and a gray heron (fairly sure of that one). What the lone swan was doing so far from the lake I would love to know!

nesting mallard pair

Grey Heron

Great White Egret

Swan

At home (with lemon pie so that I wouldn’t need to go out for coffee later) I first accomplished a DIY task that had needed doing for a couple of week, then

 

After 34 years the plastic broke

Lovely new one - soft shut mechanism and easily detached for cleaning!

I decided that it was warm enough in the winter garden to use my dining table and start one of the 10 puzzles that housemate D-L and her husband R had brought when they came this time. Made good progress.

sorting started

most of the frame in place

always one on the floor...

Then it was time to watch the sun go down over the lake and the Juras from my easy chair in my bedroom.  No need for a computer, no need to say how lovely my day had been.

sunset over the Jura and Lac Leman

Spa… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

How to describe the luxury of an “after work” massage at the Spa des Grangettes in Geneva other than ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

A friend’s youngest son had given both her and myself coupons for this “after work” massage for Christmas and since we are all of a sudden in March, we decided that perhaps a Friday afternoon together would be just fine.

She came and parked her car here, we drove in mine into town and by the time we

had to head home I was so relaxed that driving home (note it was a gloriously sunny day as well with our cold wind on its last legs) seemed to take forever: I was glad that I needn’t cross the bridge.

Note to all sons and husbands everywhere: give your mothers, wives, girlfriends coupons for massages – it makes them so mellow you would hardly recognize them!

www.spagrangettes.ch

very welcome Christmas present

The four F’s or…

Fine food and female friends.

 

I am an Epicurean not only in fine foods but also in friends.

Yesterday I got together for lunch with three of those that I have not only known longest but with whom I share so much – a love of life, fine foods, good conversation and a history of knowing and appreciating each other.

With the passage of the years we also have determined that lunch in good surroundings with attentive service is worth the extra price: we can hear each other across the table even if some of us (o.k. me at least) have diminishing hearing. We can converse on any and everything including the “forbidden” subjects of politics and religion. Interestingly enough two have their birthdays only days apart and the other two of us actually share the same day.

Not to give away my favorite addresses: The Côté Square restaurant in the Hotel Bristol - http://www.bristol.ch/fr/restaurant-gastronomique-geneve.php in downtown Geneva has become “our place”.  One is welcomed, treated with attentive service and advice (should one need a food/wine pairing) and never allowed to feel rushed or otherwise stressed. We spent three very pleasant hours enjoying our starters, main and for two of us a gourmet coffee.

"Mise en bouche"

2nd "Mise en bouche"

Cannelloni

Flounder Fillet

Vitello Tonnato

Octopus salad

one of the mini desserts on the "gourmet" coffee

Today, I met another female friend and although we changed venues, the conversation, food and welcome measured up just as well.  In this particular restaurant the owners greets me with the European kisses, the chef produces some pretty amazing daily menus and the conversation with the friend ranges again from nothing to everything.

Seafood salad

Cheesecake

I am blessed in both my friends and my food!

Wallowing…

Or when one is down for no reason whatsoever.

Saturday was fine – lots of indecision however:

I woke wondering what to do after I had coffee with my Saturday morning coffee friend - M

• check out the Plainpalais flea market
• Go to Ikea and Interio and maybe even Pfister for a matress for the attic room
• did the research on-line and can order one from Interio to the right measurements (can even have it delivered here for an extra CHF 100.00 hmmm... sometimes lazy may be best, not yet ordered though
• Take some stuff to the Salvation Army - and check for dishes and small tables etc. for both my new bathrooms and the upstairs attic room
• Stay home and do the taxes

After checking e-mails and playing computer games at 11:30 I decided to make the quick dash to the Salvation Army (did sort out 5 pieces of clothing that were too good to put in the bin in the village) and have lunch.

Was going to go for Sushi at Mikado, but decided to park at Coop 2000 so ate at Edwards (been a long time - don't think that I have been since I met my older son their sometime last year!).

My evening with good friends was a resounding success, then it was

On to Sunday.

I woke up out of sorts, the weather was gray and I had absolutely no motivation for anything and as there was no reason to feel the way I did, that was just another source of stress.

I mean, how can I, who am so privileged in my life, dare to not be in top form emotionally? I haven’t been ill, I haven’t lost anyone (recently that is), I haven’t been faced with bills too large to pay, no one I know is in prison or being otherwise persecuted for their beliefs (even those in Syria), none of my good friends are facing major crises, financial or healthwise, so why?

By the end of the day I wasn’t much improved, but on Sundays I Skype with my sister and she, wisely said, « so wallow – ok now get on with it » !

She’s right – sometimes there is no reason for feeling downhearted, reason has nothing to do (or precious little most of the time) with the emotional and sometimes, just occasionally, a good « oh-poor-me » wallow is the best solution, as is not trying to do the taxes !

The lone tree is not necessarily alone... others are in the background