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This is the first edition of the annals which has been composed
specifically for a WWW-based audience. You have been sent a
text-based version of the HTML text.
You may notice that you do not receive sequentially numbered annals all of
the time. The truth is that there are two mail lists: one with material
which can be freely distributed with its copyright notice and another more
private one, which is intended for the recipient only. Each annal is
clearly identified at the top whether it is distributable or not.
Introduction
The end of the year draws close for all of us, and the holiday season
with it's abundant free days allows me much time for speculation on
the past, present and the future. A future that stretches ahead
before me, tendrils of probability wrapping around themselves and
twisting and turning, contorting into constructs more complicated than
a Gordian knot. In the wise words of Lawsuit, a Davis (California)
band, "You're still the odds-on favourite, as long as you think you're
doing fine."
* If
I seem to forget that I'm doing fine, feel free to reach out across
the electronic void and kick my virtual butt.
The Winter Panorama
While I sit here composing this latest odyssey into the myriad chaos
that is my normal everyday life, I can see the rays of a bright winter
sun reflecting off the snow-topped apartment buildings and little
flakes of snow floating down towards the slushy street below, torn
loose from their delicate bonding by idle gusts of a gentle, warm
wind. These are the scenes of winter which never cease to fill me
with wonder and amazement. Even though they are picturescapes of
urbanity, they are nonetheless a sight of breathtaking beauty.
reminding me of my own place in the circle of life.
I would hazard a guess that a common mental image of Switzerland is
one of snow-capped Alpine peaks, hunky Swiss ski instructors, elite
private schools and little garden gnomes hoarding money underneath the
mountain peaks. The snow-capped peaks part is true, but here in the
valley around Zuerich there has not really been much snow. If
anything, the climate resembles that of Vancouver or Seattle, with
temperatures between 0 and 10 degrees Celsius. Since the last
fantastic autumn weekend in late November, we have been experiencing
seemingly endless days of gray and drizzling rain.
Late in the evening on Christmas, feeling a little wistful for those
left in Canada, I placed a call to a dear friend in Edmonton only to
discover he was off traipsing around another snowy
destination--Denver. In a chat with his mother, however, I was sort of
boasting of our warm weather here and the lack of snow while Edmonton
has been innundated with snow. Not three hours later, I chanced to
gaze out the window and no longer could I see the rain. It was not,
pundits among you might facetiously offer, too dark to see, rather the
sky was now filled with large fluffy snowflakes. Oh well, that will
teach me to brag!
Truthfully, I find myself missing hills of white. One of my favourite
things as a child was to go sledding down large hills as fast as my body
and the little flimsy piece of plastic could take me. I've been looking
around the various department stores in Zuerich for the "Crazy Carpet" of
my youth, but maybe it's something that never made it across the ocean.
In my imagination I can see myself today warping down a previously green
hill in the countryside, landing in a heap at the bottom, breathless with
giddiness and collapsing flat into the snow to make a snow angel. Yes,
it's true, I'm really a child still at heart. (-:
Word Play
Being a fairly well educated and fluent speaker of English, I am often
consulted in matters of sentence construction and correct pronunciation of
words. Have you ever noticed that when someone asks you if a sentence is
correct, it's invariably composed in such a way that you would never ever
in a hundred thousand years ever say yourself? This results in your being
unsure if the sentence is, in fact, grammatically correct or not because
the word order just seems so bizarre. On a similar thread, while I was
writing about making phone calls above, I was tempted to say that I made
the call on Christmas Eve. Now, All Hallow's Eve refers to the evening of
Halloween. For some reason, though, in my mind, Christmas Eve is
associated with the night before Christmas. What, then, does one
call the evening of Christmas day itself? I've just been informed on the
net that Halloween is the evening before All Saints Day, just as Christmas
Eve is the evening before Christmas. It seems to be that it would be more
sensible to call Christmas night Christmas Eve. What do you think? Send
your comments to me by e-mail
(eingang@eingang.org).
Postage and Other Fiascos
In preparation for Christmas, I had been stockpiling Swiss chocolate to
send back to the home continent. In addition, I had also picked up some
snuggly tidbits at one of the Christmas fairs which seem to abound
Switzerland and Germany at this time of year (more to be said on this at a
later point in time). I put together the first three packages and headed
off to the post office, bright yellow PTT (PTT is the Swiss postal
corporation, public transportation, and telephone company) boxes. The nice
lady at the post office asked me, in German, how I'd like to send these
parcels. Realizing that if I didn't send them airmail, they'd never arrive
in time, I confidently answered "Luftpost." Now, I had been warned
beforehand that postage was expensive. When someone tells me that postage
is going to be expensive, I expect that it's going to cost about $50.00
($CAN) for my 3 kilograms of packages. The postal lady told me some
figures and I thought I'd misheard her and done the numeric calculation
wrong because no postage could possibly be that high. The total
cost was Sfr. 113.10 or, roughly, $120 ($CAN)! For that price I could
almost fly across the ocean and hand deliver the packages myself!
On top of that, I later learned that not all the packages arrived intact.
Apparently you can no longer use string to wrap parcels in the United
States. All of the parcels are bound with string to prevent the
dissipation of the contents during transport. One of the packages arrived
in the States minus its Christmas card and a bar of chocolate. I could see
some over-zealous customs inspector snitching the bar of chocolate as he
tears the forbidden string off of my parcel, but a personalized Christmas
card?! On the other hand, I have to admit that for my $120, those packages
arrived quite speedily. I think most of them arrived within 5 or 6 days
of my Saturday stint at the post office.
Closing Words and Wisdom
Zuerich isn't really all that large, boasting a residential population of
only 300,000 or so. Nevertheless, despite it's many fine and varied
restuarants, I managed to go out one evening for a dinner among friends
and was rudely interrupted by the arrival of my ex-lover. "Of all the gin
joints in town, you had to pick mine!" (Stolen shamelessly from
Casablanca) That got me to thinking about the following bit of
wisdom which I offer you free of charge:
When you repeatedly get yeast infections from your lover's seed and his
kisses seem to taste terrible to you, then your body is desperately trying
to inform you that he's not the right guy for you. Listen!
I know, it's utterly tasteless, but I'm not known for being extremely
tactful. (-:
In closing this edition of the annals, I'd like to take this opportunity to
bid you all a pleasant and safe holiday season with fond wishes for the
coming year.
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