In which Swiss Ms. relates some real-life daydreams, gets temporarily nostalgic about weird things, and grudingly admits to missing her homeland

Sometimes I really long for a few American-style errands to run – the soothing and mindless Saturday morning kind. Slip into the car, catch familiar NPR voices in between purposeful jaunts, sip a coffee maybe, stop in somewhere you never have time for during the week, buy a book on World Religions from a yard sale, avoid the baseball traffic, put on Dick Biondi if the errands take too long and Garrison Keilor shows up. Or walk down to Kim's Hardware, overpay for a specialty tool, write a check for the box of vegetables next door, and stroll home. (Actually huff my way home, since I am carrying the big box of vegetables, but feeling pleased about the exercise I won't have to do later. Also everyone will be impressed and feel guilty when they hear I've done it myself.) I can think of a thousand versions of Saturday morning and somehow they all seem pleasant to me. Especially if we happen to run into Kim and Ryan.

I am overlooking the hateful truth in these real-life daydreams, of course. That is, that errands always take longer than you think, chomp up your fresh weekend energy, and leave you really hungry in the middle of the afternoon with a stupid amount of time left in the day. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, my mom recently pointed out, even of inanimate objects. I guess we can add "horrible and grueling tasks" as well. Maybe this is why I also feel nostalgic about cleaning graffiti off our building? And why people run more than one marathon?

The real story is that, despite loving so many things about the lovely lifestyle and setting and culture here, it is about time to come home. It's hard for me to admit that, by the way, like I'm exposing some sissy weakness. I never was the kid crying to go home at the end of camp, I swear. I was the one conspiratorially telling my parents in the car how some suckers actually had to call their parents in the middle of the week. It's not really about the errands or having a car or writing checks (which if nothing else is way more satisfying than making a bank transfer, by the way). I don't even think it's about feeling purposeful. I'm not sure what it's about. It's just the mystery of home.

Sorry, no time for posts lately. Been drinking beer.

“Pronto? Sono il piromane…”

Hooray! Lugano's rogue pyromaniac, responsible for a good number of local building and dumpster fires over the years, has been captured. Not long after he called the local newspaper to identify himself as "Serial Fire" and have a chat about his handiwork last week, the police caught up with him. (Bragging always gets you caught, I know that from my own experience stealing library books.) Anyway, it was fun to have a real Lugano supervillain while it lasted

You can find the full (Italian) transcript of the whole weird conversation (which begins, "Hello? I am the pyromaniac from yesterday's fires...") here.

The Big Mac Index

Unless I am forced to do so by strange circumstances I strenuously avoid eating at McDonalds. Maybe everyone says this now? Sometimes I get into trouble by being too graphic about things I do not like to eat, especially when others really do, so I will leave it at that. In any case, having been an adolescent stockholder of MCD, this makes me feel slightly guilty and vaguely anti-American. Growing up in the shadow of corporate headquarters, though, it was somehow easier to support its plan for world domination, knowing it was at least benefitting neighbors and communities nearby. (Okay, and me.) All this to say, it makes good sense to me to use the Big Mac to evaluate currencies relative to the dollar. Despite never having had Big Macs in Europe, I'm pretty this also correctly indexes the horror we felt when the bill arrived in these various countries.

The Big Mac index compliments of The Economist

Clouds on the horizon

As we prepare to leave Lugano and our smart little white apartment here, nothing strikes fear into my heart more than stories like this. It has already been established that, by Swiss standards, I am a totally incompetent cleaner. So I have long dreaded the moving-out process, or rather the apartment inspection at its conclusion. The scratches in our stainless steel sink keep me from sleeping at night; spills make me cry. In my spare time I clean the oven. Please believe me, I jest not about this dread.

My personal pride, by now perhaps permanently crippled, is not the issue. It is that our management company has a not-so-inconsequential sum of our ever-dwindling savings from which to punitively subtract fees. How much will the brown spot under the mirror, which is only my fault if one can be blamed (and I'm sure that one can) for cleaning too much, cost? The daily pain and suffering to be endured by future residents who will have to bear this constant incursion of entropy into their lives is bound to cost a lot in Switzerland.

Trains are on time, babies do not cry, cars stop at crosswalks, and walls apparently do not get those mysterious gray scuff marks. This is the way of life in Switzerland. And, ah, how we will miss paying for it.