Ally brought me Love In The Time of Cholera last visit. I finished it with the hopes that it would blow my mind the way A Hundred (or a Thousand..who knows?) Years of Solitude did. It didn't. Which is good news, because now I surely won't waste the time seeing the movie that's been taunting me from the F drive ever since we downloaded it. I was hoping for less of a happy ending...more of a tragic one. I was hoping she didn't diss him and he didn't try to screw her out of his memory....(that's such a male thing to do). I didn't get how all his pointless lays were really out of "love". (whatever) It would have been better if she remained madly in love with him throughout her dull loveless marriage and they continued their love affair through their letters for fifty years....and then....something awful happens to one of them...almost like brokeback mountian but not quite.
In other news, we have new neighbors next door to us in apt. 56. They are finally the stereotypical swiss couple I have been hearing about but have yet to come in contact with....icy, silent, and punctual. They are very good at giving the swiss stink eye when they think you're not looking, but then you suddenly turn around because you can feel the stink eye upon you and ah ha! Rick and I have figured out they hate us for all the reasons the Swiss hate outsiders: we have children, they are loud and keep strange hours (even for Rick and I and we're they're parents), and we yell back at them.
I have heard whispers from other expats who have it on good authority, that the reason why Swiss children are so well behaved is that they are beat on a regular basis at home. I don't know if this is true or not but sometimes I think that couple next door fantasizes about beating the crap out of my kids...and maybe even me and Rick. I can see it in their eyes.
Did you know that you're not supposed to flush your toilet here past 10pm? Apt 56 is most likely making notations of all the after 10 flushings that take place in Apt 55. And there are many. Cate is champion nighttime pisser.
Oh yeah, they also hate us because right below them, a family with three little boys just moved in a couple of weeks ago! Ha! When I hear those kids downstairs slamming the doors and riding the elevator and running the halls, I get the chuckles. Is that evil? Yes.
So...something like 94 days and we are stateside again. I'm ready and I'm not. Really, no matter where you live for an extended period of time, it all starts to resemble the same thing. Once you've scratched your travel itch, you start to long for something familiar. For me, it's two things: my sister and my dog.
...and of course Jessica and the Hurricane and dad and...
But you know what? And I'll say it, too...nothing and no one is as cuddly as Abby. Sorry, Rick.
What else..uh...I get why they have a high suicide rate in Switzerland. Once September hits it's like living in Seattle until May. The Swiss' fave way of doing themselves in??? Hopping in front of the trains....there are just so many to choose from.
Ah, Vishnu....not the Vishnu that comes your or my mind...but the Vishnu who attends the Swiss International School with Cate. For some days now Cate has been asking me...eyes wide with terror...if Vishnu was going to be at school when I dropped her off there. I have no idea...was my answer...not even really caring anything about her anxiety over this Vishnu. (I have to say, hearing Cate trying to say Vishnu the first couple of times had me rolling.)
Until today. Yes, there was a brawl in the lunchroom and Cate and Vishnu had it out with one another. She wanted his crayons, he scratched up her face. Teachers were devestated, I felt bad for not honing in on this Vishnu character with my mother's intuition long ago, and Rick always wants to kill...I mean it...really KILL, the person who hurts his little girl - even if said person happens to be three feet tall and twenty pounds. The damage isn't that bad, but I'll be keeping an eye out for you Vishnu, so watch your scrawny little back.
So, for those of you who don't know, or don't know me at all: I'm in love with Walt Whitman. Bob Dylan is a second only by a nose and that doesn't really count, because I consider him the reincarnation of Whitman, anyway. What I'm getting at is, I left my Leaves of Grass at home. I pleaded with people to send it to me. Alas, they did not take my heart ache seriously.
See, I need Whitman like water. Which is an odd way of putting it, because I don't like water at all very much and what he does to me is the opposite of water's qualities: he puts a fire in my chest where I hope my heart resides and fresh breath back into my lungs...see nothing at all to do with water.
I broke down in an addict's frenzy, ran into the english bookstore and snatched the first copy of Leaves of Grass without even looking inside. Turns out I bought the wrong version. What would have cost me $9 at home ended up costing me $23 here and half of my favorite pieces were missing. Oh, the tears. Anyway, this is an exmaple of the Whitman I love:
A GLIMPSE,
through an interstice caught,Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove,late of a winter night--And I unremark'd seated in a corner;
Of a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand;
A long while, amid the noises of coming and going--of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,perhaps not a word.
Walt Whitman
or maybe this..one of my favorites:
O You Whom I Often And Silently Come
O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be
with you; As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
Walt Whitman
That's it. I was disappointed by Love in the Time of Cholera, I purchased the wrong version of Leaves of Grass out of haste, and my Cate is having issues with a Hindu Avatar's namesake, my new neighbors are marking down our flushes per day and I could use a little sun.
1 comment:
its genius.. and so was love in the time of cholera.
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