moo

We had a joke in (geeky tech) college, something like this one:

A biologist, an engineer and a physicist are called to help make a dairy farm more efficient. The biologist tells the farmer that he should feed the cows certain hormones to make them lactate more. The farmer asks how much that will cost, and the biologist says it will cost many thousands of dollars. The engineer proposes making a better milking machine to get more milk per cow. The farmer asks how much that will cost, and the engineer says it will cost many thousands of dollars. The farmer then asks the physicist how much his idea will cost. The physicist says, "It won't cost anything and can be implemented immediately!" The farmer is astonished and wonders how this is possible. The physicist responds, "First, assume a spherical cow of uniform milk density..."

haha get it? The physicist is so lost in his theoretical world that his "cow" bears no resemblance to the four-legged beasts in the farmer's field. We can assume that his idea for increasing the efficiency of the dairy farm will be similarly out of touch with reality.

This is how my Thursday night theology class feels. To me. We as a human race have to find our way together towards a sustainable future for ourselves and our planet. What should we do? Well, first let's examine the development of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity...

success

Today, the washing machine broke down on the fourth of six laundry loads, and I did not freak out. I successfully notified the apartment manager, put the dirty sheets (load 5) back on the beds, washed the delicates (load 4) in the bathtub, rolled them in towels, hung them up, put the towels in the dryer, asked a downstairs neighbor whether I could wash the pants (load 6) in the still-working machine in the other laundry room (there are two, with access based on which floor you live on), and signed up for some laundry room hours on Saturday to really wash the sheets. By noon I was out the door to meet Christopher at school and take him to his recorder lesson. I remained mostly calm through practicing his dictation with him (always dreadful), parkour class drop-off in the rain, shopping and taking the groceries home, picking up a now-dripping-wet child from parkour, and throwing together dinner when we got home. And after bedtime I made a casserole to take to a potluck on Friday.

So there.

lost

In the thirteen years between my first year of kindergarten and my first year of college, my family moved five times and I went to nine different schools. I can't say that this particularly bothered me. My method for managing being the new kid all the time was to find one other girl I could be friends with, and then stay close. This worked well enough, enough of the time, and my mom and brother were my social circle when it didn't.

My best friend in sixth grade was the best of the besties. We were both smart kids who didn’t fit the girl mold very well, but weren’t tomboys either. I could be myself with her. I remember hanging out at recess, carefully using a silver pen to color the rocket-shaped erasers we’d won for getting all the quiz questions right in science class, with beautiful results, sure that we were the first kids ever to think of such a thing. She may have been my first love - not crush (that honor goes to Jason Kipp in fourth grade) but...relationship with someone I admired. I loved her brains, her sarcastic wit, that she’d lived all over the world. She was into James Bond novels and Karl Sagan, neither of which I had any idea about. So worldly!

I moved again at the end of the school year. We exchanged sporadic letters for a couple of years. And then we lost touch. My fault, no doubt.

For a long time, I've dreamed of getting back in touch with her. I asked my parents about it once, and I'm sure they told me that they thought they could contact her parents through the magical Christmas-card network that binds military parents of my generation together. "Oh her dad was a public affairs officer? So-and-so was a public affairs officer. They're a tight-knit group..." But it never happened and when I tentatively asked again a few years later, they couldn't remember saying that.

While cleaning out old boxes before we moved to Switzerland, I came across the last letter I ever received from her. It said she was in London but would be doing an exchange program the next year…to Switzerland!...and gave her address here. A lead! When we got settled I wrote a polite note to her host family, saying we had been friends but lost touch and did they know where she was now? I didn’t particularly expect a reply, but one came only a week later: yes, she lived with us, but we’ve lost touch with her too.

The internet is less helpful than one might hope. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn…she’s got a common name and she's lost among her apparently thousands of namesakes. If she even has the same name any more - just because I was too stubborn to change my name when I got married doesn't mean every other woman is. But a couple of years ago I found one tantalizing lead to a woman who worked at the Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Spies...James Bond...maybe? I sent a message to someone who appeared to be the same person on Facebook, and never got a reply.

And then on our trip to DC, Daniel wanted to visit the Spy Museum, and I remembered this. What if I asked there and they knew this person and I could meet her and find out whether she was my long-lost friend? Nah. But what if? Nah. But... And we were in the gift shop and I thought come on, Susannah, ask - they'll just say no but you'll regret it if you don't - and I asked, and to my great surprise the nice woman stocking the shelves replied, "oh, yes, that sounds like my boss! She's great, do you want to meet her? Just a minute, I'll go see if I can find her."

And suddenly there I was standing in the Spy Museum Store with my stomach in a knot, and Christopher was trying to show me some cool souvenir he'd found and I couldn't focus on what he was saying because WHAT IF THIS IS IT??

It wasn't.

The employee came back and said her boss was gone for the day but gave me her card, and I sent an email that night, and she didn't write back.

And what am I hoping for, anyway? A friend, sure, but what are the chances that after so many years we'll have anything in common? Maybe it's more like validation - the kind that less nomadic people take for granted - that my childhood existed and that someone other than my immediate family remembers it?

I should let it go. The thing is...she's not google-able, but I am. Maybe, just maybe, someday, she'll find me.

Mission: Incomplete.

sonstiges

Here, some trip pictures that don't belong to other posts:

The mobile lounges at Dulles Airport. Always crack me up. I know they were supposed to look cool and futuristic, but they look like the military-industrial complex gone terribly awry.

A view of Rosslyn from the Arlington Memorial Bridge. We walked from our hotel in Rosslyn to the Mall, which is clearly not a Thing One Does (we saw bikers and joggers but definitely no other tourists), but the weather was absolutely perfect and the path along the river was lovely.

The balconies in the African-American Museum reminded me of the Seattle Public Library. We only had half a day here, so we didn't stand in line for the history galleries, but instead explored the galleries on the upper floors, which were overwhelming but also vibrant and honest and uplifting. Also the food at the cafe was amaaaaazing. 

Moving on to Virginia, Christopher gets into the car-culture mood.

One Loudon is an aesthetic step up from the ubiquitous strip malls of Loudon County but lacks a certain...sincerity? For example: "I don't think anyone actually said this."

Away from the malls, here we are having some wholesome family fun at the Temple Hill Fall Festival and Corn Maize [sic]. Just as the kids started to whine with feeling, we found our way out. And then ate corn dogs...yum...oooh there's another thing we can't get in Switzerland...

And speaking of wholesome, Caroline was sick on our last day in Virginia but with the help of some ibuprofen she rallied enough to go to Megan's quilting guild's annual auction in the evening. Here are the girls and their loot.

Heading home, loot in tow.

American food

You can get most Swiss foods in the US, but you can't get any of the items below in Switzerland. Which is probably for the best. Except for the donut. Boy I wish I could get a good donut here. But not a donut breakfast sandwich, that's going too far.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, and a time to die.

A time to plant, and a time to reap.

A time to innovate, and a time to...maybe consider whether all of this is really strictly necessary.

Inexplicably I left this one out of the first draft, so adding it at the top now, because, well, this is my point. Tasty? Undoubtedly. Necessary? Certainly not.

Does this make any sense at all? I have no idea.

It was a delicious apple fritter. Could have been a couple sizes smaller.

Tastes like Fresca, but alcoholic. Swiss grocery stores, you could be talked into this one, right? 

Free coffee at the hotel: Regular / Robust / Decaf / Hot. Cracked me up. And yes, the first three are coffee and the last is water. But still. The pump creamers (Hazlenut and French Vanilla) are so classy.

When I was in college my grandmother used to send me care packages of hot chocolate packets like these. I think they came in chocolate, mint, and maybe orange? That could have been the triple sec we added. Definitely not maple bacon though. Or banana, or s'mores. How times have changed.

It turns out that fresh Peeps taste not half bad. I honestly didn't know that.

Strawberry? Nah.

Many things at once.

Had to look this up. The Luther Donut is named after the Luther Burger, a burger with a donut bun that according to legend was a favorite of Luther Vandross. Who suffered from diabetes and hypertension.

Mmmm bacon.

We can do better.

oh...

I just spent two hours writing a long post about our trip, and it's...suddenly completely gone. Maybe a victim of the time change? But we were supposed to GAIN an hour! Well. Here, from the flight home, is a summary of the trip in two pictures. I'll try again tomorrow.

Leaving corporate America... 

...and returning to postcard Switzerland.

hedgehog love

I am going to get around to writing about our trip - really, I am - but it's a topic not well suited to my braindead state on a Friday night. So instead:

There's a collection of Familiengärten (aka Schrebergärten aka allotments aka community gardens aka [for Seattleites only] P-patches) near our house that is soon going to be razed to make room for a new school. Community gardening is Totally A Thing here, families have amazing setups where they can spend the whole weekend gardening, cooking, and eating together. So the tenants of this one area were harvesting their last crops and dismantling their sheds, which is all kind of sad, and this week as we walked by, there was woman leading a dog around the now-much-shabbier-than-usual-looking gardens, and this sign on the gate:

Dogs At Work

Apparently they brought in these special dogs to sniff out the hedgehogs living in the gardens so that the hedgehogs can be relocated before everything gets plowed under. Can you think of anything sweeter?? Yay for hedgehog-sniffing dogs!

first communion

Christopher will have his First Communion in May. And that's good. I like the religious education program at our church: they don't shy away from hard questions and they listen to what the kids have to say, which for Christopher in particular is super important because he loves to philosophize and can't get the time of day from his teacher at school. First Communion is a rite of passage, the one service in the year when our church is completely packed, and a day where the kids feel honored and proud that they are growing up.

But. The discussions around the Eucharist in the Catholic Church just make me so...sad and frustrated. Someone tried to explain to me the other day how the question of whether divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to take communion was very difficult and theologically fraught. I just...no. In fact (as I've said before) I don't see how, if we believe that the bread and wine turns into the body and blood of Jesus Christ...God incarnate...who lived and loved and died for all of humanity, we feel like we have the right to turn anyone at all away? I've heard the arguments. I don't buy them. I go to my brother's church and hear "all are welcome at this table" and it makes me cry.

So in Virginia we got to go to church with my friend, the same Episcopal church where I became a godmother to her littlest two years ago. Their family service on Sunday mornings is kind of chaotic and kind of wonderful and when communion time came, everyone was invited to the altar. And Christopher whispered, "does that mean me, too?" and I said sure, go for it. So we went up together and he held out his hands and got a communion wafer. The nice woman who came by with the wine told him he didn't have to take a drink if he didn't want to. There was no fanfare about it, no dressing up, no party afterwards; he just took and ate. Like all the other children of God gathered in that particular place on that particular day. Like Jesus taught us. And I'm very glad this was his first experience of communion, because my heart tells me that simple and loving - as opposed to difficult and theologically fraught - is exactly what communion should be.

(Afterwards the kids said we should import that service to Zurich, "because it's not so boring. And the priest actually seemed like he enjoyed his job!" Indeed...)

screwed

We got back last Thursday morning and by Friday night I was sitting in a small room meditating on the story of a little screw. I couldn't possibly make this stuff up.

The actual handout with the story, because otherwise you won't believe me.

Here is the story of the little screw.

Once upon a time, there was a huge ship, and somewhere deep inside the huge ship there was a very little screw. She, alongside many other little screws, held two big steel plates together. One day, right in the middle of a big ocean voyage, the little screw started to loosen and threatened to fall out. The other screws said to her, "if you go, we'll go too!" When the big steel ribs of the ship heard this, they cried "for god's sake stay put - if y'all don't hold on tight, we'll all fall apart!" And the rumor about the little screw flew through the huge ship. The ship creaked and shuddered at every joint. Then the other parts of the ship joined forces to send a message to the little screw: "Please, dear screw, stay where you are, otherwise the whole ship will burst apart and none of us will ever see home again!" The little screw swelled with pride at the news that she was so incredibly important to the huge ship and to the other parts, and decided to stay in her place. 

THE END.

My fellow contemplatives said that this is a popular story, and if you work in ministry in the German-speaking countries, you're bound to run into it at some point.

OMG GERMAN-SPEAKING PEOPLE REALLY?

I mean, the American story of the little screw might start with her falling out of a box, and she'd search the world for the one place she perfectly fit. Or maybe, like Scuffy the Tugboat, she would fall out of her wall and explore the whole big ship, only to find that nowhere but home really felt like home. But in any case, she'd have some agency! Courage! Pluck! Her fellow parts might be nice or gruff but they wouldn't lie to her to get her to stay in place, because let's face it, if one little screw falls out the whole boat does not actually fall apart...right? 

And yet...this is...my workplace in a nutshell. It's not about finding your calling, it's about living into the job you were born to. It's not about doing what you're good at, it's about playing whatever role you're being paid to play (preferably not too well so that other people have enough to complain about behind your back). It's not about agreeing with the rules of the game, it's about deeply resenting them but making darn sure that everyone else follows them, because if we didn't spend time policing each other what would we do with our lives? And no we can't deal with foreigners, why are they even here and not screwed securely into their own ships?

Goodness knows American culture probably looks to the tidy Swiss a lot like a shuddering ship about to burst...all those loose screws (not to mention that big one at the top)...

Culture shock both ways on this trip, is what I'm saying.

America!

We're back, I'm already behind on everything, and jet lag is a thing. I have a whole list of post topics on which I have made various amounts of progress, but none are yet near even the low posting standards of this blog. New strategy: smaller bites.

I wondered as we paid the hefty price to change our tickets and headed in a panic to Bern if it would be worth it in the end. We could stay here, I thought, and pay the same amount to take our traditional fall trip to Legoland, or maybe do a little long-overdue camping...  It would undoubtedly be calmer. And with a start like this, who knew what was awaiting us in the States. Would I regret this, or be very glad we went?

Predictably, it's something in the middle. We went. We saw. We did not conquer. But my two goals for this trip were (1) to expose the kids to some US culture in the form of Washington, DC and (2) to visit our good friends in Virginia. And we did those things. Check and check! Here is some proof, with more to follow in the next few days (assuming I really do manage to get back into the writing saddle, fingers crossed or thumbs pressed or whatever you're into):

Behold, my daughter in front of an American thing!

And friends! Here we are just about to order a chocolate piñata for Christopher's birthday (and because a chocolate piñata is a reason unto itself). It was amazing (also those chips were delicious), but I'm happy to report that the chocolate was not up to Swiss standards, so it was okay to go home.

Here we have just landed back in Zürich, and I'm mostly adding this photo so you don't think, based on the last one, that this kid's face was somehow disfigured during the trip. He's good.

eeek!

SO sometime after 10:00 last night we were going to scan our passports into the United app to check in for our flight today, and we realized that kid #1's US passport had expired. Oh <insert several expletives here>...

After some desperate web searching and a Facebook group advice request, we decided that we'd go to the airport first thing in the morning, ask if they'd let her fly without a valid passport (fat chance), see if they'd let us rebook the flight for tomorrow, and then head to the US embassy in Bern to plead for an emergency passport (only issued in cases of life or death, according to their website, but also apparently to several Facebook group moms who had found themselves in the same situation and just happened to be online at 11 pm on a Monday night, so maybe not ONLY in cases of life or death?).

<insert panicky sleep and herding the kids out the door very early in the morning here>

Long story short, so far so good. We rebooked the flight at significant but not bank-breaking cost, took the train to Bern, got told several times that it wasn't possible to get an emergency passport, got an emergency passport, took the train back home, and we're flying tomorrow.

Our heroine of the day was the wonderful agent at the Swiss ticketing desk at the airport who carefully rebooked our outgoing flights by hand to keep the rebooking charges as low as possible (not that they were in any sense low, but we paid $600 less than her colleague at the next desk over, from whom she charmingly rescued our case, had quoted us) AND left open the possibility of voiding the whole mess if we didn't get the passport today. AND made sure we knew to leave all our luggage in a locker at the Bern train station because you can't take bags into the embassy. Because she's married to an American and has three sons and has had to go through similar messes. Thank you, Swiss ticketing woman: in a country where customer service ranges from indifferent to spiteful you are a shining light.

Now for one more night's sleep in our own beds. This feels like such a gift!

And if our luck holds (please say a prayer for us) we'll be off tomorrow for a week and a day. I'm not sure if I'll manage to post while we're gone but one way or another you'll see pictures of the Blochulays taking Our Nation's Capital...soonish.

In the meantime, here's a proud-mama photo of kid #2's art. I love this one.

Cats!

post-trip addendum: it's worth noting that the inside of the American embassy in Bern is a little slice of America, from the frighteningly-armed security guards to the continuously-playing video of highlights from all 50 states (and some territories!) to the American-style water fountain (wait...did they specially import this??) to the printers with notices to the effect that A4 paper will not be tolerated. Ha.

hope

After I posted on Thursday I clicked through to listen to the Voices of Faith event, which gathered a selection of women religious from around the world to talk about their varied experiences of misogyny in the Catholic Church. The goal of this event was to put some political pressure on the Pope to give female superiors a vote at the upcoming Synod on the Amazon. This would be a laughably small step in the right direction, and the fact that it almost certainly won't happen just reinforces how hopeless the situation is. But it made me feel less crazy to hear from articulate women who have not given up the fight, particularly Doris Reisinger (Wagner), who for example writes:

Es gibt allerdings auch durchaus legitime Gründe, sich nicht aus der Kirche als Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts zu verabschieden. Wenn Sie in der Kirche etwas werden wollen, um die verfasste Kirche nicht denen zu überlassen, die mit dem moralischen Versagen ihrer Leitung kein Problem haben...

There are in fact completely legitimate reasons not to leave the church legally [as is possible in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the church is integrated into the tax system]. [For example if] you want to become something in the Church, in order not to leave the Church in the hands of those who have no problem with the the moral failure of their leadership...

On Thursday she talked about the need to push for a new Church constitution, one that would not only institute gender equality but also do away with the top-down power structures that keep the Church paralyzed on this and so many other issues. Which seems like tilting at windmills. But the quote that keeps coming up is from Vaclav Havel, "hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

On which note, the Friday night kids' service was (very) sparsely attended but I did my part and I'm kind of proud of how my creation story turned out, so here is a translation...or rather a loose translation of my script, which was itself an amalgamation of the Godly Play script for the creation story, the creation story from a kids' Bible we had in the office, and the actual Bible.

Imagine that you get an elephant for your birthday. Packed in a magic box, maybe. You open the ribbon and, poof!, there he is, looming large right in front of you. How do you even get a good look at him? You'd probably have to stand up and take a few steps backwards...

A long time ago the Jewish people wanted to look at the gifts God had given them, and they had a similar experience. To even get a good look at the gifts, they had to step back a long way - actually think back a long way, all the way to the beginning of time! That's how this story came about, and people have been telling it for thousands of years:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth was empty. It was dark and water was everywhere.

And God spoke: "Let there be light."

And there was light.

And God saw that the light was good.

Then God spoke: "Water, gather yourself in one place. Let the land be visible."

And so it happened. 

Then God spoke: "Earth, be green! Grass and trees and flowers, grow and bloom! Produce seeds and fruit!"

And grass grew out of the earth, and tall trees, and colorful flowers bloomed.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Shine out, lights in the sky! Separate day and night, and divide the time into days and seasons and years!"

And so it happened. The sun shone in the day and the moon at night, with all the many stars.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Fish, swim in the water! Birds, fly through the sky!"

And God made all the creatures that swim in the water and live in the sky. Fish and seahorses, ducks and doves.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Crawl and jump and hop, you animals on the land!"

And God made all the animals in the forest and in the desert, in the jungle and on the plains, in the mountains and on the coasts. Lions and sheep, hedgehogs and snakes, horses and rabbits.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God spoke: "Now I want to make a creature who is like me. I want to make humans."

And God made humans. And God said to them, "I give you power over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the animals of the earth. Watch over them and take care of them!"

And God looked at everything God had created: It was all very good.

Now there was day and night, heaven and earth, land and sea, fish, animals, humans. God had made everything wonderfully. Now God's work was finished and God took a rest. God said, "you humans, do the same: six days in the week you should work, but on the seventh day you should rest and think about me, your creator."

The humans did just that. And that's what we are doing today. Let us thank God for all the amazing things that God has made: not least each one of us, unique and beautiful.

forests and trees

At therapy today I stared into the abyss. I have no plan, no ideas about where I'm headed. I don't fit where I am and the chances that I can find a way to fit seem very slim, but I have no idea where else to go. I know I have talents and contributions to make, but what? how? where? Writing seems somehow important but even here I have no idea what I'm doing. If a blogger blogs in the forest and nobody reads her posts, is she writing?

I know it's not just me. Lots of people (particularly women!!) have winding career paths, and have to find their way in a world that still largely assumes the linear model of school - job - retirement - death. Lots of people have intentionally or unintentionally found their way into motherhood or other care work and receive no pay, no vacation, no real training or support for what they do. Lots of people are holding their breath because the whole system feels like it's going to collapse at any moment, and then what?

I keep telling myself to stop worrying about the big picture and focus on the next step. Which right now is to make some cookie dough (yay!) and then go to work to see if I can figure out how to tell the biblical story of creation during our kids' service tomorrow without betraying my technical education.

Apropos of which, does anyone understand what is supposed to be going on on the second day?

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. (Genesis 1:6-8)

I'm sure someone has figured this out. I haven't. And I don't think I'm alone in this, since the lovely laminated cards I checked out of the library to illustrate this story skip this step entirely. And God himself may have had some misgivings about it, since this is the only day that ..."and God saw that it was good" does not appear. If I just skip this part and say that the separation of water and dry land happens on the second day...will anyone notice?

onwards and upwards

Oh. Writing. Was something I wanted to be doing. And then life got in the way. Again.

Since the dramatic vomiting incident, Christopher has been waking up every night sometime before midnight because he needs to sit on the toilet, and then he needs me to cuddle him back to sleep, which has put something of a damper on my late-night writing sessions. Tonight he woke up but managed to get himself back to sleep, so that's progress.

On Sunday they had the confirmation service at church. To...celebrate?...they had suspended a big fishing net to one side of the altar, in which hung plaster casts of the confirmation candidates' hands. This was supposed to be a symbol of how we're all "safe in the hands of God." ?? I know, fishers of men and all that, but somehow being caught in a fishing net doesn't seem like the right metaphor for safety and security? Though maybe it's a perfectly good one for the Church?

The bishop's-delegate they dug up to administer the sacrament talked in his homily about how the assembled young adults could choose between (1) starting a family and (2) dedicating their lives to the Church "to show that God alone is enough." Those are, apparently, the only options. Later he described the trinity as the creator God (male), the incarnate God (male) and the helper God (female). Ugh.

I fantasized about retrieving my daughter from the row of altar servers, telling our poor brainwashed priest that God alone is NOT enough and he should really find someone to sleep with, and leaving the church for good. I didn't, of course. But it's clearly past time for me to find a faith community that lives in the 21st century.

My favorite uncle visited us for the weekend, so after we got back from church and I finished beating my head against a wall we took him up a mountain. Because you can do that here! Without even hiking! It was, as usual, stunning.

Going up.

Alps, check.

Just so pretty.

...and going down. Those are the Mythen again. The Stoosbahn, incidentally, is pure engineering craziness.