Easy skiing

Our skiing situation here has been perfect. We have such easy access to ski hills. This morning, Tanner woke up, played on the computer for a while, did some homework, skied hard for three hours, did some more homework, and then went to to Lucerne with all of us for dinner with another family.

It's about a 25-minute drive to our local ski hill (and it's a nice drive into the mountains). We parked about twenty steps away from the bottom of the ski lift. Tanner skied his heart out for three hours while I read in the car, and then he decided he'd had enough, so we made the quick trip back home. It's that easy. Unfortunately, his skiing abilities have pretty much surpassed the difficulty of our local ski hills, so we're going to need to start ranging a bit farther from home from now on. Bummer.

Pharmacy or . . . .

I have almost four years' worth of needles to dispose of from the shots I give myself every week. In the U.S., we're supposed to take them to a pharmacy or hospital or some place like that to dispose of them rather than just throwing them in the trash. I assumed that it worked like that in Switzerland, but I wasn't sure.

I went to ask one of our Swiss support staff today if she knew what I should do. She didn't know off the top of her head, but one idea she had was that in Zurich, there are places that heroin addicts can go to drop off their dirty needles and get clean needles. She thought maybe I could go to one of those sites. The needle exchange program is a noble idea overall, because it helps to prevent the spread of hepatitis and other diseases among people who are going to shoot up anyway; however, I wasn't qute sure if that was my deal. Try to picture the scene--Ethan furtively walking away from the needle disposal site just as a co-worker happens by. Nice, yes?

Further research revealed that yes, I can just take the needles to any pharmacy for disposal. The other option sounded more fun, but I guess I'll go with the pharmacy.

Reflexes or tickles?

It's been far too long since I've mocked Stace on the blog, so here we go.

We were sitting on the couch reading our Kindles a minute ago. Desiring to be obnoxious, she squeezed my leg about three inches above my knee. She moved a half an inch and tried again. She did this several times. (Don't worry; this isn't going anywhere inappropriate.) Finally, exasperated, she asked, "Where are your reflexes? Are you dead?" I had no idea what she was talking about. She explained to me that whenever anyone squeezes her leg above the knee (and knowing Stace, you gotta believe there were many guys who did this during her teenage years), it makes her jump. In her mind, the only logical explanation for this was that this happened due to reflexes, just like the pattelar or knee-jerk reflex with which we're all familiar.

It was quite a revelation when I explained to her that her response when someone squeezes her there isn't a reflex; it just means that she's ticklish. This was another "rock my world" moment for Stace. Her mouth actually made the shape of an "O" as she digested this new revelation about herself.

East, south, or way south?

As has become my tradition, I'm trying to figure out where I should go on my mini-trip this summer after Stace and the kids head to the States. In past summers, those trips have included my jaunts to Norway and Warsaw. This year, I've been torn between Budapest and Lisbon. (There may not be much time left to visit Budapest. It looks like Hungary is quickly sliding back to totalitarianism.)

However, another destination has caught my eye in the past couple of days: Cape Town. Now that the notion has lodged iself in my head, I'm having trouble getting it out. Maybe I'll see how the trip to Egypt goes before I decide to venture back down to Africa.

Zombie poetry

I was reading a newspaper article about the latest fad: zombie poetry. It included this poem, and for some reason, it struck me as hilarious. It probably isn't; maybe it just caught me at the right moment. Anyway, here it is.

I know I had
two
arms when I came
into this town
but I seem
to have left one
somewhere.

More Egypt

Just in case anyone's still with me, here's another column from Friedman about Egypt.

Last call, everyone

If you're going to come out and see us before we leave, you're running out of time. So far, we've got Travis and Dana Hammer coming out in March and Jed coming out in May. Anyone else? Going, going, . . . .

Odds and ends

Here are some reports on miscellaneous issues in the Wood family:

1. We got more x-rays of Lindsey's arm today. Everything's in good shape. In three weeks, they'll remove the wire and take off the cast, and she should be as good as new (except that she still can't go skiing for a few more weeks).

2. Speaking of skiing, we were finally able to get Tanner out on the slopes yesterday. He's developed quite a love of skiing. Minnesota's going to be a tough reality check for him.

3. I don't know if any of you are as interested in Egyptian politics as I am these days, but here's a link to the latest column by Tom Friedman. The birth of a democracy, or whatever else Egypt ends up becoming, is a pretty messy process. It'll be interesting to see what Egypt's government looks like in ten years.

Here she is

Here are the pictures of Lindsey's cast. The way they built it, her wrist is bent. I've told her that it looks like she has a permanent sock puppet that she carries around with her.

Egypt in transition

I haven't generally used the blog for a discussion of international affairs, but I'm fascinated to be over here while some earth-shaking events are going on around us: the euro zone may be collapsing, the Middle East is in upheaval, and the Minnesota Timberwolves might finally become a decent basketball team.

I can't wait for our trip to Egypt. How often do you get go watch history in the making? Here's an interesting video from New York Times columnist Tom Friedman from Cairo:

Link
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Things got complicated

Well, things turned out not to be as simple as they looked at first with Lindsey's arm. Last Tuesday, the day we flew out, we went to the orthopedist to get a cast on her arm. He wasn't convinced that we could get away with not "reducing the angluation" (otherwise known as "setting the bone"). He talked to a hand specialist who said that we'd be okay holding off until we got to Switzerland to get a better look.

On Thursday, we headed to the children's hospital in Lucerne. A couple of specialists there got together and decided to wait until today to see if the angulation was increasing or was staying the same. If it were staying the same, they could just keep it in the cast and let it heal itself. Otherwise, they'd have to set it.

Unfortunately, when we got it x-rayed today, the angulation had increased to over 40%. That's wide enough to require a reduction and a pin to hold things in place for a few weeks. So they knocked her out, set the bone, put in a pin, and wrapped it all up. We'll get more pictures a week from now to make sure that everything is stable.

She's doing fine. She's a bit annoyed with her cast, but she'll manage. A couple of hours after she got home, she called me at work to tell me that she had lost a tooth. She was pretty happy.