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, . . . .