Lift Up Your Hearts!

(This is not the resolution I thought I'd be adding this month, but as authors often say about the characters in their novels, my resolutions tend to take on a life and will of their own.)

Not everything—even on the Internet—requires the expression of my opinion.

Anyone who knows me from recent years—where "recent" probably means the last 15 years or so—may find it hard to believe that my habit of jabbering away on any subject that interests me is not my natural state of being.  I like silence, do not like to talk about myself, and have always preferred to have other people carry the burden of conversation.

But silence is not generally considered "friendly" in the presence of other people.  I am blessed with a husband who will happily be silent with me for long stretches of time and not feel slighted, but for most social interactions, silence is not golden, but rather interpreted as indifference or even hostility.

Thus I made it a matter of effort and prayer to open up and share in conversation with others.  Perhaps a bit too much.  :)  If I don't like to talk about myself, I've discovered that I do like to talk about my thoughts and opinions.  This can be helpful in some contexts, such as discussion groups and classes, but in general conversation tends to bore some and overwhelm others.  Worse, I get carried away, and that does not leave room—physically or psychologically—for what I want to hear, which is the other person's thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

So this month's new resolution involves:

• Listening for signals that I'm with other people who don't find silence unfriendly.
• Working on conversational strategies to encourage others to speak.
• Remembering that it is not necessary to express my opinion on any- and everything.^*
• When asked for my thoughts, trying to give them in digestible portions rather than the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Progress Report

#1  Read More Books  June's progress was half of May's, and it can't get any less and still be a postive whole number. I'm living amidst a veritable feast of books that I want to read and thus far have read one of them.  But I'm not worried.  There are seasons in life, and babies don't keep.  And yes, I've so far chosen writing over reading in my spare time.

#2  Rediscover Feasting  No Fasting Wednesdays while overseas—I suppose that's a kind of feasting.  :)

#3  Learn to Relax  No progress in actually relaxing, but some in data gathering, I think.  I attended two of Janet's Alexander Technique classes, and even had a private lesson with her teacher while we were waiting for labor to progress.  I'm also halfway through a book her teacher recommended.  Although I'm still quite incompetent at it, I'm learning to ask, "Do I really need to tense this particular muscle to do the task at hand?"  We all waste much effort and energy on useless actions—who doesn't know the phenomenon of sticking out one's tongue when concentrating?  Often we feel it's actually wrong not to put forth as much effort as possible, even useless effort.  For example, she assured me that tensing my own muscles when Janet was not even in the room was not going to assist the progress of her labor in the least, but at some gut level that was hard to acknowledge.

#4  Like More Things  Living in another household is always a good time to try new food combinations, and when that household is in another country the opportunities are multiplied.  When that country is Switzerland, some of them involve chocolate.  Gooseberries, too.

#5  Pay Attention  Hmm.  I haven't been paying much attention to this resolution.  But I have been paying more attention to locations and directions this month, as I've been taking many solo walks through the city of Basel, and need to be able to find my way home.

#6  Cast Away Fear  This month has provided a few opportunities:  In addition to my city-wanderings—which trust me was at least at the beginning an exercise in conquering fear—there was also my first solo overseas trip, and participating in the long and difficult (though in the end joyful and radically successful) home birth of a new grandchild.

My original impression of Basel as a quiet place has been irrevocably shattered now that I'm here in the summer instead of the winter.  In this season construction projects are in full swing, and the noise of machinery is nearly incessant during the work day—including some sort of saw that reminds me of a high-volume dentist's drill and sets my teeth on edge worse than the World Cup horns.

That unavoidable annoyance notwithstanding, I realized this morning that in some ways Janet and Stephan's city apartment is closer to nature than our own suburban house.  (And our back yard, for its size, is an especially wildlife-friendly area.)  Light and air stream through the many windows, and when I look up from my computer I rest my eyes on a view of the blue sky, the trees of a nearby park, and a window box garden of herbs and wildflowers.

When I look up from my computer at home, I see a wall.  Well, I also see pictures of our grandkids, which is a delightful view itself, but here there is something restful to the eyes in focussing on the distant trees, and soothing to the spirit in watching the birds soar and the wildflowers move in the breeze.

Who'd have thought one could feel so close to nature in the middle of the city?  The peace it brings almost cancels out the noise.

Grandma:  "It's afternoon where you are, but it's nearly bedtime here in Switzerland."

Noah:  "What are you doing?"

Grandma:  "I'm writing a blog post."

Noah:  "If it's bedtime, why are you writing a blog post?

Good night, all!

I left the new family to their own devices on Saturday morning, when Stephan's mom whisked me away for an adventure.  There is a small farm in nearby Riehen which, as I understand it, specializes in biodiversity/heritage breed conservation of berry plants.  On this day, they opened their farm to the public for tasting!  We could take nothing away, not even by purchase, but were welcome to taste and enjoy all we wanted.

(Somewhere therein is a metaphor for life, I'm certain.)

There were tiny strawberries with the sweet, strong flavor I remember from my childhood, from the wild plants that once grew profusely in the field near our house in New York.  My mother would make the most delightful strawberry jam imaginable from what berries escaped immediate consumption.

The raspberries had clearly been the most popular among those who had come before us, but there were still plenty left for tasting, including a white variety.

Even more to my delight, though less popular in general, were the tiny black raspberries, again from my childhood; we called them "black caps."

And one more childhood memory; this one will be shared by my younger siblings, whose memories are more solid of our time in Pennsylvania.

Some fruits were new to me.  A former neighbor had black and red currant bushes, but she moved soon after we became acquainted, and the bushes were cut down.  This was probably my first taste of fresh currants in over 30 years.  The black were my least favorite of all the tastes there, but the red and the white were exquisite.

Finally, there were the gooseberries (green) and the jostaberries (purple).  Having cut my teeth on (and learned spelling from) English novels, I'd heard of gooseberries, but had never, to my knowledge, tasted one.  They are delicious.  The jostaberries—a somewhat complex mixture of gooseberry and black currant—tasted strange at first, but that impression soon evolved into a nice, tart flavor. 

(As usual, you can click on the images to see the full version.)

Not everything was ready for tasting.

As might be expected from a farm specializing in diversity, there was no such flavor as, say, "raspberry," any more than "orange" can cover the vast spectrum of Citrus sinensis.  Half the fun was moving from one bush to another apparently the same, and being surprised by the change in taste.

Over half a century I have watched our choices for food (and much else) expand astronomically, and yet at the same time contract.  We can eat food from all over the world at nearly any time of the year, and appreciate ethnic recipes of which our ancestors knew nothing.  Yet at the same time our choices within a particular food are narrowing, perhaps dangerously.  Milk is milk, orange juice is orange juice, tomatoes are tomatoes (or red tomato-like substances in the grocery stores), hamburger is hamburger, and we know nothing of the rich variability within a single food.

My gratitude is great to the Creator who wove such diversity into his work, to the gardeners who lovingly, carefully work to nurture and extend that diversity, and the heritage breed preservationists whose efforts may allow us once again to recover the flavors that delighted our ancestors.

Janet and Stephan are the proud parents of Joseph Andreas Stücklin, born at home in Basel, Switzerland on June 28, 2010, at 5:28 a.m. after 25 hours of labor.  Joseph arrived a week early, proving his independence at an early age:  Stephan, Janet, Heather, and all of Heather's children were late.  Thus we were taken a bit by surprise, and if Janet had known when he was coming, she would not have scheduled two days of major exams (Thursday and Friday), a wedding for which she was not only a guest by also a participant (Saturday), and a mere four hours of sleep before going into labor on Sunday.  But she was a trooper and her stamina showed that she had been taking good care of herself all along—barring the last few days.  (Click photo to enlarge.)

The vital stats:  3590 g (7 lbs 15 oz), 51 cm (20 in) long.

There were several similarities between Janet's labor with Joseph and my own with Heather, which brought back memories both pleasant and not so pleasant.  There were surprising similarities, also, between Joseph's birth and that of his birthday buddy, his cousin Noah, four years earlier.

I expect that some day Janet will write her own post, but at the moment she's finding more important things to do.  You can check out Stephan's blog for more.  Eventually I'll have a few more comments, too.

I wouldn't call it a picture-book birth, more an Old Master's painting birth:  the laboring mother surrounded by her attendants, which numbered five at one time or another, each with a different role to play.  It was a joy and a privilege to be one of them.

On Sunday, Firefox suddenly stopped working on my computer.  It would open all right, but no matter what URL I used it would only display a blank page.  Existing HTML files on the computer worked fine, but nothing online.  The problem was not with my connection, as Internet Explorer worked, as did other network connections.

I have no brilliant solution to the problem—though mine is now "fixed"—but am writing it up because I appreciate reading other people's experiences online when I run into a problem.  My Invisible Firefox post is also one of the most read on this blog.

I did find other folks out there with the same blank-page-only issue, but no clear solution.  Suggestions included doing a system restore, creating a new Firefox profile, reinstalling Firefox, and/or making various changes to Firefox, firewall, and registry settings.  In my limited research, I found no obvious reason for the changed behavior of Firefox, and no definitive evidence that the suggested approaches would work.  Moreover, there wasn't a one of them that I trusted myself to implement, given that all this was taking place under the exciting and sleep-deprived circumstances of the home birth of my latest grandson. Thus I was reduced to depending on IE, which I dislike, though I must admit times like this make me glad it's there as a backup.

By Wednesday I figured I was in sufficient command of both my faculties and a few moments of time to tackle the problem.  But before I could make any changes at all, Firefox suddenly started working agan.  To all appearances it is back to normal.

As my father always said, I'm suspicious of inanimate objects that appear to heal themselves.  I don't understand the fixing any more than I understand the breaking.  But there it is.

The day I arrived in Basel on this trip, I felt in need of some "chill-out" reading that wouldn't tax my jet-lagged brain cells.  Fortunately, Janet and Stephan's bookshelves are well stocked, even after eliminating the books in German, French, and Japanese.

For much of my life, Isaac Asimov was one of my very favorite authors, first for his science fiction, and later for his non-fiction.  (I had the pleasure of astonishing him once at a science fiction convention by presenting to him one of his American history books for autographing.)  Asimov kept writing—surely he must hold some record for the quantity and scope of his works—but life took me in different directions and I neglected him for many years, except for re-reading his delightful Black Widowers mystery stories.

But there on the bookshelf was Gold, a collection of some of his last short stories and essays, and it was just what I wanted.

So far, I'm still impressed with Asimov's writing, though his own opinions and philosophies intrude somewhat annoyingly into the stories.  I suspect that was always the case, but I was less aware, both because of my lack of experience and because his prejudices did not then conflict in any significant way with mine.  In any case, his worldview is part of what makes an author who he is, so I don't mind much.

In the essay on women in science fiction, however, Asimov's sharp wits seem to have deserted him.  How else to fathom his casting blame on puritanical attitudes toward sex for the fact that early science fiction stories were all about men?

In most cases, non-recognition of the existence of sex was treated as though it was the law. ... But if there's no sex, what do you do with female characters?  They can't have passions and feelings.  They can't participate on equal terms with male characters because that would introduce too many complications where some sort of sex might creep in.  The best thing to do was to keep them around in the background, allowing them to scream in terror, to be caught and then rescued, and, at the end, to smile prettily at the hero.

Excuse me?  Female characters are good for nothing but sex?  If they can't have sex, they can't do anything?  And you can't have male and female characters together in the same story without having them jump into bed?

What makes this statement all the more absurd is that Asimov himself succeeded many times over in doing what he just said was impossible.  As he stated in a later essay, "I use no gutter language or sex in my juvenile books, but then I use no gutter language and very little sex in my adult books."

Robert Heinlein, another of my once-favorite SF authors, was also adept at writing stories with strong—i.e. normal—female characters and no sex scenes, although to be sure he also wrote plenty of books that were objectionable and even bizarre in that department.

Asimov clearly knew better, and wrote better.  Why he would say something so irrational escapes me completely.  He's right that science fiction, along with most stories of adventure, daring, and heroism, failed their female readers miserably.  I know, because as one of them in my impressionable childhood, I couldn't help noticing that, with few exceptions, the only characters worth admiring or emulating were male.

But it wasn't the censors' fault.  It may, in many ways, have been society's fault.  I'll easily believe that the problem reflected a poor general attitude towards women and girls—but to imply that a story with female characters must have a romantic interest, let along a sex scene, is the more offensive error.

To repeat, from Part 1, lest I forget:

The first principle is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. — G. K. Chesterton, writing on foreign travel in What Is America?

I thought the diapering world was divided neatly between cloth and disposibles, with elimination communication thrown in as an added wrinkle—which only shows how limited and parochial my world has been.  Of course, the whole diaper situation here was planned to be well under control by now, but it has become an issue thanks to a miscommunication with the "diaper lady" reminiscent of my last-minute struggles with Lufthansa's baggage policy.  "No, I don't actually sell diapers; I only have samples you can experiment with to help you decide what you like.  You can't actually buy them here in Switzerland, and no, I don't have any overseas suppliers to recommend...."

This was a Boston Rubbermaid moment for me.  At home I would zip off to Babies R Us, Target, or Walmart, all within walking distance, and grab several packages of birdseye prefolds.  Here I was prepared to pay Swiss prices, but I was not prepared for diapers to be unavailable!

But of course, I'm wrong.  Diapers are available here.  Swiss diapers.  Which are decidedly not birdseye cotton prefolds.  I spent half an hour looking for a good picture of one for this post, without success, although in the process I found out more about diaper choices and technology than I ever imagined existed.  (Type "diaper folding" into YouTube for just a glimpse at the possibilities.)  But imagine large, thin, square cloths in all sorts of colors and designs, sold individually.  If you ask the sales clerk at the baby store how to fold them, fasten them on the baby, or how to cover them so they don't leak, she has no idea.  They don't sell diaper fasteners and they don't sell diaper covers.  Cloth diapers, it appears, are popular baby items, but no one in his right mind actually diapers a baby with them.  That's what disposables are for.  Real diapers are bought to be used as burp cloths.

Unless, of course, you go to the "organic" store here.  Except that she would gag on the prices, I kept thinking that our all-natural, organic, earth-friendly friend Serina would be in heaven there.  At that store, the clerk was very competent indeed; if she hasn't diapered a thousand babies herself, she at least must have given the demonstration a thousand times.  They sell not so much diapers as diapering systems, all in an eye-pleasing, natural, ecru shade—you couldn't bleach it, but stains would be less obvious than with white.  The diapers themselves are still the thin sqares of cloth, but these folks have obviously thought about their practical use as a diapering medium.

Watching the clerk fold a diaper was like watching Johnny Montroll fold an origami animal.  Faster than I could follow, she created a very clever diaper from the square, thick and thin in all the proper places.  I didn't follow the rest of the procedure, either, as she was demonstrating two different systems, with explanation in rapid-fire German.  In addition to the diaper there are inserts of various kinds, covers to hold it all together, and a few other things I'm sure I've forgotten.  It was, no doubt, a lovely system for an all-natural, earth-friendly, baby.  In many ways it was quite attractive and appealing.  But SO complicated!  It's one thing to accept, and even embrace, inefficiencies in laundry, and quite another when one is attempting to diaper a squirming baby, or promoting awareness of potty needs.

This problem is still in search of a solution.  Despite the imminent arrival of the baby, it's not an urgent situation because of what Janet already has in place, but it's definitely a puzzlement.  We've been looking around online for what we might order.  Alas, most of the American companies I depend on won't ship overseas.  My brief investigation into European online stores yielded Heather's favorite diaper cover and a whole array of previously-unknown (to me) cloth diapering options, none of which is either the kind of diaper I'm used to back home or what is common in the stores here!  Who'd have thought diapering could be so complicated?

Maybe it's a very good thing that Janet has been folding John Montroll models since she was six years old.

The first principle is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. — G. K. Chesterton, writing on foreign travel in What Is America?

Visiting another country or culture is one thing; living there, even for a few weeks, is another.  As a sightseer, it is easy to find something funny and respect it inspite of, or even because of, its apparent oddity.  A good attitude can be more difficult when it frustrates the efforts of daily life.

I didn't need to live in a foreign country to experience those frustrations.  Soon after arriving in Switzerland, I found myself spinning in a disorientation that had nothing to do with language differences, and at the same time, puzzling over the familiarity of the feeling.  Then I remembered the first few weeks after our move from Florida to the Boston area.   Boston is a great city, and there's much about Massachusetts that I now miss—a lot, even.  Nonetheless, as I was trying to set up housekeeping in our small apartment, searching store after store and making telephone call after telephone call trying to find a source of Rubbermaid storage bins, I was very nearly reduced to tears and a heartfelt cry of, "A Wal-Mart!  A Wal-Mart!  My kingdom for a Wal-Mart!"  Although I eventually came to appreciate what Boston had that Orlando didn't, what was lacking (or apparently lacking) was uppermost in my mind in those days.  (I never did find out where Bostonians purchase Rubbermaid storage bins, or even if they use such things at all, but I did eventually find a Wal-Mart.)

Freely admitting that differences are not an indication of inferiority, but with Chesterton's permission to find them peculiar, I will be sharing some of the disorientations and adjustments of my time here.^*

Laundry

Europeans have a reputation for being more laid-back and relaxed than Americans.  I am now suspecting that the reason is the Laundry Zen Experience.  One can either scream,

• "This is one of the most civilized, organized, efficient, and technologically advanced countries in the world.  Why does it take three hours to do a load of laundry in the best of circumstances?"  ("Best of circumstances" = there's actually a clothes dryer available.  In many cases all laundry must be hung on a clothesline in the basement, in which case don't count on having clean clothes in less than a day.)
• "Why do manufacturers still make ordinary clothing, even underwear—we're not talking silk ties and fancy dresses here—that can't go in the dryer?"  Each item as it comes out of the wash must be examined for a laundry tag with its mysterious hieroglyphics and sorted into what can go into the dryer and what must be hung on the line.
• Most of all, "What company in its right mind would make baby clothes that must be line dried?  That's baby clothes, as in the kind that get spit up, drooled, peed, and pooped on!  What are they thinking, to make them of materials that need special care?"

Granted, there are Americans who take more care with their laundry than I do.  With rare exceptions, I do not coddle our clothes.  If they can't survive a normal trip through the washer and dryer, they don't get in the door.

Laundry routine, at home:

1. Determine whether or not the items need washing.
2. Throw them into the washer, normal cycle, warm wash/cold rinse.
3. When done, throw all clothes into the dryer, normal cycle, medium heat.
4. Fold and put away.

Laundry routine, here:

1. Sort laundry by color and by washing temperature.  (Fortunately, Janet does this part, not only to be helpful, but because she rightly doesn't trust me.)
2. Put laundry in washer.
3. Choose correct water temperature.  (In our case, it's either 30 or 60 degrees—86/140 Fahrenheit—but there's an option of 90, practically boiling!)
4. When done, about an hour and a half later, examine each article of clothing as it comes from the washer for either the cryptic sign or the blessed "tumble dry low."  Throw the favored few into the dryer; hang the rest.  Again, to be fair, Janet does this part much faster than I do, since she pretty much knows which of their clothes can and cannot be dried.  It's not at all obvious from the fabric.
5. Start dryer (low heat), which again takes about an hour and a half to complete.  The dryer is a bit disconcerting at first, because it keeps stopping and restarting.  Perhaps that's one reason it takes so long.  But when it stops, it reverses direction, which I'm certain is better for the clothes and helps keep them from getting tangled together.
6. Fold and put away.  (At least this part is the same!)
7. Return to the basement the next day to retrieve the remaining laundry hanging on the line.

As I said, one can either scream, or one can take a deep breath, relax, and s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n.  After all, what, really, is lost if the washing machine takes twice as long as it "should," or hanging clothes take 18 hours to dry?  Mostly just the ability to act at the last minute, in a hurry.  It's not as if you can't do other things while waiting, and if Janet is any indication, after a while the sorting process becomes second nature.  In the meantime, when I do the laundry, there's no need for me to be in a hurry.  And I make the dryer/clothes line sorting into a game:  "Cute little new outfit?  Probably needs to be hung." "Hand-me-down from Heather?  I don't even need to look; into the dryer it goes!"  And if the item happens to be one of my own, I fling it into the dryer with a defiant grin.

The trouble with having a handicap not shared by most people is that no one appreciates it when you have a major victory.  If they care about you, they may try, but it's difficult to avoid a "well, duh!" inflection when faced with an accomplishment that is, to you, incomprehensibly easy.

Take Porter along an unknown pathway once, and chances are he will be able to reproduce it.  Take me along the same route 10 times, and if I am talking, listening, thinking, or otherwise not paying deliberate, close attention to landmarks and directions—which I find very difficult to do—and I will still have no clue how to get from A to B.  Basel is not a large city, but despite several visits I couldn't tell you how to get from Barfüsserplatz to Theaterplatz.

I am not, however, as incompetent as I appear, though it took the writings of John Holt to convince me.  His How Children Fail and How Children Learn opened my eyes to both the negative effects of fear and pressure on learning, and to the importance of allowing learners sufficient time to "play around" with a puzzle, be it a Rubik's Cube or a mathematical concept or navigating a city.  The need for that exploration, unhindered by expectation, pressure, or "help" varies from person to person and from problem to problem.

For my first solo walk through Basel I began slowly, marking my turns and frequently looking behind me for familiar landmarks.  Much to my surprise and pleasure, I had no trouble finding the Basel Hilton, and from there was able to retrace part of a walk we had taken on a previous trip.  I was inexpressibly delighted to find myself at Barfüsserplatz—though as yet I had no idea how close I was to Theaterplatz.

(The only time I felt lost in the least was in the train station Migros store, which was jammed with Sunday shoppers—most stores are closed on Sundays here—and from which there appeared to be no exit at all for one who had nothing at all to purchase and who did not want to wait in a very long check-out line for nothing.  The trick, it turned out, was to screw up the courage to ask the security guard for help, for no sooner did I approach than he regally swung open the "no exit" gate and waved me through.)

I found my way home with no problem whatsoever, and was ridiculously proud of myself!

Emboldened by this success (and an emergency map and cell phone), on my next walk I abandonned the constant checking backward for a retreat path and decided to trust my feet.  I wandered the city for nearly three hours, finding myself variously at the Musik-Akademie, the University, the Predigerkirche (considerably warmer than when I was there two Januaries ago), walking along the Rhine (which was flowing swiftly and glittering in the sun), buying fresh rhubarb from a farmer at at Marktplatz, and puzzling over diapers and baby clothes at Coop City.

There's a lovely park very close to home here, and I intend to investigate it soon.  There are trails that will be much more beautiful and relaxing than a city walk.  But I find myself continually drawn into Basel.  I know that my navigational successes must be frequently reinforced or I will lose them; I'm still very much in the "playing" stage.

More than that, I treasure the thrill of victory.  It more than makes up for the knowledge that few people will ever understand why it is an accomplishment at all.

Stephan returned from a business trip, and graciously spent what few minutes he had free to install a new system that not only includes more reliable Internet, but wireless connection!  Whoo-hoo!  Now I am home away from home!  I think it's a good thing—one day without Internet was a nice break, but I'm not ready for a steady diet.

Among many people I know, IKEA seems to be almost a cult store, like Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Penzey's.  I've come to understand people's devotion to the last three, but had to travel to Switzerland to have the IKEA experience.  Part of the fascination here is the reasonable prices:  pretty normal by U. S. standards, but worth a special trip here.  Or maybe it was the restaurant special:  a huge plate of Swedish meatballs, with gravy and lingonberry sauce, plus a mountain of French fries with unlimited ketchup, all for CHF 5.  I could have done without the gravy, but the meatballs were very good, the lingonberry sauce terrific, and I hadn't had French fries in ages.  Even the shopping was fun, even for this non-shopper, though I suppose I'll have to go to Orlando's IKEA to discover what was the overall IKEA experience and what was due to the local flavor.  The meal was my favorite, though—mostly because it was a good time to chat and renew acquaintance with a Swiss friend.  Actually, she's not Swiss—she's an American living in Germany—but I meant a friend we only see when visiting Switzerland.

Father's Day is not celebrated in Switzerland (although they do have Mother's Day), but it at least gets a mention (and a large, yummy, soft pretzel for the men) when your church is an international one.

Settling in was not as difficult as it might have been, thanks to Janet and Stephan's patience and their creativity in finding a mother/mother-in-law nook in an apartment that was already crowded.  We've been busy, with laundry and shopping and errands and even a party, but Janet's need to study for a major, intense, German certification exam coming up (if the baby doesn't come first) leaves me with time to write blog posts and take much-needed long walks.  That will change, of course, but I'm grateful for the time to adjust.

I'm also grateful for inexpensive international phone calls, for e-mail, instant messaging, and other forms of communication with my other life.  I don't think I would have made a very good traveller in the old days.

I certainly can't complain about the weather.  Having left behind record-setting highs in Orlando, being able to wear jeans and a sweatshirt again is bliss.

I know, I know, I have many more adventures to write up, but I'm starting with this one, as I think it will be more interesting to most of those for whom I write.

The first adventure of the adventure occurred the day before I left.  I suppose I should have discoverd the problem earlier, but I didn't.

Because I was bringing quantities of food, books, and educational materials with me, and knew I would be pushing the weight/size limit on my luggage allowance, I did my packing early.  That was good.  That was smart.

That wasn't enough.

Even though I knew my flight was on Lufthansa, I had carefully followed the baggage rules of USAirways, as my reservations were through them.  And anyway, aren't the rules all pretty much the same?

No.

The day before my flight, I dutifully typed the flight number into the USAirways Flight Status box, and was momentarily encouraged.  The from Charlotte, North Carolina to San Francisco, California was expected to be on time, which would have been good news had I not been expecting to fly from Orlando, Florida to Basel, Switzerland.  A bit disconcerted, I called USAirways and was informed that they had nothing to do with the flight except for making the reservations, and I'd have to talk with Lufthansa about flight status.

Uh oh.  Being the obsessive-compulsive person I am, I decided I'd better check Lufthansa's luggage rules, just to be sure.  Everyone said I'd be fine.

Everyone but Lufthansa, that is.

The USAirways weight limit for the carry-on bag is 40 pounds, or 18 kilograms.  I was feeling good about my packing, which at 38 pounds gave me a little leeway.  But the Lufthansa website said their limit was 8 kg.  Hoping that was a misprint that left off the ten's digit, I called—and they confirmed the lower number.  :(

My plans for the final day had not included repacking.  And re-repacking.  And re-re-re-packing.  But I did it!  The weight allowance for the checked bag was 23kg, and at the airport the next day it weighed in at 22.8!  Both my carry-on and my personal item were slightly over 8kg; I had a Plan B if that had been a problem, but it wasn't.  True, I didn't bring all that I wanted to with me, but I brought all that was most important, and I have to admit that it was nicer to carry 8kg than 18 on the long hike through the Frankfort airport.

The Day came.  Let me say this at the outset:  Weight restrictions aside, flying to Basel with only one change is a lot nicer than having two.  What's more, leaving at 8pm sure beats leaving in the morning.  It was great to have most of the day for last-minute chores, and in theory leaving at that hour would make it easy to sleep on the plane.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Porter was able to take me to the airport, which was a real blessing.  All went smoothly with checking baggage and going through security.  Our plane was a little late taking off, but we more than made up the time in flight.  I had an aisle seat, which normally would have been fantastic.  Not that it was bad, but if I'd known how things were going to go, I'd have asked the girl next to me if she wanted to change places.

She was a lovely child, perhaps 10 years old:  friendly, talkative, polite, and interesting.  But she was up and out of her seat a lot—I had told her not to worry about waking me up if she had to use the bathroom—which meant I was up and down as well, and I don't think she slept all night.  Consequently, my own total was less than three hours, probably more like two due to the interruptions.  Still, overall there was little to complain about, and nine hours in the plane sure beats the 14 of my last flight.

The plane landed in the wing of the airport from which my next flight was scheduled to depart, so getting from one to the other ought to have been easy.  But Frankfort is a big airport, and despite the apparent closeness, the two gates were a very long walk and a security checkpoint apart.  The latter caused an unexpected delay as well, as both I and my luggage were searched.  They didn't find anything because there was nothing to find; I have no idea what caused their suspicions.  (Later I learned that my checked luggage had been examined by the TSA, so I guess it was old-lady-with-more-books-than-clothes profiling day.)

Despite that, I made it to the Basel flight in plenty of time.  By now, the EuroAirport is looking quite familiar, so I grabbed my luggage, exchanged Swiss German greetings with the customs agent as I breezed by, and walked out the door to three generations of waiting relatives, one very pregnant.  :)

Jet lag turned out to be no problem at all.  The bigger adjustment was to a 10 p.m. sunset, hence a totally discombobulated sense of time.  But it's great for long evening walks.

Lesson one learned from my first solo transatlantic flight:  If I speak English, I can get along just fine.  If I try to speak German, I provoke a stream of German in response, of which I understand not one word, and my own brain, struggling with German, forgets to be competent in English.  Note to self:  leave playing with other languages to non-critical situations.

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I wrote about xylitol when I discovered it in Japan four years ago, and that remains one of my most popular posts.  Although I did not experiment further with xylitol as a sugar substitute, I continued to use it as a dental rinse, swishing a small spoonful around in my mouth after brushing my teeth at night.

Until I started worrying about the fact that the xylitol I had was made in China, that is.  Chinese manufacturers were caught substituting poisonous substances for more expensive, safe ingredients in toothpaste and children's toys, as I wrote about in 2007, and later in baby formula, candy, and other products containing milk.  I wrote to the manufacturer of my xylitol, seeking reassurance, but received no answer.

So I got lazy, and simply eliminated the xylitol rinse from my tooth-cleaning routine.  That was a year ago, and six months later the dental hygienist wondered what was going on:  my gums, which had been healthy for years, were now a mess.

The only change in my routine had been that I was no longer using the xylitol.  Chastened, I decided to assume diligence and responsibility on the part of the manufacturer, and resumed my nighttime rinsing.

This week I returned to the dentist and the hygienist was wowed by the positive changes and return to health of my gums.

Did xylitol make the difference?  It's hard not to come to that conclusion.^*  At any rate, I don't intend to repeat the experiment if I can help it, even though it still feels strange to rinse my mouth with something sweet, especially without brushing my teeth afterwards!

Some of my favorite flags: