Katrina's foot

Some of you followed the saga of Max's arm. Herewith, the sequel, Katrina's foot......

Katrina gets small blister Saturday, walking for too long in rainboots. Feels fine on Sunday and goes ice-skating as planned. Fine that night.

At school Monday, blister pops, very painful. By Monday night has fever, rare for her. I assume it's one of many colds going around school, put antibiotic cream on blister. She sleeps with me Monday night. Tuesday morning fever gone but blister worse and I keep her home from school, keep putting antibiotic cream on it, and carry her anywhere we need to go. K perky and cheerful all day. Blister remains bad, soak foot in salt water in afternoon and give bath. Around bedtime she begins saying everything itches - notice ankle is quite swollen, mild rash all over. Ask her if she had twisted ankle; she says no. Give more antibiotic cream on blister, give antihistamine and regular lotion all over for itching, and put to bed.

Call my father, a doctor who typically reacts to all medical questions by implying that it's slightly neurotic to consider that something might be wrong. Uncharacteristically alarmed about swollen ankle and wants her to see doctor, even thinking she should maybe see one that night because of mysterious possibility of infection spreading to joint. Defying his advice out of sheer inability to face ER, I let her sleep till morning. She wakes up cheerful and chipper, with the blister itself a little better, but the ankle still badly swollen.

I send her to school but call a pediatrician, get an appointment for that morning, and pick her up at school.

Extraordinarily nice pediatrician concerned about ankle, definitely thinks infection beyond site of wound. About to send me on my way with prescription for oral antibiotics when I ask if there might be infection in joint. She then does protein test, finds elevated levels, indicating a slightly more serious (tho not dire) infection. She decides that instead of oral antibiotics, I should go to hospital and see if they want to drain ankle (I think - may have lost something in translation) or give IV antibiotics. She instructs me to go get Max at school, feed both lunch bc it will probably be a long wait, and then go to Hopital des Enfants, not the tiny private hospital where I went with Max at a cost that depleted his college fund but a public hospital on a sprawling grounds in the middle of city on other side of river.

Feed both kids, download directions to hospital, trace route on map (always a useless endeavor in the city) and, knowing Mark will be home from meeting soon, leave Max alone with instructions to go to Knox Center if Mark not home soon. Max points out that "It is the burnt hand which teaches best", which seems to show remarkable growth in perspective when compared to reaction to own injury, mere months ago, but I speculate that this may have to do more with whose arm the hand is on the end of, rather than to any great maturational leaps.

We find hospital after much driving and cursing, and park, carefully noting that we are on floor "F". Walk out of parking structure and into hospital where they tell us to walk down the street to children's ER. We walk about a block and half, don't find, walk back, and are sent back in same direction, with more clear instructions. Katrina stoically refuses offers to be carried.

Get into children's ER - totally calm cheerful, pleasant music, quiet, clean, comfortable. Play many many games of Uno and solitaire, do Katrina's homework, edit a Policy Matters paper, wait, wait.

Once we are called in extremely nice doctors all gather around, tutting and clucking, while Katrina beams. Foot already looks noticeably better to me, but swelling has turned to a bruise. Get another blood test, slides made from Katrina's blood, remarks that Max never had slides made from his blood exchanged, more waiting, more card games and story reading. Admonitions not to eat in case surgery needed! Local anaesthesia applied to arm and hand in case IV antibiotics needed!

Higher level doctor called in bc of concerns re bruise. Katrina beams, tells story again. Lots of discussion of how brave and strong she is. More beaming.Katrina mentions that she has been training for a well-known race in downtown Geneva this Saturday and wonders if she'll be able to compete. Gasps all around at this stellar athlete, felled by a blister.Blood tests reveal lower level of (bad) protein than at noon that day. I note silently to self that ankle looks almost completely fine now.

Doctor returns with med technician guy and says that they will give oral antibiotics, but that they are prescribing a cast and crutches. Katrina barely able to contain her euphoria. Exhausted mother incredulous. Doctor explains that if she moves foot, infection could spread. Lots of discussion re cast, go to other room, carefully mold cast with cute cast guy continuously asking if Katrina can move "fingers" (meaning toes). Long process. Much discussion of Katrina's bravery.

I note that we won't be able to get jeans off after they put cast on. Mystified doctor and med tech stumped as to how to proceed. I suggest removing pants before applying cast. Much discussion of what a great idea that is. Katrina assumes false modesty at being seen in underwear. I ignore.

As they are putting cast on, I suggest that perhaps we should first put a band-aid over the blister which was the source of the original problem. Much agreement all around. Doctor leaves in search of band-aid and cast guy resumes putting on cast. I ask again re band-aid and cast guy says "oh, right, I forgot".

Band-aid on, pants off, cast on.

I ask if Katrina can wait at hospital while I find car. Katrina left reading book, my coat modestly draped over her naked legs, I walk several blocks to parking structure, pay in advance as is required, go to floor F, no car in sight. Notice that every floor has prominent F indicating the fire exit, while the letter indicating what floor you are on is discreetly hidden on back wall. I run through whole parking structure cursing wildly until finding car, on floor C. Drive out. Payment no longer valid as it took more than 10 minutes to find car. Must get out of car, park, and repay (not in that order).

Long drive home with Amy frantically trying to find the route and Katrina joyfully exclaiming at beauty of night-time Geneva; remarking on bright lights, river and lake views; describing novelty of cast; noting that Max's cast was just white while hers is colored; speculating as to whether pharmacy will give Swiss style crutches or American style crutches, a distinction she has already observed; wondering what classmates will say about injury.

Give prescription to Mark to fill. Mark learns that only one pharmacy is open in Geneva after 10:30 p.m. and it is on other side of river. Katrina is fed and put to bed, amid much discussion of cast.

When Mark gets home, hour later, we give antibiotics and vow to go to school late.

Katrina wakes early, ecstatic about getting to school, practicing crutches. Max resentfully looks on. I remove cast and see that the foot appears totally fine, very slightly bruised. Mark delivers an ecstatic Katrina to school, just late enough that class is in session, having French lesson. Katrina makes grand entrance. Teacher says "ooh la la". Everyone else asks in German about foot. When I pick up later, she is standing in prominent place in hallway, waving crutches around while bevy of older girls looks on admiringly. Beginnings of blister on hand from crutches, I note with horror.

By next a.m. all swelling gone, slight bruise remains. Mark takes kids to school. They have a short day (meaning it ends at 11:30 instead of 1:15) because of major school fundraiser. Medical emergency actually got me out of my responsibilities on decorating committee, which might have been more painful than ER visit, so I think I've come out even, but am left with nagging feeling that getting all of the glory of crutches without any pain or real discomfort is not a good lesson for my attention-seeking girl. Oh well.

While distracted with all of this, Policy Matters is attacked in the Plain Dealer, my quote re "depression-era imagery" makes it into the London Guardian, Sydney Australia paper and USA Today among other places, a check for $37K comes in to Policy Matters, and the Republican debate happens.

The next day Max runs in famous Geneva race called the Escalade. Katrina watches (on crutches).

October, 2007

The upside of global warming is that we've had insanely beautiful October weather in Europe, making our teeny apartment livable as we can still just boot the kids outside when they get too loud.

October kicked off with a visit from Mark's mother who brought coffee and gifts, rearranged our apartment (a huge improvement, actually), and admired the little farm in our backyard and the nearby lake views and castles. The kids have very much settled down and although I know they'd still rather be in Cleveland, and they ask longingly about what's happening at Onaway, they're also happy here. That might be in part because they had a TWO-week fall vacation, "le petit vacance" as the Swiss call it, not to be confused, I suppose, with "le grand vacance". I don't agree with Sarkozy about everything, but he is apparently going to rein in the school vacations and I have to applaud that - it was great for us to get two weeks of travel in our 4 months in Europe, but if I'd been trying to actually do my job at the appropriate level of diligence, it would have been unthinkable.

I turned 40 at the beginning of October. Celebrating began the day before when, because Mark was out of town, the kids made me take them down to the department store in downtown Geneva where they negotiated various purchases in French, while shrieking at me not to look, so I lurked nearby like some Mark Foley figure. The cute French Swiss saleswomen figured out the situation and asked them in broken English if they wanted the gifts wrapped. Katrina spent a little less than she had, so she went to the dorm across the way here and blew the rest on candy in the vending machine, which they served to me in bed with half cooked oatmeal after restraining themselves from waking me until about 7. Katrina had hung signs all around the apartment that said things like "next stop: 50" (only spelled "nest stop 05") and they found balloons and hung them up too. We spent the day at the botanical garden and mini-zoo, looking at cool plants and funny animals. Then Mark got home in time for us all to go out to dinner and come home for cake with raspberries and whipped cream.

The kids have adjusted to school, though they'd rather be in Cleveland. Both of them continue to make big strides in speaking German. Katrina's English reading would probably be improving more if we were in the U.S., but it's fine anyway. The math that Max is getting is definitely more rudimentary here, but on the other hand, he's spending much more time on creative projects and I think less time in rote activities - that is, of course, when they are actually in school, of which there rarely seems to be an uninterrupted week between the German, Swiss and even special Geneva holidays. When the kids' school vacation started, we drove to Italy in our radio-less car, to an area called Cinque Terre (literally 'five lands') - five little cities along the sea, rising steeply into terraced hillsides covered with grapevines. There's very limited car access but you can hike or take a train between the cities which have little beaches, cafes, gelaterias, and restaurants. Mark found us a little apartment - the top three floors of one of the steep, narrow, six-story gelato-colored buildings that characterize these towns. It was off-season, so we had the beaches almost to ourselves except for the jellyfish. And it was hot enough that we swam nearly every day, jellyfish or not, built stone towers on the rocky beach and castles on the sandy one, and hiked a ton. Max was mellow about the fact that his cast prevented real swimming. Both kids were complete troopers, aided by the constant promise of more ice cream - hiking long trails, helping carry dishes from the teeny kitchen up to the little deck where the temperature fell precipitously as soon as we finished watching the sun drop into the Mediterranean. That part of Italy was just what I expected - curly-haired toddlers giggling at us, tough boys roughhousing, gorgeous black-haired young women and men in skin-tight jeans, and friendly grandmothers who already knew Max and Katrina's names after a day of being there. We'd be blocks from our apartment and a little old lady would call out "Ciao, Maxi, Ciao, Katrina!" and then would tell me how "bella" Katrina was. Our apartment was directly across from a church whose bells rang deafeningly at 7 a.m. - far more than 7 times - and on the stone churchyard there was almost always a soccer game which our kids sometimes joined. Katrina was always the only girl, her blond braids bouncing, and the other boys called her "little sister" and seemed to give her room to shoot. Max said they gave him the finger and shouted at him if he scored; fortunately, he couldn't decipher the shouting. We also spent a day in Pisa - the tower really does lean - seeing the other side of Italy as we guarded against pickpockets and paid 30 Euros for a terrible meal that someone should have paid us to eat.

We said a reluctant "arrividerci" to Italy and made it back to Geneva for Max to get his cast off (!!!!!) and me to hit the laundry machine in the dorms. The arm is healing well, I guess, although he can't move his wrist enough to play the violin easily. But strength and mobility are returning and he's much more cheerful. Mark then went with the Kent students on a field trip to Berlin, while I figured out how to handle the second week of the petit vacance. The kids and I took a train to Paris, where some American friends have moved into a beautiful old house in an adorable French village. Their kids are about the ages of ours and we had a lot of notes to compare on navigating in a second language and culture. Like me, Hannah tries to juggle an online job in the US, so wireless access was easy and they completely understood when I retreated to do triage. Their kids played hooky for one day to take us hiking in some caves, then Max, Katrina and I took the train into Paris two days - seeing the Eiffel Tower one day and going to Sacre Coeur and Montmartre the second. The kids had a blast figuring out what pieces of kitsch to purchase with their 5 Euro allotment - Katrina can stretch that to get about 8 things. Max, in contrast, ended up returning his change to me because it was too stressful to decide what else to buy with it. I also blew more money than I care to admit when street artists strong-armed us into posing for three scary sketches of people who only vaguely resemble us. Our friends Bruce and Hannah made us meal after delicious meal, and we climbed back onto the train to Geneva stuffed and happy.

We came back to the farm (literally) after fair Paris to find that the little puppies are clambering around, cuter than anything imaginable. Katrina's favorite is the runt, a third of the size of his siblings. We can now pick them up and play with them, but I still remain more enamored than the kids. I'm glad I learned this before my guilt inspired a dog purchase. The kids have settled pretty happily back into school, glad now to be hearing German instead of French or Italian. Our old friends from Germany, who we met when they spent two years in Cleveland, came for Halloween. We talked the Kent students into making the dorm hallway even scarier than it usually is and handing out candy to Max, Katrina, a couple of school friends and the visiting kids. Katrina was a puzzle piece - a costume she has been planning since about November 1, 2006, and that she and I had a blast making. Max was a vampire. It wasn't exactly the usual Cleveland Halloween extravaganza, but they had fun. So, life is much calmer and more content here for the kids than it was in September. For a duo that is often at odds and always in competition, they're getting along better than ever - right at this minute, for example, they seem to be negotiating what Katrina will pay Max if he does the advertising for a business that she is planning - she's skeptical of his (accurate) claims about the minimum wage rate. Mark is happy doing the Kent work and recommending that Kent start a summer program here. Policy Matters is thriving - just got two big new grants and a few little ones, held a major conference on labor in the new energy economy, is getting a slew of press. I'm treading water, dealing with the most urgent stuff, letting others manage the rest, and Policy Matters hardly seems to be suffering (probably the contrary).

I continue to think Europe gets a lot of things right that America gets wrong - mostly the more equitable economy, stronger unions, better social supports and the more energy-efficient way of living that translates to vibrant cities close to charming farms and countryside, and exercise built into your day as you run to catch the busses and trains that can take you anywhere quickly. But I also miss the U.S. - mostly the people, the openness and the flexibility, but also the peanut butter, coffee, black beans, and sliced bread; the store hours; and the work and school system (at least the one in cushy Shaker Heights). I think the American school and child care system, or culture, makes it more possible for mothers to have careers and for fathers to do some share of the child- and housework (interestingly the terrific maternity leave and other benefits haven't translated into most of the German women I know feeling that they can juggle the two - in part because there seem to be insane expectations about women shopping daily, serving a big hot lunch, and making constant kuchens for endless social events). The anti-immigrant, right-wing Swiss party got the largest vote share of any party since WWI in the recent election (28.8%), and the week we left for Italy the Herald Tribune reported that 7% of that country's economy goes toward organized crime.

But the mellow European life is sweet - one golden afternoon we were walking on our street and noticed that every tree had a little sign with a drawing of a bunny that says "Si vous trouvez mon lapin, merci de telephoner" (please call if you find my bunny). The kids didn't agree about its poignancy (Max:"You think weird things are sad") but they do agree that many things here are nice and they're appreciating some of those differences....

September, 2007

Max fell out of the top bunk of the bed on September first and broke his arm - tragically in terms of sibling relationships, he was leaning down to show Katrina a picture in a book he was reading to her. That'll teach him to ever read his sister a story again (it might have been the first time he ever had). Doubly tragically, it was the first night that Mark and I had gone out without the kids, and we haven't managed it since (unless you count the information nights at the school, which I definitely don't). That event, combined with the start of school, left me so exhausted and bereft of hope about my parenting skills, that there was no possibility to send any kind of update. Basically, the kids spent the first two weeks of school screaming at us for the entire afternoon and evening about the cruelty and insensitivity of bringing them to Switzerland, interrupted by short breaks for Max to moan loudly about his arm itching. Two weeks after the initial break, the x-ray revealed that it wasn't healing straight enough, and after several days of frantic e-mailing of x-rays and conversing with doctors in Germany, the U.S. and Switzerland, we agreed to surgery a week ago to insert two pins.But, although they both miss Cleveland and their school there, they've adjusted, Max is feeling much better, and I'm revived enough to send another dispatch. They've been tougher to deal with than they are at home (and neither is exactly a mellow kid under any circumstances). Plus the school day here is shorter and starts earlier so we have long afternoons together. During one of Max's recent tirades about his homework, which is hard for him, I resorted to telling the old story of the guy in the overcrowded house who asked the rabbi for advice and was told to bring his cow, then goat, then chickens into the house, then found the house much less crowded upon their departure. They loved the story, but I don't think they caught any parable in it.But if they have been tough at times, we've also had at least one phenomenal moment of beauty or charm each day - finding a field of tiny ponies near our house, hiking in the mountains with friends from Shaker who were visiting, noticing cool bugs and lizards near our house, checking out a medieval festival complete with hundreds of costumed people in the streets near castle ruins, spending time showing off Geneva to friends visiting from Ohio and my parents.For me, the current highlight is a tiny farm we've discovered directly behind our house, hidden behind a big stand of trees. The farm has 2 ponies, 3 dog-sized miniature horses, 6 goats, tons of bunnies, ducks, geese, chickens and parakeets, a couple of kittens/cats, a yellow lab and a seemingly horse-sized Bernese Mountain Dog named Sally. The owner made it clear (in French) that we can come by any time and feed or pet the miniature horses and goats, which often wander free. Since finding it we've been back almost daily, and Sally always cheerfully came out to greet us. Earlier this week, when we went by, Sally did not come out of her little dog house, so Max peeked in and found 9 miniscule Bernese Mountain Dog puppies, looking like 9 little loaves of black rye bread. (We didn't count them ourselves - they're still in the dog house, nursing, but the farmer told us there were "neuf", which even Katrina understood.) Since one of the many ways in which my mothering pales in comparison to that of my own ever-patient mother is my failure to provide the kids with puppies to play with (our childhood dog had 6 puppies twice), I'm overjoyed about this. The kids are excited too, but I think not quite as excited.The kids have both had friends from school over several times, both prior to and since discovering the farm. They chatter away in German to their school friends in a way that is pretty cute - Katrina now finds my accent mortifying and tells me not to talk (although I can still say more than she can, lame accent or not). Much as she does in English, Katrina now belts out slightly wrong German song lyrics, giving Max an opportunity to loudly and indignantly correct her. Max and his friends play hide and seek on this expansive campus where we're living, and spy on the college students in the dorm across the way, or on the international meetings that are held here (Doctors without Borders, the UN, and other international groups often meet here at the center where we live, playing weird get-acquainted games or doing goofy trust-building exercises, much to all of our amusement.)The German, American, French and Swiss school systems are all pretty differnt I think. Our kids are going to a private German school here in Geneva. The languages (that I've heard about) spoken by the kids at home include French, Italian, Russian, Persian, Spanish, English, and, for the most part, German. Most of the kids have two German speaking parents (and many speak no French, which is the language here). Max's best friend in the class is from Columbus, Ohio (!) - both parents are German but the father is a physicist and teaches at Ohio State.The French school system, from all accounts, begins at 8 or 8:30 a.m., includes a 1.5 hour lunch, but ends at 4 or 4:30 p.m. Most people say that it involves lots of sitting still, rote memorization, and being seated in the corner for misbehavior. There's no school on Wednesdays. The Swiss system I think follows the French schedule here, but is more relaxed - one mother told us that her 6-year-old son had switched from French to French-Swiss schools and came home elated after one week to announce that he hadn't been sent to sit in the corner even once all week! The German school is from 7:50 a.m. (UGH) to 1:15 p.m., with tons of art, gym, drama, music, etc. They also get religion class once a week, to my slight horror as the opening ceremony included mention of the father, the son and the holy ghost (oh vey), but we asked Max's teacher about it and she said this year they were studying "courage" and "trust", with a focus on Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Mark met with the religion teacher to explain our agnostic, non-observant, Jewish, lefty religious training and see if they can incorporate that into the curriculum (ha!). The opening day for the first graders (two days after Max started) also included a play in hip hop verse which the fourth graders (which includes Max) performed for the first graders (Katrina). In the German system, letters are not taught at all until first grade so Katrina is a little annoyed that she is in year three (preschool, kindergarten and now here) of shaping clay into "M"s and "A"s. Things are taught in a very developmental way, with lots of discussion of different kids learning at different paces and that being ok. There's a lot of emphasis on kids being independent, parents not being over-involved, and it being fine if kids can't finish their homework. Both Max and Katrina have French 1, and the art and gym classes I guess are always taught in French. The French class involves a lot of singing and dialogues and games - I would say that it seems to be both of their favorite element, in part because everyone in the French 1 class is at the same point, whereas in almost every other class, they have the weakest German. The two "elternabends" (parent-evenings, one for each class) contained extensive discussion of the need for hausschue (slippers), which seemed to deeply concern the German parents. I couldn't entirely follow. There was also in-depth discussion of the notebooks - each kid has to carry, back and forth, every day, about 6 spiral notebooks, six transparent folders in assorted colors (and we bought the wrong colors, it seems), and several textbooks. The kids are supposed to know their schedules, and leave at home the books they don't expect to use that day, but our kids never know, so they just carry 15 pounds (6.82 kilos) of books around (or with Max's broken arm, we carry them). Notebooks seem to cost about 10 francs each (maybe $9), giving me an unexpected appreciation for Target or at least Costco. A final theme that got a lot of discussion in Katrina's class was a set of complaints about why the kids couldn't just be dropped off or picked up much later or earlier than school started or ended, for various reasons related to parental schedules. Most seemed to feel that an unsupervised 45 minutes in the schoolyard should be fine (the playground isn't finished yet, so they play soccer on the pavement), or that, conversely, they should be able to pick up before class was over. Several of the kids, including some first graders with older siblings, take public transportation home, including in some cases switching buses. In both classes, nobody wanted to be room parent - I finally volunteered to assist someone else in Katrina's class. In Max's class they went through this strange exercise of going around the room, demanding from each parent why they couldn't do it, arm-twisting three people into saying they would do it, then having a vote in which one of the people was voted out. Totally weird.I'm still managing to get my work done for the most part (although my co-workers might beg to differ), although it's a little challenging because people arrive at their offices in Ohio just after my kids are home for the rest of the day. But, if I have to make a call I put on German cartoons, and watching TV is one thing they both recognize as a great privilege about being here. Spongebob Squarepants is apparently just as funny in German. Policy Matters is thriving in my absence, bringing in new grants, getting tons of press, even having a new researcher start this week (I hired him before I left - a terrific person and longtime friend).It's nice to be away from Bush and to only be catching tidbits about OJ's arrest, Brittany's antics, and the race battles in the south. On the other hand, we feel closer to all of the international disasters covered in the Herald Tribune - but we don't always feel as responsible for those (tho of course the U.S. is responsible for some of the worst ones). I'm not working on my French nearly as much as I should be - my basketball has improved much more than my French has. But I can get by, can tell the farmer her puppies are cute, can make the endless doctor appointments for Max, and can let kids on the playground know that Katrina wants a turn on the swing. Given the arm break, I've decided that keeping up with a modicum of my Policy Matters work and keeping the kids happy is challenge enough. Mark managed to make it to the semi-finals of a local tennis tournament and I do get to run much more than in Cleveland -- my runs let me drink in views of the omnipresent mountains, the lake, and take me past cute cafes, wooded paths, frog-filled streams, donkeys, and golden fields. I sometimes wonder what the lifetime effect of living in a place of such beauty is but then I quickly repress those thoughts as I know I'm returning to the land of suburban sprawl and flat landscapes pretty soon. I tell the kids to take a mental picture of the views we're seeing to remember when we're staring at a strip mall and I try to do the same.

Late August, 2007

Having found the English language library today, life is a little more relaxed because Max is reading instead of rolling around on the floor moaning about how much he hates his parents, thus giving me time to write this note.

We're living in Geneva, about two miles from the city center, an easy bus ride away - buses go by about every five minutes. I really am always just baffled at how the Europeans manage it and the Americans don't - Geneva is this totally vibrant city, teeming with cafes, restaurants, stores, playgrounds, parks, and streetlife. Yet so so close to the city - a joggable, bikeable, busable distance, we are completely in the countryside with apple and pear orchards, donkeys, and woods all part of what I pass on my short runs - although I also can walk easily to a restaurant, grocery store, and some other shops. If I ran in the other direction, I could go past the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization, but it's not as pretty. The kids are doing a lot of walking to the bus stop.

The bus we take drives us right past the United Nations Building (with its public art piece - an enormous wooden chair with one leg blown off - a monument to victims of landmines), the Red Cross museum and a bunch of Missions (the U.S. Mission, etc). There's public art all over the place - modern, old, pretty, weird - it's really great.

We arrived about a week and a half ago. Our apartment, known as "Le Petit Chalet", is in a little brown chalet, with balconies off of three sides. It's very cute - a large bedroom for us, a smallish living-room/dining room, a teeny office for Mark and me, a little room with a bunk bed for the kids, a bathroom, and a little galley kitchen with a cute small refrigerator and a little stove and sink. Katrina loves the kitchen because the appliances look a little like toys to someone used to massive American appliances. It's the upstairs apartment, although the downstairs seems to usually be vacant - Katrina has explored the inside of the downstairs somehow, unbeknownst to me, and is constantly reporting back little tidbits of information.

The apartment reminds me a lot of the place in which Mark and I lived in Berlin right after we got married. There's something I sort of like about being in a furnished apartment - partly just a realization that all the stuff we accumulate doesn't mean all that much - that you can move into someone else's space, and while you might have chosen the blue Ikea accent pillows and they chose the red, it doesn't really make a tremendous difference. You listen to someone else's music, read someone else's novels, eat off some other plates. It's kind of freeing. Plus, instead of being annoyed about not having something, it sort of seems like a bonus to find certain things - look, they have a big bowl for serving pasta - hey there's a volleyball net in this closet! It's kind of fun. The biggest source of conflict is the bunk bed, which Katrina is dying to sleep on the top bunk of, but since it has no railing and she gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I'm a little reluctant.

We're sort of in the woods on a small campus setting - across a small field is the dorm where the students live, which has a cafeteria, a student lounge (an endless source of fascination to both kids actually because of the steady supply of coca cola that can be found there, and the evidence of teenage life) and where Mark teaches. Mark's responsibilities seem very minimal so far - teaches one class a week, deals when kids have to go to the emergency room (happened once), or lock themselves out (happened once), attends some meetings, listens to the complaints of the irascible chef, Jose, fields calls from worried parents. There's a French class every day which I think I'll start when the kids start school.

One would think that the setting would be heaven for kids - there's a basketball court, a wall to hit tennis balls against, a little volleyball net - and lots of little lizards, fun to try to catch. But one would be wrong, at least some of the time. I mean, they each are sometimes very happy, but they each are sometimes very unhappy at being somewhere without any English-speaking friends. Max spent one day in it's entirety moaning about it, although has been quite cheerful the last few days. The school doesn't start for another week, and I think they'll feel much better once that happens. We went to see the school, which is brand new - it's the Deutsche Schule Genf (the German school of Geneva), and has been around for a long time, but happens to be moving into a new building on which construction is not quite complete. The building is cool - looks like a modern art museum and I think is self-sustaining in terms of energy use - pumps geothermal energy up from below the foundation or something (I couldn't entirely follow the explanation in German), but without any kids or any art up yet, and with boxes and construction vehicles still all around, it felt cold and not very friendly to the kids I think. But today a very cute packet arrived in the mail from Katrina's teacher, Frau Larius. Max is very very concerned that letter grades begin in 4th grade and he'll be unable to read and write in German. Sigh. Both are a little worried about the French. But the principal assured us that some in the school will be beginners in German, others beginners in French, and that they'll do fine.

It seems to us like everyone in Geneva speaks at least three languages fluently, including the kids, although the kids we meet in the playgrounds only seem to speak French. Plus European parents are so different in certain ways - take it for granted that kids should be shipped off to a camp in Spain to learn Spanish, roll their eyes at the notion that it might be traumatic. Although there are all these internal differences too - French school is very intensive, several hours longer that American school, very rigid, centralized curriculum. German school starts a year later than U.S. schools, is a much shorter school day, kids don't learn to read until they're six, and it's very focused on art and is very developmental. Germans, Swedes and others all begin learning English right away and seem often to be fluent in a third language as well - the French really don't like English and don't tend to speak it nearly as well as other Europeans. It's hard for me to tell about the Swiss and I think it differs a lot locally - the governmental system here is very localized, but in Geneva at least, everyone seems to speak pretty good English, from the waiters in restaurants to the ticket agents at the bus station, and nobody seems the slightest bit annoyed with my French. Allegedly 40% of Genevans aren't Swiss.

The best thing about Europe is the many opportunities for really fun physical things that would never be allowed in the U.S. Every playground is full of see-saws with unsupervised 3 year olds on one end and 10 year olds on the other, sending the three year olds flying gleefully into the air. Also lots of metal rides that spin wildly. Yesterday we went to a playground that featured a pole, about 30-feet high, with four long metal chains with wooden bars at the end. Kids grab the bars, then run in circles, then lift their feet off the ground and careen around for a few spins before all landing on top of each other with the metal chains and wooden bars hitting everyone in the head. The kids loved it.

We also went to a playground in France (France is ten minutes away by car) that had ziplines where the kids were harnessed in and did this kind of ropes course, many feet above the ground - they have to strap themselves in and climb and swing high up in the trees - literally 30 feet off the ground, flying through the air, with these little safety harnesses, then when they get to the next little station up in the tree, they have to switch the harness to the new clamps themselves. The kind of thing that you'd get sued in the U.S. if you even mentioned wanting to put up. The very nice French woman who ran it had an adorable little 4-year-old boy who ran around doing the stuff too - she said in this French accent "he has no sense - last year he fell and broke ze jaw and needed nine stitches - I said, Remy, your head is in ze clouds, but still does he listen? Non! But your leetle girl, she is very sensible". Katrina was floored and asked on the way home if I would still let her do the course unsupervised if she had broken her jaw and needed stitches and was four. But in a way, it's like this kid has the perfect life - if he survives it of course - running around outside, near a lake, catching lizards and riding ropes above the trees. Later we saw him unsupervised in the kitchen, gleefully cutting up dozens of paper napkins with a large pair of scissors, undoubtedly intended for dismembering a chicken or something.

It's been variable weather, but definitely not as hot as the U.S. in summer. Still, we've gone swimming a few times. Geneva has two big beaches - one is more of a pier, with huge diving boards (10 meter, 20 meter) and a zipline above the water (kids just hang on, and after falling in have to swim in thru the nude female beach - all the beaches have topless women, but the fully nude one is a little more alarming for the American kids, tho Max didn't comment). There's a huge slide which Katrina did by herself, sandwiched between groups of big French-speaking kids. Max met a little German speaking kid and played with him all day, trying to push teenagers into the lake. Katrina and I noticed one little boy doing a typical European activity - playing with the little metal pots, attached to heavy, metal poles with sharp points which you stick into the ground around the pool/beach, so that people can put their cigarettes in them before going into the water I guess (tho if they COULD smoke in the water, they would). The boy was picking up the pots and the poles, then dropping them alarmingly near his feet, while his mother, in bikini, stood about forty feet away, chatting with another woman and ignoring him.

Our first week here was a little stressful because I still had to finish several things for work - I release a report every year on Labor Day, and this isn't the first August that's been marred by the need to finish it. I'm thinking Labor Day should be moved to March so it doesn't screw up summer so much next year. There were also a few funding deadlines that needed to be dealt with. But the big report is now done and out to reporters, and another release that I'm doing in October is more than three-quarters done as well. I'm able to call into conference calls pretty easily and will do two today and e-mail keeps me in pretty good touch with what's going on at work, at least so far. Once the kids start school I think I'll be able to manage the work pretty easily, I hope.

Today the kids played at the house of Mark's colleague - she's German, her husband is Spanish, they live in France and work in Switzerland - they have kids the exact ages of our kids, cared for by the French nanny, who is now watching our kids too, at the mother's insistence. Hers is the son who is at a Spanish camp, so Max is playing with the girls. So that gives you a sense of our lives here....

August 13, 2007

After a weeklong marathon of frenzied cleaning, we turned an immaculate house and car over to the Australian family yesterday. We left our house at 9 a.m. Sunday morning, spent much of the day in the Newark airport where the grandparents were thankfully in charge of entertaining our crazed offspring. We took off from Newark at about 6 p.m. and, after a refreshing hour or so of sleep, arrived in Geneva at 7 a.m. Geneva time, 2 a.m. Cleveland time. Needless to say, the children took it in stride, with Max punching Katrina in the stomach shortly after we arrived. However, it's insanely beautiful in our cute little apartment, the upstairs flat in an adorable Swiss chalet that I assume is older than anything in Cleveland (I haven't gotten those details yet). Katrina danced around the apartment, thrilled with every detail (I think she was expecting something tenement-style), and filled with hilarity that the people on the radio were speaking French. I'm a little apprehensive at the lack of screens on the windows for my little bug magnet, who spent most of the flight furiously scratching her bites. Mark seems to have the computers working - the kids are napping and I'm scared to wake them up, the weather is beautiful and the space here seems beyond idyllic - the students are across a grassy field in a dorm and some seem like potential babysitters (praise the Lord). There's a basketball hoop and a space to ride the bikes, and a rusty little bike for Max (I think it was a dispute over that which led to the previously-mentioned punch). I actually think my French is slightly coming back - the Swiss speak a little more slowly than the Parisians and seem pleased that I at least know German, as some of them seem also to a little bit (the bus driver did anyway).

I read a quiz question to Katrina yesterday that said, "Can you correct this sentence: "I saw two mouses run across the field"." Katrina said "Mouses?" I said, "Right, what would be a better word?" and she said "Sheep!" So there you have it, and don't you agree that she's probably right?