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....
