Striking Terror to the Heart

Joy Kundig

Well, there’s a moving van over the road. This, in itself, is not unusual as the building is a two-family house (much in the fashion of North and South Korea) and the gentle tenants in the South constantly move away to greener, quieter, and less threatening pastures.

Moving vans rattle me. I started moving before I was one year old, and am always hopeful that where I am now is the final destination. When I was two, I accompanied my parents into a freezing Canadian winter. My first clear memory is packing my books into a blue tin pram.

After my father became a foot soldier in the great Canadian Protestant army of the Lord we moved regularly every couple of years. I have changed continents and manses and apartments and houses dozens and dozens of times.

The extra-special Swiss moving trauma has to do with the cleanliness of the rented property that you leave behind. Windows have to be sparkling; the grout between the floor tiles scrubbed with a toothbrush; ceilings and doors washed. You have to boil the bathrooms in bleach. (Warning! An acquaintance did this with a wicked-strong product that took the enamel off the bathtub, and she had to buy a new one.)

Then you have to pass the real-estate agent test where a man with bad hair, bad attitude and a clip-board feels behind the back of taps to make sure there isn’t a bump of lime scale or a flake of soap.

If you fail the test, not only are you hygienically bankrupt, you also lose at least part of your blocked deposit (three months rent) as professional cleaners have to be called in to remove water spots from tiles, dust specks from the corner of drawers, invisible (to the naked eye) fingerprints from door handles. I’ve heard they work with microscopes.

Even if you have been asked to leave (due to a relative needing one of grandpa’s many, many houses) you have to scrub the kitchen raw (even though it is all going to be ripped out and replaced.) It’s more than depressing: it’s traumatic.

The moving van over the road has the English phrase “The Human Touch” written on its side. Due to wear and tear from my vantage point it seems to read “The Lunar Torch” – a much more whimsical and fitting concept.

I recall my old Uncle Harry being traumatised by his one big middle-aged move. He swore he would never ever do it again. He said it took him three weeks to find his tooth brush. His wish came true, and last I heard an urn containing his ashes is still in the back of the upstairs closet.

We are stardust, after all.

Chateau Nights

Joy Kundig

Well, if you ever get invited to a chateau, be sure to bring a sleeping bag along. Of course, there are drawers full of ancient embroidered linens locked away safely in Louis XVI cabinets, but nobody knows where the keys are anymore. As for the tattered remains of the duvets, they are on the very top floor where the flies and the mice have taken over, and NO ONE goes up there. Ever.

Chateau life is full of pleasant and unusual surprises. When, for example, did you last get your hand kissed coming to the breakfast table? Or blow a French hunting horn in the main hallway? Or see a gentle pastel sunset over endless still water?

My particular chateau is located in the Dombes—a fish-pond-filled plain half way to Lyon from Geneva. Originally purchased by our host’s great-great grandfather (a silk baron), it is perched on a slight rise in the flatness overseeing 1000 hectares (2471 acres) of water, canals and forest. You patrol the paths in a pair of old camouflage-green Citroen beach buggies which have a tendency towards flat tires and gear-box issues.

You note that the ponds are low, and some have even disappeared completely. You observe the egrets and swans and positively hate the big black cormorants that stress the fish in the muddy shallow ponds.

You sleep little as the hunting dogs bark all night.

You visit the Saturday-morning market and want to buy a huge domestic goose and some fluffy hens that are for sale. For lunch you eat frog legs and pike mousse and tartar of carp. Your host tries to sell the restaurant chef the 15 tons of carp that he fishes annually from him ponds. This is beyond embarrassing: it is aristocratic. You give the waitress an outrageous tip.

You visit the great Abbey of Bourg en Bresse and admire the stained glass and the tomb of poor Marguerite of Austria/Savoy. You are enthralled and stuffed (fish dumplings) at the same time.

At apéro hour, the neighbours come to pay a courtesy call. They have rescue horses and dogs, and market-bought poultry, and a flock of guardian geese. They discuss the upcoming hunting season with our chateau host who wears a flak jacket, smokes a pipe, and loves knives. They leave at 9, as they have to dress for dinner.

For our supper there is a huge hunk of chateau Limousin beef resting in the fridge. You compose a magnificent Yorkshire pudding that you have whipped up by hand—a totally English dish perhaps never tasted before in this 13th-centure French demeure.

I loved my three nights at the chateau (yes, a chateau weekend begins on Thursday evening, in case you were not au courant) but it is also quite a relief to be back in my own simple kitchen where there is not one single stuffed boar head on the wall; where the cobwebs are amazingly discreet, and where I keep my compost bins outside.

 

 

The Swiss Hedge Police Strike Again!

Joy Kundig

Well, the way things are going, I may well be writing my next blog from a jail cell. Actually, that is a grotesquely optimistic exaggeration, as in prison you only are given a tiny little stub of a pencil to write with, so if all goes badly there will be no more messages to the outside world.

I have just received an official letter from the head of the Geneva Cantonal Road Maintenance Department. Again. These are the same people who have come up with the startlingly original policy to NOT maintain road verges in order to let Mother Nature expand and explode. (See last summer’s rant: https://blogs.letemps.ch/joy-kundig/2016/08/08/warning-geneva-government-sponsored-aliens-could-be-hiding-in-plain-sight/.)

Anyway, the thick 7-page document included the usual rude covering letter, two official forms, and four colour photographs. Again.

One of the photos is a helicopter shot of my house and garden and the road out front. Studied under a magnifying glass, in it there is not one single criminal hedge branch outside the property line.

The other three photos show a few little hedge twigs outside an arbitrary artificial orange vertical slash. I once spotted the cameramen who take these pictures lurking in the village. They travel in pairs—one has a clipboard and the other a tripod camera. They look a bit like Mormons and spend time fluffing leaves and giggling before they take their incriminating shots.

They obviously target certain locations as they childishly know they will achieve instant gratification. As May went past without a nasty government letter I thought the new roadside vegetation freedom rules were giving us all a break. But no: the photographers obviously come back and back and back again until they catch the twig out of line.

On my specific photo-shot day (July 18th) perhaps it was windy? Or, even more probably, a car on its way home to France has sucked some branches behind it in its slip stream and they were energetically bouncing back.

I know that the way forward in these tricky legal situations is NOT a good idea to act as your own legal counsel, (a colourful family member did this a few years back and this is how I come to know about the prison pencil stub rules) but my defence is straightforward:

  • My name is incorrectly spelled.
  • I am addressed as Monsieur.
  • The street cited does not exist in my village.
  • The official property line is far out in the road, as the old cantonal road has been widened to accommodate speeding rush-hour traffic and my land has been stolen.
  • I agree with the greeny policy to let road verges completely take care of themselves.
  • There is no sidewalk involved, and so no pedestrians are disturbed by caterpillars in their hair.
  • The speed limit is 30 kph.

How can I possibly lose?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fêtes Too Hot off the Blocks

Joy Kundig

Back in the day, the tourists of Geneva organized summertime fun for themselves. There were the young British rakes who took row boats out onto the lake, banged drums, and set off explosions. There was the visiting royalty who on full-moon nights sent up little new-fangled hot-air balloons, so their guests could swoon in wonder at seeing two, or even three, moons. Then there were those endless wet summers when people sat around waiting for the rain to stop and telling each other horror stories: things like Frankenstein were written.

It was all jolly good fun. Not quite as good as the royal entries (Beatrice of Portugal, for example) of the REALLY good old 15th-century days with jousting competitions, mystery plays in the streets, and wine running in the fountains.

Of course, Geneva has been a tourist city since forever, and the lake and warm summer days have always been a winning cocktail and has now become a 10-day officially organized party called Les Fêtes de Genève.  However, in the grim reality of the 21st century The Geneva Lake Festival seems to have spun completely out of control.

Last year, for example, the fêtes lost an astonishing 3.5 million francs. A new director has been put in place and this year’s budget is a strict 3.5 million francs with an extra ½-million just-in-case reserve. They are on their last warning. Any serious financial foolishness, then their future is not assured.

Two days in, there has already been a major goof-up. To the uninitiated, this local political spot of bother is called a Genevoiserie or a Genferei and is the source of much ongoing mirth to the indigenous inhabitants and the rest of the country.

The Festival was scheduled to run from August 3 – August 13. However, the carnies with their flying elephant rides came into town early, optimistically set up their stands, and opened for bustling business on August 1st. The new director was contacted, and shook a cotton-candy-coated finger at them, but agreed to their going-for-the-money “fait accompli.”

Now the first of August is the sacrosanct Swiss National Day—William Tell, flags, sausages, and fireworks. It is not to be tampered with. It stands alone, much like the Matterhorn and is not to be mixed with frivolity—except, perhaps, a round or two of Swiss wrestling.

You raise your thumb and first two fingers and take an oath. You put an apple on your son’s head rather than doff your hat to outside powers. You relish your Swissness.

Unfortunately, the Geneva town council did not give their permission for this early start of their Lake Festival, and are now full of righteous indignation, bombast and threats as they try to wiggle out of their flagrant breach of Geneva cantonal law. There is talk of fines of up to 60,000 francs for those dastardly spinning pink and blue elephants.

We’re all looking forward to see what is going to happen – especially the new director, one presumes. Hopefully an apple will not be involved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Coming of Uncle Buck

Joy Kundig

In the wider circle of family and friends one person stands out as an obvious solution to all of Donald Trump’s current problems. Our very own Uncle Buck could easily fill the various roles of U.S. Press Secretary, Chief of Staff, and, possibly, Defence Secretary all at the same time.

His erudition has again been brought to my attention in a recent public message containing 80th birthday wishes as he congratulates Harry on his 41st anniversary of his 39th birthday. His source for this witticism is his old friend, Ronald Ragun (known to the rest of us as Reagan.)

This already proves his Trumpian qualities, as Uncle Buck grooves to unconventional spelling and youth. His nationality, height, girth and date of birth are almost identical to Trump’s. He wears jackets that are shiny and too large and his thinning hair is a shambles.

Uncle Buck and Donald have many common attributes. For example, they both talk without listening and dote on much younger/thinner women. Despite his phrase that he is “fighting to stem the new tide of Narcissictic Apathy” Uncle Buck feels that he is a most attractive specimen of virility. His heart would go into fibrillation (which it does regularly) if he were placed next to Ivanka or even Melania.

He is picky about his food, and brings his favourite (beef steaks) with him to be stored in friends’ freezers in case he spontaneously arrives. Some of these slabs have been there for decades.

Like Donald, Uncle Buck’s relationship with the truth is artistic rather than factual. He feels very strongly that he  physically fought in the Vietnam War, and the current moment of history he describes as: “the Indians are no longer at the gates but on the walls and I’m out of Ammo and doing Hand to Hand combat.”  Uncle Buck is not a POW loser, he’s a Serving Soldier.

Uncle Buck is also secretive and protective. He has to be, otherwise others would steal his ideas and designs. As an artist (all mediums) of the Old America West bas-relief School (lots of eagles and feathered war bonnets) all his work and much of his writing is copyrighted and, he believes, legally protected against theft.

Uncle Buck is a shoe-in for an appointment or two on Donald’s ever-changing dream team. He would resonate with the American public as he speaks out for “a New world Renaissance”. He would dazzle and confabulate with ideas about “kicking out the UN”, forcing a “Creative Coalition” as he longs to “steady the drain in Creative Thinking.”

The illogical rhetoric is in place: the grand ideas that make no sense, the virulent verbosity, the conflicting concepts, and the bashing on about predicament of the present all uncannily twin Uncle Buck to Donald Trump.

Roll over, Mooch, you’ve had your week in the sun. The age of Uncle Buck has finally dawned.

 

The Taxi Driver Blues

Joy Kundig

Well, I guess that just about everybody hates taxi drivers and as the ones in Geneva are the most expensive in the whole world, they are, perhaps, the most hated.

I must admit that you do occasionally meet some interesting cases on the 20-minute/85-franc ride from the airport to my village in the Geneva countryside.

There was the old cabby (they are often retired folk) who slowed to a crawl and started banging on his steering wheel as he told me the story of his wife being hospitalized due to the leeching poisonous blue dye in her China-made new navy pantaloons. (They can be very racist.) And then there was the one, who, hearing my accent, told me about his previous career of picking apples in Québec. (He drove a very old rattling car with no inside door or window handles.) And then there was the eastern European lady who refused my tip and helped with my cases as she said she had already robbed me of enough money. (She was my very favourite.)

Geneva taxi drivers are straightforward highway robbers, and lack the variety and spice of their international brotherhood. In Japan my driver laughed at me when I offered a tip and shoed it away with his white-gloved hand. In Russia you have to know to pre-tip the driver (US dollars work a dream) unless you want to be kidnapped to deepest darkest Siberia. In central China, we communicated via the driver’s phone app. In Korea (where taxis are very very cheap) you must know not to leave the cab when the driver gets irritated and wants to be rid of you because he cannot find your destination. Obviously, there we couldn’t communicate at all.

However, I am discovering that the Geneva Uber drivers are a different breed. They are much more interested in speed limits, hidden cameras, not wasting time, and fast electric cars. They have out-of-state plates and have the whiff of the bandit about them. They drop you off at the Kiss and Fly stand at the airport and pick you up at the diplomatic compound. They are swift, shady, and a more than a bit sly.

They follow giant GPS screens mounted on their dashboards and speak little. They are young and possibly don’t have wife, never mind pantaloon, problems. They are half-price.

They, of course, go against all I hold dear—proper pay, pension plans, paid holidays, etc. Plus, they are in strict opposition to the family motto “Pay More, Get Less!”

Our last Uber ride was a friendly go-getter of North African origin. I slipped him a tip. He slipped me his personal card, kissed my cheek, and reflected that we might have a profitable off-grid taxi relationship in the future.

Roll over, Ayn Rand, and forget heartless capitalism. Ali (not his real name) and I are friends and neighbours now. He’ll drive me anywhere for Uber prices. All I have to do is pay him in cash.

 

 

 

 

 

Tips for the Ladies

Joy Kundig

The other evening, I happened to see Mrs Trump and Mrs Macron stepping off a Seine tourist boat in Paris. They were immediately recognizable as killing time on an “accompanying persons” tour. While their husbands attended to vitally important world matters, the girls had put on clean clothes and gone off to see the sights before their Eye-Full Tower dinner.

Now, I’ve been doing this for decades, and am most surprised no one has called asking for my professional advice. These two are obviously wet-behind-the-ears rookies.

Just in from Jeju Island off the south coast of South Korea, I must say that I judge myself to have reached the pinnacle of my accompanying person skills. At a major international scientific conference of over 600 people, we were 5½ ladies who took it upon ourselves to improve our minds and explore our new neighbourhood.

None of us spoke Korean (however, Shigeko’s Japanese English was the most acceptable to Korean eyes and ears.) Most of us were retired school-teachers, so enjoyed talking in loud voices and were not particularly attentive to what others had to say: this meant we didn’t get on each other’s nerves. Lulu knew how to read the map and Eva had remembered to bring along some Korean wons. Helen wore a sunhat and Ute kept us focused.

Our first entertainment choice was the thrice-daily Korean acrobatic display in Asia’s largest circus tent. Unfortunately, the acrobats had all run away, and the huge orange globe was abandoned and wind-swept (due to a sudden lack of Chinese tourists brought about by missiles and anti-missiles). We cheerfully made do with the Peace Museum and wax figures of famous peaceful people such as Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and pop stars.

One of us had already seen the Hello Kitty Museum and said it was only interesting for the first five minutes and she wasn’t sure if there were any Hello Kitty earrings. And after the Botanical Gardens and the Goof-Train ride we were too exhausted to visit the Teddy Bear Museum or the Ripley’s Believe-it-or-Not Museum. The organized half-day outing was composed of strenuous ravine and cliff walks in the 40-degree humidity. It almost killed us.

Anyway, Melania and Brigitte would have been welcome to join us on our improvised ladies’ program, but from what I’ve seen, wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.

First of all, when travelling, NEVER wear a white dress: it makes you look like a nurse or an ambulance driver, and, of course, the tiniest little brush with the black slime of a cliff-wall, and it’s a gonner. Dark or murky-coloured baggy trousers are the best bet for scrambling around in an unknown environment.

But proper footwear is the most crucial factor. You are not going to make it on the crater paths or the ravine board-walks in six-inch heels. You’re going to keep the bus waiting. Put on your diamond-encrusted sneakers instead, and come along with us next time.

Bucket, the Rescue Dog

Joy Kundig

Well, it seems that a new craze has taken hold in Canada – the muddled concept of the “rescue dog”.

This phrase first floated into my world some months back, when my sister wrote a startling message describing her encounter with elderly friends’ new family member, the Great Dane Rescue Dog.

From what I recall, the howling dog tore through the restraining door, and its rolling eyes accidentally met hers. After some skirmishes, she found herself pinned to the floor with the dog slashing its teeth, making a nasty throat-noise, and drooling above her.

I replied that the animal seemed quite spontaneous and undisciplined for a rescue dog. I know my dogs. We have had St Bernards in the family for decades, and though we’ve never been able to teach them anything, the concept of their plodding stalwartly through the snowdrifts in the Alps looking for people always made perfect sense to me.

And when not snoring and eating, they did always look out for children and guests in many gentle and thoughtful ways. Locking their teeth on a sweater sleeve when not wanting a person to leave the room, or a playful paw in the face to wake you up from an afternoon snooze on the couch come immediately to mind.

But no. These Canadian canines are not REAL rescue dogs. In the new politically correct language of double-think, the human is the rescuer and the dog is the rescuee.

These are the dogs you get from the pound. They are often young, energetic, and very big. Their reasons for being in the animal shelters are many, I am sure. They are advertised as being “pre-loved”. Many might have been “pre-hated”.

It is a moral status symbol to own such a dog. The onus is on the human to keep these dogs alive no matter what. As they age and their hips fail, you carry them up and down steps. As their kidneys fail, you inject them with liquids. As their hearing and sight fail, you walk them carefully on long strings and soft paths so they don’t get lost. You attach a bell to their collar.

It becomes a moral human failure to have a dog put down because of age and/or illness.

You have no responsibility for having dealt with dubious breeders and/or puppy mills.

You are pure, and as you are walking through a virgin forest and you spot a dastardly villain lowering a large-eyed puppy down into a bottomless well in a bucket. You shout out and save it. You name the dog Bucket to remind yourself of a momentary shining white knight part of your personality. You take lessons in “behoming”.

From then on, you are a happy martyr to your lucky lucky dog. And you tell everyone that you are the saviour of Bucket, the Rescue Dog.

 

 

 

 

The Pâté Pot

Joy Kundig

A blade needed sharpening, and a few weeks back I found myself in a good old-fashioned French hardware shop.

While waiting for the skinny guy in overalls with morning-cognac breath to take the gory chain-saw details, a simple earthenware pâté pot caught my eye and I had a sudden fantasy of myself in a flowing floral dress.  There were no cobwebs in my hair or green aphids crawling on my skin.

I was surrounded by a lovingly well-behaved and appreciative family in the dappled sunny shade under the linden trees eating a neat little home-made pâté served with a cool and crisply acidic Cumberland jelly. There was heavy condensation on the crystal glasses filled with ice-cold sauterne. They all toasted my health.

The image was so perfect and powerful I bought the pot, and have been in a state of agitation ever since.

I know two actually-alive people who have made pâtés in their own kitchens (or so they claim) for me. Both (one rabbit and one foie gras) were delightful and delicious. Both were made in the winter months. Served with pickles and gooseberries, both were the centres of astonishing social events.

My trusty Larousse cookbook was a bit of a disappointment. The Country Foie Gras Pâté recipe is simplicity itself and calls for a huge (750g) goose liver which you chop up together with fresh fat belly of pork, pork suet and a piece of larding bacon. Truffles are optional—to be tossed in at will if you’re in the mood.

Apart from finding all the fatty ingredients, this seemed too straightforward, so I delved further into the dark and complex web world of liver pâtés.

I discovered to my horror that livers have veins that must be taken out. Somehow you have to butterfly-open the liver with your fingertips to present it with your herbs and spices. At some point you should soak it in salted water for a few hours to remove “impurities”. It is better to buy frozen rather than fresh foie gras, as it is “fresher”. After cooking you must press the concoction into a firm block using a precisely-cut piece of wood or cardboard and place weights on top. You must cool it for a day or two.

The “torchon method” is even more impressive and involves lengths of cheese cloth, twine, and several fridge hangings and alternative hot water / ice water dunkings.

The Larousse cookbook mentions strictly none of the above information. As the French Bible of cookery it is assumed that you have a genetic knowledge of the nitty-gritty underworld of pâté production.

My summertime pâté-idyll is fading fast in the actual sweltering heat. The family comes and goes–happily eating left-overs and drinking pop.

The pâté pot sits on the kitchen table gathering dust as I suck on an orange popsicle and consider it. I think there might be just the place for it in an upper kitchen cupboard somewhere north of the pasta machine.

 

 

Rage Over a Lost Franc

Joy Kundig

Well, there I was—happily home from a place where supermarkets have not yet been invented—and I was buying one of everything.

My shopping bags were filled with delicious Swiss specialities that I had been missing—soft squishy buns, cervelas, tubes of Cenovis, mustard and mayonnaise. There were delicious fera rissoles, just-ripe avocados, and fresh herbs sprouting perkily from little pots.

I had my store card and my scanner and merrily fought (and won) a mental culinary battle back to the normality of self-selective eating.

There were no smoked pig lungs, no canned crickets, no sheep heads, no 100-year-old eggs. It was glorious.

My bags full of inventive, delicious, unrelated items – I was too freshly home to think in terms of actual meals – I was humming to myself and inserting my card into the check-out machine when an orange-bloused lady hauled me off for a “random check”.

Food reveries turned to mental compost. Guilt and fear bloomed like the blue on the Roquefort cheese chunk. Had I remembered to scan that bottle of truffle oil? Or that huge bag of dried morels?

Anxiety and blood-pressure mounted as the two employees chatted happily and rescanned my now-dangerous almost-possessions. Was I about to become one of those poor innocent people forever banned from Swiss supermarkets?

No. I passed with flying colours (I had scanned the oil bottle twice), and strode haughtily off with my treasures and retail freedom righteously intact.

That was when I discovered that I had the wrong caddy. The franc deposit was no longer in the slot. They had pulled the old bait-and-switch.

Back up to the check-out arena, I found the employee suspects and explained the loss of my franc-primed trolley.  They didn’t have it, and told me calmly (condescendingly?) what had happened: I had been robbed by “gypsies”.  (In the Vallée du Giffre we call them “Bohemians” which seems much more dashing.)

Apparently, at crowded times they come to the supermarkets and, being gypsies, are attracted by gold. Well, silver in this case. And while a  person is pondering (possibly with eyes closed) whether to choose the lemon or strawberry tarts they place your bags of scanned, packed groceries into a moneyless trolley and make a speedy get-away with the cash.

I don’t know if any forensic connection has been made between the theft of my franc and the Big Maple Leaf coin robbery, but they bear curious similarities. The Berlin robbers took the 100-kg pure gold Canadian coin (53 cm diameter and 3 cm thick and worth about $4,000,000) from a museum showcase last month. They used a sledgehammer, then put the coin into a wheelbarrow to make their get-away.

This is obviously a serial-robbery situation. A copy-cat crime is also a possibility. In any case, the point of the matter is, you cannot lend anything to anybody. You take your eyes off it for one second and it’s gone.