Spring Festival in Zurich

Just turned the page of my Lonely Planet calendar to July. The location for July is Switzerland, and the picture on the 11th caught my eye. Its a picture of a snowman on fire, the caption is "Spring Festival, Zurich". I was curious, so I googled.

Found this:

Monday is the high-point of the festival with a two-and-a-half-hour-long procession of the 26 guilds to the large park in front of the Zurich Opera House. There, precisely at 6 pm a towering pile of wood is set alight. On top of the wood is the so-called Böögg, a snowman-shaped figure packed with firecrackers and representing winter. As the flames creep up towards the Böögg, members of the three mounted guilds ride three times around the fire. To the cheers of the public, the Böögg begins to blow apart. As soon as the head explodes, winter is said to be officially over. This original spectacle, which is watched by tens of thousands of excited people, is accompanied by the traditional Sechseläuten in March. Customs & Traditions in Switzerland

Thought that was pretty cool :-)

Bumper Sticker

Well behaved women rarely make history.

Happy Summer!

Just checked my calendar and realized that today is the first day of summer. So, happy summer everyone :)

TGIF and Nutty

Its Friday once again. Took Nutty over to the new apartment last night. She cried the whole way there as expected, you'd think I was torturing her or something. When I brought her upstairs she climbed out of her carrier then gave me this look. She was very cautious and not too sure of herself. I put out her food dish, and put out fresh litter in her litterbox, but she was not interested in any of that. I left the door open and "locked" her in the laundry room, then went downstairs to get some more stuff from the car. When I came back up the laundry room door was open (it pushes open) and I could hear her crying somewhere in the building. The silly cat had wandered off down the hall and was lost. I retrieved her from the second floor and carried her back upstairs.

I finished unloading the car, then warmed up some leftovers for dinner. By this time Nutty had situated herself behind the washing machine and was crying from back there. No matter how much I coaxed she would not come out. When I left to go back to the old apartment she was still hiding out behind the washing machine.

This morning I got up early to bring another bunch of stuff to the new apartment and to check on Nutty. I think she slept behind the washing machine, because that's where she was when I first got there. But her food was gone, and she had used the litter box, so that's a good sign.

Reminds me of her first night in our apartment as a kitten. She cried that night too, and slept behind the washing machine. Hopefully by tomorrow she'll be adjusted to her new surroundings.

Say cheese! A picture from a while back, onroute to Da Cheong's birthday dinner.

Keys

Of late, keys have been the bane of my existence. It started on Friday, when in my rush to get out and enjoy the weekend I left my keys sitting on my desk. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, locking it and pulling it shut behind me. No sooner had I done that when I realized that I had forgotten to pick up my keys. Doh! I tried, very unsuccessfully to get the door open again with a credit card. Thankfully I had my phone, so I was able to call Jason to come rescue me. I stopped at the apartment office to get someone to let me into my apartment building. It was then that I realized that my spare car keys were locked in the garage with the other stuff that I had packed. And my garage key was locked inside my office, along with my mail key. So it ended up being a car-less, mail-less weekend.

Monday morning rolled around and I was still car-less, so I walked to work. And there were my keys, exactly where I had left them Friday afternoon. After work I headed to my new apartment complex to sign my life away. They gave me my new keys and I headed up to check out my new apartment. Started doing the rounds, kitchen, living room, bathroom, etc. I was very happy with it, by the way. Headed out onto the porch to look in the utility closet and check out the view. Looked around for a bit then went to go back inside. Tried to turn the doorknob...guess what?!? It was locked! So there I sat, no keys, no phone, stuck on my porch on the third floor. Man I felt dumb. Luckily I only had to wait about 10 minutes (that felt like forever) when I couple came out of the building. I called down to them and Mike from apartment A came to my rescue. I'm glad I left the apartment door unlocked!

I can't believe that I locked myself out twice in the matter of 4 days!

Joke of the Day

God was missing for six days. Eventually Michael, the archangel, found
him resting on the seventh day.

He inquired of God, "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards
through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and asked, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put life on it. I'm going to
call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth. "For example,
Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while
Southern Europe is going to be poor. Over there I've places a
continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black
people. Balance in all good things." God continued pointing to
different countries, "This one will be extremely hot, while this one
will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a land area
and asked, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God, "that's Washington State, the most glorious place on
Earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes,
forrests, hills, and coulees. The people of Washington State are going
to be handsome, modest, intellegent and humerous, and they are going
to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable,
hardworking, high achieving, and they will be known throughout the
world as diplomats and carriers of peace."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then proclaimed, "What
about balance, God? You said there would be balance."

God smiled, "There is another Washington. Wait until you see the
idiots I put there."

Packing

Slowly but surely my apartment is becoming more and more empty. I've been packing up a few boxes each night and storing them in the garage. In less than a week I'll have the keys to my new apartment...I can't wait! I'm excited to see what it looks like. When I was there checking out the complex, I looked at a second floor apartment, but the third floor apartments are slightly different (and they didn't have a third floor apartment for me to look at). I love moving to a new place and getting settled in, a blank canvas to decorate :)