NH was minding his bizness in H&M today waiting in line when the dog of the couple waiting behind him started nosing around in the grocery bag.

He said nicely (and keep in mind NH looks like a yuppie to boot), "Could you please watch your dog, he's in my grocery bag."

What did the dude say? This is the exact effing quote: "What is your problem man, do you want a coup de boule?" As in, because my husband asked him nicely to make sure his dog stayed out of our fruits and veg, the dude automatically asked him if he wanted to fight and made a reference to Zidane. "Coup de boule" is almost exclusively used these days in reference to the unfortunate Zidane incident, thus there was a direct connotation to "angry Arab (sic) male." So the dude automatically got defensive and raised his voice.

NH goes on nicely, "No, for hygiene reasons I just don't want your dog on my vegetables and would like some respect for my personal space."

Then the girlfriend starts in, "What is your problem, it not like it's a Rottweiler, and....(hold on folks, this is a good one)... we're not in Kabul here." Can you believe it?

So then NH raises his voice and says, "One, there is a law in Geneva about how dogs have to be muzzled, and two Kabul has nothing to do with anything. All I want is for your dog to stay out of my grocery bag."

Dude says some other wanna-fight type stuff, asks if the police need to be called, and NH says, "Ok, let's call the police then"...the dude, obviously coming to the slow realization of who he was messing with, walks out of the store.

The chick keeps on with some blah blah but NH checks out and moves on. Only regret is that something should have been said to her about her irrelevant racist commentary, but still. No one in the store said anything at the time, but once the dude walked out a couple people came up to NH and told him he was right for standing up for himself and right for feeling that way about the dog.

The whole exchange was a discussion that should have never happened. What was the point of even mentioning headbutts and Kabul? Where in the heck did that come from?

Finally, since unfortunately some people have the incurable illness of racism that time has not healed, the real question for today is this: is it too much to freakin ask for people to watch their dogs? On the tram in Zurich once I had this lady's Labrador jump on me. I was like, "Can you watch your dog?!" (yes, there I was mean about it) and she was like, "Oh he isn't mean." That's the normal line here. Especially in Geneva with people's little poodles and such. Their dogs are all over you in the tram and they are like, "Oh but he doesn't bite"...I don't care if your dog bites or not, I don't want your dog on me. I think it is normal to expect respect of my personal space.

Would you let your kid dig in my groceries? Would you let your kid give me a big old hug? I don't think so. So why does everyone in this country think their dogs can do whatever the heck they want? What the heck is the problem with my husband asking someone NICELY to hold on to their dog? How can someone of the Muslim persuasion ask people to hold on to their freakin dogs without it turning into a discussion about Gaza? What if NH was "white"? Would this conversation have happened?

There are laws in Geneva about dogs in public establishments. Most grocery stores don't allow dogs in principle, so it can be reasonably assumed that there is a food and hygiene issue there. There are laws in Geneva about dogs being muzzled. All Nice Husband was asking for was this couple to respect not only his rights as a private citizen to a personal space but also the laws of the city in which the episode happened. Instead, they had to talk about headbutts and Kabul and somehow make it his problem. In-efffing-credible. I'm gobsmacked.

Anyway I am proud of NH for opening his mouth.

As NH correctly pointed out, the nice thing about Swiss politics is that the party in power can't just pass stuff. Lots of stuff goes to referendum here. Compare and contrast to the recent French law, rejected at least twice (in my memory) by the French people, regarding genetically modified foods, that was passed last week in the legislature.

In random news, only in Switzerland would election day coverage end at six pm. No lie. I had the TSR on all day and at six they signed off. Because election day stuff was over. Votes were counted and people were packing up. Switzerland, so clean, so efficient.

We had two apartments when we lived in Zurich and both, despite being in the hood (well as close to the hood as Switzerland gets) are apparently hot spots for commercials. I just saw a Bluewin tv commercial filmed on our old street. The best was the random music video which not only hit both of our old streets, but also, for the trifecta, the unemployment office in Zurich. So many memories. I need to go look for that video on youtube or something.

I generally try to stay out of Swiss politics. One, it is a lot harder to understand than French politics or American politics, and during my first couple of years here I had the policy of, "They let me live here, I have a job, I am going to keep my mouth shut." The whole when in Rome stuff. But the UDC (SVP in German) gets on my last everlovin' nerve. I can't decide who I dislike more, Nicolas Sarkozy or Christoph Blocher. Probably Sarkozy, but Blocher, especially when he speaks French like an ignorant fool (which considering he is an ignorant fool should be expected), I just want to slap him. I simply don't know how a logical, reasonable human being can think like him.

In case you missed last year's ad campain where the pure, Swiss, white sheep kicked out the black sheep for more "security" (ah the old theme of security), you can find the German version of that beautiful poster on the Wikipedia entry on the UDC. The French version is the same except it said, "Pour plus de sécurité." Well obviously the big heads at the UDC decided that one racist, incendiary ad campaign simply wasn't enough. The black sheep were just too successful. You see, black sheep are supposed to be criminal foreigners, but in reality this designation extended to anyone foreign and, well, brown.

As a public service, Ms. Mac posted the German version of the new poster. The new posted is a big pot of shiny red Swiss passports with a bunch of brown hands grabbing for them. Again, ostensibly, this poster is against mass naturalization. The problem is that naturalization, like the "criminal foreigners" isn't the problem in Switzerland.

I wouldn't bat an eyelash if this poster was in France, as being naturalized in France, while getting harder, is WAY than ever getting a Swiss passport. To put it in perspective: I will become a French citizen, incha Allah, next year, based on five years of marriage to a French national (And yes BTW I deserve my French passport thank you very much). My husband has been in Switzerland since 2003. He will be in line for Swiss citizenship, and thus get to stick his foreign hand in the big pot of passports, in APRIL 2016. 12 years peeps. And there are a series of penalities for moving between cities, cantons and so on. Oh, and by the way, that is 12 years on the same type of residence permit. Which is why 2016-2003 equals 13 (see you thought I was just bad at math). If you had two or three different types of permits, the 12 years counts from your most recent permit type. And the most previous three years have to be spent in the same commune. Oh, and by the way, having citizenship based on residence is not a right. They can "choose not to renew" your C permit or turn it into citizenship if you spend too much time on public assistance, if you are sick, and so on. And when you have done your time to submit the naturalization request, even if your nose is clean, it is still at the discretion of the commune where you apply. I have heard of people being refused citizenship for not being "Swiss enough" and by "Swiss enough" they mean knowing the local wine, having a carnotzet, and especially marrying Swiss. So let me get this straight, you shouldn't marry a Swiss person for a residence permit and if you do you will get major hell from the authorities, but if you marry someone who isn't Swiss, then in 20 years they will turn down your naturalization for not being Swiss enough. Ok. So my point is that it is entirely conceivable that you could be here 20 or 30 years without ever becoming a citzen, and without your children ever becoming citizens. I know someone personally whose child is born in Switzerland and STATELESS. Stateless. In the 21st century. Why? Because becoming Swiss is just that hard. Which is exactly my point.

That's all fine and good. I ain't here to judge Swiss naturalization laws. My rant is not about that. My rant is about the fact that due to the obvious difficulty in attaining Swiss passports mentioned anecdotally above, the Pass the Pot of Passports Poster is a giant hunk of racist crap. Just like the black sheep, it is all about appealing to the "insecurity" demographic. Ooh let's keep the foreigners out! That poster makes me sick when I see it. I have nothing to be worried about, safely wrapped in my white privilege and my full-time job and BA, and even I feel uncomfortable when I see that poster. I can't imagine how an unemployed person must feel, or a sick person, or even a traveller.

I am probably going to get arrested and kicked out of Switzerland for taking a Sharpie drawing a picture of Blocher with a Hitler moustache on the next one I see. Swiss jails are clean though.
There I feel better. Rant over.

Why yes it is.

Other than that, it's too early for me to talk about the elections. Moving on from people with Swiss last names and talking about the big picture, it's easy for me, being quasi-disenfranchised (like a lot of foreign spouses Sarkozy screwed out of naturalisation in 2005, I mean hi) to sit here with a critical eye. Part of me wants to look at this electoral train wreck and say, "well the French elected people that got them into this mess."

I blame Sarkozy for everything anyway. It's easy.

2.  Incha Allah going to go to masjid tomorrow to get ruqiya. Not only am I tired, items are flying out of my hands like I threw them. No one believed me until they saw it happen. Nothing stays in my hands. That was really cool at work the other day when I had an entire bottle of white out jump out of my hands and spill on my thigh. I didn't know white out was pour-able.  Haven't hit pea soup territory yet but I am worried.  This started happening a few weeks ago.

3. I have some pictures to post of last week's trip to Gruyères.  The chateau is pretty cute. Didn't see as many cows as I wanted to. Smelled cow dung though.

4. Not to pat myself on the back or anything but I shaved a big chunk of time off of my weekly 18k run. Very, very happy alhamdoulillah.  I had to force myself to go out there though, all i wanted to do was snooze.

5.  So when I came back I was obviously doubly tired. Not my brightest move.

6. My private blog will be up in a few weeks, so don't think I have made it and not told anyone.  I just have to dig myself out of a few holes at work so that I can dedicate some time on the weekends to the virtual housekeeping.

7.  It is unseasonably warm here. There was light snow yesterday which melted instantly, and today was beautiful and sunny. I had a breathtaking view of the lake at Belmont and it was simply stunning. I love this area.

8. I am also suffering from writers block. Frankly I am only writing this to update, with the full and conscious understanding that I am just blah blah ing it.

9. I have thirty minutes before bedtime if I want six hours of sleep.  I would want eight but that ain't going to happen. At least not this month.

Good night!

I am too much of a spaz to upload to blogger, which is why I am giving it a shot on wordpress. Here goes nothing:

a shot from near my house

Artsy fartsy picture in Lutry

some chateau looking thing

My husband’s best friends

direction for the place where the army can practice their shooting in the woods

right after the shooting range, a woods scene

back in Lausanne

Finally, as promised, a picture of the rainbow from a few weeks ago. If you recognize where it is, please don't say so. 

the rainbow, tried to flip it don’t know if i succeeded

Other than that, what is new in my life? I am nursing an addiction to podcasts. I spend too much time in the train to watch tv when I get home, so my latest addiction is to download the shows (mainly documentaries) I want to watch on my Ipod and watch them on the train.  I do that even with the Swiss shows I can get anyway, like A Bon Entendeur. This is a great way to feed my love for la Francophonie, a love instilled by my French teacher in high school. She made us read and watch stuff from all over- the Carribean, Europe, Africa. I love downloading stuff from Canada and Belgium and from places like RFI. I just want to do other things when I get home and podcasts on my Ipod is such a guilty pleasure and efficient use of my train time.   I strongly reccomend looking on ITunes for stuff.  ITunesU also has great lectures.  The best part? All of the good stuff is FREE.