The Sam's Club Effect

Happy Labor Day! It’s strange to be working on a “holiday” but I fear that not many of you are relaxing this day due to the hurricane that is looming. One side of my family is flying into Houston from NYC today, and will have to fight the evacuation traffic to get home, while the other side is hosting family members from southeast Texas and getting ready to run shelters for possible evacuees! My grandparents have evacuated Beaumont and headed to Austin. Keep everyone in your prayers, as it’s just a stressful time. We pray that their houses and “things” get spared, but more importantly we pray for their safety. I have talked to them all in the past 2 days, and everyone is hanging in there.
Today was lovely in Switzerland! Not as sunny as usual, but that was okay as we were hiking and probably could have used the shade a little. The TASIS group hiked to Valle Versasca (about an hour away from Lugano). It was a lovely hike – not too strenuous but very beautiful. What was fascinating to me was that we would hike right through little villages where people lived in their little stone houses! I’m still wondering how they get to work (I picture lawyers in their suits and with their briefcases, hiking down the mountain everyday). Or how they get their groceries? And while we’re on the groceries topic (serious detour here), I have learned something about myself in that regard. I call it the Sam’s Club effect. Anytime I get down to less than an “adequate” amount of supplies, I completely freak out and immediately begin planning a trip to the store or IKEA. I think this is for a few reasons: 1) I am conditioned to buy in stock – you should see my dad’s closet. If there is ever a national disaster, go to his house. He will have 140 rolls of TP, equal amounts of chips, rotel and velveeta (approx. 30 of each), and the world’s largest collection of Maker’s Mark and 7-Up. You could live for years there. 2) I don’t have the luxury of hopping in my car and driving down to the store every time I only have at least 2 bottles of wine left and ½ gallon of milk, so I start to feel nervous about when I’ll get a chance to buy 10 more packages of paper towels. Incidentally, I’m saving tons of cash because of this! 3) It just doesn’t feel like home unless you have filled it needlessly with “stuff.” Let’s add this to the list of things I’m working on.

But back to the hike! The drive up in a big coach bus was quite scary – taking tiny turns up a mountain I wouldn’t dare take if I were a mountain goat. We hiked about 45 mins up the mountain to this awesome little watering hole. The water was FREEZING and a few crazy people dove in and swam around. Then things really got wild when 2 guys decided to jump of the cliff into the freezing water, which was probably about 70 ft down! After those shenanigans, we pulled out our sack lunches, and discussed the probability of whether or not our sandwiches would be made of horse or some weird smelling beef product the Swiss like to eat. Finally we decided if it looked like turkey and smelled like turkey…it must be turkey (that’s what we’re choosing to believe anyway). The great thing about TASIS is they never let an opportunity pass to stop and drink a glass of wine, so we each had a dixie cup of wine, and hiked on back down!
At the bottom we enjoyed a few hours of peer pressuring TASIS people (and strangers) to jump off the enormous Roman bridge (and into the freezing water). See video! We had a few TASIS takers, but I was not one of them. And just when I thought I had seen THE BRAVEST souls on earth pull all kinds of stunts, we took the bus back down to the dam. This has to be the world’s LARGEST dam. As a matter of fact, for you James Bond fans, this was the dam that they shot a scene from “Golden Eye.” Peirce wasn’t there, but people who are just as stupid (and probably just as bad of singers) were willingly bungee jumping off of the side of this dam. I have never in my life been so petrified! But I was eating my ice cream from the comfort of the middle of the road on the dam, imagining Pierce Brosnan (shirt off, but not singing, of course) and ignoring the screams of the lunatics.
Life here is still great and getting greater. School is crazy (kids start on Wednesday!) but I have gotten exciting word that my Austin Middle School girls are officially coming to visit Thanksgiving week! We’ll most likely do some Como, some Switzerland, and definitely we’re doing some Paris. Fantastic! Mom and Marty have also booked their flight for March, so I am officially excited! Also, my Horns won, and thanks to Eason I knew that as soon as I woke up! Crazy boy stayed up til 5 a.m. to watch the Cal game. But I was happy to read the text that UT won, Cal won, and aTm lost. All is good in the world! This beats the crazy middle of the night phone calls and texts I have been getting from some strange French man (all in French, mind you). Apparently the previous TASIS owner of my phone gave out this number, and he is still quite smitten with her! If anyone knows how to say “stop calling, you’re seeming too desperate. Oh yeah, and this is the wrong number” in French, please send me an email! ☺

Happy Labor Day, Friends! Be safe!