My sister wrote and asked me if I had any ideas for the end of the script she is working on. Unfortunately, I don’t. I wrote her back and said: “I’m just waiting for baby to arrive…visions of babies…dancing in my head.”

Then I remembered this video of the dancing baby!!! It was the first viral video I can remember seeing. I was working for the Passport 7K product group at Nortel.

I have always thought it was hella-funny. I think I’m going to dance to that song tomorrow night…just for a laugh.

PS: Countdown to baby–1 day.

I talk to my parents in the Skype the other day.

“What were you up to today?”, Mum asks.

“Oh. We just lazed about because we have only a few more weeks of THAT luxury. We went for a walk, then we treated ourselves to a lobster dinner.”

Mum says: “Yum. How was that?” They don’t get much lobster in the Yukon. At the same time, Dad pipes up in the background: “Hmmph. A lobster is the closest thing I’m going to get to tail this year!!”

I cringe slightly–not the type of conversation you might want to hear from your parents.

Mum quips: “Kenneth!! You got your tail earlier this year!”

I redden on my side of the phone.

Change of topic anyone?

My Dad’s comment on the Lady Tree.

He call its: Viagra Falls.

In Salzburg, we walked around and visited places. We went to Mozart’s house and did an audio tour then walked around a bit. We ended up in a garden. There were labyrinths and statues from the 15th century.

I thought the most interesting picture was this tree.

I call this THE LADY TREE!!!

<snicker!>

Hi Yukoners (those who live there, and those who don’t),

My parents are looking for a picture book of the Yukon IN FRENCH! They visited me in Switzerland in September and wanted to offer a thank you gift to my beau parents.

We are looking for a calendar, a picture book, something commemorating the Yukon in beautiful photography with French text. I’ve already emailed a request to Robert Postma of Distant Horizons, but I thought I’d use the opportunity to start blogging again.

Please let me know if you can recommend anything. We will most certainly appreciate it.

YukonJen

PS:  I do have news. I just have to start blogging again. Thank you to those who send me emails: “What’s going on YukonJen?” I need a virtual kickstart.

In April, we went to visit one of  Ludo’s friends in Salzburg. We call him Dr. Wiki. Dr.—because he spent some time at a design firm in Italy and everyone who has a degree is called a Dr. We call him Wiki because he knows the most minute details about most things—mainly subjects he is passionate about—but details nonetheless. So Dr. Wiki he is.

We drove from Lausanne on a Thursday.  It was in April, I can’t remember too much of the details, but I do remember a few things.  Ludo drove from Lausanne to across the Austrian border. At on point, very close to the border, he asks me (the navigator): “Where do I go?” Meaning, do I get off the highway at some point or do I continue driving?

This is my first European road trip. I’m digesting road signs and trying to learn what they mean and figuring out how to get on and off a round about. I look up and I see a sign for AU. And I think AU=Austria. So I tell Ludo: “Sure. Get off the highway. Follow the signs to AU.” Except, except AU really meant AU—a wee town on the border of Switzerland and Austria.

Ludo looked sideways at me and sighed: “You do not know where we are going. AU doesn’t mean Austria.” And he continued driving.

It turns out there are tons of places to cross the border. If we had gotten off at AU, we would have found our way across the border. I wasn’t wrong. I was only wrong in assuming AU meant Austria.

Eventually, we made it to Innsbrook where we stopped for a coffee. (UGH, they still smoke in restaurants in Austria, talk about the dark ages!). Whatever. We had a coffee and got back on the road. I was driving this time. As we were leaving the town, there were a few roundabouts to navigate. Usually, coming up on one, there would be a sign as to which exit led where. On this particular one, there was no sign. Just get on the roundabout and figure it out. So *I* said: “Ok, we should just go around, look at all the exits, and then on the second time around, get off at the right one.”  Something I thought was a pretty logical thing to do, if you were so inclined.

Ludo was mortified. He was so mortified, he could barely speak and just sputtered his indignation. Luckily, luckily, the first exit was clearly marked: Salzburg. I think I may have had too much caffeine. I was laughing so hard at the thought of us going around the roundabout twice–or until we figured out which direction we were supposed to go. I was laughing and laughing. Poor guy. He doesn’t know what to do with me sometimes.

I found it in bulk! At that Aligro store we bought your knife sharpener at. BULK! I guess I’m set for a year or so.

I once asked somebody who commutes from London to bring some to Switzerland. He pooh-poohed my request: “HP sauce! HP sauce! That’s what peasants put on their chips!”

I don’t put it on my chips. I like it on my eggs. I LLLOOOOVVVEE it with eggs. Mmmm….steak and eggs. I’m so glad I found some. I was getting worried that I could only accompany my eggs with chocolate or cheese.

My friend Karen mentioned one day that she wouldn’t mind some French music-but she didn’t know where to start. She said she’d heard that you can learn a lot about the language by learning the lyrics of songs.

I said she could start with MTV France and the very popular Taratata.  Regardless, here are a few rather popular songs that showed up this summer:

Stromae – Alors on Danse

Zaz – Je Veux

Gaetan Rousssel – Help Myself

Camelia Jordana – Non Non Non

Here are three albums that I found I could sing along to in French. I liked the lyrics so much, I just learned them.

• Francis Cabrel L’Essentiel 1977-2007
• Coeur de Pirate
• Engelberg – Stephan Eicher