Ramifications, Jerry

I am going to write a Seinfeld episode about Facebook. "Ramifications, Jerry! Rami-fi-CA-TIONS!"

Jerry would cancel a friend he'd accepted, who'd turn out to be the new boyfriend of Elaine, who was trying to promote his time-wasting application. Somehow Kramer would profit by it and find a kitschy antique.

By November, 2008 was beginning to suck balls. Like the way Seth Rogan would say it about 24.5 minutes into any one of his movies. Clouds closed in. It was always foggy in our yard. We now know that our rental cottage is located in a sinkhole. We measured the temperature - it's literally the coldest place in Geneva. My French classes were becoming depressingly redundant, and a job offer from WHO fell through.

Worse, Serena's beloved father Adriano passed away in November. He’d had lung cancer, but I thought he’d beat the odds. He was an expert gambler. Once, I watched him play a slot machine in a casino on the Italian Riviera. He started with 50 Euros, and kept cranking until he increased his pot to a 1,000 Euros. We begged him to stop. It spoiled his luck. He continued until he lost everything. Without shame, he asked Serena for 50 more. He played them until he could cash out 200 Euros, hand them to Serena in disgust and leave the casino.

Adriano was a nice guy. He took me fishing with his friends on the Mediterranean. We never got to fish, actually, because his friends tangled the nets. They were embarrassed. I kept a straight face and helped to unravel the rat’s nest. I think for the first time Adriano did not think I was a complete dick; he gave me a fatherly hug at the end of the day. I felt accepted.

And with Adriano’s passing came the international economic crisis.

In December, an old schoolmate visited us because he had a meeting at WHO. Dr. Alex Vu MD MPH and I went snowboarding in Chamonix. Arms splayed, breath held, speed checked, we were kings of the mountain. Life was improving. We talked about aid work, and about his work in emergency rooms. He said that when he sees good people come in, they're probably not going to make it. He sighed, "I think being nice is a co-morbidity."

I dressed as Santa Claus for Christmas, and Emma gave Santa a kiss. I gave Serena snowshoes. A week later we walked along a mountain ridge to a chalet for hot cocoa. On New Year's Eve, we watched Comedy Central online, and went to bed early. We made resolutions: I will do nothing, and Serena will never make a decision. In short, we will act like potheads.

Still, sometimes I feel isolated, and tired of compressing what I want to say into petite Francophrases. My French sounds like a balloon leaking air. Even my daughter is a little foreigner. She likes her cappucino and biscuits each morning. She is not yet smoking. I often feel like the au pair of a rich little Genevoise princess, rather than the father she's soon going to toss a baseball.

Nevertheless, evidence abounds that Emma may be my daughter. Last week she made her first fart joke: Emma changed her doll’s diapers, held its butt up to Serena's averted face and said PPFBBPT! The comic effect was hilarious, and original.

We celebrated Emma’s birthday at her nanny’s yesterday. She loves to blow out candles, over and over. She is an adrenaline junkie. I'm waiting for the bungee jumping...the lugee fights with punk rock singers...the bungee lugees...

We hope to visit the States in May or June. We have to buy our flights from Geneva. Don’t ever buy Air France – they might go on strike during your layover in Paris. So, we have to try companies like Cheapo Air, which is staffed primarily by the cast of Slumdog Millionaire. We plan to tell them that we died in a plane crash in our last lives, and that they owe us Karmaic Miles. Anything to get me back to a Rally’s Burger.