06 | November | 2013 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Bluebottle

Now that is easier said than done. Which eye do you want, and which sort. I have the eyes for details and the eyes for moving things. See there is a grasshopper taking a jump, but do not ask me how many legs he has. Of course I know, but I then have to use my other eyes. I once looked a spider in the eye eyes. Luckily he hadn’t finished weaving his web so I was the one that got away. That could have been a nasty death for a fly, wrapped in threads as a packed lunch.

The problem is I never have time for an eye to eye talk. Every time I do a landing manoeuvre, someone takes a swipe with something and I have to move on – are you listening human? I once had an eye to eye talk with a lady fly: that was a long discussion until we had finished getting our eyes together, but successful. She had the most beautiful children and when they grew up that had such wonderful eyes, eyes, eyes etc. etc.

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What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us SEARCHING.

Dog in the garden

I am always searching, be it by Google or for an object I had at home and forgot where I put it. I would sometimes be glad if I had a dog nose, just sniff along and somewhere it will be found, or perhaps something even more interesting. By the way the dog in the photo appeared in my garden one day from nowhere, followed by a distraught owner that was searching for Fido. I am sure she would not have found her furry companion on Google.

I begin my daily prompt, with no idea what I want to write. One word leads to another and my pièce de résistance is eventually finished. I only receive my prompt at two in the afternoon and do not have time to work it all out, make plans, sketches, outlines – I have to write otherwise a golden oldie’s prompt of the day is never finished. I have a dual brain. No, I am not a child golden oldie prodigy, the writer of the year. I have to search for my words in two languages which is the basic problem.

My brain runs on two rails and there we have the first search in a site called LEO. The word “Bahnen” was my search word. It is a German word and I know exactly what it is, what it means, what it says to me, but you, the readers on an English speaking blogging site have no idea. My brain runs on two “bahnen”, ah yes: just look it up in my online Leo and there we have many choices, but the one I mean is “rails”, so there we have my well kept secret: perhaps the reason why my Pulitzer/Nobel/Man booker prize has not yet been awarded. I have a brain block. I speak most of the day Swiss German (Mr. Swiss native tongue). It is actually German, but the Swiss way of saying it. No problem, I have been speaking this language and been surrounded by it for the past 47 years, since living in Switzerland. It has taken over my linguistic part of the brain.

Of course I can still speak and understand English, but pure English, the one we all strive for, I have to strive for a little bit more, have to check my spelling, my grammar and find the word I actually want to use. I discovered Leo whilst still a working woman. In my work I was dealing with all languages, but often had to translate from German to English and a reliable online dictionary is your bread and butter when searching for a solution. Just type the word into the slot and press the button and there we have it. The origins of online dictionary Leo are to be found in the computer science department of the Technical University of Munich, Germany. It began as an English-German dictionary but French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Italian have since been added. If you do not find what you are searching for there is a forum page where you can launch an enquiry.

So during my daily writing odyssey, I am often flitting back and forth on the computer from Leo to my written text in Word..

In my Google Chrome world I have many tabs at the top of my page and Leo is one of the most used.

Of course living in an online world Mr. Swiss and I often make a quick excursion to the computer. His computer is on a desk in the living room and mine is in another corner on the dining table, but my computer is a movable object. It begins its daily journey in the kitchen in the morning and arrives in the living room in the afternoon and early evening. From my place in the living room I can see Mr. Swiss (waving to Mr. Swiss who has now left his computer to relax on a chair with a book his iPad to read a book). My last visit to the computer is after the evening meal when I close the lid and move over to my comfortable chair. Armed with my iPad I surf a little, play a little (at the moment Candy Crush Saga is my online game) and eventually curl up with a book a downloaded Kindle edition of a book.

Oh imagine the romance of an online couple; we talk in bytes, look into each others virtual eyes. In a golden oldie conversation, one of us ventures into the world of Google to discover what we are actually talking about: funny how solutions are forgotten in a grey haired moment.

Actually my present searches on Google are often connected with my 98 year old father who lives in England. I am in close contact with my cousins and with various government groups searching for a solution for his care. I am on my way, but as this is more personal family business I will not go into details on an online blogging site. Suffice it to be said that there are times when I am thankful for Bill Gates life and its browsers.

And now to leave this googling search world: time for active life – a little bit of housework to keep me fit.

Daily Prompt: Google and Rescue Operation

Googling Pingbacks