It is the Dutch word for “big deal” or “special value”. Today, I scored 40 rolls of toilet paper for 9 euros at the Albert Heijn. That’s approximately 4.5 rolls per euro. I felt pretty proud of myself. Mind you, 40 rolls is a bit excessive for a one person household but I figure I am set for a while! And if you do grocery shopping on foot, toilet paper is one of those annoying necessary items that means you have one less hand free to carry a grocery bag. At the moment, I am still carless. I am still waiting for Astrid to pass the final inspection. Supposedly, this week.

 

The boys are headed back to normal. George keeps trying to remove his stitches so he has to wear his sweater 24/7. Henry has a massive bandage on his chest which they said would fall off by itself. If it hasn’t by tomorrow, I will have to pull it off. And I feel bad about doing this because he has such delicate skin and the bandage really sticks. We haven’t been back to the park yet because I don’t want to let them play with other dogs at the moment while they have stitches. So instead we went for a long rambling walk. I was sort of off kilter today on the walk, couldn’t decide where I wanted to go, etc. Not because of an evening of over indulgence but more because I am just sad and not really paying much attention to my surroundings as evidenced by the number of times I wandered into the bike path.

 

I think it is a good thing I am going to Seattle next week. I deeply need some chili powder. I have been craving chili. And so today I bought a jar of vegetarian chili made in France. I looked at the ingredients and thought “well, maybe this will taste like chili and not a ragout”. It tasted like a ragout. Which would have been lovely over rice if I had been in the mood for that but I wanted the taste of chili. Next week, I will make sure to buy some chili powder. Along with tortillas for the boys and Field Roast sausages.

 

I cleaned the house today. And I put away the Christmas decorations and cleaned out the refrigerator from the leftovers. Of course, no sooner had I cleaned the floor and gone to take out the trash, George peed in the hall. I guess that’s their way of ensuring I don’t get too complacent in my cleaning efforts. And it really took me less than two hours. I just dread doing it and that always makes it worse when it is hanging over my head. But the very reality of it is if I don’t do it, no one else will. Except for in matters related to spilling food on the floor. For those kinds of incidents, I can generally count on the boys to clean that up. And that’s why I keep them around…

 

In the begining of February, I am going to Dublin for a few days for work. That should be very cool and then the week after, I am going to study Dutch for a week in the immersion program started by the Nuns of Vucht. It is now called the Institut Regina Coeli but everyone still calls it “going to the nuns.” Hopefully, I will come out with greatly improved spoken and written Dutch and maybe also some improved mental space since it is supposed to be a very contemplative experience.