Ironically. right now I am in the midst of all my devices being in a state of dysfunction. For all the years I spent working in tech support, both for a paycheck and to keep my loved ones from going nuts, I am down to one complete working laptop. I won’t bore you with all of the details. Instead I will summarize that between running a preview of a new operating system, having another laptop be returned from the factory repair center with a reformatted hard drive with the bonus addition of spyware and a tablet that suddenly doesn’t want to connect wirelessly, it has been an annoying week. My phone still works well but it doesn’t lend itself to long bursts of typing like a blog post.

Last night, I had a super dinner at my favorite Indonesian restaurant. I try to limit myself to going there only with other people so it remains exceptional. Jo and Pieter came into the city and Marianne and Joris made the lengthy trek (12 minutes by tram) from their postcode to mine. It was a great evening, complete with food that just hits you in the right spot of your soul and I spent a lot of time listening. Sometimes my brain gets overstimulated from Dutch and I go into listen only mode. Which is a great place to be when you are among friends.

Since my second living room was packed full of a private party of finance consultants (not somewhere I want to be in the middle of) we headed back here after dinner and Henry and George enjoyed being the center of attention. Even Lientje came out into the living room to scope out the situation which was very brave of her. Evenings like last night remind me why gezelligheid is so important and that it something that I couldn’t replicate in the US, even when I tried. I hope we will do it again before too long – since this evening took almost 8 months to happen between schedule juggling and whatnot!

We spent a long time in the park today with the mutilated Cuzzie balls that I brought back for the boys. They don’t like to play catch with the regular balls that come with the Chuck-it. Luckily, once they chew the feet off the Cuzzie, it fits very well in the Chuck-it. George carried the ball home in his mouth with Henry running along behind him in case he dropped it.

I am still hoping for a series of strong freezes this winter so I can skate on the canals. Apparently the water in the Amsterdam canals is fairly warm (not bathtub temperature) but well above 32 so it takes a very cold winter for them to freeze over.

I am cooking the sweet potatoes for the boys dinner while typing this post. They are snoring away since there is nothing interesting happening in the kitchen.

Our old man, Moortje, goes back to the vet on Tuesday. Hopefully, with all the food he has been eating, he won’t have lost any more weight.

Hard to believe that Thursday will be Thanksgiving in the US. They don’t do that here but the American Book Center is holding a Thanksgiving bluegrass performance with turkey. My banjo teacher’s band is performing there. I might go.

Anyway, aside from the technical difficulties which I hope to solve in the coming week, things are okay here.