I am listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter and I genuinely love that song. One of the best things about the internet is music and the streaming services. I only ever buy CDs now from bands that don’t have their music available digitally. I am a big fan of being able to store my music in the cloud 🙂

Yesterday, I had to drive to Apeldoorn for a meeting. By car, it is easily an hour on the freeway. By now, you know that this is significant distance in the Netherlands! On my way up to the meeting, I passed the signs for Paleis Het Loo and made a note of planning to stop by on my way back.

When I was somewhere around 12, my Oma and Opa had their 50th wedding anniversary. My Opa organized a road trip around the Netherlands that included all kinds of cultural and important sites and sights. I remember that it was Oma and Opa, Mom, Rupert and me (the twins stayed home), my cousins Jo and Sjoerd and their parents in a rental minivan tooling around the Netherlands. One of the places we went to was Paleis Het Loo. I remember that Opa bought me a necklace with the head of a horse on it. I was, like most that age, horse mad. I thought the Paleis itself was beautiful but I was really crazy about the stables. So yesterday, I thought I would drive by and maybe take a tour and see if it was still what I remembered. Of course, they would be closed on Mondays. So, I will have to wait until next time to get on the grounds.

I remember Rupert being a pain in the ass on that trip. This wasn’t new. Rupert is best in the passenger seat on any sort of trip involving vehicles. This is still true. When we were younger, if he was in the back seat, well, you could count on him amusing himself by either annoying everyone else in the car or tormenting passing motorists. The last time we went on a road trip, camping on the Olympic Peninsula, he was creating a ruckus in the back seat because he couldn’t get something to install on his MacBook. Luckily, I can troubleshoot and drive at the same time otherwise we would have had hours of grumbling.

Don’t get me wrong, my youngest brother is definitely entertaining. And he does very well on trains and public transit but automobiles not so much 🙂

I remember my mom and my aunt having a very vocal disagreement on that trip. That was the first time I had ever seen my mom give my aunt what for. I remember being worried that my aunt would win because she was so much taller than my mom and I remember being embarrassed and wondering if this meant I had to stop talking to my cousin. I also remember walking with my mom through Het Loo and the gardens that were in full bloom.

In some ways, I am still amazed that my mom had so much feistiness packed into such a small frame. I am missing her a lot these days. I really wish I could find someone who had her same frame so I could give them a hug. I know that might be a bit hard to explain as why it seemed like a good idea at the time to a judge.

Having a bit of a cry at the moment, which is okay since it is about time for lunch anyway.