A quick note to let you know that George is stuck in one of those very unhandy collars that has him banging into everything. The vet called today while he was having his teeth cleaned to let me know that there was a pretty big growth over his eye and it would be a good time to remove it before they couldn’t. So, poor George is now walking around with a pirate like right eye, complete with stitches. Henry had a wart between his toes that needed to be removed. Amazing what they find during teeth cleaning. It’s a bit of a nursing ward here since naturally we were sent home with two types of pills, an eye salve and gum gel.

Poor George will be banging around until the 27th with his awkward headgear. I modified it with scissors so he can at least eat and drink slightly easier. His urine was too diluted to test so that still needs to be collected. An attentive reader sent me a link on how to collect a specimen from your dog, using the previously mentioned soup ladle or a cookie sheet, depending on which one you think your dog will tolerate more…

It is election day here in the Netherlands. GG got a pass to cast her ballot in Amsterdam instead of Rotterdam so we followed her to the voting place, where she proceeded to unfold an enornmous poster sized paper and armed with a pencil, made her choices. The voting system is differrent here since it is a multi party system. You vote for your party choice first and then one person from that list. However, each party might have anywhere between 1-100 people on their list. From all the votes, seats are assigned based on the number of votes. So even the smallest parties have a chance of getting a seat or two. From there, a coalition has to be formed from the parties for the government to go to work. Mostly it works out.

And as for me, tomorrow morning I am telling my immediate coworkers that I am moving on to another role. I am excited to do it, since I feel like I have been carrying around a secret. It will also make things suddenly very concrete as they will have to figure out what they are going to take over…

There’s a great deal of press coverage over whether or not Geert Wilders and his party would win here, building on the UK and US elections. While final results won’t be in until Friday, right now, that’s not looking so likely 🙂

I know, I was wondering what happened to myself! 😉 You know it has been too long since you last wrote when the entire WP interface looks different.

The boys are having their post dinner nap, the dryer is running and I have the Game of Thrones soundtrack on repeat. I’m taking a break from work for the moment since I started today with a lengthy tasklist and I only added to it. Only one item actually got checked off today *sigh* and I added six more items.

When I last wrote, I was waiting on the details of the offer from HR. Well, let’s say that turned out to be “Thanks but no thanks” kind of thing. I advocated for myself and the responses were mixed. In the end, a week later we came to an agreement and on International Women’s Day, I accepted the offer. I thought that was a pretty good example of liberation! That was Wednesday, by Friday my manager had already asked me to postpone my departure from 15 April to 1 May. I agreed to it because she’s been an incredible inspiration to me and I know that she had a very concrete reason for asking. But inside, I was stomping my feet and scowling. It will be announced next week officially. Before then, I need to tell my immediate coworkers because I think it would be unprofessional not to. It makes it hard for me to sit still in meetings though 😉

Banjo today. I’m working on the tune “Shady Grove” which manages to involve some complicated technique with every single bar. Just when I think I have reached the end of the bar and can breath again, here comes the next one. Paul makes it look so easy *sigh*.

GG and I went to the Roze Filmdagen Festival last night and saw the movie “Southwest of Salem”. It was pretty powerful documentary. Now that the worst of the weather is past and the sun is out, we’re practicing our cycling. Let me tell you, the tourists are already here and in full swing on their rental bicycles. I am reminded that when the weather is good and you have properly inflated tires, riding a bike is like being set free. I actually make sound effects while I ride my bike, like braking noises and when I take a sharp turn, there’s a swoosh sound that I make. I know, it’s a little weird, but probably not the craziest thing Amsterdam has ever seen 😉

Off to Seattle on Saturday for another 3 day trip. I need to take care of some stuff, including tortillas. So, try to schedule that snow for somewhere else, won’t you?

We all went to the vet on Friday and the good news is that Lientje’s kidney values are staying stable and she even gained two ounces so that’s exciting. Henry and George are both going on Wednesday for their teeth cleaning, that’s less exciting. But they are 11 and it has been 2 years since the last cleaning. George’s kidney values are a little high so they would like me to collect a urine sample. The vet said the easiest way to do this was to use a soup ladle… I think I know George well enough that if I were to suddenly show up with a soup ladle while he is writing his pee-mail, he would immediately stop what he was doing and check the ladle out. I think I am going to have to figure out another method 😉

to go… the strong windstorm that socked Europe last week caused KLM to cancel my flight back from Munich. Not just my flight, of course, but 90 in total. The earliest they could get me back was Saturday morning… that was not an option. Ultimately, they found a space for me on Lufthansa on Friday night which was better than nothing. I had long day in the airport on Friday, pacing Terminal 2 back and forth – go ahead and quiz me on the terminal layout and location of amenities.

I’ll spare you the details of my frustration with the local cuisine, with the exception of the reason that I decided not to go to the group dinner on the second night. On the daily special of the menu, it said “Pan fried calf’s head” . Yup. I knew that was not something I wanted to see in my range of vision. Turns out I made a wise choice since the next morning my colleagues advised that it was a bit like a Game of Thrones banquet with entire animals being served at the tables. I don’t think I am an unreasonable vegetarian, I just know there are some things that I do not want to be part of or look at. Pan fried calf’s head is one of them. I also think it is a waste of money for me to go to a dinner where I won’t be eating anything. So it was off to find a salad bar that resembled a bad version of the 80’s era Pizza Hut ones but with sauerkraut. For eleven euro, I had a salad that involved a large amount of pickled vegetables which was unusual flavor in a salad but not bad!

The past two days I have been one of the roaming proctors in a hands-on DevOps workshop, with 100 participants. So, today I am working from home so I can get everything in order, catch up and recharge the introvert battery. I’ll go to the office tomorrow. It’s the 1st of March. This morning I had a conversation with HR about the potential new job. I’m waiting now on the “written”copy of the information and then I will need to make a decision. In theory, this afternoon I could be sending an email that says “31 March is my last day so get your complaints in fast”;)

The contractors next door are hammering away again today. It comes down to turning up my music loud enough to drown out their air compressors 😉

I must say, one of the best perks of Schiphol is being able to hang out in the KLM lounge. I can sit here in relative solitude (it is a big lounge) and I have a coffee in front of me and a Spa rood. I am plugged in, at a long circular table with the headphones in. This is the way to wait for your flight. I am only looking at the clock every 5 minutes 😉 I don’t need to leave for the gate for another hour so I have plenty of time.

Why am I here so obviously early? Well, at home, the pets were picking up on my travel stress even through I was trying to keep it from them, including not packing my suitcase while any of them were in vision range. But they knew something was up because they were barking at everything and running back and forth. For all our peace of mind, I decided to leave for the airport a little early.

I am off to Munich today. Short flight comparatively speaking to the usual ones. I have two days of training on the latest and greatest features of VS 2017. As a bonus, I get to see my colleagues from Western Europe, who I like a great deal and don’t see nearly enough considering we live on the same continent. I usually see them at NerdCamp or NerdCamp Light. Since those will no longer be taking place in Seattle but Las Vegas, I don’t know how often I will be back in the Pacific Northwest. That’s kind of a strange thought. Not that I can’t buy a ticket myself (and have before) but it was a rhythm of sorts, knowing when I would be in Seattle each year.

Of course, if I have the new job, I won’t be invited to NerdCamp or NerdCamp Light anymore. I think I am okay with that since everything is recorded anyway for people to watch at home or on their vacations. 😉

How much my life has changed in the past four years. If I think about where my career is going, that’s a surprise because I didn’t see this path coming without leaving the industry entirely. Now it seems as if the job I have always wanted (and training ground for the grown-up job I want to have) is within reach. It’s definitely a reason to be doubly grateful and to make sure I do not let it slip through my fingers.

Little C has a new family member, a puppy named Mika. I am a fan in general of puppies and the name Mika or any variation thereof, such as Mikha, my dragon cat that was Lientje’s companion for the first 11 years of her life. I’m going to visit on Friday after I am back. Turns out Little C has to go through a round of treatment we were hoping she could avoid. In the meantime, Mika will need to go to puppy school so she doesn’t grow up to be the boss in the house (she’s a Husky mix).  It’s my privilege to be cheerleader and a reminder of what happens when your pets do not know you are the boss 😉

I think somewhere, I must have a yen to be a teacher. This morning, at 830, I was standing in front of a class of 25 11 year olds. The goal? No, I wasn’t practicing my Dutch – rather it was to teach them to create their own computer game. I’ve done this a time or two or three and I always enjoy it, even if I am totally nervous the night before.

The class this morning was awesome – they were funny, rambunctious, curious and eager to learn. I’ve learned to pair them up with each other so they will keep each other on track and figuring stuff out. It is only supposed to be an hour of code but we went easily to the 2 hour mark with other teachers stopping by to see what was going on. This is a school doesn’t have a lot of resources.

After that start, I was ready to rock. 😉 It was off to the office. There was a meeting scheduled this afternoon from someone in charge of National Empowerment Plans and I really wanted to talk with him. I  am glad I did – I shared with him the plan that Little C and I made up for our business/foundation over the summer and he asked me if he could take it back with him since we solved a problem they had been trying to address. I told him that Little C and I are available to consult with his organization 😉

After that, it was off to the dentist to pick up my new nightguard. I managed to put so much wear on my last one over the past three years that it broke over the weekend… I know what you are thinking… impressive, huh? After that, it was off to home to finish out the afternoon.

GG is off at Wintersport. Not sure if that is one word or two but it refers to the practice of going away for a skiing holiday in the mountains of Europe during Feb. I haven’t actually done it yet, I am still getting the hang of taking summer vacations. Next year, I might try Wintersport. As it is, I ended last year with 10 leftover vacation days. I have 26 per year and I never manage to use them all because there are also national holidays. I have to work into it, gradually. 😉

I’m off to Munich on Tuesday for a quick two day training. Unfortunately, it is not adding to my four new countries per year. However, the summer vacation plan that I am noodling on certainly will.

As for the weekend, well, I am going to get started on my spring cleaning. Including the refrigerator and the windows. The weather is getting warmer, tonight I turned the heat down to 15 degrees C, which means it won’t go on at all.

for sure. It started last Thursday night when I was going to start the dishwasher up. I went to the kitchen and opened the drawer to reach in to get the tablets for the dishwasher. Right there, shocked by the light was a rat measuring about 6 inches long without the tail. I slammed the drawer shut and screamed. In that order, no less. There was no way this was allowed to continue… so off to the utility room to grab mops and my bamboo gardening stakes, door to the garden open and GG positioned on one side of the kitchen to keep it from coming further into the house.

With a highly elevated blood pressure, I pulled the first drawer open. No rat. Then the drawer underneath that one, no RAT. Ugh. So then we had to go all around the kitchen island, cupboard by cupboard. Coming back to the original drawer, I could see there was a hole in the back of the cupboard where the pipes go down from the sink. Aha, that must be where it disappeared to. In the meantime, I saw what attracted the rat… my recycle bag of Nespresso capsules. So now I have an overly caffienated rodent to consider as well.

Only thing to do is bar the access. So, I delegated GG to writing messages in Dutch to exterminators so that someone would come Friday. No way was I spending the weekend with this kind of access. You might wonder what were all my pets doing during this? Sleeping under their various blankets, COMPLETELY undisturbed by the idea that this might be considered failure to perform their job responsibilities…

Friday morning, a really nice technician  came and took apart the base of the kitchen island and spent some quality time blocking the access point and taking other precautions. It was quite handy, GG called City Hall and they transferred her directly through to a line that translates to “Lose Your Beasts”and this is how 30 minutes later, we had him in house and taking things apart. He did tell me that he thinks rats are disgusting and never quite gets used to them, even in his line of work.

After that excitement on Friday, I needed a weekend of non rodent related experiences so Friday night we went to the Escape Haarlem with GG’s friends. It’s based on the WWII history of the building and Haarlem. It was very clever and hard to solve – we did though. Saturday afternoon, I went by to visit Little C since she was due to be discharged Sunday. She was up and about, looking good. I didn’t expect it to be otherwise but it is nice to be able to hug someone and not worry that you might accidentally disconnect them from something 😉

Sunday afternoon was time for brunch and we might have agreed to set up a jam session/brunch for next month. Details to be figured out…

Oh, and really what I was trying to do all weekend was distract myself because late Friday I got a message that HR wanted to talk to me on Monday. That’s not really ever a good message if you have ever worked in the US 😉 So, we met Monday afternoon at the end of the day. I have been offered the job to run the National Empowerment Plan 🙂 We still have to agree to terms and then I will need to sign a new contract but the job itself is mine, if I want it. Do I ever!!! It will start 1 April so as not to leave my current manager completely in the shit.

So, that’s kind of where things are today 🙂

P.S. Cedric and Dylan, Happy Birthday (Monday). Here’s hoping that 41 is a year to remember – after all, it started out with you being here with us all so it can only reach total awesomeness, it is going to be YUGE. 😉  love you!

I’ve got to do something with how I am feeling right now. I spent most of today at the hospital waiting for Little C to come out of surgery so I could tell her bad jokes, the latest job situation and make other silly remarks as part of our continuing quest to improve our irreverent behavior. That was a success because around 1345, they brought her out of recovery and she was in possession of her mental faculties. That would have been the moment that I would have expected her to make the most of and pretend not to know anyone 😉

I got there around 1030 this morning because I knew that I would only be watching the clock so it made more sense to take my stuff and work from there. The beauty of internet access. I camped out on the floor they would bring her back to and acted as if I completely belonged there. A fine example of bluffing your way in. Turns out her partner, Edwin, was sitting in the patient lounge probably 15 feet away but I couldn’t see around the wall. Once we ran into each other, we had a long conversation about development, the cloud, etc. You know, the stuff that takes the waiting off your mind.

What I didn’t realize I was holding at bay until I was on the tram home was all of the memories of the last time I was waiting for someone to come out of surgery. My mom. She came out of it, they asked who her favorite child was to check her mental faculties. She gave the same answer as she had before going into surgery “I’ll never tell”. It is hard for me to see people I love in a hospital bed. It makes me feel so powerless because I would much rather spare them and do it for them. The logical side of me is aware that it would certainly not solve the problem, totally inefficient use of resources. But the emotional side of me wants to put on full scale armour and wade into the mess, tossing my dear ones behind me like some overdone cartoon.

This morning, when I started my meditiation (which is really hard work), I tried it lying in the bed with the timer set. See, normally I sit in a chair to do this but the pets come and try to sit on my lap or get attention because they are thinking “”Hey, look! She’s sitting there doing nothing right now.” Today, I really wanted to focus on Little C so I thought if I try meditating while I am lying right next to the pets, maybe they won’t figure it out. Except Lientje stepped on the timer and turned it off, without me knowing so I ended up going way longer… never a dull moment.

I know that sometimes I express myself awkwardly. Or more like the Dutch word, onhandig – which means unhandy. I like unhandy better because it fits more of what I feel. I have this enormous gratitude that the surgery went okay and that I have this amazing woman with her affection for stripes and Star Wars as my friend. At the same time, I am conscious of how frail each one of us really is. So, like I said, I am not really sure what to do with all of this. Except throw it on a page…

Over the past week, since the inauguration, the news seems to get worse and worse. I’ve stopped reading the news first thing in the morning because it puts a heaviness on my whole day. And I am an ocean away.

With each executive order, my concern for those of you at home grows. For some of you, this is the moment you have been looking for and probably will do fairly well under all of these orders because you don’t fit the demographics being (or soon to be) targeted. For far more of you, you do. For my friends and loved ones, the wonderful normal (in my book) people that you are, I want you to know that you are always welcome to come here and escape. Come for whatever time you need.

I worry about all the gains that the US has made to be a more egalitatarian society are being undone. I worry that the exceptionally privileged are determining the rights and benefits for the majority of people who rely on standards, laws and services to make it right. I worry about the effect for years to come as these orders will certainly be contested in court and then reattempted and contested again.

I worry about the fact that these orders make the world a less safe place, for Americans and everyone else.

For those of you resisting, we stand with you here, in the local protests and funding the organizations who are taking the protection of freedom and rights to the only available medium, the courts. We stand with you through acts of compassion and belief that the good in each of us exists. When all else fails, we try to find a way to laugh such as  if it really is going to be America First, then surely the Netherlands Second?

I am flying high right now! This afternoon, I went to the Amsterdam location of the national refugee centers – which is located in an old prison – and sold them on the idea of basic digital literacy classes for the people who are living there. Overall Dutch society is fairly digital, banking everything. People need these skills to be able to navigate and most of it is in Dutch which is even harder.

We’re starting with a weekly class and from there will look at creating other cohorts based on demand and interest. I was very relaxed for me, I suggested that we have the classes for 2 hours instead of 3 – which is a little intense if you are just getting started with computers.

There are 650 people living in this center and I don’t think all of them will be interested but I hope that we will be able to reach a good portion of them. I AM SO EXCITED.

Last night, we went to see Shovels & Rope perform. I had listened to them and asked GG if she wanted to go. I lost a bet to her about the strategy that the management would bring to me regarding my job situation. The price was dinner but she forget to specify where. So, on the way to the ferry to the concert, I took her to dinner at the snackbar Smuller’s in the middle of the train station 😉 She has made a note to specify in future bets the exact terms… It still makes me laugh.

Tonight we’re going to something different musically. The Dropkick Murphys at the Heineken Music Hall for a good dose of Boston Irish punk. Sunday night, we’re going to Sabaton – which is Swedish heavy metal who’s lyrics are all about military campaigns and strategy through history. Rock for History nerds 😉 In case you are wondering, all the concerts this week are my influence on GG… she’s much more highbrow!

Okay, back to pay full attention to my Skype meeting on Accessibility Testing.

I’ve just walked in the door from my banjo lesson and I think it’s probably wise to give a little context to tonight’s episode. I feel like I am wrestling in so many areas of my life right now, particularly with being in limbo. I don’t do well with the feelings that are coming up since I am project/task/results oriented. When I don’t have enough of those things to keep my mind occupied, then I end up with all kinds of emotions that I am not really sure what to do with.

Yesterday afternoon, Paul had organized a recital for his students. It was in a very cool tiny theatre and there were 16 students who played for the audience. He’s got students of banjo, ukelele, mandolin, guitar, basically anything with strings. While I was watching the students play, I thought to myself “Banjo is something else you have to make a decision on. Either you invest in more practice or you give it up.” Nothing like a light dose of shoulding on myself again. With one set of thoughts, I turned what I do to teach myself not to think into a task. Bah. So, tonight in my lesson, I talked about this and some of the other things I am struggling with, while mindlessly playing songs out of my head. That was actually a key moment. I can play songs from memory while talking about something completely unrelated. Go, me! In my conversation with the Banjo Buddha, I also realized that it isn’t something I am going to give up and I need to stop with the extremes.

No, that’s not quite the whole truth. I was admitting that years ago, I would be pretty good at keeping emotions compartmentalized. Playing the banjo means that I am less able to emotionally repress myself. Which sounds deeply serious. Or the beginning of a sad song about how the banjo won’t take my feelings back. While it sounds ridiculous and it made me laugh at myself, it also made me aware of the question that was really needing to be asked… what do I want to do with my life, right now?

I have only heard that I need to have more patience regarding the external job, that they are taking longer than expected. This gives me ample time to spin possible outcomes in my head, none of which are making me any more calm. It also makes my day to day job more stressful because I really want to be able to say “this day will be the last day so we need to plan for it now”. It makes it harder to put up with all the things that currently drain my energy. It’s reducing my ability to care about what happens. I engage in projects half heartedly, because I don’t want to let the customer down but really I don’t want to be involved because I won’t be there to see it complete. My overactive sense of responsibility won’t let me say “No” but my side that has already decided to leave can’t speak freely either. See, more wrestling.

Then today, in the middle of the afternoon, I got a call from the Refugee Center that I had emailed months ago offering to teach basic digital literacy. They have decided that would be a really great idea and there is a need for it, so could I come Wednesday and talk to them about it? Whoosh, the rockets went right back up and I was immediately brainstorming what was possible… which seemed to be a little overwhelming to the poor man on the other end of the phone.

I spent a great deal of time today talking with my manager. Partly because I was meeting people to interview to take over my role, partly because she cares about where I end up. Out of this came the following, that I will know by the end of the week about the job that is tentatively titled National Empowerment Plan for the Netherlands. I don’t want to put too much hope into it because I would be really disappointed if it doesn’t happen – I mean the plan in general, not just me being part of it. And at the same time, I am already thinking about all the things that would be required to make it work and what I would want to see it become. This would be something that I could do for years to come because there is SO much work to be done. There’s all kinds of questions around it, since it is not a position that exists on the organizational blueprint, etc. Which then makes me think, if I am in the position to choose between two, which one is the right one? Does it matter more to me to be in a brand new environment with a very different culture, from the underdog perspective? Or does it matter more for me to be helping to build an infrastructure that will enable people to be change agents for themselves and their communities in the long run, but at the same company that I am at now?

I know, I know, luxury problems to have. In the meantime, I’m realizing that I have a lot of stuff to work through. My dreams lately are really complicated and come back to similar themes, all related to events that have happened in the past 4 years that apparently I still need to do some work processing. I know they are coming up during the night because that’s when I am not distracting myself with tasks and projects. I realized tonight on the way home that both my parents always kept themselves busy. My mom was always exploring something new, sitting still and going through emotions was really difficult for her. Being sick brought that to the forefront, having time in your own head. My dad is 70 and still taking projects for work because he doesn’t really want to sit still and reflect on emotions either. It is not a judgment but rather suddenly an awareness that maybe some of this is a learned behavior 😉

A very scary decision I made is that if I am going to go to the new employer, I will take a month off and just be. That’s not the most appealing decision ever but it is something I need to do, if I want to be stronger and healthier emotionally speaking. I’m wondering if somewhere along the way, I missed the class on Emotional Health or if this is something that you learn based on your stage in life? Is this part of my midlife crisis?

I’m curious, how do other people get this right? Is it something you’re born with, a skillset you learn or the luck of your personality? My first instinct is to take a class 😉 but then I can very calmly apply academic learning to the situation, which is not the answer. For example, I understood on an academic level what grief could look like for children and how it might manifest itself. Until I lost my mom, I had no understanding of the emotional impact that Raven must have felt not being with his birth mom or the actual loss from moving from family to family. I remember sitting in the grass with him overlooking a bluff in Idaho and him telling me what he did when things hurt too much. I felt like the roles really were reversed that day, that suddenly this teenager was showing me how to cope. It was humbling moment and one that made me realized what an amazing person he was. It was one of those moments that I realized how much greatness he had inside him.

I want to be free. I want to be able to spend three days in a camper with Little C at Pinkpop and then leave the next day for a week in Sicily with GG. I want to be free to take on the projects that matter, to support the people who shape my life for the better, to drive change, to play music that matters, to be the best friend that I can, to be the fun sister instead of the one who takes responsiblity way too seriously and as the most important thing, I want to be the parent who gives children a place to thrive and grow, I want to be the best that I can, whole heartedly. I think I might need to remember that the next time I get overwhelmed by the limbo stress. Well, this was helpful for me 😉