Okay, so that is a bit of an exaggeration. However, today is the Winter Solstice and as my mom would say, we would now be heading in the right direction. Of course, fleece is a year round fashion statement and heading towards summer certainly wouldn’t mean giving that up!

We started this morning with George having a seizure. His routine for his medicine has been off for the past couple of days so I am not sure if that is coincidence or not. Regardless, we are heading right back to the regular schedule. And he is no longer allowed to go to the disco at night if they have strobe lighting. I have told Henry that means he can’t go either because they are brothers. Henry is disappointed that he will have to show off his dance moves elsewhere.

Just in case you think I am nuts, the boys really can dance. My mom used to play the Gipsy Kings album Compas frequently and she would dance around to it. The dogs learned to dance as well with her. Even now, if I play the opening moments for that album they start dancing around. No one is going to sign them up for a competition but George can dance on his back legs and Henry tries but is more successful with moves that have all four legs on the ground.

We had a good walk in the park today. Both today and yesterday the weather has been very windy and overcast so we have mostly had the park to ourselves. Which is fun!

I went to the movies Friday night and saw the mockumentary “What we do in the Shadows”. It was hilarious and I was so relieved to watch a movie in English so I got all of the nuances and humor. Yesterday, I saw “Samba” which was also good. However, it was in French with Dutch subtitles so it was a bit of mental effort to follow along. Joanne and some of her friends came to the big city to celebrate her birthday and the movie was a surprise for her as well as the dinner.

It is just barely 5pm and pitch dark outside already. Starting tomorrow, I think I will put out the terrace cushions. Not really but I did plant my tulip bulbs too early because I noticed they are already coming up. Well, they will be punk rock tulips, coming up during their own season.

A few more days of work and then Wednesday evening off to Marum. The church is open Christmas Eve late for a service. I am going to go because part of me wants to walk in the church that was open when my mother lived there as a child after the war. My Oma and Opa and my great grandparents certainly went there. My great grandparents are also buried in the church yard. And I want to feel close to Mom.

Then for first Christmas day, we are gathering at Joanne’s. I will be driving because Sjoerd wants to drink so Astrid will be headed to the north with a full cargo of Sjoerd, Marieke (his GF) , the dogs and enough of PCC’s Winter Caesar salad for 10. Well, and maybe a backup dish in case I mess up the recipe 😉

It will be a little difficult. The last Christmas I celebrated at Joanne’s house was with Mom so I still have a lot of memories associated with that. But I will pull up my big grrl pants and make it through. And if it gets overwhelming, I will take the dogs for a walk.

Okay, I have to get started writing my Christmas cards that need to go into the mail tomorrow. Luckily I finished all my US ones last week and they are well on their way. Since this is such a small country, I can put the ones for here in the mail tomorrow and they should still arrive on time.

both caused by dinner and brought to the dinner. Last night was the first dinner of the people that over the past nine months I have collected in my neighborhood. All of them work in one of the cafes or restaurants on the main street by my house. About a month ago, I had the idea to have dinner together one night. Sort of my way to get everyone to gather at the table and connect. Of course, the best way to do this was to go for Indonesian with the rijstafel idea. When I discovered that several of them had never even had Indonesian, it became even more important.

There were eleven of us at dinner. The range of ages and personalities was quite wonderful. From the barely 19 year old waiter to the 43 year old veteran of the hospitality industry. And from the reserved human services worker to the playa barman of the street, the conversations were hilarious and all over the place. There were even Homer Simpson style moments of belts being loosened before diving back in for another plate full.

The best moment of all was when I looked up and down the table and realized everyone was silent because they were so into their food. Of course, since there’s definitely heat and spice in almost every dish, people’s digestive systems already started setting off fireworks. Which lead me to sing (to the tune of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop”) “I’m gonna pop some gas” which set everyone into hysterics. When the dessert came out, there were four large fireworks shooting off the plate. It was so cool! Someone had remembered what I said about Mom and her love for fireworks so they thought that would be a way to surprise me.

It was a great evening. I am really glad I pulled it off. Just getting everyone convinced to come was a lot of work and I did worry when I was sitting there before everyone arrived if people were still going to come. Afterwards, the shyest one of the party said that we should do this every two months with each other. I consider that a great mark of success. Really that is what I wanted to accomplish – to connect people who are very much alone in one way or another. That is the one thing that everyone at the table has in common.

I think my mom would have enjoyed it too. She definitely would have had a lot to say and she would have also collected a group of “orphans” for lack of a better term. I know she would have liked the fireworks, of both variety. Last night, I felt like I was continuing some of the best parts of my mom.

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.

Or is it just the twang of a lonesome caroler? Be glad that you are not within listening range. In today’s lesson, I learned how to play “Silent Night” on the banjo. But the banjo is not really fully designed for that, so you really just play the harmony and have someone sing along. Without someone singing, it doesn’t sound anything like “Silent Night”. HAH, you could say that with me singing, it doesn’t either! Anyway, I had to learn to today to pitch my voice to my banjo, which was a very interesting experience. Interesting as in “this is kind of weird”. My banjo teacher did ask me if I could get one of the dogs to sing along with me while I played. So, if you hear some howling and caterwauling, then you know what you have run into…

It was so chilly today that the cold put my banjo out of tune between leaving home and getting to my lesson. I decided walking longer in the cold would be better than freezing faster on my bike. Thank goodness I have my scarf. It is one that my mom started for me and didn’t finish. Becky reworked it and finished it and I am very grateful. Besides being a lovely multicolored rust scarf, I feel like I am loved when I wear it. It is my special scarf and I don’t just wear it anywhere.

Okay, back to work. I just had to try to get banjo “Silent Night” out of my head and into yours!

It is official. No more small dogs wandering through the park without their Husky purple jackets that are sized for the strange bodies of dachshunds. The boys are not really fans of their jackets because when I take them off, there is a lot of static electricity around their heads. But I am less of a fan of watching them shiver and shake and in this case to quote the title of Sinead O’Connor’s latest album “I am not bossy, I am the boss”.

I hope you all had good Thanksgivings. I was driving back through the polder this weekend from the north and did a lot of crying. There seems to be something about the wide open space and the very low speed limit (due to tractors and farm vehicles) that lends itself well to this kind of expression. The next seven weeks will be emotionally rough ones so you can expect some random posts. I am working on keeping myself busy enough with the right mix of things.

Friday is Sinterklaas. This is when kids get their presents and their shoe filled with candy as opposed to Christmas, which is more about food.I have been invited out for Sinterklaas to Joe and Tam’s. I think it is really kind of them and appreciate the invitation. It will be all their parents and grandparents. I have been instructed not to bring anything for the girls because they get enough stuff. It is quite a different perspective than piling things under the Christmas tree. Of course, I can’t go empty handed so maybe I will bring cake. Right, always good, sugar for children 😉 To be followed of course by a double espresso in their sippy cups! Yeah, that’s the way to make friends!

I was tempted to go to the movies tonight but then again, I am kind of cosy on the orange couch. And I am still doing work for tomorrow. I will have to make dinner shortly for the boys and heat up some split pea soup for myself. I didn’t feel like going grocery shopping today.

Oh, yes, and thanks for the messages 🙂 They helped. A lot.

Up until yesterday I really thought that I wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that today is Thanksgiving in the US. Then I started getting antsy last night and today it was definitely worse. And that’s when I admitted to myself that I was feeling a little sorry for myself thinking that everyone is getting together today for big family dinners with occasional culinary misses. Of course, I could cynically say it is just fueling up for the Black Friday chaos but that’s copping out. So, I will freely admit that I am having a pity party.

Yes, I know I made the choice to move all the way over here. This time last year I was still camping on the floor waiting for the crate of household goods to come in via ship. So, I had more distractions, you could say. I also really miss my mom. Because we didn’t eat turkey and it was often just us two, we would go to the 4 o’clock movie while everyone was eating their holiday meal. This ensured us that we pretty much had the theatre to ourselves and she could talk as much as she wanted during the movie. Mom frequently asked questions in the move or added commentary. And she wasn’t doing it in a whisper either. After that, we would go home and eat. I was also thinking about our last Thanksgiving. She ate at the table, which I know was hard. We had an appointment with oncology the next day. I remember her telling the doctor that she ate so much and then running down the list of foods. What she didn’t tell the doctor is that they were all one small plate. And he asked her what the best thing about Thanksgiving was and she told him that all of her kids were under the same roof and they all got along. This was the first time we siblings had been together in years. He asked if that was unusual that we all got along. She told him that she didn’t care if we were faking it, it just proved we could do it and she had such a devilish light in her eye when she said that.

Make no mistake, my mom was a dangerously charming woman. She had a way of getting to you that she was completely unaware of. It always surprised her that people liked her. And if they did, that meant they were getting too close and she would have to find somewhere new to go. The cycle would repeat itself. I miss her.

I hear Eliza’s voice in my head saying “Pull yourself together” in her very English proper way. I think that is my all time favorite thing she says. But I think today that’s a little beyond me and I am just going to give in to the sadness.

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.

Sitting here in Terminal 4 at JFK waiting for my flight. I got to the airport a little after 1pm. In part because I couldn’t convince the hotel to let me check out any later than noon and because I needed some peace and quiet and the airport was a good option at that point. When I flew in on Tuesday and took the Air Train to the subway, I passed by Terminal 7 where I used to work. Taking the long train ride was very amusing. Amusing in a “what the hell was I thinking doing this every day?” sort of way. The trains haven’t changed, they are still old and rickety and have unusual smells in them. The people riding them are still avoiding eye contact or if they are making eye contact, it might not be the type you want. You still can barely understand the conductor’s announcement of which station is next. To further enhance the fantasy land experience, they have made the subway maps even smaller and there’s only one per car if you are lucky.

I used the subway to get around quite a bit over the past couple of days but this morning, I had had enough. I went by foot power instead to round up the tortillas, the pumpkin purée for Joanne, the Field Roast Hazelnut en Croute holiday roast and did I mention tortillas? If anyone else was hoping to score organic traditional tortillas today, they are out of luck. Sorry about that but Henry and George appreciate your understanding!

I saw my dad last night for dinner. Bravely, he tried a vegan restaurant. Blossom on Carmine which was very good. Well, it was for me. For him, I think it was a little unnerving to not see any recognizable protein. We had an interesting discussion. I have to say that learning to talk to R certainly gave me some skills for talking to my dad. And the exposure to Dutch directness over the past year has also helped. We continued our conversation in the hotel bar which sounds much wilder than it was. Considering we ate dinner at 530, by 830, we were leaving the bar.

Something I noticed was at the restaurant, you experience again the American phenomenon of needing to turn the tables over as fast as possible because it is a tip dependent industry. Whereas in Amsterdam, we could have sat for hours at the same table and it wouldn’t have been an issue because tipping to pay your employees’ salary is not the model for restaurant owners. It makes a big difference in hospitality.

We met again this morning at 6 for breakfast before he was off to another meeting and the train. The thing that I appreciate about my dad is that we can have conversations about big topics like politics and the economy, etc. He is sharp so it is a spirited conversation. This morning we were debating the corruption of the Constitution because of the religious influence in what is essentially a two party system. At 6 AM, this was awesome! The other people in the breakfast room were thinking that it was a bit much at such an early hour. They wanted to eat their sausage and eggs in peace. Well, sometimes you have to start the day with a little hot sauce. Euthanasia and death with dignity is a big issue right now and the usual idiots are declaring they will veto any measures, etc. It isn’t about you, Mr/Ms Politician. It is about a person’s sovereignty and dignity and their RIGHT to choose when they are done living.

Anyway, it is interesting to note that despite everything else, both of my parents were definitely nonconformist in their attitudes. I suppose there is no way I could have turned out any different. 😉

I will be glad to go home. I hear the pets have been reasonably well behaved. Of course, the real test will come when I get home and ask their sitter if she is ever willing to come back. Otherwise, we’ll have to look into someone like Nanny McPhee!

You know, there are a lot of people walking around in here talking like they are very important into their phones. I guess some of that must be in the tap water 😉

with travelling for the year. I’m off to New York next week. That is a city that I thought I had seen the last of as I was driving the rented black Chevy Surburban (that would end up going into Limp Home mode somewhere in South Dakota) filled with a small black cat, Lawyerella and moving boxes out of the city and back home to Seattle. I haven’t been back to New York since and I haven’t wanted to. For me, all the charm of the city disappeared once I actually lived there. To be fair to New York, there were also other factors in play that made it an incredibly stressful time.

The highlights of my New York living experience include: spotting the inspiration that would lead to the arrival of Denzel the wonder dachshund, the renaming of the street outside CBGB’s to Joey Ramone Place, the culinary experiments that allowed me to have my lunch made almost every day, seeing Boy George not playing himself on Broadway in the production of “Taboo” and escaping the city with Lawyerella every possible chance.

I have not even entertained the idea of going back as a tourist. I think after 10 years, I should be able to face it now without any second hand trauma. And after all, someone has to get the boys their next 3 month supply of tortillas.

Moortje has lost a little more weight which is troublesome. However, his red blood count is climbing and he is definitely running around like he used to. He has also gone back to biting you if you pet him too long. That wasn’t really a behavior I had missed truthfully. He doesn’t break the skin but he does dent it pretty well. We go back to the vet in two weeks to check his weight again and if that is up, he gets his vaccinations. He very much dislikes riding in his carrier in the bike basket. I can’t say I blame him because for an indoor cat that must suddenly be a massive amount of noise and over stimulation.

It has been a long week. Tomorrow will be a bit of a slog as well. I made a big pan of boerenkool tonight to eat this weekend. That translates to farmers cabbage. Which is really kale, with potatoes and Field Roast sausages, spelt milk and vegan margarine all mixed together. And then you let it sit for a day before you reheat it and eat it. It is definitely cold weather food. This time I experimented with adding a spice mix called Vadovan to it. Basically curry crossed with pepper crossed with herbs d’Provence. I think the label described it as the French interpretation of curry. I tried after I mixed it all together. It is unusual but good.

It is 6 degrees out. That’s about 42. When we go on our walk tonight, the boys will get their jackets. So not George’s favorite thing! But I can’t stand to watch them shiver while they are lifting their legs and writing their p-email!

No, I am not a day late. If you celebrate Halloween in the Netherlands, you are doing it tonight. I am not sure why but that’s how it is. It is mostly celebrated by people who are not Dutch or who are going to the big electronica dance events tonight. Which I am joyfully NOT partaking of.

I do miss pumpkin carving though. In case I come across a pumpkin, I have my carving kit in the garden shed.

Today was so beautiful with clear skies and about 65 degrees. I walked everywhere today instead of taking my bike because I wanted to enjoy the weather and move at my own speed instead of that of surrounding traffic. This afternoon, we took a long walk in the park. It was fun to watch them run and chase each other. When Henry moves into run mode he holds his tail like a handle of a pitcher. I have no idea how he does this, I think it is like some kind of propeller to keep him stable. Of course, George chases after him and tends to grab Henry by one of his ham hocks and pulls him around and down to the ground. This exhibition also comes complete with a soundtrack of ferocious barks and growls.

Over the past few months, I have been slowly collecting a group of people that I know. It is a good representation of ages and lifestyles. It allows me to be social and to dispense advice and feel useful without feeling the need to solve everyone’s problems or rescue anyone. It also allows me to improve my Dutch, learn all kinds of useful swear words in other languages and generally get exposed to more than my fair share of culture. Last night, as I was searching on the internet radio service for some music to play, someone said to me (in Dutch) “Please don’t put any more of your shitty American music on”. Without missing a breath, I replied “Not to worry, this is the Rolling Stones, they are English”. I nearly fell of my chair with laughter for two reasons. The first is that this person is one of the shyest people in this little group and if I want to have a conversation with him, I always have to do it by asking direct questions. So for him to let something like that fly, was really a big step out of his comfort zone. The second reason why it was so funny is that I have been gradually trying to introduce good music to them – think the classics like The Clash, The Ramones, Tom Jones, Billie Holiday, etc. And they listen to a whole lot of electronic music and classics like (translated from the Dutch) “I feel sexy when I dance”.

Next month, I have arranged for all of us to meet for dinner. It will a very unusual mix at the table. Luckily, we will be going for Indonesian so that is food that lends itself well to communal eating and conversation. It will also be interesting to see what it is like when no one is working while interacting, just socializing.

Going back to watching “The Haunted Mansion”. It was always my favorite ride at Disneyland! I think I probably haven’t outgrown that either 😉