A week of farewell

Have you ever noticed that nothing written In Memoriam is ever adequate to the situation?  I honestly didn't think I would be composing this tribute for a few more decades, but as the reality of death is that it comes to everyone unexpectedly, I'm now sitting at my computer, trying to compose something in memory of my beloved mother-in-law, Judi. 

A week ago, as I was sitting in church preparing to join my small group in leading worship, I got a phone call. My husband was calling from work, telling me that his mother had died. It was unexpected. She was only 51, and while she wasn't in the greatest of health, she had no life-threatening conditions. The family was at Disneyland for a final family vacation before the girls graduated from college.  She went to the hospital for what the doctors thought was a minor heart attack. It turned out to be a pulmonary embolism, and then she was gone. 

 A lot of people complain about having trouble with their inlaws.  That was never the case with me.  Judi and I were kindred spirits from almost the moment we met. (Jake is wonderful too.)  She was an unabashed geek, had read all the books that I had and then some, and had dabbled in every art that I had ever wanted to try (plus a few that I had never thought about).  She had a real eye for beauty and a real ability to transfer it to her current medium.   She worked in photography,  oils and watercolors, fabric art and multi-media sculpture, books and beads, dolls and dairy farming. Her favorite room in the house was the kitchen. Her least favorite was the laundry room.  She was a competent, confident woman who always made me welcome, even during my lower periods, and to be perfectly honest, I always felt a little inadaquate stepping into her shoes as the primary woman in Seth's life (a feeling she laughed at).  There was so much that I wanted to learn from her, and she was always willing to teach. 

It seems too soon.  I loved Judi.  I was looking forward to decades under her mentorship in the areas we had in common.  Whenever I had a sewing question or a cooking question, I would call her first.  She was always willing to dispense some experience and share her joy in the things she enjoyed.  She called me a "willing victim" because I didn't tire of asking questions that incurred floods of information. 

And there were so many people that I wanted to introduce to her at some point in the future.  I wanted my friend Theresa to know her.  I think Judi could have overcome some barriers.  And just this morning, as I was enumerating the wonderful things that she did to a couple of well-wishers, I discovered another kindred spirit for her (she had oodles, especially online) in my pastor's wife.   And poor Boogaloo won't get to know her Nana as she should.  She probably won't retain many memories of the nice lady who lived in the house by the cows.  I know that from experience.  I lost both of my grandmothers before I was seven, and my memories are indistinct. 

I feel like all of these lost opportunities and regrets should be weighing me down, but I also find that I can't bounce too low.  This is where faith comes in.  Christians disagree on whether we enter heaven immediately when we die or we sleep until the Lord comes back and judges the quick and the dead, but either way, Judi's next conscious thought upon opening her eyes will be the face of Jesus, the incarnation of perfect Truth and Beauty who entered this often ugly, persistently deceitful world in part to claim her.  Judi was a consumate believer, the one who often quelled my fundamentalist worries with the reminder that "God is in control."  Her faith penetrated every level of her being, and she had no difficulty lifting up her hands in praise or prayer. 

She once told me, "I can't see why all these people get so involved in these fantasy worlds when the real world is so magical as it is." That's a little ironic coming from someone who made fairies for fun, but I take the point.  This world and this life are just as magical as anything we can dream up in our heads, and glimpses from the Kingdom of God that is to come are more epic than anything we can imagine.  Judi has seen the veil drawn back and stepped onto those wide green shores.  Everything that held her back or made her ashamed has been stripped away.  Her tears (and there were a few in her life) have been dried, and she now looks on the face of Love.  Go with our blessing, Mom.  Rest in peace. 

This might take a while.

When she isn't thinking about Christmas (which is big in her mind right now.  I think she's finally figured out that with Christmas comes presents), Boo had discovered pbskids.org.  Her current favorite is Dinosaur Train, but Curious George and The Cat in the Hat Know a Lot About That are right up there in the running too. 

 

This week, the Cat built a kite and made it fly with his Huff-Puff-a-Tron.  So Boo made herself a kite out of a piece of cardstock and rope, and she's been trying to fly it all weekend.  Since there isn't any wind inside, she hung the kite from a hook on the banister and ran up and down the corridor shouting "Whoosh.  Kite flying."

She was determined that we were going to take the kite to the park while the wind was blowing, so we bundled up and took the dog for a walk.  I couldn't make her understand that the rain would be bad for her cardstock kite, and I wasn't going to try to explain that rope is too heavy.  We ran around the park for about ten minutes, dragging her kite through the puddles and over the leaves.  Then, when the cardstock was so soggy that the tape that was holding the rope in place wouldn't hold anymore and the cardstock itself was coming apart in soggy bits, I convinced her to go home and build another one.  We put it together with cardstock, sticks, tape, and yarn.  Then she took it for a test flight. 

It's not much better than the previous version, but she was happy with it.  We took it back outside when the rain stopped, and by the grace of God (I seriously think He was getting as big a kick out of it as I was), we had just enough wind to tug at the kite and keep it perpendicular, even if we couldn't actually get it off the ground. Each gust of wind came from a different direction, so Boo was kept running this way and that shouting, "It's flying.  It's flying," even though it wasn't really.  After a half an hour, she still didn't want to come in.  Only the promise of more Cat in the Hat (I was cold, okay?) managed to drag her indoors. 

Sleepy, Aggravated, Downright hungry

I think the Boo and I both have Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD).  SAD is a chemical disorder resulting from a lack of natural light that causes depression-like symptoms in wet wintery climates.  Ther seratonin levels in the brain decrease making alertness and happiness more difficult.  You'd think after eight years of living on the rainy side of two states, I would be used to living without constant sunshine, but man, this year I've really got it bad.  Long, weak sleep schedules, irritability, big appetites, carb cravings.  I can't walk through the kitchen without veering toward the cookies on top of the fridge, and last time I made soup, I put away half a fresh loaf of bread with one bowl, all by myself.  I'm like a bear packing food away for winter, but the hibernation won't kick in properly. 

I kind of expect these things for me.  I've got a tempermental nature, and I've always been inclined to slide into a little depression if the situation allows.  But the Boo took me by surprise.  She's always a bundle of energy.  She only takes proper naps when she's sick.  However, right about at the beginning of December, she started curling up next to me after lunch and actually sleeping!  I thought at first she was entering a growth spurt, but then I noticed other things.  Crying more frequently.  Craving carbs.  She's sitting across from me right now, shoveling away twice the normal number of cheerios than she usually eats for breakfast, and this is her third bowl today. Oh my goodness, I thought.  My poor husband is going to have to put up with two of us. 

In the rainiest November/December that Portland has seen for a while, I guess I'm not too surprised that we should manifest hitherto unfamiliar symptoms.  I just find it annoying that in the first winter that I finally have everything I need to keep me balanced -- my husband home, an anti-depression system in place, the munchin in school and doing well, a convenient side job to stimulate the brain and bring in a little money -- the weather decides to sit down on the scale and throw everything else up in the air again. 

The part that annoys me most is the fatigue. There are days when I can barely hold my head up unless I've been eating carbs or doing pushups (exercise helps a lot).  I can control the irritability somewhat.  I can stop myself after my second piece of toast and say, "It's just a craving.  Eat an orange."  But when my head bobs over the stove as I'm cooking dinner,  I find this whole winter slump business a tad bit problematic.  Two days ago, I was so tired that I pulled up to a familiar intersection and momentarily didn't recognize it.  I thought I had pulled up to it from the other side.  That alarmed me a little.  Being that tired is not really conducive to driving safely.

So I did a little research.  I learned that you cannot get vitamin D from fruits and vegetables, but you can get it from beef, milk, and mushrooms.  I also learned that you can fight SAD with tryptofam and vitaminB12, which are found in beef, turkey, milk, cheese, nuts, mushrooms, and avocados.  So we've revamped our diet a bit.  I've taken to sprinkling mushrooms and cheese over everything, and three times a week, I try to work in some avocados.  They're in season right now. 

I also learned that 30 minutes of aerobic exercise can help minimize sleep disturbances and smooth out energy fluctuations.  That one is a little harder to adhere to.  Munchin doesn't like to run, and I don't like to leave her alone.  And I've found, that unlike normal depression, the SAD-fighting effects of exercise don't carry over from day to day.   If I should desire to take Sunday off, I will miss the seratonin I could have otherwise been generating.   

A friend of mine suggested buying an aerogarden.  Check them out.  They're kind of cool.  They let you grow herbs inside, and the light for growing plants also lifts the seratonin levels.  I haven't gotten around to it yet (Christmas crunch and all that) because I'm trying the remedies that don't cost extra money first, but if worst comes to worst, I might just have to break down and buy a bumblebee. 

A plus side to having a glitch like this inserted into my system is that it forces me to prioritize, and it also forces me to suck it up sometimes.  I've always thought of myself as a motivated person.  Now that my motivation has been removed (zonk! right into the spaghetti), I'm learning to say, "I don't care how tired I am.  This is important.  It needs to get done."  I am also learning to say, "This isn't really important.  It can sit a while."  That's a valuable lesson.  It's one I hadn't learned learned through four years of college and eight years of military wifedom. 

A third thing I've learned is that I don't need to be alert and active to be happy.  (I can hear some of my friends and family saying, "It's about time.")  Happiness can be a static thing.  It is possible to nod off involuntarily in the easy chair and be exquisitely happy, even if the vacuuming isn't done.  The roots of joy are not in sunshine or vitamin D.  The faithfulness of God does not vanish because my spirits are low, and the work of the Kingdom at large does not grind to a halt when my energy level bottoms out.  Leaning on the faithfulness of God in these little things has made me much happier in the big picture.   

One of the cool things about traveling in a country where you have roots is that even though everything is completely foreign (It will be a long time before Seth can forgive the Dutch Department of Transportation for the way they regulate their roads), you keep running into things that are very nearly the same.

 

Being products of Dutch immigrants in community, upbringing, and education, we were amused to see very familiar names popping up in slightly unfamiliar contexts.  For example, there are several Roozebooms at my parents' church, but I don't think any of them sell RVs. 

 

I bet the Dekkers that I went to high school with would be surprised to find out they have a whole land waiting for them over there.  How does one get a land named after one anyway?

The names weren't restricted to the Dutch.  I know some Havenses, and I believe they're Irish in their roots. But who knows why some names show up in foreign places? 

 

I mean really, who knows?  This sign says "100% Bob, 0% Op."  You know that you get if you run that through Google translator?  "100% Bob, 0% Op."  Not very helpful.  Still, Bob, here's looking at you. 

We found that a lot of our old friends have moved into logistics since we've seen them last.  I used to clean carpets under these people.

 

And Heather, if you ever get tired of the ministry, you could ask your relatives for a job. 

 

Even, look, right there?  Is it? Could it be?  Yep, Atsma shipping!  Or something like that. 

 I'm not sure what James and Alli have been doing in the great NL, but it looks pretty successful. 

  I learned a long time ago not to underestimate college professors, but dancing isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Dr. Veenstra, my speech professor. 

 

And then there are those random names that you just have to take a picture of.  "Give it to us wrawwww and wriggling, and keep nasty chips." 

 Of course, if one is looking for familiar names (and by this point, we were.  It was just too good to resist.), the best place to look is a graveyard.  Here, on the headstones of Toppenhuizen and Utwellinga, I found a few old schoolmates. 

I even found that I might be distantly related to some of them.  Let's see.  If Seth's grandmother is a Wijnja, and Geertje Koopmans was born in 1908, that would put here about great-grandmother age to the Koopmans I went to highschool with, so what would that make us? 

When the Dutch hyphenate their last names, they put the husband's surname first so that husband and wife will still be alphabetical.  So Megan Fopma-DeGroot, it's been done once already. 

And here's another coincidence of last names that could be a double relation.  Seth is an Atsma (and this is certainly one of his family line because he's a Gerben.  Gerbens run in the family.  So do Ruurd's [see below]).  I have a cousin who married a De Jong. 

 

And my folks have been friends with De Jagers since before I was born. 

 If you'll look closely, you'll see a Postma, a Kok, a Broersma, a de Vries, a Hettinga, and a Veldhuisen.  Bingo!  My card's full. 

A few wry observations.

It's raining.  I have wet socks, wet boots, and a pair of wet jeans drying on the ricky-racky, and if my senses had been deceiving me, I've also read seven facebook posts and an email newsletter with notice to the same effect.  It's raining.  It's raining so hard that the rain-soaked people of Portland are actually cautioning each other to stay off the roads if possible. 

I would stay off the roads if I could, but it's the sidewalks that are proving hazardous.  Is there anything more miserable that taking out a dog to do his business and then discovering that in inclement weather of this ferocity, dogs prefer to hold it?  I remember last year when Boogaloo and I took Max for a walk and got soaked through, but that was her fault.  Today, the Boo had enough sense to say, "Stay home, Mommy," when I grabbed the leash, so I put in a movie and left her to it.  She's a very smart girl.  When she sees rain sheeting down the windows and tree branches slapping against the eaves, she figures she won't be very comfortable outside.

 Max is a pretty smart dog.  It didn't take much for him to come to the same conclusion.  However, there remains the fact that a dog's business needs to be done outside.  We tried hiding beneath the trees.  We tried stepping on the high spots made by the tree roots that were coming up through the pavement.  We tried using my umbrella.  Well, storm - 1, umbrella, boots, and jean - 0, dog - dilatory.  And it doesn't show any signs of letting up. 

On the way to the mailbox later in the afternoon, when the rain had subsided for a second, and the puddles were frantically draining while they had the chance,  I looked down into the gutter and saw a positive rainbow of maple leaves heaped against the curb.  The predominant leaf was a Japanese maple, which looks a bit like a starfish and a starfruit all at once.  Against the dark pavement under the clear water, the still vibrant fall colors still glowed with the sunlight they had been absorbing all year long.  It was kind of like looking into the kids pool at the aquarium if sea urchins and starfish could light themselves up.    At any rate, it was beautiful, and if I hadn't been outside, I wouldn't have seen it.  So there is the bright side for the day.

I have a husband again.

Seth came home last Saturday, and his presence is like oil on the gears. Suddenly there's another set of hands to help the Boo put in the movie she wants or to take the dog out.  Usually upon his homecoming, I have a struggle with myself when I let some of the responsibilities fall back on him.  Not this time.  This time, I was only too happy to realize that I didn't have to do everything on my daily to do list.  In fact, I actually had a chance to pick up a book and read for an hour today, and Seth looked at me and confessed that he actually doesn't know what all he's going to do for the rest of the week.  I think next week, when his full schedule kicks in, we'll find out how busy we're really going to be.   

It's amazing how much difference having my husband home makes in my outlook.  This week has not been pretty.  Monday was leading up to the election.  Tuesday was the election.  Wednesday morning we found out that we lost the election.  Then we found out our checking account and savings account were empty because Seth's travel expenses came through before his expense report did.  Normally, this would have sent me into a tailspin, and I'd be freaking out and jumping at my own shadow.  (Moms, we're okay.  Everything worked out fine. Praise God.)

However, having my husband home lifts me out of that any possibility of spiral.  His presence reminds me of the solid ground beneath my feet.  It gives me more than the ability to think and plan; I get a bouyancy that doesn't deflate.  I'm like a Weeble -- I wobble, but I don't fall down. 

Part of my mind says, "Really, God should do that for you. You shouldn't be dependent on the presence of your husband for mental and emotional bouyancy."  But God designed the family structure intentionally, and I fought it for a long time.  I spent a year and a half insisting that I didn't need a man, and God has used the past eight years to show me that yes, I do.  The way I need Seth is the way I need God, only smaller.  It in no way compromises my responsibilities or my capacities.  If anything, his presence enhances both.  With our family structure restored, I'm freed from all the worry and stress that came from doing what needed to be done, alone. 


Alone is one of the worst words in the English Lexicon in my opinion.  Lonely can have romantic connotations.  Lonesome is an insubstantial heart sound.  It can be wrapped around other thoughts or feelings.  It can be pushed away by work or company.  But  alone is the substance of walking into a house and being greeted by a silence that only you will break for the next three months.  Alone rips the ribs off your heart and leaves it exposed to all the elements as they come at you.  Alone means having no close equal, no constant witness, no designated partner for this project called life.  And Lord willing, I'll never have to face that feeling again. 

Now begins the new and more pleasant challenge of learning to live with the expectation of having my husband on a daily basis.  This is the first time in our married lives that we haven't had an imminent date of separation looming.  We have new schedules to balance (especially with the demise of my Buick), and obviously, we have to work on some communication skills, but I can sit at the dinner table and look into his eyes.  I can lie down in bed at night and think, "He was here today" and feel his warmth under the covers as confirmation. 

No longer do I have to store up family memories to share with him on his return.  He'll be here to make those memories with us.  In my mind's eye, holidays and summer vacations recede into the future like bright, golden memories uninterrupted by the prospect of deployment or training.  I tell you, it's a wonderful sight. 

Aaaaaaah! (Or have I said that already?)

Is it Saturday already? No, it's Tuesday, the third Tuesday since I've last blogged.  My gosh, I feel like the world is just whirling on without me, but actually, I'm whirling along without my blog.  I'm actually putting more interest into living life than writing about it, which is good, but I feel sorry for my poor blog.    

Boogaloo at the Pumpkin Patch.  Yes, I know that's not a smile,
but at least she's looking toward the camera.

It's a big pumpkin, but somehow, she's gonna make it!

It's been two weeks since I blogged last, and I'm not gaining any ground.  I've got Netherlands pictures to post, but I haven't got time to go digging for them. I've got quirky comments on being the mom of a preschooler, but I don't remember them when I get home.  And I have pictures from Boogaloo's first pumpkin patch visit, but I haven't even had a chance to turn the sideways ones rightside up.   I'm not sure if it's autumn that has me in a whirl or homecoming or what, but I am too busy.  Saturday morning, I was so tired and distracted that I accidentally closed the garage door before I backed through it.  Car and door are fine, but my plans to help out at the church maintenance drive that fell quite suddenly through.  I figured if I can't get out of the garage safely, I should not be handling a weed whacker. 



Boogaloo and I on the hayride.  See how much she was enjoying herself. 

It's not an easy thing to come to terms with being the mother of a preschooler, and a working mother at that.  Now twelve hours of the week are devoted to getting Boo ready, willing, and where she needs to be and back, and ten hours are devoted to earning the money to pay for it (and to replace my poor Buick).  I don't think I realized how much of our lives that would be or how much I relied on having that time. 

"It's my pumpkin." 

I can't be lazy anymore.  If I want to get aerobics in, I have to get up at 5 am and go running; I can't put on some music at 9:30 and bounce around my living room.  And I have to take the dog with me because otherwise, there isn't enough time for his morning walk.  If I want a nap, I have to set a timer.  If I want to read a book, I grab fifteen minutes between my shower and packing the backpack because it seems like every other minute of the day is booked. 

I have always heard that parents of preschoolers were incredibly busy, but I never quite gave credence to the idea that running one's children to and from would take up a considerable percentage of time.  And then there's the getting ready.  I won't mince words.  Boo really hates the concept of school.  She doesn't mind being there for a little while, but she hates the notion of being there at all.  So getting ready in the mornings is always a matter of dragging feet, going boneless, and making little excuses that come in half sentences and passive aggressive diversions.  She's already figured out how to play sick.  I know what she doesn't like: she doesn't like big groups.  And seeing as the social interaction is the main reason we're sending her to school, there's really no getting around that. 



Of course she's happy.  She suckered me into letting her get a
carameled apple.  I was going for the pumpkin honey. 

There are days when I feel like saying, "Fine.  We just won't go to school today.  Goodness knows you don't like it, and I have things I would rather do (like declutter that corner in the garage or dispose of the dead plants on the patio).  We'll just stay home."  Actually, I have one of those moments every school morning, and it's a bit of a struggle every time.  However, that would set a really bad precedent, both in her mind and mine.  Plus, we've seen some really brilliant progress since she started going to school.  We've had a couple of back and forth conversations this month, and she's spontaneously using phrases that she learned months ago that have been buried until now.  She's more confident with whole sentences, and oh, so many other things that back up my resolution to keep on till the end. 

I'm not sure what she'll say when she realizes that she has to do this again next year.   

Boogaloo sneaks around a corner in the haymaze.  I've seen that look
on her face many a school day morning. 

Home again, home again

We came home on Saturday and have bulled our way forward into October.  Thank you, Kelly, and also to the Ukrainian stranger on the plain, for your advice in overcoming jet lag.  It wasn't  completely  successful, but I haven't had any sleepless nights, and the days have been productive.  The Boo, of course, pays no heed to day or night but sleeps when the urge strikes her.  That wouldn't be so bad if she didn't wake and demand to eat when the urge strikes as well.  We are currently having breakfast at 4am and walking the dog round the block at 5.  It is pleasant to start the day with exercize, but I'm so dogone tired by noon that I wonder if it's worth it.

Coming home was an odd experience.  A friend picked us up at the airport, so I was free to look around as we drove home.  It didn't look like home.  The land was the wrong height.  The buildings were the wrongs shapes.  The sun set in the wrong way, and the sky was the wrong color blue.  I felt so out of my skin that I didn't really know where to look or how to settle.  Have we always wasted this much space?  Why don't we build more in brick? I felt like writing a letter to the editor and recommending that every stand alone grocery store put two or three levels of apartments on the top.  
I still feel odd when I look around, but it fades as the days go by.

Back in normal life, the Boo has had two days of preschool.  It's not her favorite thing.  Safe to say, she doesn't like following the crowd.  I've definitely got one that marches to her own beat.  She doesn't mind doing the things that the other kids are doing.  She just wants to do them in her own time, perhaps with a litte more self-directed free play in between.  We've started slow.  We go for half of the half-day.  Next week, we'll work our way up to a little more.  I'm sure it will be a necessary part of her week by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, but right now, not so much. 

Preparing to Leave

It's Wednesday.  We leave on Saturday.  Seth stays behind for another month, which means I'm leaving two parts of my soul behind.  Granted, a month is hardly enough time to put down roots, but it is enough time to test the soil, and I think I like it.  When we first started planning this trip, a month seemed like an extravagantly long time.  Now I'd like to stay a year or maybe even two.   I'd like to see the canals freeze over and maybe learn to ice skate.  I wouldn't mind brushing up on my cycling skills or learning the language by immersion (because I made almost no progress with my cds).  I'm going to miss the omnipresent brick buildings and the casual use of old world architecture, the flaky pastries and the tiny grocery stores. 

For the last week, we've been splurging a little.  I go shopping almost every day to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything that I "need" to take home.  I have new slippers, a couple of new sweaters, and a new pair of (gasp) skinny jeans.  We've gotten a few  souvenirs from every city we've been to and a small gift from each of the relatives.  I'm beginning to wonder how all of our stuff is going to make it home with us.  Seth says we can ship it, but that seems like cheating somehow. 

  We've also been splurging in the dietary department.  Every time either Seth or I go to the grocery store, it seems like we come home with yet another Dutch desert that we have to try.  We haven't found much in the way of uniquely Dutch food, at least not things that we don't find back home.  If anything, it seems that the Dutch love to eat out, as in food from somewhere else.  We find it's the little touches that make the simple food "Dutch," the most common touch being the incorporation of something from somewhere else.  Ham and cheese on foccia bread.  Goat cheese with honey and pine nuts sandwich.  Tomato soup with sausage, vegetables and noodles. Hamburgers without the bun.   But the deserts, the pastries in particular, are very Dutch.  At least I think they are.  They're like the treats on Beppe's coffee table but moreso. 

We're not sure what makes the deserts different, but they are somehow.  We stopped at a gas station and got some doughnuts, just some basic sugar-sprinkled doughnuts, Sunday morning (while we were getting lost), and we were shocked at how good they were.  "That was a really good doughnut," Seth said.  "Not just gas station good, but a really good doughnut."   And the ice cream (ijs) is almost universally soft serve, even the flavored stuff that comes from the store. It's less work to eat and more work to resist.  I had vowed to try every kind in the freezer section, but I didn't have enough time.  We've been collecting fudge cakes, baked apple rum balls, stroop waffles, peppernuts, and spongey little chocolate dipped cakes called mergpijpjes, which I'm starting to think means "dog biscuits".  Our snack shelf is pretty full, and I have to go to the grocery store and brave temptation again today.  All we really need is bread and cereal, but I'm pretty sure I'll come home with something sugary, unhealthy, and probably waffley.  A lot of Dutch sweets seem to come in the form of waffles. 

Going to the grocery store is one of the reasons that I wish I had learned a little more Dutch.  The people who told me that "everyone speaks English over there" were right.  Nearly everyone does.  But that doesn't help when I'm trying to read the back of the baking mix or a yogurt bottle or a juice syrup (because concentrate comes in syrups out here).  It doesn't help me understand sales, contests, advertisements, or no shoplifting signs (not that the last has been a problem).  And in the meat department, where everything kind of looks alike and the only ones I can be sure of are chicken and sausage, and they don't actually write koe (cow) or varken (pig) on the package because it's not a cow, it's a roast, well, it all becomes one to me, and I end up just grabbing whatever looks interesting.  Call it instinctive cooking. 

The same principle applies to street signs, advertisements, billboards, and the like.  I didn't realize until I came here how much of our general communication is done in writing.  Nothing makes me feel more like a tourist than walking down the street and being completely at a loss as to what I'm reading on random posters thrown up on an empty building or the sign in the shop window.  I get the gist of it simply because certain things always present themselves in certain ways. For instance, I know that korting means sale because it's always followed by a number and a percentage sign.  But the nuances that make people want to buy or reveal the social attitude toward the subject are missing.  There's one street sign that's been confuddling Seth and I since I got here.  It says "100% BOB, 0% op," and it has a big gold medal as the O.  We don't get it.   

Some of the bigger advertisements are in English, but all the signs in the stores are Dutch, and all the conversations are in Dutch or in some other language (Moroccan is a distinct possibility.), so heading to a shopping center is a good way to get a feel for being in a foreign country.  All around me, I see life going on in all its familiar phases.  People doing everyday things in their everyday way crowd around me.  I can see the activity.  I can understand the activity.  I probably share a lot of the activity.  But I can't understand what they're saying about it.  It's an odd feeling to stand in the middle of a public place and realize that I can't eavesdrop even if I want to.  It does make me feel alone. 

But it is impossible to stay on the outside when one has family in the area.  The biggest highlight of our trip has been meeting Beppe's many brothers and sisters, seeing their homes, hearing their stories, meeting their families, and building a few connections with these wonderful friendly people.  They say that once the Dutch welcome you into their homes, you are welcome there for life, and I believe it.  Much thanks to Teimin and Tinneka for entertaining Boogaloo and I while Seth was at work, to Kees and Rie for opening their home and showing us around Friesland, and to Gerben and Sietske and Arjan and Geerte for Sunday food and fellowship.  Thanks to all for lots of family history, advice for the tourist in us, and lots more sweet things.  You made the old homeland feel like home for a little while.  We are grateful.  We hope to see you all again, and if you're ever west of the Rocky Mountains, look us up.  We'd be glad to return the favor.   

Tooling around the Netherlands



The valley of the River Maas and the modern city of Maastrict.  Where else could one see church spires and cooling towers in the same panorama? 

This is our (Boogaloo's and my own) last weekend in the Netherlands, so we resolved to catch up on some things that slipped through our figners.  We spent Saturday in the St. Pietersberg caves, which aren't actually caves.  Our tour guide Paul made that quite clear.  The caves were limestone mines dating back to the 1200s because Maastrict is part of a prehistoric ocean scene that gave birth to a huge limestone plateau stretching all the way from Germany to the white cliffs of Dover, UK.  The River Maas put a hole in one side of the plateau and the River Jager cut up the other side, making Mt. St. Pietersberg in the middle.  Then the Romans came up the river Maas and put a city there.  "So," as our guide told us, "when people tell you that Maastrict is hill country, they are wrong.  It is actually [river] valley country." 

Fort St. Pietersberg, named after the mountain from which it was carved.  The fort was built in the days of Napoleon. 

The limestone mines around Maastrict stretch all the way into Belgium.  They have been used to smuggle soldiers and refugees during war time and butter, bread and wine in peace time, but originally, they were the source of the primary building material of the area. 

A drawing of the miner at work.  It must have been lonely work,
 not to mention the dangers of cave ins, getting lost, and hypothermia.
And yet it was their daily bread and butter.  Boggles the mind, doesn't it.  

Limestone is too expensive now, but it used to be the building material of choice, shipping as far as Austria.  Miners quarried out two to three 1x3 foot blocks a day (per person), slowly carving their way in.  When they had cut out as much as they could safely cut (before incurring "a short headache which you will never get again," said our guide), they cut the next layer down. Finally, when the cost of limestone made it obsolete, a vast labyrinth of eight foot wide tunnels existed under the ground. 

The limestone they didn't dare cut away. 

A child's drawing on the walls of the mines. 

After the mines were closed, they became a kind of communal property where people would go to reflect or wander or smuggle (I'm sure you can come up with other purposes.)  Kids used to play down here and draw pictures on the walls.   Artists made charcoal drawings on the damp limestone, delicate masterpieces that will last for centuries as long as no one leans against them. 

A hundred -year-old charcoal drawing of the miners paying homage to the Virgin Mary.  The drawing references a statue that stands in the church of the Virgin in Maastrict. 

On Sunday, we had a date with another of Beppe's relatives.  We arranged to go down to Giessenburg and visit Gerben and Sietske Wijnja, Beppe's oldest brother and his wife.  We were invited to show up anytime after 11:00, so we set out at 10:30 and expected to arrive right after church.  What we didn't count on was the possibility of road construction.  Actually, what we didn't expect is that they would completely shut down a major highway on a weekend.  Three times, we were blocked at a freeway entrance and ended up wandering around the country waiting for TomTom to pick up  a new route to the next freeway entrance.  Then we just figured that we were going to have to find a new route altogether. 

That hour would have been a complete waste if we hadn't been driving through the Dutch countryside, where all the buildings sport sloping, barnstyle roofs over homey brick walls and cobbled sidewalks, where the grass is perpetually green and the cows are perpetually clean, where roads barely wide enough for a car and a bicycle are flanked on both sides with perfectly spaced trees and flooded with scores of cyclists in matching jerseys, forcing us to go slow enough to see the flowers in the windows and realize that, yes, those are yearling swans swimming in those canals.  The sad thing is I don't have any pictures to share with you because I was too busy gaping out the window and drinking it all in (and negotiating with the TomTom) to remember that I had a camera in my lap.  The pictures you see are from our Saturday trip. 

Looking afar from the top of Ft. St. Pietersberg.

 



Seth, Arian, Boogaloo, myself, Geertje, Sietske, and Gerben. 

We did eventually make it to Giessenburg, where we met most of the cousins and grandkids on their way out the door.  I guess we just took too long.  We spent a long and lovely afternoon, drinking coffee and looking at family photos, sharing jokes and hearing history from Gerben and Sietske, who are both in their eighties.  They asked us to stay for lunch.  We had wonderful Dutch soup (tomato with sausage and noodle -- who'd have thought of that combination in America?  I have never seen it before) and fluffy Dutch pastry and were showered with little Dutch coffee delicacies by Sietzke and her daughter Geertje. 



Boogaloo discovers Gerben and Seitske's motorized elevator
chair.  It was as good as a theme park to her. 

Gerben and Sietske's house was once the town school.  Seitske cleaned it. 
Then, when the school had outgrown the school, and the Wijnjas had
outgrown their apartment (9 kids will do that to you), the school board offered
them this house in exchange for their continued services.   

As we were leaving, Geertje suggested that we detour through Kinderdijk (which has nothing to do with children) and see the antique windmills which are still used to pump water and house people.  Note: if you visit the kinderdijk, you are expected to park in the pay parking and walk to the windmills.  The residents don't appreciate having their parking pilfered.  We didn't realize that we were pilfering parking until the museum director corrected us. 

The windmills of Kinderdijk, which are still in operation. 

On the way to Kinderdijk, we saw a sign for Dordrecht, and being Dordt grads, we just had to go there.  (Dordrecht is the city where the Dutch Reformed churches defined the doctrines that the national church would follow, back when there were national churches.)  We set up the TomTom to go to the historic city center and once again ran into road construction.  In addition, we also found narrow roads, rain clouds, and no parking, so we didn't actually get any pictures of historic downtown Dordrecht, but I did get a nice picture of the train station, just to prove that we were there. 

On the way home, we ran into yet more road construction (Seth is prepared to swear that the Dutch as a populace hate cars.), and had to make a detour through Tilburg and come into Eindhoven from the other side.  We made it home in time to have more soup before turning on the first football game of the day.  Because Sunday, where you are, is just starting. 

Amsterdam

Autumn has come to the Netherlands.  I was startled to see the leaves start falling last week already, and I  had to remind myself that the NL is several degrees farther north than the PNW.  The temperature has dropped to about 60 degrees farenheit, and all the locals have dug out their coats and swapped their frothy scarves for scarves that might actually keep their necks warm.  As Seth puts it, it's good football weather. 

 

I was going to stun all my readers with beautiful pictures of our Amsterdam journey last weekend, but it turns out that a bus window is not the best way to see a city.  We signed up for a bus and boat tour because it promised to show us the most of the city.  I don't think their ideas of important matched up so well with our ideas of important.  For instance, I got the shock of my life while we were driving through a red light district (apparently there are three) when I saw a young woman posing in a window.  At first I thought she was a manikin for a lingerie shop.  Then we made eye contact.  That will bring the reality of legalized prostitution home in a hurry.   And we really didn't need to know where the most expensive houses in Amsterdam are.  The tours are mostly designed to show you where the sights are.  They don't really give you a chance to see the sights. 

 

 

We spent two hours on the bus, took a break for lunch, and then spent an hour on the boat.  By that point, the Boo had had enough, so we stopped at a candy shop and called it a day.  So my advice if you want to tour a foreign city would be figure out where you want to go, figure out how to use the public transportation, and then go where you want to go.  You'll save money, and you'll go where you want to go.  That's what Seth plans to do once we've gone home and he doesn't have to worry about the attention span of a four-year-old.  Am I jealous?  Yeah, a little. 

 

Here are some of the pictures that I did get:

 

This is Amsterdam Centraal Station where we arrivd a little after 9 o'clock in the morning to begin our tour.  We were kind of confused by the clocks at first until we realized that the one on the left tells wind direction, which given the number of boats moving in and out of the square in front of the station makes perfect sense. 

The Shipping House, a.k.a. the House of a Thousand Windows, once guardian to Amsterdam's Old Harbor. 

Sculptures of Renaissance and Classical gentlemen.  I found it ironic that they are on the outside of the Museum of Modern Art. 

Point of interest: the buildings alongside the canals lean when air gets at their support posts.   

Old and picturesque defense tower.

The shortest canal in all of Amsterdam.  I love taking pictures of water.

This is how you get Rembrandt to take your picture.  The windmill in back is called "Rembrandt's Windmill" because he often went there for inspirtation. 

 

The Rijks Museum, national art museum of the Netherlands.

The Van Gogh Museum, which our tour guide called the "Van Gog" museum.  I thought Van Gogh was the Dutch pronunciation.  Maybe not.  This is one of those places that Seth will be coming back to.  I told him to get me a poster.

The N.E.M.O. or science and technology museum. 

The Tower at the Sharp Curve in the Wall which has somehow become The Weeping Tower over time.  The names in Dutch are very similar.  One devolved into the other.  Still, the name "Weeping Tower" sounds like it would have a story behind it, and it doesn't. 

The Royal Palace

Boogaloo tackles an enormous shoarma hamburger, and yes, she did finish the whole thing.