Krees goes Dutch Kiwi!

Hard drinkin' woman

This is the kind of social life I miss back home! (Sorry, Mom & Dad. But I really do like a good Scotch. Neat. And deviled eggs with blue cheese and bacon dip sounds really good.)

This New York Times article may require registration, but it's free and they've never sent me any spam.

boeket

bouquet

Happy Anniversary!

And today is our fourth wedding anniversary! Too bad Charles is in Poland, but that's okay. He'll be back tomorrow.

According to Wikipedia, gift ideas for the fourth wedding anniversary are linen or silk (American), fruit or flowers (British) or appliances (modern). I picked up a bouquet of beautiful pink and purple flowers at the bloemenhuis down the street yesterday, so we're good in the British department!

Happy herfst!

Autumn (herfst) is a dangerous time to be walking the streets of Diever all alone! The chestnuts are falling. And when one falls, it usually comes down through several branches, bringing with it any other loose chestnuts along the way. You could be knocked out cold by a falling chestnut, and no one would know but the horses!

This is a good thing for Maui, though. He's discovered that he LOVES chestnuts. Acorns, too. Just as he vowed to rid Ann Arbor of all evil sticks lying in wait on the sidewalks and streets, he's doing his part to rid the streets of Diever of as many chestnuts and acorns as he can. But not without playing with them first when we kick them down the street. Some animal has to do the dirty work of picking up all the trees' detritus. After all, there aren't any squirrels around to do it.

On "home"

"We've been here two months," I said.

"Does it still feel like camp?"

"It'll feel like camp until every last spider in that house is dead."

I hab a code

This stinks! I started coming down with a cold yesterday.

My nose isn't actually stuffed up yet, but I've got a bit of a cough, some phlegm, a sore throat, a drippy nose and I'm exhausted. Blech. I suspect "No, Maui!" will become "Doe, Bauwey!" in the very near future.

At least Charles brought back some yummy caffeine-free herbal tea from the States with him. And some guilty-pleasure horrible American fashion magazines, too. So I've spent the evening hanging out on the couch wondering who in the world thought it was a good idea to bring back skinny pants. Damn you, Kate Moss! Just when I was getting uber-comfy in my boot-cut jeans.

Lang zal ze leven!

Happy Birthday, Merrill! If you were here (or I were there), I would sing you the Dutch birthday song! As an inadequate substitution, I will copy and paste the words here and link you to the Laura Speaks Dutch site where you can learn it yourself and hear it sung! (Skip to around 4:20 for just the singing.)

Lang zal ze leven!
Lang zal ze leven!
Lang zal ze leven in de gloria!
In de gloria!
In de gloria!

CHEERING: Hieper de piep HOERA! (3X times or as many times as the age)

Ze leve hoog, ze leve hoog!
Ze leve hoog, ze leve hoog!
Ja, hoog!
Ze leven hoog!

Hieper de piep HOERA!
-Krees

eiren te koop

eggs for sale

Perk to moving here

Huh - I seem to have lost some weight since we got here. I put on some dress slacks that I bought to start my old-new job back in March, and they're too big! They were a little loose in the waist to begin with, but now it feels if I don't keep hiking them up I'm going to end up losing them in the office. Not good!

Speaking of dropping trou... We're having gorgeous weather this week. It was sunny and low 70's yesterday. And apparently that's warm enough for the five year-old boy next door to have been jumping around the sidewalk buck naked. I think his mother was laughing at him.

dierenarts

veterinarian

Question of the day:

Do Dutch chickens like Brussels sprouts? Apparently not as much as fresh courgette (zucchini) from the garden.

But they seem to be returning to their previous schedule of laying an egg every-other day or so.  Rudy from next door mentioned that they might have stopped laying because they were molting. Aha! That also explains all of Vrouw Pecker's loose feathers in the coop! She's just been saved from being shipped off to Merrill as a birthday present.

in the waiting room

When you enter the waiting room for your local veterinarian or doctor, give a quick "Goede morgen" or "Dag" to the others who are already there. There likely won't be a reception desk to sign in, so note who's ahead of you and wait your turn. If you're a new patient, you might need to enter the office to find an assistant who will give you new paperwork to complete.

I fished my dog out of a canal today

I thought I found such a great place yesterday for walking Maui off-leash: a 2.5 km stretch bordered by a wide canal on one side and weeds, a ditch and fenced pasture on the other. I figured the only problem would be keeping him from jumping the barbed-wire to get to the sheep and cows.

So I drove him over to Dieverbrug this afternoon, parked in the carpool lot by the drawbridge and started walking up the path. Once we'd passed the dogs at the first house and the boat moored nearby, I unhooked him from the leash. He ran around for about a half-kilometer, sniffing around, chasing bugs and whatnot. And then !splash! into the canal. He had a nice little swim and a drink of water until he turned back toward the bank and realized he couldn't get out on his own. (Gosh, maybe that's why I was yelling at him?)

It was a good thing I'd tightened his harness before we left, and better yet that he picked a spot where the ground isn't too high off the water. I flopped down on my belly, grabbed him by the harness and hauled him out.

The damn dog won't jump into the fountain in front of the Michigan League (one foot deep and you can see the bottom), but he'll take a flying leap into a dark canal the first chance he gets. I'm taking him to the vet this evening to get an EU pet passport and won't feel the least bit sorry if the vet shoves a thermometer up his butt.

Is there a doctor in the village?

Yes! But if you live in a small town like ours, don't be surprised if there's only one doctor's office. That's the only one you can go to. Don't like the doctor? Prefer to go to the doctor in the village where you work? Too bad! They'll send you back to the doctor in your home village. And what if your village is growing so fast that the only doctor isn't accepting new patients? Hope you never get sick! (The good news, according to a coworker who lives in our same village, is that he and his family happen to like our only doctor. When they've been sick, he's made house calls to them after his rounds in the afternoon, even when they haven't asked him to. Yes, doctors here also make house calls.)

mannelijke hond

male dog