Krees goes Dutch Kiwi!

Names we will NOT be giving our child

Some of you may be curious what we will be naming the baby. Hell, WE'RE curious what we'll be naming the baby. We now occasionally refer to it as "Scotch," but more often than not it's just "Baby."

While we haven't come to any concrete decisions about what to name it, there are definitely some names we are NOT considering. I know some of these may be crushing to read, but...

If the baby is a boy we will NOT be naming it:

• Laquan (American: a combination of the prefix La + Quan)
• Torkel (Swedish: Thor's cauldron)
• Ronald Reagan ("The Gipper")
• Ozzie (English: a familiar form of Osborn, Oswald)
• Binky (English: a familiar form of Bancroft, Vincent)
• Engelbert (Humptybert Slaptyback, Fats Boomwallah...)
• Shangobunni (Yoruba: gift from Shango)
• Sting (English: spike of grain. Tolkein: Frodo's sword. And of course, Sting-a-ling-a-ding-dong: former lead singer of The Police!)
• Aubergine (eggplant)
• Saber (French: sword)
• Monkeywrench (you know...monkey wrench)
• Alvar (English: army of elves)
• Optimus Prime (Cybertron: leader of the Autobots)

If the baby is a girl, she will NOT be called:

• Aubergine (last we checked, still means eggplant)
• Chastity (Latin: pure. This is a stripper's name.)
• Charity (Latin: charity, kindness. See: Chastity)
• Unika (American: a form of Unique. Uh-huh.)
• Desdemona (Shakespearean: killed by jealous husband)
• Aja (Hindi: goat)
• Siko (African: crying baby. Why would you do this to yourself?)
• Ronaele (Greek: the name Eleanor spelled backwards. Seriously, this was in our baby names book.)
• Harmony (after all, we are not hippies)
• Gladys (This is an old woman's name.)
• Planaria (a lovely word but, sadly, a flatworm)

Haute cuisine

This is my current favorite sandwich, but it would probably beat out bologna any day. I call it the Triple Threat, partially because it scares the dickens out of Charles.

Start with a plate. (Look familiar, Aunt Alice?)

Use two slices of bread:

Spread peanut butter on one slice. (Peanut butter is called "pindakaas" here. This translates to "peanut cheese." How Dutch.)

On the other slice, Nutella:

And finally, the piece de resistance: banana!

Finish making a proper sandwich out of it, and you've got yourself a lunch!

Mmmmm!

Note that I haven't categorized this post under "Pregnancy." This sandwich isn't one of those weird pregnancy craving things. Yes, this is something I would truly enjoy eating if I wasn't pregnant. But Charles is still appalled. And that makes me smile.

In the Netherlands, the postman doesn't ring at all!

It seems that, in the Netherlands, if you want to maintain privacy even in your own home, you best LOCK your door.

The first person to enter our house without knocking was our next door neighbor Rudy. One day he just walked in the back door and said, "Hello!" I was pretty weirded out by this. I didn't know him hardly at all and didn't know if I needed to be wary or afraid of him, or if he had simply known the owners well enough that this was something he normally did with them and thought (oddly) that he could do so with us.

The second time it happened, back in September or so, it was a repairman who'd come to look at the clothes dryer - only this time it was at the side door. (There isn't a formal front door on this house.) He just opened the door and said, "Hallo?" I figured, well, there's no doorbell and maybe they don't believe in knocking. Who's to say?

And it happened again today! I was getting ready to go to work, heard the side door open and a man say, "Hallo?" Funny, my first thought was that it must be Rudy! But I stepped into the hall and saw the  mailman standing in the doorway with a small package to deliver to Charles.

Do these people never walk around their houses naked or leave the bathroom door open? Or do they just not care about privacy?

On the road again...

Charles is headed to Cologne (Köln / Keulen) next week for work. At the recommendation of my dear friend Betsy, I'm going, too! Maui has his reservation with Gerdien where he's going to have fun fun fun running around with the border collies for a couple days, and I will probably try to see the Cologne Cathedral, the chocolate museum and who knows what else.

Charles may also go to Edinburgh at the end of March. I've never been, and it might be our last chance for a weekend getaway before the baby comes. I will be 32 weeks at that point. Should I go?

It's about time!

FINALLY - winter seems to have arrived in the Netherlands. We've had all the rain so far that's supposedly typical of Dutch winters, but temperatures have been up in the 50's (F) rather than the 40's where they ought to be. But there was actually a good, hard frost this morning with a skin of ice in the ditches and in the chickens' water bowl. There were even a few snow flakes as I took Maui out for his walk. But the best part? The sun was shining, too! And it's actually still daylight at 5pm now.

AND ALSO FINALLY - we can feel the baby kicking! I've been feeling something for a couple weeks now but wasn't certain if it was movement or just muscle twinges or, well to be honest, gas. But now I recognize good, strong thumps that even Charles can feel. It's surprising how hard it is not to bust out with a loud "HA!" whenever it happens.

Wild (yet mild) weather

You may have heard about the storm that blew through here last week. There were wind speeds up to 100-130 kmh (60-80 mph), but most of the serious damage was reported in the southwest and west of the country. There are some impressive photos in the paper from Amsterdam where roof tiles were pulled off buildings and downed trees crushed cars. We had some trees down out here in Drenthe, and water levels were quite high in the canals and ditches, but no serious damage at the house.

In the meantime, it's been a strangely warm winter so far. The average high for this time of year is about 5 degrees Celcius (about 40 degrees Fahrenheit), but we've had highs of about 11-13 degrees Celcius (low 50's Fahrenheit). It hasn't been good weather, per se, what with the constant wind and rain, but I've actually seen crocuses starting to bloom already. It makes me wonder what will happen with the tulip crops if we don't get a real winter soon.

Happy "Wish-day" to me!

Charles and I were in Ireland a year ago. He had a meeting for a couple days in Dublin, extended his itinerary, I tagged along, and we made a great vacation out of it!

It was one year ago today, during one of Charles' meeting days, that I took a little side trip down to Dalkey with Randy, the son of one of Charles' colleagues. We walked down through the village, along the water, up through a residential area and up Killiney Hill.

At the top of Killiney Hill is an obelisk and a "wishing stone." Supposedly if one walks around each of the levels of the stone and then makes a wish at the top while looking toward Dalkey village, the wish will come true.

I had a momentary internal debate about my wish. It was fruitless to wish for something that I knew wouldn't come true, so why bother? But then again that's what wishes are for, aren't they? No one will ever criticize you for wasting a wish. So I wished.

Randy had gotten a head-start on me, and since I accidentally did one of the levels twice (oops!), he was already back on the ground and taking a photo of the stone just as I was making my wish. He said he'd send it to me if my wish came true.

Well...one year later... I've got the photo.

Just like the ice capades...but with fewer feathers

ASTRON and JIVE are hosting the ESTRELA workshop for astronomy PhD students this week, and part of the budget includes entertaining these poor young people in Drenthe during their stay. Last night's social outing was to De Smelt in Assen for dinner (blargh!) and ice skating. Ice skating! We had to go.

Everyone assumed I wouldn't skate. What?!? A little pregnancy keep me off the ice? I grew up skating -- first it in endless circles on roller skates in Jenny Rasmussen's basement on Pollock Road (the Eurythmic's "Sweet Dreams" playing in the background). Then it more endless circles in Jodi Roche's basement on Boutell (Duran Duran's "Seven and the Ragged Tiger"). Then it was onto the ice on the pond behind our subdivision for a few more winters.

As an adult I've hardly skated - just a couple trips to the Ice Cube and once last year to Buhr Park for Beejoo's birthday. But I haven't fallen since I was a kid, and I don't feel as though my balance has been compromised yet (knock on wood!) by the pregnancy. So off I went to Assen.

While we ate dinner, I tried to ignore all the rainbow spandex-clad people hurrying in and out the door. There was obviously some sort of competitive team skating practice that also went on here, requiring the Dutch to wear corporate-sponsored outfits with matching athletic bags. But surely there would be a rink for us separate from where they all were practicing.

Nope! The "rink" was actually a track. An oval ice track, open in the center to the heavens (you know, for sending up prayers and all), and around it at least a couple hundred speed skaters zipped around on their fancy, long-bladed clap skates.

Fortunately for us, and in particular those in our group who'd never been on skates before, there was plenty of room around the outside of the track to mosey along at our own easy paces without getting in the way of the more aerodynamic people. The rental skates were also all long-bladed, but they still had the stiff hockey- or downhill ski-style boots for great ankle support. They're more difficult to turn and stop in, but I kept my distance from the people in front of me and didn't have any problems.

And it was good exercise! I just sort of set off on my own, circling circling circling (without, I'm sad to say, the company of Annie Lennox or Simion LeBon), and I didn't even realize I was working until I stepped off the ice and noticed my heart rate was up a little bit. So easy!

Charles, of course, had a great time, too, and showed everyone what a great, zippy skater he was. Our colleague Lisa said to me, "He's got a little bit of a 12 year-old in him, doesn't he?" I said, "He's got a LOT of 12 year-old in him. For better or worse!" 

We might have to go back.

Update: Charles took a few photos, but we haven't uploaded them yet. For a photo of the ESTRELA students, ASTRON/JIVE employees and a few significant others who tagged along, check out the ASTRON Daily Image. Note the long skate blades but not a shred of lycra/spandex in the bunch!

What to look for when buying a house

Charles and I are house shopping. We actually haven't yet decided whether to rent or buy, but for now we're just looking to see what's available and when. We have such interesting time restrictions with the baby's arrival in May and Ger's return in August. (I'd rather not move with a two month-old baby, but someone has to stay at the house and feed the chickens until he gets back!)

We met with a real estate agent Wednesday and toured a house in Dwingeloo yesterday. It's small (2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths) but ended up being quite a nice place at an attractive price. It appears to be well-maintained with a recently-remodeled kitchen, good-sized living room, nice upstairs bathroom, enclosed back yard, straight stairs we could actually get our gigantic American mattress up (bonus!), and it's located in a nice neighborhood very close to the office.

The house has two drawbacks, though. The first is that the back garden is on the small side, and there's only about a 6x12' patch of grass for Maui to do his business in. But at least it has some grass (unlike some of the places I've seen online, including the house we're scheduled to tour Monday). And it's close to some large fields where I've seen lots of dog-walking going on in the mornings.

The second drawback we didn't even notice until our second or third look through the kitchen.

THERE'S NO OVEN.

Seriously. The current owners use a combination microwave/convection oven which seems pretty common here. I understand that the Dutch don't do much cooking in their ovens; they don't seem to have the meat roasting tradition we do in the States, preferring instead to cook their meat on the stove. But they still bake bread. They still sell frozen pizzas at the grocery store. I can understand that maybe the current owners don't cook much or never use an oven. But wouldn't you think that if you're going to do a nice remodel of a kitchen that you would at least think that not having an oven - even a small one - would be a hindrance to selling the house to someone else in the future?!? Crazy.

Surprise!

On Christmas Day the Yun clan all trooped over to the movie theater to see The Good Shepherd. At one point during the movie, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon!) says, "My life has been full of surprises." I stopped paying attention for a few minutes, thinking about my own life. Maybe it hasn't been full of surprises, but the few I've had have been pretty big ones. First there was the surprise of watching my relationship with Charles unfold into something longer than the two-week fling we thought it would be. Then there was the surprise (more or less) of realizing we would probably never be able to have children of our own. Then the surprise of moving to the Netherlands. Then, surprise surprise, finding out I was pregnant after all!

And tonight, a smaller but no less wonderful or appreciated surprise: a baby shower thrown by my Ann Arbor friends whom I've missed so much these past five months! I was so much looking forward to getting together with them anyway. And to be honest, I suspected they were planning something. But I thought it was just a gift -- something they had knit, or maybe bought at the store because of the short notice.

But Merrill and I walked into Erik & Julie's house, and there were Jen & Michelle (not normally part of the knitting circle), Carrie H., Carrie B., Giedra and Beth with food and decorations and a whole slew of generous gifts that I wouldn't have suspected in a million years!  There were baby books galore, including my own favorites The Poky Little Puppy and Guess How Much I Love You?, plus awesome knit items, the best diaper bag in the world (according to Carrie B.), outfits, a Boppy and money for Charles and I to do some shopping on our own.

I'm sorry that it took moving to the Netherlands to learn to appreciate what good friends I left back in Ann Arbor. But it won't be anytime soon that I forget the friendship and support I felt from their generosity tonight. I love you guys!