Hibernation

Sunday 30 November 2008 at 10:47 pm Or so i'd wish... I will disappear from the face of the earth for a little while though, but don't worry i'll be back soon(ish)!

An agile mind

Sunday 30 November 2008 at 8:18 pm I now know what's wrong with me. I'm a scientist by Clifford Stolls' definition: "Once I do something, I want to do something else" Lees verder

New addictions

Sunday 30 November 2008 at 12:49 am

Like some of you already know, i got a tendency to get addicted to things quite easily. The newest addiction:

Millinery

Happy birthday!

Saturday 29 November 2008 at 12:36 pm A quarter of a century. Loesje. Way to go girl!

Candy

Saturday 29 November 2008 at 12:48 am Just to stay with the spirit of cookies and holidays: I've never been a great one for eating candybars, but i thought it wouldn't harm me to try out some new things. Amongst the new favourites are dark chocolate M&M's, Twix with a chocolate cookie and peanut butter, and York peppermint patties. (and no i haven't gained that much weight yet )

Distances

Friday 28 November 2008 at 09:57 am

Home alone. Normally not a problem. But now I feel alone too. Which is a problem.

It's not that I don't have loving people around, it's that I miss the ones that are not around. And offcourse I can email or use google chat. But it's different. To talk late at night. To walk together and go windowshopping. To drink tea and make some more tea. Just a quick call to ask how the day has been. To get a real *hug*. Strange, 'coz I don't remember it bothered me like this before. Something has changed, and besides time and distance, I guess it's me. 

Luckily, Einstein proved distances and time relative...

Cookies

Friday 28 November 2008 at 12:24 am You can find them in every country and i love them. Shops like euroland, poundland, or family dollar. Not only because they are cheap, but also cos you can find some amazing foods from other countries. Yesterday's catch: SPECULAASJES.

A day at work (40)

Thursday 27 November 2008 at 5:43 pm

Today, I asked a 90 year old lady, with an early stage of Alzheimers' disease, if she had ever had a hallucination. "No, I don't think I have," she said. However, her husband disagreed. "It's not that she truly hallucinated, but... ehm... she used to be able to... ehm... know that things would happen, before they happened. Do you understand? She would tell me things beforehand and she was always right. Never seen her to be wrong. But now I think of it, it stopped when the Alzheimer started."

A good lunch

Wednesday 26 November 2008 at 1:43 pm

Learned a thing or two in Italy, like 'a good, delicious lunch can be simple (and cheap)'. This one for instance: tomato stuffed with mozzarella cheese with basil, salt and pepper and baked for 10 minutes in a hot oven. A new favourite.

A day at work (39)

Tuesday 25 November 2008 at 10:28 am

A nurse saw an adult man and an adult woman french-kiss, normally not a problem (but not always a pleasant sight). But the woman was a patient... she might look like a 30 year old but due to a traffic accident she has the mental age of a 10 year old. And the man was her father.

Later, another nurse discovers that the woman/child sleeps in the bed with her father when her mother isn't home.  

The MD in charge talked to the man, he denied everything (as was expected I guess). Somehow someone decided to let it be... no-one pressed charges. Incredible. Stupid. Unbelievable. Wrong. And I know about it, and can't do a thing about it. It's not my confidentiality that's bothering me ('coz in cases like this you're expected to breach the confidentiality), it's that I don't know where this happened, when it happened and who it happened to. I just know it did.

Somedays work sucks.

New addictions

Monday 24 November 2008 at 04:48 am

Like some of you already know, i got a tendency to get addicted to things quite easily. The newest addiction:

Millinery

White world (2)

Sunday 23 November 2008 at 10:06 pm

It's snowing. Again. Every season has it's pro's and con's. But one of the big plusses of winter is snow. (Besides offcourse the time to bake goodies in the kitchen, drink hot chocolat and the joy of eating parsnip). Snow makes me relax. Makes me smile. Don't you just want to go outside? 

Snowball fight, anyone?

Close-up card magic

Sunday 23 November 2008 at 10:20 am

"I do it quick, but in slowmotion, so you can follow"

Sinterklaas

Saturday 22 November 2008 at 3:33 pm

Like the Dutchies amongst us (and the Brits that have known me for a while) probably know, St Nick arrived in the Netherlands last week. Trying to explain my favourite Dutch holiday to Americans turns out to be quite difficult, they all find it pretty racist. Luckily i came across this. Now i only have to convince them that this is not something Mr. David Sedaris made up as part of his show, but that it actually -is- true...

Public transportation

Saturday 22 November 2008 at 1:41 pm

The first one closed his doors right in front of me, and left. The second one had only malfunctioning cardmachines, so the driver advised me to buy a ticket in a nearby store. And when I came back, he closed the doors right in front of me, and left. The third one had working cardmachines, so I had bought a useless ticket... nice guys!

I know they're just doing their jobs, but if I were doing my job the way they're doing theirs, I would have a lot of angry patients...

White world

Saturday 22 November 2008 at 08:27 am It's a bit early this year, but the thing falling from the sky is definetely snow!

Cooking inspiration

Friday 21 November 2008 at 3:51 pm

'Coz he can explain it way better than I can: what's wrong with what we eat.

Holiday

Friday 21 November 2008 at 02:43 am He convinced me to come and visit him for the weekend. After struggling with the reservation for the flight (i mean how many times does one has to spell one's name, and the other foreigner still gets it wrong?!?!?!), some frustration about the billing procedure, and the initial upset when i was told an hour after booking the flight that the dates might change, i'm now on my way to Miami, where i'll hopefully enjoy the sun, sea, rest, and good company. Will give y'all an update after the weekend. Have a good one!

2 ladies

Thursday 20 November 2008 at 03:00 am

"Girl, you looked like you've walked out straight of a Dickens' play"

"Or out of that show they're running over at the Brown's Theatre. What's it called?"

"Pirates of Penzance?"

"Yeah exactly like one of those characters!"

*silence*

"Actually... are them pyjama-bottoms you're wearing?"

Blackmailing oneself

Tuesday 18 November 2008 at 3:30 pm "If I've read 500 titles, I'm allowed to read 1 email."

Curry

Tuesday 18 November 2008 at 04:38 am I'm used to the Indian type of curry that you make with lots of spices that you can find in my cupboard (when i arrived in the States i decided i was only getting a few. Well i didn't manage (i mean: who can live with only 4 different types of herbs and spices for 6 months???)). However, thanks to my new library card and the wonderful book i borrowed i managed to make a Seychelle curry. Very different from what i'm used to, but it still asks for lots of other spices one can also find in my cupboard, so i guess i'm sorted

Growing

Monday 17 November 2008 at 03:51 am A few weeks ago my friend showed me a herb nursery. And of course i had to take something home with me, but since i only had 1 empty pot at home i could only buy one plant. So i took Melissa (off) home with me. I wasn't sure if she would survive, but she is doing great! I actually almost need a new pot for her. Her smell, her taste, and her calming presence makes that i'm feeling more at ease during these hectic times.

Start-of-the-deerhunting-season/thanksgiving dinner

Sunday 16 November 2008 at 03:28 am And uncle 'house-ape' told me to tell y'all about the hillbillies i spend the day with, whilst uncle JR said i had to tell you about the rednecks. So to keep my promise i can tell you that i had a wonderful, satisfying day in the Hoosier national forest, with lots of nice, very nice food, and lots of good company and lots of laughter (and a fireplace!).

Progress

Saturday 15 November 2008 at 04:04 am Hooray!! Isn't it great that your data matches and you've got two groups that are exactly alike? Almost to good to be true! We now have to see if we get the results we expect to see... or would that be too much to ask for?

Cauliflower-chocolate soup

Friday 14 November 2008 at 8:44 pm (Yes, you've read it right: a cauliflower and chocolate soup.) It wasn't my idea though, I used the recipe from Frank. He has served it to my grandma once, and she loved it, so I couldn't stay behind, could I? The result was strange... my brain kept telling me this combination couldn't work. But it did, the soft creaminess of the cauliflower is a good contrast to the dark, more bitter chocolate half of the soup. Try it, as a starter is my advice.

Starting from scratch

Friday 14 November 2008 at 03:45 am

"Quark?"
"What's that?!!?"
"How do you pronounce it?"
"What do you use it for?"

Just a few of the questions i was asked when i asked if i could buy that in this country. Well, apparently you can't. So what does one do? Right: you make it yourself. Not the traditional way (i wanted it NOW), but the quick one (next time i'll try the longer one). Cos sometimes you just want to make a 'quick' quark pie. Well, it took me about a day. And then of course i didn't get the stiffness right, and it turned out to be a lot less sweeter... but still nice... and it gave me a very good reason to go to the fabric store and buy some cheesecloth amongst other things (will be continued...)

New!

Thursday 13 November 2008 at 9:10 pm What do you do at full moon? I bought myself a new Macbook... 

Art-thingies

Thursday 13 November 2008 at 12:52 am For those who wonder what I'm doing on wednesday, I 'm doing a  design course... at the local art academy. Different from what I thought it would be, but real relaxing to do. Most of the times, I do not have a 'product' which I can show you. But today I've got something which can be photographed. The theme was 'recycle' so I used some industrial waste products and we were asked to make some jewellery. Don't know if I'll ever wear them but I do like the idea's behind them. The experiments:

Fladderac

Wednesday 12 November 2008 at 6:19 pm

While we were drinking Limoncello in Italy, she posted about making some. It made me remember the time I made Fladderac with my mom. Fladderac is a alcoholic drink from the nothern region of the Netherlands made with lemons and sugar. The taste is quite similar to Limoncello but in my memory the Fladderac just tasted better. But it could be just my memory... so to try the difference, I decided to make some Fladderac today. Now I have to wait two weeks to taste the result and I just have to remember the taste of Limoncello to compare properly...

Take II: retry the doubtfull success

Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 7:18 pm

Remember the failed dish? (Which he lovingly called 'inedible'?) Well, I agree the form was a total failure, but I like the taste. Or at least, the way the recipe should taste, the way I thought it would have tasted. So, I tried again. Changed the recipe a bit. When he wasn't home, 'coz I wouldn't dare to serve him something that resembled the failed thing. Especially if it would fail again, he would laugh at me (real mean and loud). And he would be right to do so... but he's not home. So I'm the only one laughing.

This dish has a life of it's own. And it went everywhere, like a shape-shifting-tart. I guess my rim wasn't high enough to keep the rising-egg in. But after a quick trim, it looked and tasted a whole lot better than the first try. It was actually edible. And quite tasty, or at least, I think so. Although, I don't know if I dare to try again. It left me with a whole lot of oven to clean...

Google

Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 02:04 am My colleague and i try to learn something new every day. Normally that involves something along the lines of checking out the constituents of spinach or tomatoes using wikipedia, experiments like sectioning a banana (i didn't know it consists of 3 longitudinal sections), or like today: looking at a Mountain dew ad and wondering about that one animal that looks like a gremlin, close to the end of the commercial. So after some fruitless searches (i thought it was a grey mouse lemur at first), we ended up typing in "animals that look like gremlins", and there it was (you have to scroll down quite a bit to where it says: tarsier). That made me wonder: what kind of searches do people actually enter into these machines? Must be pretty funny to see a record of the most weird and wonderful searches *grin *

A week of baking

Monday 10 November 2008 at 10:19 am

He wanted to cook & bake. I love to cook & bake. So we cooked & baked between the windowshopping and site-seeing. Here's an incomplete list of the things we made (in just five days):

Grandmother's applepie. Pizza. Pumpkinpie with feta and walnuts. Ravioli with spinach served with a mushroom-cheese sauce. Lasagne. Tomatos stuffed with mozzarella cheese and basil. Butternut squash soup with ginger. Popcorn. Banana-ginger cake. Loads of tea. Two cocktails.

Finally...

Monday 10 November 2008 at 03:28 am

... some more pics (after some time/hard drive/data stick probs)

Some of the ones i wanted to post last week:

Some i wanted to post after the power cut (the one in September):

(plus on this one you can see the panel that came down)

(The orange extension cable actually came from the neighbour's)

So wrong...

Sunday 09 November 2008 at 03:39 am

... it's almost right again...

About last week

Sunday 09 November 2008 at 12:17 am

When I wrote this, I was sitting in the train in Milan not knowing the week would become more strange within a few hours...

The train left Milan with a delay of an hour. By the time I woke up for the eleventh time (didn't sleep that well: the lights went off at a quarter to five and on again at ten past five) the delay was over two hours. Somewhere between Bonn and Kohl (Germany) somebody jumped in front of the train, which did no good to our delay. After standing still for two hours, we started moving again. But the train didn't go very far. It was cancelled at Kohl so I needed to find some other way home. After another two hour waiting in Kohl I took the ICE to Amsterdam. Home with a delay of more than five hours, and a hell of a story to tell.

No gruesome details, luckily there was a notartz from the Deutsche Bahnhof so they didn't need me (although I did offer three times, after all I have taken an oath). No bloodspatters or bodyparts stuck to the windows (although I was in the foremost carriage) and we weren't allowed outside the train. Most of the trainpersonnel did see the result, 'coz some of them were quite panicky. It was definetely ruled suicide by the polizei and it was succesful.

When they were clearing the tracks, I talked with an American named Brant. Which was just as bizarre as someone jumping in front of my train. He was just a few years younger than me, going to university major in 20th century history. We talked about the elections, he was a republican which made it quite interesting. As he said "I'm not a racist, but where I come from the blacks just don't like the white and the white don't like the blacks". (Something I only know from history lessons and movies.) Talked about other things too, like socialism, carrying weapons and global warming. He did like the principle of socialism, and he liked to visit Europe 'coz somehow we made it work. But it wouldn't work in the States, he said. Middleclass people just didn't like to see their money go to the lower class, and there are a lot of middleclass people in the States. In his opinion the right to carry arms is a good thing, 'coz when they first came to the States they were forced to defend their land from the people who already lived there (?!). Ow, and he "just didn't believe in global warming."

It was a real interesting talk, but left me with a bit of a culture shock. Which is, offcourse, to be preferred above the shock some others in the train had...

So I went to Italy

Saturday 08 November 2008 at 3:14 pm

To visit a friend. We talked and walked, went out for window shopping four times. We cooked, talked some more and laughed. Ate 'till we were completely stuffed. We baked pies, made popcorn and watched some movies. We drunk a whole lot of cappuccino and even more tea. Some limoncello as well. Said a lot of 'caio' 'grazie' and 'arriverdeci'. But we didn't say goodbye, we just hugged. He skipped back to his car and I took my seat in the train.

What a week.

Second lesson

Friday 07 November 2008 at 8:37 pm As said, good weather isn't necessary on a holiday, but it does make your pictures some what more alive. I didn't have the good weather with me all the times, but I did have him with me. He can do magic with Photoshop... who needs the sun?

Dancing-card

Friday 07 November 2008 at 04:10 am I must admit that i got a slight ego-boost today. I went contradancing for the fourth time, and i already had a waiting-list on my dancing-card...

Left-overs

Thursday 06 November 2008 at 02:35 am

What does one do with lemons left-over from making limoncello? Right, you pickle them. In a month i'll let y'all know how this project tastes...

Thousand layers

Wednesday 05 November 2008 at 6:20 pm Okay, so what does a girl do on a not-so-free-Sunday-am? Baking a spekkoek. There's a lot of waiting involved and your house warms up quite nicely... Never got to the 1000-layers, but don't want to imagen how long that would have taken me!!!

Lesson

Wednesday 05 November 2008 at 09:44 am The thing I appriciate most (now I'm in Italy), are the wise words from Allan 'it doesn't matter how bad the weather is, it's how good your clothes are.'

Elections

Tuesday 04 November 2008 at 04:21 am Even though i'm not allowed to vote, i did my best and convinced as many people as possible to go and vote. It's interesting to note the differences in approach though. A lot of people won't tell you who they're voting for, but they might tell you indirectly; whilst others are wearing T's proclaiming the candidate they support. However, everybody i've spoken to so far dreads the outcome. Either way history will be made and we'll have to see whether or not that'll be a good thing. Just another day and we'll have to see what happens...

Another Friday-baking

Monday 03 November 2008 at 12:16 am Okay, so last Friday my housemate pestered me into some baking. We made something i would never have thought of... a layer of coconut cookies mixed with butter, layered with some sweetened condensed milk, layered with some peanuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and dessicated coconut. Not the kind i'd normally make and not sure if i'll repeat this experiment ever again. Very interesting, very sweet, very rich...

The weather

Sunday 02 November 2008 at 12:02 am After a very cold spell last week, i'm now walking around happily in my summer dress again... Feels rather weird. Strange weather. Went for a lovely stroll in the park and used his camera to take great pics (although you couldn't really see the beauty of the colours), unfortunately my computer can't read the cd he made for me... so guess we're back to waiting for pics again. Sorry guys.

Lost and found...

Saturday 01 November 2008 at 11:29 pm ...the day after halloween: 2 bra's in front of the house...