Random Rambling

Small Differences

2008-07-04T14:59:22Z

Seen in a Dutch news newsletter I receive:

The police were in 21 shooting
incidents last year, compared
with 14 in 2006, according to
the state police force’s annual
report ...

Dorothy, I don't think we're in Kansas -- or anywhere else in the US -- anymore!

Bookish Meme

2008-06-30T06:30:35Z

taken from tgrfan23
~ Look at the list and bold those you have read.
~ Italicize those you intend to read.
~ Underline the books you LOVE.
~ Strikethrough the books you were forced to read at any point in your education, and subsequently cannot re-read because you hate them so much.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
~~6 The Bible~~ (Seven years of fairly fundamental Baptist school will do that to you. I've thought about rereading it, but get twitchy when I try.)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - I've read a chunk of his stuff, but hardly the complete works.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger -- started it, couldn't stand it, didn't bother finishing
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -- always meant to read it; not sure why I haven't
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
~~28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck~~ I like other Steinbeck novels, but this one drove me nuts
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving -- I can't remember if I read this one or not; I read a fair bit of his stuff when I was 15; it's been a while
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom;
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Pippo As Art

2008-06-30T06:07:36Z

Museum by dumpr.net

Just getting a feel for what our living room may look like when I get the photos printed. We're planning on using large prints of Luna, Lola and Pippo as the art for the wall over the sofa. This picture of Pippo is the one we're planning on using for him.

A Furry Surprise

2008-06-26T09:52:44Z

The cats are really enjoying all the boxes still waiting to be unpacked. Luna, in particular, treats them as her own King/Queen of the Hill game, launching herself from the table onto the tallest of the wardrobe boxes in order to survey her domain. The shorter boxes aren't so bad, either, especially since they've been opened, so they provide a constant source of entertainment and curiosity.

Lola isn't quite as curious, but she has her moments ...

Strange Sights

2008-06-25T11:04:32Z

A massive heard of senior citizens with fanny packs, cameras and video cameras just passed by our front window. I think that's the largest crowd I've seen here in one place other than the bar on the nights Holland played in the EK.

I wonder where they've been and where they're going. I hope they watch out for the bikes when they hit Nobelstraat!

Smaak is Wack

2008-06-24T11:02:37Z

Smaak is Wack, originally uploaded by indigo_jones.

I've become convinced that the word smaak is Dutch for crack. These lightly bacon-flavored crackers are addictive. If anything, the paprika-flavored ones are even more addictive.

G and I came home from the bar one night -- ~~a lot~~ a bit tipsy -- and proceeded to eat almost a whole packet of these things. I'm trying to restrain myself at the moment. I'm not sure how much longer I can last.

Adult Language

2008-06-20T12:09:26Z

We finally got our digital tv box today. As we were scrolling through the channels, imagine our amusement when we realized that Al-Jazeera was followed immediately by three porn channels (Playboy, Hustler and some Spice channel -- and they're not subscription channels here). That's some crazy channel placement! We went from seeing an older gentleman sitting behind a desk discussing something or other to seeing a woman giving a blow job and getting titty fucked while jerking another guy off.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

My Drugs

2008-06-19T09:29:04Z

My Drugs, originally uploaded by indigo_jones.

I went to the Netherlands and I got asthma!

Well, I already had it, basically, I just had it properly diagnosed once I got here. I've had mild asthma attacks in the past due to allergens, such as dust and heavy-duty amounts of cat fur/dander, but yesterday was a whole new ballgame. I came down with a could a couple of days ago and have been pretty miserable, but yesterday got much worse. I woke up and couldn't really breathe that well. I got up, since I know that lying down doesn't help any, but the difficulty never went away. In fact, it eventually seemed to get worse, or maybe I was just exhausted from it all. Finally, I broke down and said I wanted to see a doctor. It's got to be bad if I am willing to see a doctor. I never get that sick.

Since we didn't know of any doctors, we went to the pharmacy. It turns out there's a doctor's office above the pharmacy. One of the doctors was able to see me almost immediately, and diagnosed me as having asthma. It was such a relief to get that inhaler. Of course, once I stopped worrying about my breathing, suddenly all the other aches and pains associated with the cold came rushing to the forground.

I'm feeling better today and am breathing much easier -- outside of the annoying cough and slightly stuffed-up nose. I've got to take the steroid stuff for the next month, twice a day, to help control the inflammation so that hopefully I won't need the regular inhaler. I'm hoping I'll revert back to my normal self that only has to worry about asthma once or twice a year.

Stumbling

2008-06-12T11:06:15Z

I've been Stumbling a lot recently and thought I'd share/bookmark some of the random bits I've been enjoying.

First up, Jon Dyer's quest for every beard type. Makes me wish I had facial hair!

Next, bomomo, a time waster that actually allows you to have something to show for all your time. Plus, this lets you actually save your paintings as jpg files, unlike some other similar programs.

Finally, for reference, an article listing 22 websites connecting you to free music. The comments section includes further suggestions.

Waiting Game

2008-06-11T12:55:46Z

We're never getting our sofa or our stuff from the US.

At least, that's how it feels right now. We actually finally have a date for our sofa to be delivered, but it's not until next Wednesday. It would have been Monday, but that's when we have an appointment with the immigration office, which ultimately is a bit more important.

As for the rest of our stuff, it's been stuck in customs for the past week, because they think we have too much stuff for it to be a personal move. I'd like to see how they move! We didn't even take any furniture! Today we filled out some form (in Dutch) and faxed it back to our shipper so hopefully we can get our stuff eventually. I'm not missing most of it, but there are a few things that would be handy and nice to have.

The Worst of the Worst

2008-06-07T13:25:00Z

Escape (The Piña Colada Song) was playing at the grocery store this morning. It's been stuck in my head ever since. Even in the Netherlands.

In a similar vein, I was surprised and amused to see that the Time Life music collections are here, too. I tried to convince G that we needed to order the romantic Dutch classics compilation.

time-killing meme

2008-06-07T07:29:49Z

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A: It's the Green Leaf offered in the generic settings on my new Sony Vaio with Vista. It's fairly abstract and simple, so I haven't been frantic to change it yet. Probably once I get a really awesome Utrecht shot, I'll change it.

Q. How many televisions do you have in your house?
A: Now, we only have one, but it's nice!

BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A: Right handed.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A: Teeth.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A: We got a big delivery from IKEA yesterday, so I've been moving big boxes around a lot. More will be moved and hefted today, including getting the bed upstairs and put together. Finally!

BULLSHITOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. Nah. I'd rather it be a surprise.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A: I used to hate my name and at one point I wanted my name to be Linda. I don't know why. I'll stick with my own name for now, although I think I could pull off the name Heidi.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. I do have to admit that pink makes me look less dead.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
A: Such as photo developing fluid?

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A: Sure, I've done it for less.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A. I think I would actually miss my pinkies, so no.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. Of course!

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. Not now.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A: If I had a couple of days in which to drink it, then sure. ;)

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. I don't think so.

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A. No pockets at the moment.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A: I only got through about 10 or 15 minutes and couldn't be bothered to watch any more. So, no.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A. Hardwood on the first and third floor, carpet on the second floor.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A: Stand, although we've got a ledge now that I suppose I could sit on, but I'd prefer not to.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: This is probably easier to answer now, since I tossed a few pairs when we moved. I think the answer is four. I'm wearing some now.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Last person who texted you?
A: I'm not sure anyone has ever texted me. I'm not a big fan of phones.

Q: Last person who called you?
A: My parents

Q: Person you hugged?
A: Giovanni or Lola

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A: 8

Q: Season?
A: Spring: everything coming into bloom and cool fresh temperatures

Q: Color?
A: orange and certain shades of lime/celery green

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A: Sort of

Q: Mood?
A: Lazy but determined to accomplish stuff today

Q: Listening to?
A: Not a damn thing. It's really quiet.

Q: Watching?
A: We watched a bit of a nature show last night, as it was in English and one of the few remotely interesting things on the handful of channels we get until our cable box arrives.

Q: Worrying about?
A: Lack of food and water in the house. We need to hit up Albert Hein today.

Q: Wearing?
A: Grey lounge pants, grey t-shirt, flip flops: I'm doing laundry as I type.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A: Outside of the usual bathroom visit, I had to take Pippo over to the Honden Toilet first thing this morning.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A: I can't wait to to to Night Fever tonight!

Q: Do you smile often?
A: Yup. From happiness or nerves

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: Generally, yes.

whine whine whine

2008-06-03T15:00:34Z

I'm pooped.

After slogging through the rain carrying various paints and paint supplies (of the household type, not the artistic type) this morning, I've spent the afternoon painting the bedroom. Three walls are done, but the fourth wall will have to wait. Plus, I need another paint roller before I can do it, or I'll never get finished with just the regular brush. I'm covered in tiny paint spatters and my hair is still wet from this morning, along with the sweat from this afternoon.

Lovely picture, huh.

The cupboards are empty, and a trip to the grocery store is in order. G's going to have to go on his own, or pick up takeout. I'm not going out in public looking like this!

Orlando and the wit biertje

2008-06-01T12:54:34Z

Orlando and the wit biertje, originally uploaded by indigo_jones.

We're gradually settling in to our new home, although we're missing most furniture. That just means we have to go to our local more often. Not exactly a hardship.

I'm sporadically taking photos of somewhat random things and adding them to Utrecht-related sets I've created at Flickr. I'm (lazily) setting up another blog to be dedicated solely to my experiences and photos of Utrecht, to be used for updating friends and family. That one can be found here.

indigo_jones @ 2008-05-30T04:18:00

2008-05-30T08:19:49Z

Just a quick post to say that we all arrived safely in Utrecht on Wednesday morning. We've already become regulars at our local and have hung out with friends. Now I'm off to apply for my residency permit. Wish me luck!

A well-earned meal

2008-05-23T20:31:15Z

We ended up with 29 boxes of varying sizes. They're all packed and waiting for the shipper who should be arriving in the next half hour. The boxes themselves should arrive in Utrecht on 1 June, I believe. Technically, that was the day I was going to go register for my residence permit. Maybe I'll just go on 30 May instead and get it over with, so I don't have that hanging over my head all weekend. I'll still have the work stuff to sort out, though.

Once the truck arrives today and we get it loaded up (not looking forward to that bit), it's time for a quick shower and clean up and then we're off to my parents for a lovely haggis dinner. I don't know if my dad will pipe it in or not. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he did. We should probably take the rest of our bottle of Laphroaig over with us tonight. There's probably just enough left to end the evening properly.

Old Friends

2008-05-18T16:24:10Z

I think the hardest thing to give up are my books. Don't get me wrong; I'm taking a lot of them -- more than I probably should. But it kills me to leave behind so many old friends. I buy books, because I often reread them and return to old favorites at least once a year. Even seeing their colorful spines on the bookshelves gives me a sense of comfort and familiarity as each one reminds me of some specific time, a location, a relationship, an adventure, a hobby ...

I'm taking the majority of my art history books, of course. For one thing, they're not cheap. For another, they're a symbol of my four years at university. Plus, I do refer back to many of them regularly enough to justify them. Perhaps if my access to English-language books is limited, I might also reread more of them completely: The German Essayists on Renaissance Art, the building of the Florentine economy, and there's always Pater and Burkhardt and Steinberg.

I've been trying to reread books that I haven't read in a while and know I won't be taking with me. Sadly, I haven't gotten to everything and feel like I'm ending relationships that haven't quite come to their natural end. Maybe I can stick at least one into my carry-on for that long journey.

Connections

2008-05-14T00:46:03Z

It seems that the previous owners of our house are incredibly nice and friendly. Besides leaving us a bottle of Moet & Chandon to celebrate with, G's been having drinks/dinner with them a few nights since he's been there and they've been incredibly kind. I gather he's already invited them to dinner. (No stress for me, as I suspect he'll be making a lot of lasagna for all these people he's inviting over). It seems they've also provided him with some other store names and such for finding decent/inexpensive furniture. Maybe we won't have to buy only IKEA! (Although I do really quite like IKEA.)

In other words, this move is going well and I haven't even been there yet! We leave two weeks from today. Eeek! and Yay!!!

Old and Amusing

2008-05-10T15:15:31Z

While I was in the coffee shop this morning, there was a kid in line behind me with his Caballero skateboard. I used to skate a bit back in junior high/high school and remembered Caballero being big even then. Of course, Tony Hawk was also a fresh-faced teen at the time. I'm guessing this kid wasn't even born when I started skating and reading about Caballero in Thrasher and other skate mags. That's just kind of weird.

Crossing Things Off

2008-05-10T15:04:44Z

I guess the plus side of waking up every morning around 6 or 6:30 -- no matter how late I was up the night before and no matter how much I want to sleep in -- is that I can get a fair amount of stuff accomplished by 10 a.m. If all the shops opened before 10 a.m, I could have been finished even earlier.

The high point of this morning was most likely when I tried to measure Pippo, Luna and Lola. It's surprisingly difficult to get them to stand still -- or stand up -- to measure them from nose to tail, floor to shoulder and floor to head. Maybe I should just get them to stand near a wall and then mark off their measurements like our parents used to do with us. I need the measurements for their travel crates, in case you're wondering if I've taken up a strange new hobby. After guestimating the measurements and converting them into centimeters to compare against the KLM sizing chart, off I went to Petco to look at their prices. Of course, the sizes are in inches on the crates, so I had to reconvert to inches. (Along with learning a new language, I also have to learn the metric system and Centigrade.) I think we might go with the crates I saw at Petsmart the other day, as they seem to have a cheaper one that is still IATA approved. It's not like the crates are going to be used much once this trip is done.

After the bit of crate shopping, it was off to the coffee shop, where the air-conditioning wasn't working. Considering it's already 75 F (24 C) at 9 a.m., you can imagine how uncomfortable the shop is going to be by this afternoon. I should add that it's also quite humid here. By that point, it was a few minutes before 10 a.m., when the rest of the shops would be open, so I headed off to the Goodwill truck to turn in two massive garbage bags full of clothes, shoes and bags. I'm sure I'll be back there again when G cleans out his closets and drawers. Then it was off to Lenscrafters to donate three pairs of old glasses and a couple of pairs of old sunglasses for their charity that fixes up old glasses and such and gives them to people who can't afford them. For what it's worth today is also the day that the US Postal Service is doing a food drive, so grab your non-perishable food items and stick them out by your mailbox for your mail carrier to pick up. Perfect timing, as I realized the other day that there were a few food items that just weren't going to be eaten before we moved.

With my good deeds done for the day, it was a quick walk over to Belk's to pick up some face powder that I've been needing to replace for the past month. I've been digging into the edges of the pan for a while now. Oddly enough, their air-conditioning wasn't working there either. I could hear people at the various makeup counters joking about the makeup sliding off as they put it on, because of the heat. With the various polyester shirts and jackets they have to wear, they have my sympathy today.

I've spent much of this week cleaning out drawers, cupboards and closets. I think today I might actually try packing stuff up. On the plus side, I'm feeling much more inclined to leave most of my books behind. Outside of all my art history ones, and a few sentimental favorites, the bulk of my mysteries will stay behind. I need to leave room for all my art supplies. ;)

Something New

2008-05-07T02:18:31Z

I think this is the first time that North Carolina has gone to a candidate for whom I voted. I know it's only a primary, but seriously, my vote is usually pretty pointless here. A nice change of pace.

I was trying to stay up and keep watching the results for Indiana, but now they've just said that the county that could be really important might not be releasing any numbers until at least midnight, so I think I'm going to give up and go to bed.

The Little-known Eigth Dwarf, Votey

2008-05-06T13:35:52Z

Hi ho! Hi ho!

It's off to vote, I go!

Sleeping Arrangements

2008-05-05T00:21:34Z

We had an open house again today. Finally, good weather, instead of the rain we've had every other time.

When the realtor arrived, she was greeted by Lola and then went looking for Luna. (She's a fellow pet lover.) Luna was asleep in Pippo's dog bed. She got a kick out of her being there and was jokingly talking to Luna, asking where Pippo was supposed to sleep now! I explained that Luna uses the dog bed, while Pippo uses our bed. The little cat gets the big-dog bed, while the big dog gets the humans' king-size bed. Lola has a crush on Pippo, so she's always in bed with Pippo.

A bit rude ...

2008-05-03T19:42:40Z

Heh. I just got a call from someone supporting Hillary Clinton and since I didn't feel like staying on the phone and listening to any sort of spiel, I cut to the chase and told the woman -- politely -- that I was voting for Obama.

Her response?

"You're going to be sorry." In a strange sing-song voice.

My response?

"No, I'm not." In the same sing song voice.

Then I thanked her, said goodbye, and hung up.

Where to start?

2008-05-02T12:12:25Z

I spent all day yesterday finishing up my CD project so now all CDs (with a few exceptions) are out of the jewel cases and into two large CD folders.

Now what? I don't know where to start with the packing. It's a bit overwhelming since we're only taking a small number of things. Sounds weird, I know. I guess I just need to put together some boxes and start putting stuff in, one room at a time. The other problem with starting to pack -- at least right now -- is that we're having yet another open house on Sunday, so I don't want strange holes where things used to be (and should be) when we're trying to make the house look its best.

Of course, I could start work on the garage, but I really really don't want to. I'm worried about creepy crawlies, which I REALLY don't like. Makes me twitchy. Sadly, it has to be done. Maybe I can take the cats in with me. Or at least take Pippo, since he would be easier to find and less likely to find some dark, dangerous hideaway.

Still, for now, I think I'll just focus on cleaning house for the open house. That has to be done, too. Ah, procrastination. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow -- or sometime next week.