Something to Say: About Life in The Netherlands: these are the things I whine about

Showing posts with label these are the things I whine about. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 7

The Report

I've been without reliable internet service for a couple of weeks. (A handy cable plug in provided by my handy husband has resolved that issue now) Instead of surfing, reading and writing in the blogdom of my life I have been *ahem* accomplishing other things.

For instance the ironing basket now stands empty and the closets are full of freshly pressed clothing. (I am kind of thinking no one should wear any item of said pressed clothing, since it all looks so nice in the closet. Also, I am thinking of imposing a moratorium on further clothes getting dirty and thus needing washing and ironing...)

Also, in my web-less time away, I have been reading.
Mmmmm.... reading, reading, reading.
3 novels to be exact. 2 which I thought were good, 1 which I felt was phenomenal.
And? I have devoured cover to cover, 3 hand-me-over New Yorker magazines sent in a care package by a wonderful friend in the states.

The recovery from bronchitis (two-rounds of antibiotics later) seems to be nearly complete. Of course, as it seems wont to do in this house, my return to health is echoed by Andrew's descent into CAMP ILLNESS (where, let's be honest, he is a frequent visitor) and just yesterday afternoon as we waited in the doctor's office I discovered his body was covered in itchy-burny-angry-red-rash. In addition to that apparent viral infection he's fighting there is also the set of infected ears, a ruby red throat, and a chest infection! (Is there a prize for most infections when you see the doc?)

So, we are home together this week. (While I find it a point of pride to press forward and work through my own sick days, when my baby is sick, it's a different story.) And the good news? It looks like we may be joined soon by sick Emma and sick Ian.

Because sharing is what this family is all about.

Tuesday, September 9

Starve the Fever

Answer me this:
If one is plagued with a viral infection turned bacterial known by name BRONCHITIS and one is well, you know, coughing incessantly no matter the position one is in or the time on the clock, while also suffering interchangeably with chills, fever, aches, massive headache and general feeling super sorry for oneself, what should one do while one waits rather impatiently for recovery to come knocking at the door?

(A note to my readers: I don't know how to insert a proper poll here, and let's be honest can't really be bothered to learn it right now, being on death's door and all. And besides that stunningly good reason for laziness, having a non-anonymous-you-must-leave-me-a-comment poll not only offers me all the warm fuzzies of reading your comments it also offers you the creative leeway you, my lovely readers and friends, deserve in that YOUR answer to the question may not lie in the choices below.)

(P.S. I get delirious with fever. I don't know why I mention that now, I just thought it was something you should know about me)

1. Soldier on, little trooper. Also known as: Go to work everyday. You might as well be sick there and accomplishing something (which won't get done without you there) rather than bored and hacking up bits of lung at home.

2. Stay home and whimper loudly about the sorry state of your sorry self. You, after all, need to keep the bronchial passages moist. How better to do that than shed some tears over your poor pathetic self?

3. Take the high road and do both things. Spend your days at work cough, cough, coughing and causing all around you to wonder just why oh why you are there in the first place (read as: awe over your selfless sense of dedication to your work) and secretly scrutinizing whether you are going to infect them in the second place. (read as: how could you be so self centered as to enter this building and make the rest of us sick?) AND then come home to sniff and snort and well, cough. A lot.

4. Email your friend in between naps and/or coughing jags and laugh out loud over this line describing Bronchitis recovery: I knew I was getting better when I recovered enough interest in living to be amazed at the amount and variety of stuff my lungs started throwing back out of my body... But only laugh for a second, because, you remember now, laughing makes you cough. And coughing is bad. Very, very bad.

5. Laugh harder when you receive a Get Well Soon HOOPS & YOYO e-card in your inbox (from someone who never misses a beat) And then, of course, try to stop coughing while you are snorting over it.

6. Take lots of medicine, including your antibiotics (which you will finish to completion because you DO NOT believe in making superviruses--regular bronchitis viruses are crappy enough, thank you very much). Not that any of the cough medicines will really help all that much but it does serve as a good model for Andrew who is also suffering from the big B and who doesn't, I repeat DOES NOT enjoy taking his medicine.

7. Snuggle up with your significant other, who is approximately a day behind you in this journey to bad-bad-bronchitis hell, and reassure him that it only gets worse before it gets better. Then cough loudly into his ear. He will like that.

Or are there better ideas?
Please, enlighten me. But try hard not to make me laugh.

Saturday, September 6

The inevitable result from the first week of school working around children (and their snotty noses) coupled with the chaos pace of returning to work:

Sick.

click here for the rules.

I am drinking tea and resting on the living room couch. Come snuggle in the blanket with me?

Saturday, July 19

THIS JUST IN: Result of forceful, accidental contact between a sharp implement (like scissors) and soft flesh (like my hand):

Blood.

click here for the rules.

Typing one handed with me? Send bandaids... er, I mean leave your link for the game.

1. SMID
2. Goofball

3. Anneke
4. Flower Child

5. Jan
6. Kate Forsey

Thursday, June 5

Making Lemonade

It has been THAT kind of a day. The kind of day where you'd like to chuck the entire PC straight through the window with one hand, whilst sharpening a fork with the other, priming to launch it into a co-worker's eye.

I didn't do it.
I'm just sayin'.

I don't like days like this and lately they seem to be running in constant relentless march one after the other. That's a rhythm that can really wear a person down. So in desperate need to keep my perspective at the glass half full level, I set forth these observations. Surely, the 'tude tune-up will have an impact.

First, to the woman on the phone who lied to me profusely, I shall not think of you as a HEINOUS HABITUAL LIAR, rather, from henceforth I will refer to you as SHE WHO CAN SPIN A MAGICAL YARN. I like to imagine you can knit full body warmers with your words.
I would like to order one in pink, please.

Next, to the teacher who dropped the ball (pun intended) and left it to me to clean up the mess: I will further refer to this incident as the time I really learned to bounce.
It was a great trip. Do it again, won't you?

Further, to the overwrought supervisor who shut down access to the "smoking patch" behind the school after what appears to be a breach of security I say thanks. Yes, thanks to you I have half a dozen overwrought smokers visiting me to ask just where they can go now for a bit of inhalation-relaxation. Without your influence I would not be seeing these people (and their doe-like eyes) and we would have missed these bonding moments.

Following, this is for the smokers on staff who are whining. I embrace your very squeaky wheelishness and say to you worry not, you will have your grease!

Onward now to the parents who just can't seem to read the well-structured-painstakingly-analyzed-overly-corrected-for-EAL-usage papers and documents I send home with dates and times specific for school activities I will share with you my happy secret:

Reading glasses save lives. Yours may be next.

But not to be shortsighted here, in future I will use LARGE PRINT on my flyers. And I will happily dot the i's with hearts, just for you all. Because, the truth is, I HEART YOU.

I have been thinking, perhaps I can use the opportunities created for me daily--to answer to same questions from the same people about the same things--to practice my dialects on the English. I have oft been accused of sounding like a Brit. Maybe this is my moment to move from Dick van Dyke cockney to posh Londoner... Yes, this is an opportunity for growth, not a pestering, annoying, altogether unbearable occurence. This. Is. Acting.

Hear me speak:
The letterhead is in the file room.
Did you turn the computer on?
There are pencils in the supply cabinet.
Sorry, I don't have any plastic cups here at my desk.
Did you press print?
Nope, no footballs in the office.
The paper supply is in the storeroom.
Yes, what can I do for you?

Finally, to those who call my office at 5:30 p.m. and then grumble over the fact that no one is in, I would like to kindly point out that it turns out the earth is indeed NOT flat and it is the SUN at the center of the universe.

There now, don't we all feel better?

Monday, February 25

Oh, my!

It's possible this is the final evidence that I am not in Kansas anymore*. Obviously, once I mastered the bicycle as transportation idea, and learned to love coffee, it was clear that the assimilation to life in The Netherlands was nearly complete. But this? This I find a little disturbing and must admit to being more than slightly uncomfortable about.

The confession:

I have the skin color of a northern European.

Yikes.

I stepped into the shower innocently this morning, and took care of all the necessary grooming steps, not particularly aware of anything out of place or odd or strange in any way. It wasn't until I was toweling off and inspecting the shave job on my legs (I am still not very good at that, even after 30 years of practice) when I noticed there was very little difference in color, or lack of color as the case may be, between my winter-white towel and my shockingly pasty-white skin.

This is not to say that I have ever, ever sported a very deep tan. I am after all, a white--very white--girl born and ~~white bread~~ bred in Utah. I admit, when I was young I was enamored of getting a tan and did my fair share of laying out under the sky attempting to darken my skin, which only ever worked to a point. Now, knowing what I know about my skin, and more to the point, knowing what I know about sun damage I am a cautious sun worshiper and spend time under the cover of hats, glasses and sunblock. Though I have never been dark, I can say freely that I nurtured a healthy glow of sun kissed skin. Or at least I did under the Arizona sun.

And then I moved to Holland.

I don't know why it's bothering me so much this morning, but seriously if you could catch the glare off my epidermis, it would likely bother you too.

It is a matter of simple observation here that many, many, many of the Dutch attempt to stave off the white skin glare by lotioning up with the over the counter chemicals which promise to give you a summer skin. In reality, what those do (with over application?) is make the skin glow with an orangey-tone not unlike the color of newborn baby poo. Not to put too fine a point on it.

And really, that's not what I am after.

Poo-skin, white skin, or summer in Italy--

Which way do you lean?

*Dorothy to Toto in The Wizard of Oz