Wendesday....again........

It still blows my mind as to how fast time is just sweeping by...
Here it is Wednesday again, where did all those days go?

We're all feeling a little better. Boo is still sneezing a little, but her nose dried up. She has a little cough when she lays down, but not too bad. Nowadays I don't trust these so-called over the counter baby cold medicines, so just keeping her quiet and hydrated and fed is probably the best way. Baby Vicks helps too.

It's hot and humid here in Georgia. There's a little rain on the way, which doesn't improve the humidity. Gonna be hot from now on!!!


The big news is that Bugs decided to stay with her job.
She had a long weekend to think things over. Feeling sick forced her to stick around the house, and gave her a good opportunity to think.

She realized that getting into the recording business would be extremely difficult, with the industry being the way it is nowadays. Any "good" jobs she found in the paper or on Monster.com were all in the city. Working in Atlanta is a nightmare. The commute is long and than there is the price of gas. Not to mention that it would take more hours out of the day all around. Working "bar" for a while here in town would not net her enough money to live on, besides, the hours would be a killer too, she would have to work even later.

She realizes that her job isn't all that bad. Not for something here in this little hole of Cartersville. No opportunities here at all.
So that was one consideration.
The other one was that she really would miss her staff, and yes, her bosses. They are like her family.
I guess the fighting and the backstabbing is part of being that family *lol*...I dunno...
But she has invested 6 years to this family, and they invested in her. A few good straight talks and drawing of lines are in order. Maybe reallign the hours she works, teaching her to delegate more?

We also figured out something else. She started taking birth control pills about two months ago. Don't ask me why. (Uhhh..I know WHY...I meant, why the PILL)
Her experience with the pill has been bad in the past. She has tried different doses, different brands, they always mess up her cycle, make her extremely emotional and cranky.

I was surprised she was going to try again. This time something new, three months without a period. Supposedly.
During the first three weeks she had had three periods.
We think this had something to do with her state of mind and her decisions as well.
She really needs to find herself a GOOD ob/gyn who will want to figure out why she has such an aversion to the pill.
In the meantime I hope and pray she will use something else...

So she called a meeting with her bosses yesterday............. and ate crow.
Her (male) boss cried. Something that is hard to imagine, being the macho guy that he is.
They were both extremely relieved. Good help is hard to come by here in these parts.

Yes, we all breathed a sigh of relief, and mostly just to see her smile again. As much relief as she showed when she resigned, I think it was temporary, until the reality kicked in.

We're still going to be supportive, whatever she decides.

And yes, of course it drives me crazy. But what can you do?

I've lost my son because he thinks I made the wrong decisions in my life, claiming I did not support him ( It was not that simple, but that's a story for another day) We lost Wheelie's kids because we did not agree with some of their choices and told them so. Even though we did not try to stop them, they were quick to pull themselves away. I can only guess why, but I suspect that MJD has a lot to do with it. I know too many people who's families have been torn apart because of this illness.

And now I am drawing a complete brain fart....can't think...

time to go and take my shower and get ready for the girls....

Y'all take care now, y'hear!

SGMKJ!

Monday

Still sick here.

Had a very unsettling night. Took some antihistamine, but this stuff made me so disoriented. Even in my sleep I felt horribly out of touch, I had to get up to pee about 8 times during the night and I kept not knowing where I was.

Some drugs work well for some people. Some drugs really wreak havoc with my system.
I seem to be very sensitive to certain meds. Long time ago, my doc put me on Zoloft for depression. Took the first pill, felt like I had just stuck my fingers in an electrical socket. She had to sedate me and put me on Ativan. Now THERE's a drug I LUV....:>)

I can take Tylenol PM, which has one kind of antihistamine in it, and be fine. But I take Advil PM which has a different sort, and I have night mares.

On the other hand, Tylenol as a pain reliever does squat for me, as does Naprosen (Aleve) Only Advil helps me with any type of pain.

So this morning my head feels like a ball of cotton, I feel lightheaded. The snot dried up pretty much, but the coughing is really getting in my chest now.

So....hopefully another day in bed here...lots of fluids...some generic cough syrup...vitamins...blah blah blah...

Poooooor little ole me....

SGMKJ!

We're all sick

My cold is getting worse. Hate to take any meds for it, always messes me up some other way.

Bugs came by to check for jobs online and do her resume. But she felt so lousy, I sent her back home again.

So not much going on, just trying to rest and keep the liquids down.

Nice weather tho

*S*

SGMKJ!

Snot snot everywhere

Seems like I've caught the girls' cold here. Throat is sore, nose dripping, feeling tired and sore.
Oh well, three days to rest and get better!! I'm downing the tea and the citrus, vitamin C and B+, and will hit the chicken soup later on. Then a nice hot shower and under the sheets I'll go!

Not much going on here today. Just been piddling around the house and trying not to go anywhere.
With gas at $3.99 a gallon, we're not going to take extra trips if we don't have to.

I received a lovely picture from my cousin in Holland of my grandparents with their two first born daughters. The baby is my auntie, who died two years ago at age 90.

This picture debunked the story that grandpa shaved his head on a dare when he was engaged and never grew hair again! *LOL*

The older girl is my cousins' mom, who was the oldest.

I did some figuring and my grandpa was about 33 and grandma was 30 in this picture. I guess they married late in life in those days. Grandma had (at least) four more children, and having them at that age must have been tough.

Called my mom and dad today. Thanked them for a check they sent for Bugs' birthday coming up. I told mom how my cousins and I have been talking and comparing stories. Got a few things straightened out in her head. Always nice to hear the other side of a story she said.

My father was his droll self on the phone, pretending not to hear me (he wanted to watch whatever was on TV)

Wheelie and I listed a few LPs on Ebay today. Just to have something to do. We hadn't done anything on Ebay for months now. Was kind of nice getting back into it again.
Although we really don't have much left to sell, he still finds a few things now and then.

If you're interested go see:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZkiri*smom

So all in all a pleasant day. Tomorrow we'll just have to repeat it.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend y'all!

SGMKJ!

Thursday

I'm afraid I'm not very inspired today.
Bugs lost her voice, Boo had a snot nose all day long, and my bursitis is acting up (shoulder)

I am exhausted today.

The little squirt now climbs on one of my big baskets, so she can reach stuff on my dresser, and pull my big quilt off the wall.

She's also as quick as a....what...what's quick?....

Been running after her all afternoon, the little dickens.

We did have a nice morning though, I took her to the mall, and drove the scenic route. No radio, no music, just peace and quiet. Except for the little chatterbox in the backseat, of course.

We walked all through the mall, didn't buy anything, but just window shopped.

Bugs called me on one of her breaks (her breaks usually consist of driving stuff to and from restaurants, or running errands) She had a talk with the female equation of her bosses, who seems to be hurt that she wrote such a short letter. I thought it was to the point and extremely professional.
Anyway, I can see why her feelings are hurt. Her husband really is a brute sort of fella, and it must be quite a chore for her to keep her family and the business together.

Bugs seems to have handled it pretty well this morning, she said they had a good talk. And her boss will give her an excellent recommendation when it's needed.

And yes, we do worry, we do wonder what next....
but we also feel that the pressure valve released some air, and it didn't deflate the whole tire, but just enough to keep everything from exploding.

In this family, we've been through enough crisis to know that things just have a way of working out. We have learned to roll with the punches. We'll be alright.

Thanks for everyones concern, it's nice to hear from everyone.

SGMKJ!

She did it!

Bugs wrote her letter of resignation today and delivered it.

Her last day will be June 14, giving them a decent time period, I think.

Even though her future is precarious right now, not knowing what she'll do...try and sell her house...try and refinance...let it run into foreclosure....

Job wise she can probably get a waitress job or bar job anywhere. Something she is thinking of doing for now, while she figures out what she really wants to do.

She is tired of the restaurant business. She would love to get into the record business. She called an old co-worker of Wheelie yesterday, but that industry looks rather bleak right now. The record industry as we all knew it is on it's way out, make way for technology for access to music. CDs and records and such are going to be obsolete in five or so years, if not sooner.
No longer needed are the sales people, the promotion people...
It's rather sad I think. Having been around that business for most of my adult life, it's impossible to watch it die.

So...she is going to take it slow....day by day....
Of course we will support her any way we can. She seemed to be relieved. She had red cheeks again this morning, was excited.

Oh how I know the feeling...of just making the decision...just DOING it...

She'll be alright, I am sure. She is smart, and she is young.

In a way we are relieved as well. Her boss wasn't the easiest guy to work for. He and his wife are at the cusp of divorce, always fighting...Running two restaurants...Bugs pretty often feeling in the middle...

Boss didn't take her resignation very graciously. He told her he expected her to work her ass off for these last weeks, or else....I didn't expect him to react any different.

It didn't upset her, she expected it, and she won't let him have the satisfaction of finding her slacking off.

So....Boo just woke up from her nap, and we're off to Target.

Beautiful day here in Georgia.

SGMKJ!

Tuesday........

Ten thirty here...Boo is taking her nap, time for me to try and write.

Bugs is coming down with a cold, or strep, her lungs are plugged up.
My back is still sore, but I'm mobile, and even lifting the baby doesn't bother much, as long as I watch how I do it.
The muscles in my arms and back have gotten stronger this past year just from schlepping the baby around, starting at 8 pounds and slowly getting heavier.
Now if I only could find a way to shrink my tummy.

Wheelie, Boo and I drove to the post office this morning. They stayed in the car and I went in. No line this time, thank goodness. The girls wondered why I ran off yesterday, I told them. They thought it was funny...(I had to "go" if you remember)

Then a quick stop at Publix for baby wipes, cream cheese and a large bottle of Advil.

We're set for today. The weather is nice, overcast with promise of a few showers here and there, probably more there than here :>)

Nothing important to report, everyone is probably still reeling from my long post of the other day, so I thought I'd give you all a few days to recoup.

I am going to take advantage of the peace and quiet here and start my new book, Phantom Prey by John Sandford.

PS...My father is doing well. His doctor finally suggested he not drive his car anymore. So it's for sale. Anyone need a 1980s Mitsubishi? :>)

He is now finally (after having it sit idle for two years) using his motorized chair, something they got for free. He is taking hormones for his prostate cancer and these meds are affecting his legs. It's becoming harder to stand and walk. But he sounded great when I talked with him the other day. It must be hard for them to give up that little bit of independence they had left (car), but that's life!



Have a great day y'all!

SGMKJ!

Ted Kennedy and my Dad

I wanted to make sure y'all understand that my dad doesn't not have a brain tumor,

Initially the news was that Ted K. suffered a seizure due to blockage in his carotid arteries (like my dad)





Sounds like my father and Ted Kennedy have something in common. Exactly the same happened to each guy.

Amazing!

Monday.............

After a relative quiet Sunday I was looking forward to another quick day today.

Bugs and Boo are spending the day with Bug's friend who's getting married in September. Bugs is Maid of Honor, Boo is the Flower girl (she'll be dressed as a fairy, wings and all) Probably looking for shoes again.

Good luck ladies!

My first endeavor to be productive got smashed, as I stood in line at the post office to mail some pictures to my mom. The line was long, the service slow, and I had to "go"...so...back home I went...

Left the car out so I could access my attic over the garage.

My plan was to stow a few things up there to make room in the garage for a fold-away bed, which is now in the closet of Boo's room. The closet is a good size and I used it for storage, primarily, but now I want to make it more of a clothes closet for Boo. So the stuff had to move out, which means moving several items to different places. A domino effect.

Stuff from garage up into attic

Stuff from closet out to garage

Container with feather bed to Bugs' house

Hang clothes thingie in closet for Boo-s little things


We don't have a lot of extra storage in this house, but I had a floor built in the attic so I could put stuff up there. Of course actually getting the stuff UP there is another story. It has one of those fold down stairs/ladders, and the hole isn't big. It takes some doing to get stuff up there sometimes.

As I was trying to get a large box out of the closet, (with my old letterboxes and some framed stuff my auntie made) which was sitting on the plastic storage bin with our feather bed, I felt my back "go"

I stopped quickly, knowing that if I didn't I would be flat on my back for at least a week.

So far, as I am sitting here, I'm okay. Took a handful of Advil, and closed the garage door, we'll finish that....later....

Good thing I have the day off huh!

I wanted to come back to something I wrote the other day, about those day camps. I emailed both my brothers, see what they remembered. My oldest brother remembered he and New Zealand used to go, and it was New Zealand who had his face bashed in when the bus ran into a tram, not him. He also mentioned a completely different place where they would have the big party at the end of the camp time, and that they did skits themselves.

Talking with my sister yesterday I realized something else. We don't all recall stuff the same way. My perception of my mother, for example, is totally different than that of my siblings.

The only sibling who actually reads my blog is New Zealand, so I don't get a lot of feedback about whether I tell the story correctly or not from the others.

I was the oldest. My mom's expectations for me were different than the ones she had for my brothers, and much later, my sister. I was groomed to be a housewife/mother, my brothers were being groomed to be providers and fathers. Logical.

It's interesting to me to realize that each person has their own perception of pretty much everything that happens to him/her. (Duh, Calypso)

A clear example is this. Wheelie was born when his mom was 17. His dad was a few years older. They were married. His father left them, as I recall, to find work. He ended up working on building the Hoover Dam with his six brothers.

All through his life, Wheelie hated his father. He did meet him again when he was already married and his father was 50 or so. They did not get along. Dad was into hunting, and Wheelie was into music and being alternative. His father died shortly after they met.

A few years ago I was looking through Wheelie's baby book. The one his mom kept when he was born, up till his first birthday. She glued the gift cards inside and listed the gifts and who was at the shower, the birthday party, etc etc.

Some very neat retro cards in that book by the way, I love it. In the back were his birthday cards. One of them felt thicker than the others, so I pried it open. Inside was a two page letter, written in pencil. It was a letter from his dad.

When I read it I had to cry. He wrote that he was so sorry he couldn't be there, that he missed his little boy, and for mom to be sure to give him a million kisses. He included a dollar bill.

Wheelie never knew this letter existed. When I read it to him, there was not much of a reaction. But I wondered.....

In my mind, the guy who was known as a big asshole, became a very young man, in very difficult times, the late 30s, the family was poor, the war was looming. A guy who loved his child dearly, but was unable to be part of his life. Mom wasn't an easy person to get along with. She was tough and apparently vindictive.

The other day when Bugs, Wheelie and I were talking about Daddy and that situation, Wheelie mentioned that his Mom would keep a ledger, she would keep track of any money his dad would give her for child support, and she also wrote down when he didn't. Which came to a pretty large sum in the end, as the money stopped coming pretty early in the game. Every week, she jotted down the $5.00 she did not receive. She kept it up for years.

He said that his mother always spoke badly of his father, and that he grew up hating the man. He wanted to make a point I guess, although I'm not very sure what side of the fence he's on. It's not clear to me or Bugs whether he wants her to dump Daddy, or keep him in her life for Boo's sake. He won't say, but then we haven't specifically asked him either.

He did not quite tell Bugs not to do what his Mom did. Although I do think it would be a good idea for her to keep track of the payments or non payments somehow.

Anyway, today's weather is glorious, it's going to be in the 80s all week. Everything is very green outside, the honeysuckle and the liguster are blooming everywhere, and the scents are wonderful.

Have a great day y'all!

SGMKJ!

Saturday........

The swimming pool we used to go to every Wednesday
Above is a picture from the 1980s, after renovation

Old creepy place, I'll bet it's haunted

This was the front of the swimming pool, where the man in white stands

It's almost noon and so far we've had a pretty productive day.

Since I never got around to doing the floors yesterday, I made it my priority to do it today.

So, every room is vacuumed, the bathrooms, kitchen and dining room floors mopped.

Everything (sort of) dusted, cobwebs that I could reach are gone. Febreezed the carpets and started the laundry. (It smells like a spa in here, Bugs said when she dropped off Boo)

Treated myself to a second cup of Douwe Egberts on the veranda, enjoying the sounds of the local mocking bird on steroids. Man, is that bird LOUD!

While I was dawdling on the front porch, I let my thoughts wander to something my cousin mentioned a while back.

When we were children, there was something like a day camp during the summer vacations.
Our summer vacations were not as long as the ones here in the States, I think we only had 4 weeks. Two weeks were always used for the big family vacation. The rest of the time (at least for a few years) we were shipped out to this day camp.

I must have been 7-8-9, my brother went too, not sure about my New Zealand brother, but my sister never had to go. Who knows, perhaps it didn't exist anymore then. Lucky brat!

The first year we would be dropped off at the tram. They were still the old wooden carriages, that sometimes gave you splinters in your butt when you wore shorts.
We were put in age groups and neighborhood groups, or parish groups. The tram would go through the city, picking up more groups of children.
We would pick up kids from very poor neighborhoods, places we now call 'the projects'
We didn't like those kids, because they were dirty, they smelled, and they were tough and mean!

It was pretty ignorant of us to shun these kids, but back then, what did you know? It wasn't like nowadays when you are taught to be politically correct at a young age. We blantantly looked down on these children, and tried to hold our breath when they passed by us on their way to the back of the tram

We would have our little rucksack with a bottle of milk and our sandwich, and perhaps some kind of candy bar, or some snoepjes. Certainly not the fancy lunch treats that are available now, nor did we have icepacks or thermal lunchpacks. Needless to say I got sick more than once. Not only carsickness from the wobbly tram, but probably also from the spoiled milk and sandwich meat.
I remember getting really sick from some smoked Gouda cheese once, to this day I cannot even LOOK at that cheese.

So the tram would take us to an area near the coast. Clingendael. Klein Zwitserland. Some sort of park, but not an organised park with playgrounds and such. No, we would just let loose in the dunes, and the woods.
No toilets, not much supervision, as I recall. There must have been adults around, I just don't remember.

Except for the one time I had to go poop, and it came out red, and I told one of the ladies. She told me to tell my mom. *lol* We later decided it was the beets I had the night before.

Another time I thought I was being smart when I had to go pee. I thought I'd try it on a hill, facing down. Of course I peed right into my shorts and underpants dangling around my ankles.
I must have smelled awful for the rest of the day, geesh, I would have fit right in with the kids from the Zomerhof.

In later years, we would be taken to our play area by bus. They chartered a bunch of very old busses (VIOS) which smelled of gasoline, and smoke.
Blech!
My brother banged his face against the seat in front of him when the bus stepped on the brakes.

I don't know about my brother, but I hated going to those day camps. Also called Groups (Groepen) But it could have been worse, in my mother's days they had to WALK to their destination, with one kid carrying the flag in front of the group. And they had to sing marching songs while they walked!!! In formation!!!!

The only reason I can think of that my parents made us go was because my mom just didn't have time to hang out with us kids during the summer vacation. She was on a self imposed rigid schedule of housework that could not be interrupted for any reason. I don't recall her ever sitting down with us to read us a book, play a game.
She was always working. Or sewing. Or knitting. Or cooking.

On Monday it was the laundry. The whites had been soaking in a mixture of hot water and soda all night. We did have a washing machine but it was an ancient one, wooden tub, with a huge lid with an agitator on it. There was a wringer, which you could swing over the big sink, through which everything was pressed. First to get all the soapy water out, then once more after the rinse, and then once more after the blueing rinse.

Then the wash went on the line outside on the balcony. Come wind, rain or shine, sleet or freezing weather, mom was hanging her laundry out on the lines, bending over far to reach the outside lines. Covering the mess with large sheets of plastic (we had plastic then?). When the weather was just too bad, the laundry would be hung all over the house. On wooden racks, and on special plastic lined fold-up racks which handily fit over the door tops. Not too great an environment for my brothers who had asthma. The house would have that sickly warm wet soapy smell.

I still have one of those Tomado racks. I am going to keep it forever, heck, I still use it sometimes.

If the laundry dried quickly enough, the next day it all got ironed. And I mean......IRONED........EVERYTHING!!!


Underwear, handkerchiefs, sheets, pillowcases, towels, clothing.
The cotton stuff was spritzed first and rolled up so it would be a little damp and easier to iron. And some stuff got starched too.

This was BEFORE steam irons, ladies!

Besides the laundry and the ironing, there was lunch and dinner to be fixed, dishes to be done, windows to be washed, inside and outside. My mom would risk her neck to hang onto the window ledge to reach the big window on the outside. Windows were washed pretty much every week.
Let's see...
I guess on Wednesdays she had it easy, we would be out of school early on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Yes, we had a 6 day school week!
Wednesday evenings were always fun for us. As that was the day we would go swimming. Dad taught swimming at his company's swim club. The pool was housed in a regular street. The front looked just like another house, but it was a huge pool. It had individual changing rooms on either side and upstairs. With curtains. Some public showers (where I received my very first real kiss)
My dad taught the little ones in the shallow end. Intrekken, spreiden, sluiten! It took me about 3 years to get my first diploma. I hated swimming, scared me to death. We had those belts with cork bricks on them to keep us afloat. Later in life I learned to love to swim, still do.

When I was the only one going with him, I would sit on the back of the motor bike, my feet tucked into the big leather saddlebags. Later on when the other kids would go as well, we would all go on our own bicycles. Wednesday nights would be play night for mom as well, as her younger sister would come over so they could gossip and knit together and listen to their radio programs.

I always loved coming home on those nights, when the house smelled of cigarettes (Gladstones, Auntie smoked, my parents didn't) and the atmosphere was happy and relaxed.

We did not have a TV until I was a teenager, so we played outside...a lot....
Lucky for us we had about two dozen children in our street alone, so we never lacked playmates.

My mom cooked dinner from scratch. No TV dinners (we did not have a fridge either, nor did we have an oven) It was always the same: cooked-to-death vegetables, boiled potatoes, meat of some kind cooked in A LOT of butter, and dessert, usually some kind of hot cereal like oatmeal, or vanilla pudding. Hot oatmeal with a milk skin on top. BLECH!

One of my earliest chores was drying the dinner dishes. Which really wasn't such a bad chore. Mom and I used to sing while we did that. Kind of a bonding experience there.

On Wednesdays (when Sunday's meat was gone) we would eat something "easy" like mac and cheese, or some stampot dish. Onions, potatoes and carrots all mushed together, with smoked sausage or meatballs. Later came the Indonesian stuff, Nasi Goreng, Bami, french fries...

On Thursday we had veggies again with those blasted potatoes (another chore I acquired, peeling potatoes) and some sort of "cheap" meat (as opposed to the "good" meat on Sundays)

On Friday mom went nuts cleaning the entire house. Including vacuuming and dusting EVERYTHING, polishing the furniture, the windows, and in the evening (when everyone on the block was home and wouldn't walk up and down the stairs anymore) she would scrub down the outside stairways of the apartment. Well, HER part of it. People on the other floors had to clean their own. But my mom was fanatic about it. Used bleach like it was going out of style. When you happened to come home later after she scrubbed those granite stairs, you would faint from the bleach fumes.
The front door would be scrubbed on the outside as well. Dinner was sandwiches (NO MEAT) and a hard boiled egg. Or fish. But fish stank up the clean house, so we didn't get that too often.

We didn't have showers in those days. And I have always found it strange how the Dutch would not take showers or baths but scrub the daylights out of their front stoop and front doors.

So...I digress...a little...*lol*

Back to day camp.
All I really remember well are the wooden trams, the bad sandwiches and sour milk the red poop, the sand and wet pants, and the VIOS buses, and the stinky kids.

The good thing about these camps was that at the end of the two weeks there would be this huge party for all the kids. It was held in an amphitheater in a big park near our neighborhood. It would last all day, and we would get limonade (sweet drinks) and some kind of treat, I forget what. There would be singing and skits performed.

But most of all I would be SO relieved it was OVER. It always pissed me off that my non catholic friends didn't have to go. I was embarrassed. I wanted to just play...in my street...with my friends...

Now please remember, I am talking about the time I was very young, 6-7-8-9 or so. Mom loosened up later on, when we got bigger/older and we started to help her more with the house work.
To be honest, mom had a wicked sense of humor, and we did have some rolling good times too.
I guess she came from that culture, where the women stayed home and took care of the family, and the men went out to bring home the bacon.

In later days when we tried to talk about mom getting a little job outside the house, my dad would get very mad. She was not allowed to WORK...hahaha...

On Saturdays, the shopping was done. The BIG shopping that is. We would buy the fresh veggies every day. The Baker man came and delivered fresh bread every day, the milkman came by, as did the egg man (kippenboer) and the oil man. But on Saturday I was sent to the local grocery store, list in hand. 1 kilo sugar, 1 pound of salt (EVERY WEEK!!!) and other staples. By the time they had gathered everything on the list (we had a special little book for that) my dad would have come home from work with his paycheck/cash in those days in a brown envelope, and he would come and pay for the groceries and haul the large shopping bag home.

Saturday night was BATH night. Whether we needed it or not! *lol* We had a sort of laundry room, where the washing machine was. It had a large round granite sink with a counter attached, about 50 inches long, 25 inches wide, the sink about 15 inches deep.
As children we would fit in that sink to have our bath. My dad rigged the plumbing so the grown ups had a shower head dangling at about chest height when you stood up. How the hell did we do that all those years.

When people started to buy TVs, our next door neighbors always let us watch Saturday night TV programs. It became a very nice routine every Saturday. Everyone all scrubbed clean in our p.j.s
It was so special. The adult were happy. We were excited to be allowed to stay up. We would drink tea or coffee and have pastries, and other goodies.

Ah, that memory made me smile...

Sundays were truly Holy days for our family.

When we were little we would all go to church together. After my sister was born, we went in teams. Usually mom and I went to high mass, and the guys would go at noon. Baby got to stay home.
We would have a fancy breakfast at the big table as opposed as our during-the-week-breakfast in the kitchen. We would have kadetjes (oblong rolls) with ham (which was fancy for us) and cheese, the good dishes would be used, there would be beschuit (round toasty things), and krentebrood, raisin bread.

After church my dad would go play soccer. Us kids would usually come along, just to get out of mom's hair for a few hours. On some Sundays we would go and visit my grandfather Blok (he from the Canada trip picture I posted yesterday)
That was always a fun visit, as we would get to hang out with the really cool cousins from that side of the family, who were a little less refined than my mother's side cousins, they were rowdy and less catholic, mostly the boys, I loved those Blok boys. Visit the horse (his stable and the carriage were behind that large door you see in the picture) and get a nice fresh shiny apple. Opa was a groentboer, more about that later.
One of these days I'll get around to THAT side of the family.

Sunday night dinner was like the Sunday night breakfast. The big table, the nice table cloth, the good dishes. Good meat, veggies, applesauce, POTATOES, gravy, and fancy dessert, pudding, sometimes chocolate pudding with meringues or whipped cream on top.

The evening was spent either listening to the radio, or playing boardgames. Which I hated with a passion. I am a bad loser.

After all the fun and games on Sunday night, my father would haul out the large aluminum pail for the laundry to soak in, and we knew that Monday was just around the corner...ready to start the cycle all over again....


I am so glad my cousin came into my life at this point. She started me remembering so many more things from the past. Thanks Margo! :>)

And th..th...th..that's all folks!

SGMKJ!

Life goes on..........

Picture of my Opa Blok. Getting ready to go on his once in a lifetime trip to Canada, to see his son and daughter-in-law in Banff
He was 75 years old, never been outside his comfort zone: Den Haag.

I wanted to answer yesterday's comment from Joann:

"Can you live with your dad's decision? It sounds wise to me, but hope you won't second guess yourself later if he strokes anytime soon. "

Hi friend, and thanks for leaving another very nice comment. To answer your question. Yes, I am completely at lease with my dad's decision. No, I won't second guess myself. He and I have talked about this issue many times.

Initially it was a surprise to me to hear how he felt. This was a few years ago.

His own father died at the age of 78. My father didn't think he would live longer than that. I recall his fear when his 78th birthday was looming.

When my dad was 76 he had triple bypass surgery. When he was 78 he had more bypass surgery. Both times, we thought we would lose him. Both times he pulled through.

That last surgery was ten years ago at Christmas time. For some reason we were all in Holland at that time. My brother from New Zealand, me. The last time we had Christmas together, with all four of us kids there.

I vividly remember my mothers fear. She was convinced he was going to die. It was so hard to see her that way, she was so frightened.

You see, the doctors did not want to operate on my father, thought it was too risky. They kept him in the hospital for 5 weeks, until they found a surgeon at the Amsterdam University hospital who agreed to take the chance.

Lucky for everyone, the surgery was a success.
We were off the hook. We visited dad in the hospital with big balloons (It's Girl!, and Big Bird) and we all sighed a huge sigh of relief.

It's now ten years later. He is turning 88. Who woulda thunk! Certainly not him! Once he was over the 78 year hump, he calmed down and now he is ready.

He tells me he lead a very privileged life. A wonderful family, a wife he adores, children and grand kids he just loves to pieces. He traveled to far away places, was able to have enough money to be comfortable during the past 23 years of retirement, in itself a lifetime.


I've been blessed to have known a few friends, who explained how they felt about dying. I've seen the peace in their eyes, welcoming death, not being afraid.

Back when I worked at Macy's I had a very dear friend, Steve, who was our store's operation manager. After I left Macy's he became the ops mgr at our store downtown Atlanta, and we still had lunch now and then when I happened to be "in town"
We had a special relationship. We discovered we had the same Guru. It brought us very close. We also both had a wayward child who gave us lots of problems, we loved to sit and bitch about "those darn kids."

The last time I saw him we had lunch and he told me that he could not "see" into the future anymore. Almost like his life was done, he simply could not picture himself in the future. The problems at home were pretty much solved, it was almost like he was saying: I am ready to go.

Two weeks later he died when his house burned down. It blew me away that he somehow knew. Frankly, it still gives me goosebumps when I think about it.

Then there were the few friends I came to know and love at Jerusalem house, a home for people with AIDS, where I volunteered. All of the ones who eventually died, did so without fear, with dignity, teaching everyone around them important lessons about living and dying.

My auntie was ready too. She welcomed her leaving. Once she wasn't able to go to the casino anymore, the fun was over for her. She was glad to "go."

So, when the time comes, we all just hope my father won't suffer, or will be forced to live weeks or months las a proverbial vegetable.

My sister and I have had many talks about this. I think we are all ready.

And we are all so very very grateful to have had a father so special.

We will be sad, we certainly will miss him, but boy, the legacy and the memories..........


It's overcast here in Georgia. The promised/expected thunderstorms yesterday fizzled out. We had some nice steady rain for a few hours, and my roses look so pretty, my Creeping Jenny bright chartreuse, looks wonderful.

It's Friday again, another week dissapeared so quickly, too quickly.
I'm going to make myself useful this morning and vacuum the place. Mop the floors. Getting ready for Boo-boo.

WHO, by the way, is now starting to climb ON to things and IN to things. Loves her big toy basket, just sits there on top of her stuffed animals and "reads" her books.

Yesterday she turned over a plastic bin and sat on top of that, hollering at the top of her lungs, like she conquered Mt. Everest!

She stands by herself now ten-twelve seconds at a time....we have the camera at the ready for when she starts to actually WALK!

Argh!!!

SGMKJ!

Two MIRs in one day

All went well, considering.

We got on the road at 8:30, got to the hospital around 9:20, no problems on the road.

We hadn't been to Scottish Rite Children's Hospital in 20 years, and we were so impressed how everything looked. Beautiful spaces, brightly colored, everything aimed to please little children.

The staff is just amazing. We never had to wait longer than ten minutes anywhere. The nurses and the doctors actually addressed the baby, played with her, knew just how to put her at ease.

The only thing we all hated was when they had to do the I.V. But it was done quickly.

Boo looked absolutely adorable in her teeny little hospital gown. She didn't mind being there, especially when she was given a nice big brown bear to hold.

We were all allowed to go into the MRI room with her, until they put her 'under'
She fell asleep so quick, it was eery. A tiny little doll on that large table. The doctor covered her up with her own blankie, and we left.

The whole procedure took 30 minutes. It took her 30 minutes to wake up again, but when she did she was ready to go. And HUNGRY!
Driving back home she was her usual chatty self again, and Bugs and I were both relieved and amazed how well everything went.

Bravo to Scottish Rite!

Both Boo and I were really tired (I slept a total of two hours last night) and I put her down at 4:30, JUST for a little while, so I could close my own eyes for a bit as well.

Only to be woken up by the phone. My mom. I had completely forgotten that my father had HIS MRI today as well. It showed the same as they echo they did a month ago. One of the arteries in his neck is blocked 96%, the other 64%. He was given a choice. Surgery (extremely risky) or just do nothing and chance a stroke. He opted not to have surgery.
I agree with his decision. He doesn't have a good track record when it comes to anesthesia.
This way he still has a modicum of quality of life.

He'll be 88 on July 8, 2008. :>)

So here we are, even though my nap didn't last long, I think I'm o.k. Boo is still down.
It started raining this afternoon, supposed to rain like crazy with a chance of thunderstorms.
So far it has been just good soaking rain, something we desperately need here in Georgia.

Bugs went back to work. Daddy called here when we were gone, he wanted to find out how Boo did. He's all apologetic, wants to see Boo, wants everything to be like it used to be.
Bugs is ambivalent. Everyone is urging her to keep her foot down, at least for the next few weeks, at least until the child support mess is finalized and the checks are coming in.

Perhaps she will take our advice to get some judge to help her setting up a visitation schedule.

We will take it one day at a time for now. I hope and pray Bugs will not give in to him, keeping the cycle of abuse alive.

Have a great evening y'all!

SGMKJ!

A wonderful quiet day for a change

Nice weather

Baby in a good mood.

Bugs pretty much back to normal again.

Wheelie and I ran a few errands this morning before going to pick Boo up at her home. We got everything done on the list except we didn't get around to buying a new toilet seat.
Wheelie broke it. He plops down rather hard, and eventually they break. This one seems to be made out of compressed wood, and it broke straight through. Nice to get your bum pinched once in a while.

I duct taped it for now. :>)

I had to go to Target to scan and print a set of old pictures for yet another cousin of mine. A sister of the one in OZ. At the first Target we weren't very lucky. After I scanned and fiddled with the zoom and the enhancements, the Target lady was going to "help" me and promptly crashed the damn computer. Took 15 minutes to reboot. Tried again.
Even then some of the pictures came out hinky, so I gave up.

We went to pick up the kid, and went home to regroup and have some lunch.

Then we trouped down to the Target in Acworth, 25 miles down the road. It's really our favorite store, so we didn't mind making the trip. Thankfully, THAT machine was working fine and in no time we had all the pictures done.

Got a few cute little T shirts for Boo (not that she needs any clothes) and some beer for Wheelie.

Then homeward bound again to get the pictures in an envelope and Boo and I drove to the post office. Everyone there was happy to see the kid, they have been following her development since she was conceived. The neat thing is, that all three ladies that work there have had their first grand child at around the same time! We even go to the Library story time together!
So everyone was all surprised to see Miss Boo all grown up and saying HI! to everyone and waving her cute little princess wave.

We were all done with our chores around 4pm and we all felt rather good about having accomplished some stuff positive.

I gave Boo her dinner at 5, gave her her bath at 7, and at 7:30 she was down and out.

Yeahhhhh!!!!

I crept onto my bed and watched 4 episodes of Ghost Hunters on the Sci Fi channel.

It's almost midnight now, Wheelie is already in bed, but I wanted to post a few words.

Tomorrow morning we're off to Scottish Rite Hospital at 8:30.

Can't wait to find out what, if anything, is up with that crooked butt crack.

Good night y'all!

SGMKJ!

Second post of the day

O.K.

The waters have calmed a little.

Let me backtrack a bit.

Sunday, Mothers Day, Wheelie, Bugs, Boo and I went to breakfast together, we had a marvelous time. Bugs loved the photo album I made and the three pictures framed.

Afterwards, the girls went on their way, and I crawled on the couch with my book.

At around 7pm Bugs called, all upset, Daddy was drunk, and calling her and leaving nasty text messages and voice mail.
He continued to do so until 5 am the next morning, when she turned her phone back on there were a ton of really bad, nasty, threatening text messages, and her voice mail box was full as well.

Talk about getting motivated. FINALLY she got it. On Monday morning she finished filling out her child support papers, and went for her interview, so she got that ball rolling. She then went to Verizon to have her phone number changed.

In these iffie domestic situations there is never really a good way to predict how this is going to go, or end.
But we were all sufficiently scared, so the girls decided to spend the night here.
First I went home with her to help her straighten the house a bit, feed the animals, and get the laundry, pack a few bags, make sure every door and window was locked.

Neither one of us slept very well last night, except Boo-boo, the little angel not being aware of all the hoopla around her.

So Bugs went to work this morning, and guess what, Daddy started calling her at work. He was furious that she changed her phone number, started to threaten her again, he wanted to come and GET his daughter, and he would bring the police if he had to.

Now, this boy is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He doesn't know his facts, so he sounded rather pathetic.

Bugs was told by the child support folks that he has absolutely NO rights whatsoever, even though his name is on the birth certificate. (something I've been telling her for over a year now)

Obviously he didn't believe it.

So the folks at CS must have called him, and he must have found out that indeed, he has no rights, that Bugs is the only person who has full custody, and she decides who sees Boo and when. He's obligated to support her financially though, I am not sure how they go about getting him to pay.

She had to tell her staff at work what was going on. Not much fun, since everyone knows everyone in this town, and who knows who is going to blow the lid, but we'll worry about that when or if it happens.

For now they are not taking his phone
calls at work, and he can't call her because he doesn't have the number of her cell phone.

I suggested Bugs save all those messages, and NOT delete them at any cost.

Now, for you who have ever been in situations like this, you will know that things can go very very bad indeed. He might be "nice" when he's not drinking, he might not have ever been physical with her, but....you hear the horror stories day, the odds are that this can escalate into something very ugly.

Getting a restraining order on him would be pointless. I mean, if he ever shows up at my door demanding to see Boo, I will call 911 so fast it'll make his head spin. Restraining orders (to me) only aggravate the person even more, and more often than not things get out of hand because of them. And usually the police won't DO anything until some serious damage has been done.

So....here's where things stand at this point. Bugs told him she wasn't going to let him see Boo until he gets everything straightened out, with the child support people, even taking a DNA paternity test (he was accusing her of Boo not being his baby at one point along the way, which is really funny, as they look exactly alike, I mean, no way is this NOT his baby!)

I have urged her to call Child/Family Welfare services and/or contact a lawyer. She's dragging her feet about that.

We'll see. She is slowly coming around in understanding that Daddy is not going to turn into prince charming overnight, especially with his drinking. (She kicked him out once before when she was 4 months pregnant)

So this morning I took Boo for a nice long calming drive (to get my bagels) and after that all three of us hopped (well...hopped...*S*) in the car and went to get a few groceries.

Thankfully Boo is letting me write for a while. She's taking a good nap. She is a good girl!

Thanks for those of you who have written me, I really appreciate your caring and your support.

SGMKJ!

We're o.k.

Just a quicky for all of you wondering...

We're o.k.

Boo and Bugs spent the night here, just in case.

She went off to work, and I'm about to take Boo out to get my asiago cheese bagels.

Hopefully I'll get a chance later on today to tell the rest of the story.

Have a great one!

SGMKJ!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of my readers who are Moms!

It's a day which will be a joyful one for many, a sad one for others.

Here are some flowers:

For those of us who still have children near, grand children close, to kiss and hug and spoil.

For those who have children who no longer want to be part of their life for some reason or another.

For those who have children fighting a useless, stupid war, did not want to see them go, but supported their decisions.

For the mothers who felt it their duty to be soldiers and leave their kids with grandparents.

For the mothers who's children will never come back from that war.

For the mothers who are now grand mothers and great grand mothers, and worry now in duplicate or triplicate.

For the mothers who take care of their fragile children, the ill, the disabled, the mentally challenged.

For the women who will be mothers in the next nine months

Being a mother is a job no one trains you for. They never tell you about the pitfalls, the incredible pain, the worries, the joys, the laughter, the pride.

No one teaches a mother how to cope with the fussy baby who is teething, who has colic, who just won't eat.

How to cope with taking a baby to the hospital for invasive tests, to cope with waiting for the results, wondering if the insurance company will pay for the tests, or heaven forbid, the treatment of a diagnosed illness.

There are no classes you can take to learn how to hold on to an angry child, who thinks he wasn't treated right, who doesn't consider calling you MOM, who won't answer your letters, thank you for the gifts on birthdays and holidays.
No courses in how to let go of a child and let her be her own person, even though you know she is turning the wrong corner.

For all those moms who lay awake until the early hours of the morning, trying to figure things out, wondering where their teenager is, who he's with, what he is doing.

And for all of us moms, who, somewhere along the line have experienced glimpses of extreme joy. In watching a child's first steps. Hearing their child's voice in their first choir recital. Watching her play a solo on her viola in High school orchestra. Watch them win a race, score a goal, hit a home run.

Experiencing the cycle continuing by watching your first grand child being born, and not being able to express that incredible feeling of watching that miracle.

And last but certainly not least, all those women who are not mothers in the physical sense of the word, but who nevertheless take care of others in their world, taking the mothering task seriously, spreading love and care.

I hope you will all experience something wonderful today!

SGMKJ!

Yellow shoes

Today was Bugs' last "vacation day"

She sounded a bit forlorn on the phone this morning so I asked her if she would like to go to the mall with me.
Of course the answer was yes!

She will be the matron of honor at her friend Maddie's wedding in September.
It's going to be a "green" affair with cotton dresses and sunflowers.
The bridesmaids dresses are BRIGHT green, very cute.
Initially they were going to wear yellow shoes.

Goooood luck!

After a few weeks of looking for yellow shoes, and not finding any, the plan was switched to plain beige canvas type shoes.

Ah yes.

We went to every shoe store in the mall, as well as the shoe departments at Belks and Macy's, Penneys and Sears. No such luck. The choices were either tennies, or what we call in this family: "suicide shoes", those 4 inch platform things. My ankles break by just looking at them.
Since Bugs has the longest and skinniest legs on earth, she can not wear anything higher than a one inch heel. And even then she wobbles.

Of course every store we went into had a row of....yes...yellow shoes!!!
But, always with 3-4-5 inch heels, and patent leather, or sparkly stuff on them.

I reminded her that the wedding wasn't until September and that she had plenty of time to find the right shoes. Summer collections are just coming into the stores, and who knows....

Much to my surprise, the first thing she did this morning was to call Humana Health insurance, and set up a good plan for her. (Her bosses decided to drop the coverage they have because they don't have enough people for the plan and it's too expensive)
For once this girl does what she is supposed to do. Only to get a call from her boss tonight that they will hang on to the coverage "for a little while longer" and not to sign anything.

Bugs is fit to be tight. I think she's pretty much had it with this job. It will be interesting to see how things will develop.

Next Thursday she has an appointment at Scottish Rite Children's hospital for Boo-boo's MRI.
They called her today to confirm. What sounded like a simple procedure at first now seems like some major undertaking. Initially we were told they would use a suppository type tranquilizer to calm her down, now they tell her she will have to be put to sleep. First it was a matter of an hour, now it's four hours.

Bugs hadn't told her boss yet, thinking she would be back in time for her shift at two.

She's afraid they won't let her take the day off. She is so frustrated. Welcome to motherhood, darling. I hope she will ask me to come along. I offered to a while back, but she hasn't said anything since. So we wait.

The reason they want to take an MRI of her spine is because her little butt crack veres off at her tailbone, which might be an indication of scoliosis or even a fused vertibrae.

Hopefully it's nothing, glad we have the insurance to pay for it, and to get some peace of mind.

So without shoes, and Boo nodding off, we decided to take the long way home (as opposed to the freeway we take the scenic route), and then go to lunch. Home again at two. Not too bad. I was bushed!

We're not sure about tomorrow yet, as Bugs can't get a hold of Daddy. There we go again. Oh well...

All in all an interesting week. Me with my post-Menopausal PMS, Bugs with her problems, Boo with her teeth.

Her vocabulary is increasing
We now can say:

Car Car
Grover
Elmo
Bohpah! (Opa)
Mama
Dadda
Bobo (bottle)
woof woof
kitty kitty
buh (bird)
Nose
foot
Shhhh (shoe)
blij blij blij....(Dutch for happy, happy happy)

NO!
WOW!
OH WOW!
Uh OHHH!


Pretty impressive huh! :>)

Upward and onward...weekend coming up...Mother's day and all....

Wheelie got me the Best Of Queen CD...*LOLOLOL* for mother's day.

We will, we will ROCK YOU!!!

SGMKJ!

Found pictures of my "old" house

It's the one in the middle. Not as large as I always thought it was.
I took this picture about 14 years ago, they have since restored the facade and took off the white paint and the wild ivy.
The top picture shows the front door (and my sister)

Blahhhhhhh, Blahhhhhhhh, Blahhhhhhhhhhh

That's exactly how I have been feeling these past few days.
Seems like nothing gets done. I should have plenty of time to catch up with stuff, now that Bugs has the week off.

Ha!

No, it's just not going to happen.

It started on Sunday. Bugs had tickets for a concert, so Boo came to spend the night with us. The day and night before she spent with Daddy. She came home with the worst case of diaper rash I have ever seen on any child.

Unbe-frigging-lievable!!!


Apparently he didn't change her too often, and she had a bm in the middle of the night and he didn't notice.

Of course you can't expect the guy to be the perfect mother hen, but when you go to bed yourself you check on your child, see if she needs to have a clean diaper. She did wake up a few times, but he didn't check.

Anyway, I was pissed. At both of them. Bugs just handing her over at 3 in the afternoon with a: oh by the way, Boo has a diaper rash. Not until I went to change her did I see the extend of the problem. That poor poor baby!
So I put her in a tub with luke warm water to just kind of relax her, and afterward had her crawl around without her diaper on. Let her air out.

She liked that! :>)

Then on Sunday morning I expected Bugs to come and get her at around nine. Nope......I called her at noon and woke her up. So much for my Monday. Wheelie and I had plans to go shopping, I had plans to go to the bank...I ended up going to the grocery store with Bugs because Bugs didn't have money to buy groceries.

Today Wheelie had an appointment with his urologist. No biggie, just to draw some blood for his PSI, pee in a cup, and get his hormone shot. It's a 35 mile drive to Rome, Georgia, nice drive.

But we wanted to do a few things in the afternoon. We still have a small left over collection of LPs that he wanted to list on Ebay.
Since I haven't done anything on Ebay for a few months now, it took some doing to get me going again. Had to order packing boxes, make pictures of the LPs, get organized. I just have to be in the MOOD for something like that.

Since I didn't go to the bank on Monday, I went after the doctor's appointment.

Went to one branch of the BofA here in town where I usually go. Well, my buddy wasn't working and the fellow who was trying to run the show there was running around with his head up his arse. It looked like it would take a while before he could get to me.

So I decided to try the other branch.
No one there to help me either. This transaction requires a special bank person, can't be done at the teller counter. So this Indian chick says she can help me. Hmmmm...She tried to help me once before, when I wanted to exchange some Euros and deposit the money into my bank account. She screwed that up.

So she starts putsing around on her computer, had this puzzled look on her face, and I could just feel it in my bones, this wasn't gonna go well.
When she picked up her phone to ask for help the hair on the back of my neck was starting to rise.
I gave her ten minutes, apparently no one was picking up the phone on the other end. The woman was clearly baffled. SO....I told her to give me back the forms, and my other stuff, and I would come back another time...

You know, if you work at a bank, a LARGE international bank, I expect you to know how to do stuff. Like how to exchange Euros into Dollars, or wire funds to a bank in another country.

It just shows you how things work here in redneck country. And this girl has absolutely NO patience for this.

I decided to just go home and try again tomorrow, maybe my regular gal will be there.

So I get a phone call from Bugs, can you watch Boo for me for ten minutes while I run to the tanning salon?

The ten minutes turned into 40, but that was to be expected.

Still.....I did not WANT to babysit today. I did not WANT to crawl all over the floor again afterwards to pick up an avalanche of toys...

I don't know....I'm just in one of those pissy moods, I swear to God, even though menopause has come and gone a long time ago, I still have my emotional period every damn month.

PMS....hate it!

I have plenty of subjects I want to write about, (and I am writing them down for a change, so I won't forget) but nothing seems to be coming of it.

I was looking for something online yesterday, and ran into a few stories written by one of my neighbors from the "old street" the one that grew up next to us, a sister of Tineke.
One thing I found out (and corrected it in my story) is that that family was evacuated from their home in Scheveningen when the Germans came and occupied the country, and they moved in next to our house.

I found an entire website about Den Haag, and written stories from before, during and after the war. I got pretty involved in reading them, and as these things go, I ended up checking pictures and charts and other sites about my the city of my birth. (There are millions of website about Den Haag, but this was a new one to me)

Found an entire site about my old "burg", very interesting reading. More stories of people who lived in the neighborhood I actually lived in most of my life, in South West Den Haag, an area called Moerwijk.

So ........basically I am backlogged, and bogged down. :>)

For now.

If I could just have ONE day to pull myself back together again. No baby, no daughter, no hassles of any kind.....

The weather is fabulous, I'll have to admit. 79° today, almost too warm. That's about 26°Celsius for you Dutchies and Aussies and NewZeessies...

I guess I am also just upset that Bugs doesn't seem to have much motivation to get things done, like going after her child support, calling the lawyer back to talk about her legal standings.
So many things she needs to take care of, and it's so hard for me to keep my mouth shut.

Is it selfish of me to sometimes wish I lived somewhere in Finland by a nice lake in a small wooden house with no one to bug me?

Nah....

SGMKJ!

Old pictures

My Opa and me in 1947

My shelves and closets are stuffed with boxes full of loose photos. A couple dozen albums, some torn and pulled apart. Many pictures missing. They are all over the place, as through the years I've been pulling pictures out of albums when I needed them for something, some project, making copies for friends and relatives.

Many were pulled when four years ago I had two reunions in Holland. One with some girls from school, and one with my old girlfriends from my neighborhood.

So, we have pictures everywhere. These past few days I've been searching for pictures to send to my cousin in Australia. I have some of her siblings, going way back, and I'm talking the 1940's!
Also pictures of her mother when she was a girl.

I've had a bear of a time finding some of them though. A few of them I handled only a few days ago, I put them somewhere where I can't find them now. It's driving me nuts.

I've promised myself to make it a project one day to empty an entire bookcase, make room and organize ALL my pictures, put them into new albums and so forth. This will probably happen by the time Boo-boo is ready for college. *LOL*

Anyway, it has been much fun finding these old pictures, tiny square things you need a magnifying glass to see the details.

So as luck will have it, you can now go to your nearby Target store and use their Kodak machine to scan and/or enlarge them. Not expensive either. The folks at Target are starting to greet me by name now, I am becoming of their frequent flyer customers.

This morning I enlarged a few pictures I wanted for myself. To make some sort of collage with. (Ha! another project!)
One of the pictures is the one I am showing here. I must have been Boo-boo's age here. My proud Opa holding me. Me wearing a hand knit coat with matching hat and mittens. Most likely knitted by my mother's aunt, Rika. I had many cute outfits like that.

My Mom and her sisters/aunts were all very good knitters and seamstresses. My Mom made all our clothes pretty much until we went to high school. We never looked stupid, we always wore the latest styles, never had long dumb skirts, always very perky, fresh, and cute looking.
She once made me a winter coat (dark green with black velvet trimming) out of one of her old coats. Pretty amazing.

Anyway, to get back to my Opa. Not until I enlarged this picture today had I been able to see his face close up. He sure looks like a fun guy, a definite twinkle in his eye. He used to be in charge of peeling the potatoes at night. He would always carve faces in the potatoes, and it was always a sport to keep those potatoes from falling apart during cooking.


I am told he was quite the practical joker, used to drive my mother nuts, as he was always bugging her. He used to take me to school, when I was in kindergarten. When he picked me up we would go and buy a candy at the corner Jamin store. The Jamin stores are still in business today, still selling candy, like chocolate covered nougat bars, shaped like a diamond, wrapped in colored foil.

Sometimes we used to go and visit his sister, Tante Cor, who looked like a witch, had a wart, and smelled funky, as did her house. But then, in those days most homes of old people smelled strange, this was before showers and washing machines and rug cleaning machines.

My grandfather had a lady friend too. Her name was Mrs. Wisman. She lived a block away from us on the third floor of an apartment/tenement building. Long steep stairwell, straight up.
When the baker or the milkman would come by, she would lower a basket down her window with her shopping list and money, and would haul it back up with her purchases
.
I visited her with my grandfather, and I vaguely remember her parlor. It seems there was a lot of dark red or purple velvet, stuffed chairs, small mahogany tables with doilies, lace curtains and porcelain tea sets and other froo-froo stuff. I always thought she was some sort of rich old matron, very aristocratic, but very kind.

Which was interesting, now that I think about it, as my grandfather was a "putten leger"
Remember when I wrote that he worked for the Water Department, but I didn't know what he did there?
Well, my mom told me he emptied sewers! *lol*
You have to have a sense of humor to do a job like that!

I really didn't know. My Opa was always dressed like a gentleman, always the white starched shirt and tie, the hat, the dark overcoat.

He would take me to the graveyard to tend to the family grave. At the time only my grandmother was buried there, and a nephew, who died when he was a baby. Opa planted a flowering cherry tree which draped it's pink flowery branches gently over the headstone in the spring. There were always fresh flowers and plants, he tended to that grave like he tended to his garden at home. With so much love and affection. I remember the entire graveyard being very old, with a special section for priests and nuns, and all the walking paths were made from crushed seashells.

Today there are a few additional family members buried there, the latest my cousin's mom. I believe the family left her urn on top of the family grave. No more room at the inn.
It really is a pretty place, I visited it a few years ago. My sister thought I was nuts for wanting to *s*

Today was a pretty nice day. It was warm. Boo and I took a stroll around the neighborhood. She was still a little cranky, her upper teeth are about to pop out, so I have her some medicine.

I fed her dinner and while she and Wheelie watched the news, she rocked herself to sleep in the high chair, so I put her to bed at six.

Bugs is taking next week off, starting tomorrow. So except for Sunday night, when she is going to a concert, we won't have to babysit the little rascal until next Saturday.

Her Opa will miss her, and so will I.

But....I am also looking forward to taking afternoon naps and reading my books from start to finish.

Have a wonderful weekend y'all!

SGMKJ!

Violieren......................

The other day I bought a bouquet of Stock, or as we call them in Holland: violieren.

My mom hates these flowers, as the scent of these remind her of funerals. You won't do her a favor at all if you brought her a bunch, no matter how pretty they looked. No, she likes Freesias, Rozes, Gerberas, Lillies of the Valley, Lilacs and Sweet Pea....

We all have sense-memories like this I am sure. I can well imagine her dislike for these flowers, as it most likely reminds her of her own mother's funeral, or her father's.
It easy to recall the old ornate churches, dark and mysterious, smelling of frankincense and must, and during funerals and holidays, the flowers. Carnations and violieren. Hardy flowers, they don't wilt quickly, and they fill the space with a sweet smell for days.

My very own memory of these flowers is not a sad one at all. During certain holidays in the catholic faith, there are celebrations when they hold these parades, for lack of a better word, of children, girls dressed like little brides, white dresses, veils, holding a small bouquet of flowers.

Only once was I a participant in one of these parades. I remember it quite vividly, the dress, the big silk bow in my hair (I still have a kink in my hair where I always wore my bows), the white shoes, the feeling of being so very very special to have been chosen to participate. And of course the flowers, the fragrance. I'll never forget that. In the picture I am posing before the event. In the backyard, standing on the "put" the waterdrain from the kitchen. Against the wall there were two pear trees which were trained to grow flat against the wall. I remember them bearing fruit, but there were always worms in them.


I must have been three or four. We were still living in my grandparents' house in Den Haag in the Chasseestraat. We lived there with my Opa, and my mother's youngest sister, who was still single at the time.
The house was like a small brownstone, two stories with a large attic.

The backyard was tiny, but I always remember it to be huge. My grandfather built a shed in the back, he made a sign that hang over the door, and ever so often he changed the name of the shed. As a matter of fact, every picture I have ever seen of that shed has a different sign on it.
Many family group pictures were taken in this little garden in front of that shed, mostly at engagements, birthdays and weddings.

Opa was in charge of the yard. He loved planting his marigolds. I remember there being a huge golden rain tree (wisteria) in the back corner by the shed. The bunches of bright fragrant yellow flowers in the spring. We might have had some lilacs there too. Right outside of the French doors there was a black and white tiled patio, then a narrow pebbled path (or crushed seashells), with the flower beds on each side. Planters hanging from the fence.

As I grew older, especially once I lived in the USA, I had dreams about that house. Every time I visited Holland I would drag my sister out and we would drive by the house a few times, making pictures of it, wondering who was living in it now...

The dreams continued for quite a while, always about the attic, where my aunt had her tiny room under the roof, where my mom hung the laundry when it rained. The hidden closet. We would play up there. My brother and I shared the front bedroom on the second floor. A curtain dividing our space.

Opa had the back bedroom, and there was a small room in between with a wastafel, a dry sink. I clearly remember my Opa shaving there in the morning. He would tell me stories, usually pretty fantastic ones to scare me a little, but never with any malice. He had been bald since his engagement to my Oma. On a dare he shaved his head and he never grew his hair out again. I would watch him shave his head and his chin with an old fashioned razor, and what I thought to be whipped cream from a mug.

One night my parents went across the street to play cards with the neighbors. Apparently I didn't want to go to sleep, so I got adventurous and started climbing the drapes. My dad rushed back home (I guess someone saw me and reported my crime) and he tied my feet to the bed rail with a towel so I could not get out. You do that now and you'll be arrested for child abuse.

Of course my brother was always the good little boy, he never got into ANY trouble, EVER...:>)

So a few years ago, I was tired of just driving BY the house. When I was planning my annual trip home I took the bull by the horns and wrote a letter to the owner of the house. Not knowing who lived there, I just addressed it to "occupant."

A week or so later I received a phone call. It was our old neighbor! This woman was quite a bit older than I was, but we used to play together as kids. Her parents lived in that house ever since they were evacuated from their home in Scheveningen during the war. Her father was a fisherman from, a heavy drinker. Her mother was Austrian. A short fat lady with enormous boobs, and black hair which she wore in a long braid down her back. She always wore an apron. She was a very jolly woman, always laughing always hugging the stuffing out of you. There were tons of kids, I believe about 8 of them (I could be wrong of course)

On of their daughters continued to live in the same house after her parents died.
The lady who lives in our old house was quick to show her the letter I sent her, and all heck broke lose. Tineke (the neighbor) could not find my parents in the phonebook, since they had moved outside of the city, but she did find my aunt, and called her. She got a hold of my phone number here in the USA and decided to give me a call.

She was so terribly excited to have found us. The lady who lived in our house, her name is Toos, told us we just HAD to come down and visit. She was very eager to show us the house and hear our stories, and meet the folks who once owned it and grew up in it.
My parents were surprised, they thought I had a lot of nerve writing that letter, but they were also pleased to catch up with the old neighbors and accepted the invitation.

So one evening we all got into the car and went to visit.

At first there was the drinking of coffee with gebak, of course, and Tineke and my mom never stopped yakking.
Toos then showed us the old house. She had done quite a bit of renovation, but it was basically still our old house. The place I had dreamed about so many times.

The attic was still there of course, with it's very very steep staircase, almost vertical. The bedrooms where we slept. Now with a complete bathroom. Ohhs and Ahhhs....Oh My Gods....

There was a door that opened to a patio (the roof above the kitchen) which had a beautiful etched glass window in it. Yup, the original, as were the stained glass top windows in the front room, and the black and white tiles on the garden patio.

I am sure my mom and dad were awestruck, and I would have given anything to have been able to read their minds when they toured the house.

But I had an experience that was absolutely priceless:

When we entered what used to be my Opa's room, I experienced a flash, like a photograph...I clearly saw my Opa's bed, him in it, while he was being given the last rites, the priest, my uncle Bert kneeling at the foot of the bed with his rosary in his hands, my uncle Chris there too and my father....it lasted a nano second, time stood still, for that split second I did not hear anything, but it was almost like I was transferred to that particular point in time.
My sister who was walking ahead of me turned around and looked at me, I probably gasped or something. She wondered if I was ok. I'll tell you later, I whispered.

The experience has since played in my head over and over, it was such a special moment, such a wonderful gift.

The attic held much fascination for me as well. Toos told us when they were tearing down some walls in the attic they found a small bed there, and some drawings, some anti war propaganda.
It might have been something my mother's brother will know more about, as he was in the army during the start of the war. And he hid for most of the war under the floor of the back room (this is a fact I remember hearing the grown ups talk about and I can't say this happened for sure)

There were many things in the house that had never been changed. The front door was still the same, the long long hallway, so dark and scary to me then, the itty bitty teeny kitchen.
Mom and dad used the front room as their bedroom in those days. They had this humongous painting hanging over their bed with the Holy Mother and a bunch of angels.
I wonder how they were ever able to be intimate under that piece of art *lol* Geesh!

Hopefully I will be able to go and visit there again, maybe by myself this time, stay a little longer.

For now I am going to close this down, as Boo-boo just woke up from her morning nap, and is demanding to be fed.

Have a super day y'all!

SGMKJ!