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Excerpt from article:

In her book Making the American Mouth, Alyssa Picard argues that the postwar orthodontics boom helped the upper middle class get in the habit of paying high out-of-pocket fees to care for its teeth. Ironically, this practice grew out of dentists' unfounded worry that their profession would go the way of the blacksmith as fluoridation reduced kids' immediate need for extractions and fillings. During the 1950s, the American Dental Association ran an advertising campaign to encourage orthodontic treatment. Gradually, paying for braces became an expected investment, part of the price of raising children, like test prep and college fees. Even now, dental plans rarely cover orthodontia, and the lifetime reimbursement limit is much less than the cost of braces, but parents feel pressured to buy their kids the straight, white smile that is the clearest physical indication of prosperity.

http://www.slate.com/id/2229632

My mother describes my generation, Gen X, as the generation of perfect teeth. So very many of us have had braces. It never occurred to me that imperfectly aligned teeth were not a medical "condition"  that needed to be treated. Mine was the first American generation where orthodontia was a norm.

When I was a kid a had pretty bad teeth, probably because I was allowed to suck my thumb for too long as a small child (no blame placing here! You know I love you , mom!! :-)).   I had a big gap between  my front teeth and they bucked out.   If I had never had that corrected, my life would be totally different and I am quite sure, not even a fraction as good or happy as I have had the fortune to experience. 

In my sheltered middle class world, it seemed like everyone who needed braces or dental care got it. Until I read the article posted on this site, I never really thought about dentistry, let alone orthodontia,  being out of reach for a lot of people--and not because I live in an ivory tower--I just don't spend a lot of my waking hours thinking about dentistry.

When I first started making my trips to Europe, I noticed immediately how so many people had "bad teeth."  I asked a friend of mine why people here didn't have their crooked or gap-toothed smiles corrected. She told me it just wasn't something people considered.

It dawned on me at that moment how once again our collective American perception on health and wellness has been manipulated by ideals of perfection and the opportunity to profit hugely from those ideals.  There is an odd sameness to the smiles among Americans of my generation.  There is diversity among other populations.  Would Kate Moss be as alluring as she is with that angle between her teeth straightend out?

And as the writer outlines in her article, dental insurance is thin in its coverage. I've had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for routine treatments.  As a teenager, I had braces for four years followed by bite guards and retainers and reinforced or replaced fillings . Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary by the standards of my American contemporaries. And as I have come to learn, totally outrageous by 99.9999% of the rest of the world.  And without question, dentistry has become elective and cosmetic like so many other things, and the fact that children in the U.S. still can die from tooth abscesses seems beyond comprehension.  I was embarrassed by my naivete  when I read this article in Slate.

A friend from work always accuses me of having my teeth bleached and won't believe me when I deny it (It's SO American to have your teeth bleached, he teases me).  I deny it emphatically, but whether or not that denial is the truth I'll never tell. :-)  Other friends in Holland also like to tease me about my "tiny" breasts, which indeed they are, relative to many of the  buxom and beautifully endowed women of my adopted country.   As I have been "cured" of the imperfect smile I developed as a child, perhaps a little trip to the plastic surgeon would "cure" me of the humble offering inside my bra.  But if no one objects, I think I'll draw the line there, and I'll recognize the beauty in an unaltered smile.

I still have a few friends who claim they don't get social networking. Don't need it. Have no use for it. "I'd rather spend my time in the real world."   "I don't want to 'chat'  with some person who was a classmate in the first grade who found me on Facebook."  These people so miss the point.

Social media can be a distraction like anything else, and when that happens people become burned out and cynical.  I am a heavy user of social networking. I check my facebook several times a day and I have the facebook gadget downloaded on my desktop. I consider myself a relatively early adopter of social networking. The deeper I get into it, the more I realize how much control I have over it, how I can tailor it to my "real world"  the more potential I see in it.

A few days ago, I was downloading some Twitter add-ins to my Outlook.  As I was doing this, I was reporting the experience on my twitter updates. I was testing the new functionality by using it for its intended purpose. Within seconds, a few people responded to my updates.  This circular occurrance really blew my mind. I was having an experience, what that experience was almost doesn't matter, I was conveying that experience, and any one of the hundreds of people on my friends list could learn about that experience and comment on it in real time.   It felt very real and very connective.

This is not idly chatting or wasting time. I was having this rather simple moment privately in my head and at my lap top, but was able to share it with hundreds of people who are spread out all over Europe and the States, and have them participate in the experience, was something that struck me as unquantifyably wonderful. I am sure in a few weeks, someone is going to come up with an application that can quantify wonderfulness. I'll be the first person to download it, and to share it.

It's 8:30 on a perfect Friday morning. I have already answered 10 work emails. The news of John Hughes' death has arrived. And "Don't You Forget About Me"  is still a very beautiful song. 

The John Hughes's three-pack-- Ferris Beuller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, and the Breakfast Club--were hyperbolic and even as a teenager, I knew there was something creepy about an adult so fixated on his teenage years that he devoted his career to making movies about them. But John's fixation was also a real-life hyperbole of the typical suburban American teenage experience: these years are irreparably formative. That someone made these movies about my generation during my generation made us feel validated.  The thing that was nice about these films is that we we knew we were ridiculous on some level. You are a teenager, you live in your parents' house, and therefore have the freedom to feel and think the things you feel and think unburdened and uninterrupted by the pragmatism of having to support yourself. Everything is a discovery.

The sense memories of my teenage years are exactly like the day is today. It's summer and it is hot. I'm alone and listening to music.  I grew up in the suburban Midwest. Everything felt meaningful because everything seemed totally out of reach. Everything had song attached to it.  I remember babysitting for some neighbor children on the night Live Aid was on the tv. I let the kids fall asleep on the couch so they could see as much of the concert as they could manage.   I remember listening to Little Steven's "Sun City"  over and over and wishing very much that I could someday be involved in something like that.  I remember parking the car in the middle of this one certain street in this one certain neighborhood where my girlfriend and I would tune the radio to this tiny little space where we could barely receive a Chicago radio station that played " I Want Your Sex" --a song  the local radio stations wouldn't play. I didn't really even like the song but I hated the fact that we couldn't hear it because of where we lived.  I remember 120 Minutes and the Young Ones. I remember really wanting to be one of those skinny pale British kids in baggy clothes looking androgynous and cold and delightfully miserable waiting to get into Smiths shows. I remember Brotherhood. The Queen is Dead. Life's Rich Pageant. Boys Don't Cry. On and on and on.

  I'll listen to that Simple Minds song today and I will not forget.

Having returned from my third MGX, I'm thinking about the reverse culture shock I feel when I visit the U.S.  I wrote a post similar to this one around this same time last year, but I cannot help but come away with the lingering, powerful feeling that the U.S. is sick with consumerism.  I know this is no grand revelation.

Usually I feel an anxiety to stock up on my favorite things in the U.S. that I can't get in Europe, or else can get in Europe but at 3 times the price. This year, I walked into Target and was simply overwhelmed. There are entire aisles that have nothing but granola bars. There was an entire aisle that had nothing but cheesy crackers...Ritz and Goldfish and things like that. An entire aisle of cheesy snacks got me thinking.  What is the end to end expense of this sort of pure marketing of empty calories? There are no more products to make. They have all been made. The only thing left to do is change the size and shape and packaging then market the hell out of it.

The main ingredients in junk food are corn, rice (both in flour and sugar forms), oats, cane sugar, salt, food coloring, and oil or some other form of fat.  I'm curious what the end to end cost and tax, both to people and the environment, is to sell what is basically poison to Americans.  How many acres of corn fields are used in production? How many trees are killed to package these products? How many landfills are stuffed with plastic wrappers? What are the distribution and energy consumption costs to create and transport this stuff?  And how many billions of dollars are wasted treating self-induced obesity-related medical problems (diabetes, joint problems, digestive problems, etc) as a result of eating it?   What are the total costs for using up land mass to create space to shelves these items? And how much money is spent in marketing them?  How much fuel is wasted by Americans who have no choice but to drive considerable distances to these stores to buy these items?

There was also a huge section of microwaved dinners and ice cream. Another section just for frozen fried potatoes, breaded fish and chicken. These frozen foods sections on this scale do not exist anywhere else in the world. What is the cost to the environment having to build thousands of enormous freezers in grocery stores?

Europe tends to have the opposite problem. Stores don't always stay open late enough and sometimes the things you want aren't available when they are open. So as always, the challenge is to find the balance between both worlds. If you look at it from a save-the-planet perspective, one must ask people to modify their behavior in a way that would not inconvenience them. If you try to take away what people are used to they won't go for it. 

What if one house in every urban-planned neighborhood or suburb was converted into a grocery store open only during peak hours in the morning and evening so that the majority of Americans could find everything they wanted in a store that was no more than a 5-20 minute walk from their house? Would they go for that on a more regular basis rather than the twice-per-month run to Cosco or Wal-mart? Would they do it even if it cost a few dollars more, knowing that they were saving dollars on fuel costs?     If I were President of the United States, I would fund an experiment to see if people would be receptive to a more localized form of consumerism. Would people cook more if they had more time saved from being in a car less often?  Would people be willing to walk to a retail location if the time to walk was the same as the time to drive to a bigger location a further distance from their house?  Would people bike or use scooters in luxurious neighborhoods where each individual property is too big to make this practical?  And in the winter, would people go for a localized delivery program? 

I believe very much that there must be a simple solution to this maddening burden of fabricated choice.  

Shushie

Puss pie

Shoo Shoo

Puss 'n' Boots

Charloo

Char

Chardiechar

Charlotte Ruth Sometimes.

Here I am waiting for Michael to come home. I've just given him the news. And I turn to this blog.  My cat and constant companion for the last 13 years left earth today. Her biography is running through my head. We almost lost her in December but she rebounded and for the last six months of her life she was more playful and vivacious and funny than ever. That time was such a gift. I have been travelling with my niece for the last week. When we left for Paris, Charlotte seemed fine and normal. I got home and noticed that she was crashing fast. Her back legs stopped working and for the last five days she would not eat or drink.

People say you'll just know when it is time. This was not Charlotte getting sick. This was Charlotte passing away.  I feel like she waited for me. We spent today together lying side by side. She had no energy to move.  I took her to our wonderful vet today for a final evaluation telling myself just to take this one day at a time, one hour at a time. The vet told me what I already knew...there was no question. Charlotte and I were ready and in some animal spirit way I feel like we made the decision together. She went so quietly. I held her head in my hands and stroked her fur. Told her it was ok and that I loved her. She purred ever so gently as her breathing quieted. It was a beautiful and peaceful and heartbreaking moment in my life.

I dedicate this entry today to all who love animals. And to all the pets who give us so many years of love that we  often rarely deserve. I dedicate this entry to Charlotte Sometimes, You are with me always, my sweet little puss.

I took Michael to Maastricht for his birthday. Maastricht is a town in the south of Holland that is heavily influenced by its surroundings, that is to say, Belgium.   We stayed at an amazing hotel, the Herenkruis hotel, which was once a church and a convent.  You walk through a shiny-penny copper tunnel which opens into what was once the main processional church area. Below is a red velvet bar, above is the restaurant. The ceilings paintings are preserved .There are these sort of jelly-fish/white-blood-cell looking lighting fixtures hanging from the ceiling. The woman who checked us in also escorted us personally to our room to make sure it was to our liking. The rooms are where the nuns used to live. You still feel there presence there. However, I don't think the nuns got to enjoy double thick frosted glass sliding japanese-style doors or the exquisite bedding or rain shower.

We went to dinner at Au Coins des Bon Enfant  and chose the six course option.  Every course, every flavor, was surprising, exquisite, bright, artful.  It was one of those experiences in life that you'll remember forever right along with your first crush, a big promotion, those rare and indelible moments. The service was precise, attentive, formal, but not hovering.  We ate outside like everyone else else that night. It was one of the top five best meals of my life and even with wine one of the most reasonably priced.   

We were on a high for several days after that dinner and not just from the calorie intake. We discussed and wrote down every ingredient we could identify in every course. Maastricht is a two hour drive from Amsterdam and just to know it is there saves me from getting depressed about dining experiences of ALL price ranges in Amsterdam, where sushi is served buried under mayonnaise, that water you asked for is never remembered, and where restaurants like the lovely Siempre in de Pijp employ waitresses that need to be chased down where you ask ever so timidly if you might finally order, where an order for flan is recorded, but runny creme brulee is presented instead (when this is brought to the waitresses attention, she claims she was "confused", that they don't actually have flan, and will not care to admit that she truly, utterly, and thoroughly does not give a shit, and that any egg-based dessert at all should be good enough...), and where you feel grateful that the bread was finally brought to the table after having to ask for it only three times, not four.

Anyway.....

Michael and I went through these caves created from quarrying stone. It's a 25 kilometer labyrinth, completely dark, and filled with stories and  charcoal artwork on the walls.  A guide takes you through with lanterns. It was a hide out during WWII where a system of was created for water and food sources, as well as a system to find the other people in your tiny village within the complex maze.   We ended our weekend at the top of a foothill overlooking the gentle waves of meadows and countryside.

I was making conversation over lunch with some colleauges including someone working from our corporate offices whose mother had recently passed away.  We were discussing the merits of cremation vs .burial.  One of my colleagues mentioned that she intends to be buried and already bought her plot outright . She's in her early 30s. She explained that by far she is the youngest in her family and she bought her own plot to ensure in the future she would not be dug up by strangers .

Naturally, we asked for an explantion.

She told us that in Holland, if you choose to bury someone, you can rent the space out for a limited amount of time, or buy it as a permantent space. That way, if the family would like to visit  departed oma  resting comfortably her six-foot under accommodations, they may do so during the grieving period, perhaps a year or ten years...there are options.  Then after the time is up or no one cares to renew, the casket will be exhumed, cremated or perhaps otherwise disposed of, and a new tenant moves in. 

This is yet another example of the Dutch's relationship with the land. It is something to be utilized, manipulated, and shared. It is also an example of Dutch practicality. It's nice to be able to visit a dead relative at a grave site but let's face it, it's a tiny country with a dense population. You can't keep dredging water just to produce more below-sealevel graveyards.  And when no one who knows you is still around to lay a tulip on your tombstone...time to vacate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03european-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=5&em

In his article comparing the Netherlands to the United States, Russell Shorto compares the two countries' approaches to social welfare and taxation with accuracy.

After living here for over two years, most of my apprehensions regarding the downside to living in Holland have really come up short. Most of those apprehensions stemmed from my fear of the healthcare system here, which the Dutch themselves seems to enjoy complaining about. Every time I have had to go to the doctor or a dentist the experience has always been more positive than any experience I had in the U.S., yes, perhaps a bit more rustic, but but holistically better.

To balance the tone of his article he talks about the ubiquitous sameness  that is pervasive throughout Dutch society. "Normal is crazy enough."  It is a lifestyle you cannot remain blind to--even geographically there are no mountains, hills, or many trees to obscure your view to this fact. But this approach works and if it is a stifling downside, perhaps to leave it is something that this bilingual and highly educated people always has available to them as an option, and that is just one more freedom bestowed upon the Dutch.

He also mentions the annoyance of shops closing too early in the day. That is indeed an annoyance, as is the lack of availability and diversity of product (especially culinary): sometimes you really have to search for something that would be abundant in the U.S. But I'll bet if the stores stayed open until 9:00 or longer like they do in the U.S. most people wouldn't take advantage of it, and the fact that most shops in the center of Amsterdam are located below residences mean that people can enjoy a quiet evening at home without people filtering in and out of the shops below. And besides, the cafes don't close at 6:00. Nor do the clubs and restaurants which makes for a highly social, exciting, and delightful lifestyle. Shops closing early is an annoyance to Americans because shopping is part of our instant gratification culture. 

He also refers to conversations with Geert Mak, Dutch historian and excellent writer. Geert mentions that all-too-annoying motto that Americans love to toss about: " The U.S. is the best country in the world."   Most people I know who love to say that have never been to any other country. These same people will also say that the U.S. is the most free country in the world. I will not take the time here to list out all the reasons why that statement is laughable and rooted in embarrassing isolationist ignorance.

So yeah, I am feeling cantankerous and antagonistic today. I'll make a sweeping generalization and I'll stand by it. No society is perfect, but at the end of the day, life is better in the Netherlands and I feel incredibly lucky that I get to live here, hard water, rudeness, lousy restaurants and all. The statistics speak for themselves. Dutch adults and their children are happier than Americans, and happiness is sought for nothing higher than itself.  And dutch people, you have no idea how good you've got it.

Flame and lambaste me all you want. I'll publish all comments posted to this entry.  

A few weeks ago a colleague of mine mentioned that he'd been feeling a bit off. Not depressed, just felt sort of stuck.  My mother used the phrase "rat race" to describe how she was feeling around the same time.

It is the seasonal dark before the seasoal dawn.  The tail end of these long winters miserly dispensing such short days. Those of us who live pretty far north are just about exhausted by lack of sunlight. Around the middle of March, quite suddenly, the daylight in the afternoon starts to strech out and soon thereafter the mornings begin earlier. It happens over a short period of time. The plants respond within two days, and so too the humans.  I don't mean to get all Emily Dickenson writing about nature and spring and Seasonal Affective Disorder...well maybe I do.

I woke up at my usual ungodly early hour this Sunday and only had to wait about an hour for the light to come. I am on my balcony now--coat and scarf on top of my pajamas, cup of coffee keeping me company. Michael is upstairs putting the last coat of paint in the bathroom before we'll take a walk in the Vondelpark this morning and watch the dogs out and about on their first run of the day.  Across the courtyard are these 20-somethings in the hotel annex from across the street. They are huddled on the balcony smoking cigs. They've been up all night. It is almost 8:00 a.m. and they are still going strong, making jokes and conversation. One boy is talking in English about how he gets up at 5:30 every morning to go running. One girl is giggling nervously at everything she hears. The crowd retreated inside save for two who sneaked a first kiss--runner boy and giggle girl. I was peeking at them through a shrub on my balcony. 

Those days for me seem so long ago but the memories are vivid. It's so nice to witness it happening to someone else. The endless energy people in their early 20s have. How cool and grown up they feel..renting hotel rooms and staying up all night smoking cigs and drinking cheap alcohol. Fabulous.

I remember being 19 or 20 and going to Chicago with a girlfriend for the weekend. It was summer. We stayed in an aparmtent rented by a few guys who were recent college graduates. They somehow scored quite a nice place on South Shore Drive. They had a party. We spent the night. In the morning when I woke up, I stepped outside on the fire escape and dreamed that I would live a life in the city, where I would hear faint conversations, radios...smell breakfast, all this life surrounding me.  It gave me such a calm feeling and to live that dream today gives me the same sense of calm. I love these hours where the night owls and the early birds converge; where babies are being fed their first meal at the same time the party people are having their last.

Michael just came outside to tell me how ridiculous I look in my winter coat and PJs and to suggest maybe I am too optimistic regarding the arrival of spring. But it's not the temperature, it's the light. And the state of mind it perpetuates.

"Designing Woman" starring Lauren Bacall and Gregory Peck was on the TV yesterday afternoon. I spent most of the day in my bathrobe, either in bed, or on the couch where Michael and I finished off a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and ate the remnants of the broccoli soup left in the fridge from a few days ago. The movie was directed by Vincente Minnelli and it is really funny. I'm always surprised when I enjoy movies from that era because I can never get past the colorization--the orange/tan make up and the sickly pastels.  After the movie's opening plot set up, we are brought into Gregory Peck's hangover, expressed through hyperbolic color and sound. It's hilarious.

Speaking of hangovers, I was wondering if it would be possible to just be a champagne alcoholic. If yes, I think enlist voluntarily.

We also watched "In Brugge" starring Colin Farrell.  It's a clever, ilkish movie, however I was devastated when one scene failed to capitalize on an obvious but effective punchline. One of the lead characters is counting out coins to pay the entry fee into a museum in the center of this medieval Belgian town. The fee is 5 euros but the coins in his pocket add up to only 4.90.   He asks the fastidious clerk if he can just be let in anyway. The questions is addressed with a curt and unnegotiable retort, "The entry fee is FIVE EUROS."  So, the character slaps down a 50-euro bill and sweeps the coins off the counter and back into his hand.  

What should have happened was this: He presents the 50-euro bill and then the guy behind the counter would have asked, "Do you have anything smaller?"

There is this constant struggle in this largely cash-only society between ATMs that rarely dispance anything other than 20s and 50s, and clerks and shopkeepers who hate making change . One of my many one-woman crusades here involves being impolite in my response to the question "Do you have anything smaller?"  I never ever take back my 20s and 50s even if I could.   I don't have a til in my purse to make change like the girl at the grocery store does now do? If anyone deserves to have a more varied range of bills in my pocket it is me, not the national department store.