Not long after Charlotte Sometimes retired to the great-cat-condo-in-the-sky, Michael and I knew we'd want to get another cat. He was ready before I was. I wasn't sure when I'd be.
When I was out of town on a business trip, Michael visited the amsterdam dierenasiel - the animal shelter. He visited with a few cats. He asked if I wanted to go for a visit too. The idea of going to an animal shelter was too sad for me at that point. He said it was nice. But it is an animal shelter. How nice could it be?
Like many people, I even have a hard time looking at animal adoption websites. I want to adopt ALL the animals. But, I did find myself browsing through this one. The animals all have descriptions of their personalities and circumstances written in the first person. It's very cute. There was one cat in particular, named Gucci, who I kept returning to. The shape of her head was very similar to Charlotte's and indeed she was half Norwegian Forest Cat. She had Charlotte's fur too, minus the smooth outer coat. She was described as an extremely shy cat who did not have such a great start in life. She was five years old and had a best friend named "Poepie" also of the same age. The site said the two cats were hoping to be placed together. You know how it goes when you fall in love with an adopted animal. There is just something about "the one" and you keep coming back to it.
Michael and I are on the waiting list for a Norwegian Forest pure bred kitten. We found a wonderful and responsible breeder in the north of Holland. We'll know in a few weeks if the mother-to-be is pregnant. It was always our intention to get the kitten first and adopt an older cat second. But it hasn't worked out quite that way.
We rode out bikes way out of town and came upon this green and yellow striped building. It was modern, clean, and very large. "This is it!" Michael told me. We could see volunteers taking some dogs for private morning walks. It is sort of, I would imagine, structured like a prison (but a happy prison! :-). There are exterior corridors you walk down in a semi circle. Some of the doors are solid glass and some are more like gates so that the room is exposed to the out door air. The cats are on one side and the dogs are on another side. In the middle are these two very large and amazing play areas with bridges and things to hide in and climb on and dig in. Any dog would love to play in this area. When we were there, there was a golden retriever mix playing king of the hill.
This morning we woke up to find both of our new cats escaped from their room. Since Regen is the shy one, we thought she's be the hardest to find. Found her right away between the couch and the wall (She would later escape again to just as poor, if not endearing hiding place, the washing machine.) Raafje was nowhere to be seen. We could hear her meow from time to time. We looked everywhere.
There is this small cut away below the cabinets in our kitchen just below the fridge. Unbelievably, Charlotte got back in there one time. She was always a curiosity-killed-the-cat sort of creature. She was very good at getting herself into situations that required rescue: Jumping out of the bedroom window into a tree. Climbing onto the roof from the balcony. Jumping below the floorboards of an unfinished bathroom. Crawling through a small cut away under the fridge that is just too small for her to crawl back out of without assistance. We looked in there with a flashlight but could not see Raafje .
For several hours in the very early morning we listend for her occasional meows. We were able to determine that she just must be in there, but we could not angle ourselves to see all the way back the length of the floor. So I got my webcam out and put it inside the opening with a maglight flashlight. I set my laptop on the floor. We looked on the computer screen and sure enough there she was all the way backed up against the exterior wall. After much ingenuity and failed attempts, we were finally able to "smoke her outta there"....minus the smoke.
Another reason technology is awesome.
Today I worked from home and collaborated in real time on a document with a colleague at the office and in Germany through Microsoft Communicator and webcams. Then I took my laptop to the butcher and showed him a picture of a crown pork roast from epicurious.com because I don't know how to order a crown pork roast in Duch. Later I will IM with my mother who lives an ocean and a continent away. Tonight I will read a book from my Kindle and do some online christmas shopping. Tomorrow I might send a message to a friend I haven't spoken to in twenty years who I found on facebook. I don't ever want to granted how awesome technology is.
It's windy today. Too windy to ride my bike. So I decided to walk to the Leidseplein, catch the 5 tram to station Zuid, and get my train.
The trams all stopped lined up on the tracks near the Museumplein with no indication as to when they'd start up again. Too windy for bikes. Too windy for trams. I got out and walked the rest of the way.
When I entered Station Zuid, I saw a conservative-looking man in a gray, chalk-striped suit. He was svelte but not tall. His suit was tailored close to the body. His hair was cropped short and groomed. He was walking quickly and purposefully with a broad stride. He was carrying a full length rainbow-striped umbrella.
It made me smile. I couldn't help but notice the awkward, rigid, and apologetic way in which he held his umbrella. His grip on it was choked more than half way toward the tip rather than closer or by the handle. He held it slightly behind his back, but not so much so that he made it abundantly obvious he was trying to obscure it. His anxious gate made me think he wanted to be seen in the company of that umbrella for as little time as possible .
I imagined his morning.
"Honey...I'm late! I can't find my black umbrella."
"You must have left it at the office."
"Do we have another one?"
"I don't know, look around!"
"I'm late!"
"For christsakes...(digging noises coming from the hallway closet)..
...Here!" She tossed him the technicolor parapluie.
"What....this?" he agonizes.
"Take it! It's all that's in the closet," her voices rises, colored with notes of dismissive exasperation.
He seemed to be on his way to the sandwich shop in the station. There was no precipitation. It must have been the suit.
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.
