Life lessons

Dear sisters,

My recent mini-skiing trip to the Swiss Alps gave me some important insights into myself.

The first insight is that I am probably not the best to have around in acute, time-sensitive, crisis situations. This can be demonstrated by the following example.

On our way back from Switzerland, I stepped out of the train at Amsterdam Central Station and left my suitcase on the train. It  was stored in the handy opening between the seats, asking to be forgotten. Chatting merrily, halfway down the escalator, I realized my mistake. Adrenaline rushing and hyper-ventilating, my first reaction was to shout “my suitcase!,” throw my arms in the air and like a crazy woman start running up the escalator in the wrong direction.

My travel partner gracefully followed me (with her suitcase in hand).

The escalator was crowded, so we received insults like “you f&**ing lunatics”, but the train was about to leave the station at any moment, so I didn’t care.  However, I could not get past the people shouting at us, as they did not care to budge, so I soon had to admit defeat and let myself slide down to the station floor, before I could run up the other side. By this time, a wave of sniggers followed in my trail.

Once on the platform again, I darted into the train but could not find my suitcase. I rushed out and into the next compartment, and into the next; no suitcase. Bored passengers appreciated the action I was providing, but time was running out. I was considering whether I should let myself be transported to Amersfoort or jump out and leave the suitcase in the train.

The burgundy-haired-conductor strolled up in her regulation pants and said; “Relax, Mrs”. She even smirked, if I recall correctly. She said she would wait until we had found the suitcase, (thereby deflating all previous action on my part).

Only then could I take a deep breath and remember that the doors of our compartment had a picture of a wheelchair on them. I found the compartment, walked in and there the suitcase was, between the chairs, waiting patiently for retrieval. Easy-peasy.

My second insight, which is a little more reassuring, is that I have  developed the ability to control old fears merely by deciding to.

Two years ago when my husband and I decided to go back to skiing, I made a conscious decision to accept being no more than a moderate, fine-weather skier, thereby relinquishing any pressure to 1), go out when it snows, 2) attempt black slopes for fun, 3) go faster than I go.

On our second day on the slopes my dear friend (skiing since she could walk) - took us on an alternative route home. “A basic red with a few moguls, no problem” she said, waving away our concerns.  I found myself disagreeing with her, when I stood at the top of a precipice looking down onto a bumpy wall.  

Skiers similar to me were already stranded on the outer rim of the slope, their ski’s buried in deep snow, distorted faces staring into the depth and their bottoms stuck out behind them, as they tried to push themselves back into position. Others lay on the mountain halfway down, looking up, trying to locate that pole lost during their fall. It was a battlefield.

And when I took the plunge over the edge, bouncing at high speed along the top of the moguls, wondering just where to make that turn, a familiar feeling of cold sweat and wild panic came over me. And I, too, finally, came to an uncontrolled halt somewhere on the edge.

But now I was twenty years older than the last time I found myself in this situation, I  have two children who still think I am fearless, and the idea I might have to be talked down the mountain was too much to bear.

So,  I decided, once I moved again (deep breath),  to just keep going, no stopping, no hesitating at the turns, knowing this too would pass (that is life experience for you). It worked. No prizes to be won, I held myself in rigid discomfort all the way down, but it did feel like a small victory when I got to the schuss run within minutes, with no stopping or falling. Mind control, baby!

It is now just a question of applying this power to more relevant areas of my life.

In the meantime, back home, the dog is taking me to places I otherwise would not venture. I provide you with  images in this post.

 

Sisters, I know you are out there! Talk to me.

With love S1

New Year and all it will bring

 

Happy New Year sisters,

My year has really only just started, after an extended period of feasting with friendly guests and the necessary recovery.

I thought I would give you an update, the annual e-mail to friends and family as it were; where do we stand and where are we going in 2013?

Jip’s teachers have indicated he is cheerful and a joy to have around, but they could not beat around the bush – he is lazy.

“Oh, you mean like a lot of boys are lazy?’ we smiled expecting them to “ho, ho, those kids” (slap on thigh) with us.  But they said: “No, like one of the “very few in a year” kind of lazy.”And they did not smile when they spoke.

So, for 2013, we have the daunting task of instilling work ethic and self-discipline in our son. His musical ambitions are a good starting point. Jip has decided he wants a career in music and has requested singing lessons besides his guitar lessons, thereby giving up fencing and hockey.

We, as concerned parents have said “Great honey, but maybe you should take a typing course, as back up. “ 

Not really. We have no wish to curb his enthusiasm. Not that it can be curbed by anything we say.  He hangs around dreaming of filled concert halls and recording deals, lounging, looking up Youtube music videos on his new self-bought laptop, but above all singing loudly everywhere. Even guitar practice is picking up. 

On the other hand, Jip’s band still has the same four songs in its repertoire as last summer. Jip explained he has been suffering from writers block. “Like you, mom.”

I found a rehearsal space for the Bad Bunnies. It is a cheap, airless room with graffiti on the walls, an old drum set and ancient amplifiers, which pick up the interference of trains passing overhead. The band members are hugely excited (especially by the size of the amplifiers) and we will be making a two weekly thing of it. Surely the repertoire will expand by summer. Watch this space. 

 

At Rosie’s parent-teacher conference we were warned she was keeping bad company. She and two other girls were constantly fighting; cattiness was the default mode. The teacher strongly advised us to put our daughter first and limit the playtime together.

Rosie has since found a new friend in our building; a happy spunky girl, which makes all the difference. You see Rosie look up in surprise when her friend does not react with a nasty sneer. The new friendship brings new parental challenges for us, however, as they are curious.

For example, we found out they typed “sexing” in Google and were confronted with unsavory images of a lady entertaining herself. When I asked , she broke down crying, exclaiming she had no intention of ever doing such a thing, ever! I hadn’t seen it coming, expecting the eldest to be the first to monitor. A new horizon in parental guidance has dawned. 

Rosie is saving her pocket money for nail varnish.

Hers ambition for the future in this phase of her life (seven going on eight) is to work in a restaurant. When we suggested she could aim to own a restaurant, she looked at us warily and said:

“Can I wait the tables in my own restaurant? Alright, then I want my own restaurant.”

Allard and I have the modest ambition to go to bed earlier and do more yoga. Both are hard, especially as we have a newly acquired  HBO subscription, presently watching Girls, limiting ourselves to one episode a night. Season 3 has just been announced. It does not look good for us.

I looked at the resolutions I made last year and it seems like only yesterday I wrote them down. Has a year passed? (Please, don’t mention the book.) At least the house is finished and I trained for the marathon that was never run. Maybe it is time to look for a job this year that involves me leaving the house and results in payment at the end of the month. Maybe the idea of giving up will spark a defiant cord, and get me writing through all diversions.

And the dog?

At the moment his little black book lists two brand new cables - chewed, one Nintendo ds cartridge - chewed, a new lamp cord - partially chewed, (all in one week) and two emergency visits due to poisonous chocolate gorging. And we will not count the pens that have been reduced to shards of plastic or the ripped garbage bags, spilling a weeks worth of decaying leftovers. Nor shall we mention the times I have washed bath mats, rugs, children’s clothes or duvet covers due to accidents of a canine nature.

However, nowadays, generally the dog does his business outside, although he still likes to tipple over to Rosie’s room for a tinkle now and then, when we are not watching, which frustrates me no end, and if he really wants to say f*%ck you, he knows to make his way, prying open the bathroom door to get in the back way, (there is a doors closed policy in our house) of our room, to do his business. But that is just a spiteful pre-meditated act for not getting attention. He has done it twice. He returns and sits, staring silently at us, (probably thinking  na-na-nana- na), waiting for us to cotton on and blow.

But we can’t help but love the beast, and I will surely find my way in “the long dog walking and what about the rest of my day” kind of feeling I am having. I was warned, I know. 

I do get outside though; every day, without fail, weather or no weather. I can see why people live longer when they have a dog. The side effect is that my personal style has plummeted to an all time low, and may include rain ponchos. 

And you silent sisters? What will this year bring?

S1

Stockholm syndrome

Dear sisters, 

Last week there were invariably six to eight men in our house, welding, painting or hanging around, picking up their tools, because it seems we are coming to the end of a long chapter; the chapter of the "house in progress". Unfortunately, we will have to stop a little sooner than completion, as the money tap drips and sputters, but we are just about where we want to be. Things work, generally.

Due to a major leakage in the washing room a few weeks back, (that was a little set-back in living comfort), we have been carrying boxes piled high in the storage; boxes you might put away for years without touching, to the living room, to make room for the drying, carrying them back in, to host a birthday lunch, and carrying them all back out again, for the laying of the new floor. Each session motivated us a little more to look into the boxes we were carrying to and fro. Eighteen boxes of books, kept in storage for seven years,  were put out on the street for pick-up, amongst others.
It feels so wrong to do that, but, really, nobody wanted them. It also feels so good to be lighter, although we  still cannot be called minimalists.

This Monday there are only five men; two electricians, two painting men and Franklin, our cleaning man who sings while he works, trying to clean the house with the power turned off. He has not been singing for a while, due to all the commotion. This is the last spasm of activity, before it will fall silent, just in time for Christmas.

Is there an equivalent of the Stockholm syndrome for renovation situations? I may just suffer from it. What will I do when nobody turns up to drink my coffee and ask me for the sugar? I won’t have to move from room to room to make place for the next job or make decisions about heights of planks (“am I sure?”) in relation to ceilings, taps and cupboards, or whether I want the square or rounded doorsteps. I will not have to keep the dog out of the paint pots or from chewing the cord of the sanding machine. The beloved animal might just find peace and stop peeing on the carpet. I will not have to keep smiling in my own house.

Days of silence,  solitude and concentration, I can’t wait for them, but there is some dread, too. From the moment they leave, the household will officially be open for everyday living and therefore need to run smoothly and efficiently, as we had intended before we started.

Yes, my wildest fantasies involve efficiency.

Has everything got its own permanent, dedicated spot yet? To which it can easily return? That, we (-my husband and I -) believe, is the secret to sustained success in tidy living, to which we aspire. For now, it is merely pillow talk, yet to be tested.

(And what other aspirations did I have with my life again?  I can’t recall just now. )

Luckily, the festive season has snuck upon us. The windows glow and flicker, as I pull the reluctant dog through whipping winds or mucky snow. Sinterklaas came and left for Spain again. It is the year the last believer in the family was robbed of her illusions; she now demands to know all our other secrets, but we are not telling.

The Christmas tree is up. So, there is something to fill the looming crater, until January at least.

Due to necessary cost cutting, the Christmas gifts could very well be handmade this year, probably from recycled building materials, but I am sure you won’t mind. I know you want “the two-screws-on-a-found-wooden-background brooch” or what about a “linoleum-cut-out-hanging ornament”? All will be revealed on Christmas day.

Another good thing about the removal of boxes, is that I now have a sleeping place for you all. If all goes to plan, but that is still a dangerous contention, S3’s room will have doors by the time you all get here.

And now, for something completely different:

In my ongoing series on potatoes in and around the house: a photograph of a potato found at the bottom of my vegetable bin.

And sisters, we have one loyal reader who has been complaining about our updating frequency. Two months  since the last post?! Well. 

So S2, and S3, what’s going on in Antwerp and Prague?

Love, S1

And now for a little fashion show....

Dear sistars,

The other day , probably when S1 was at her Kim Wilde concert , I was at Prague's Design Week Fashion Show closing ceremony. Where were you S2 ?
It all started with little men in white doing some fancy screen sword fighting, which i enjoyed.
This is them warming up as the crowds came rolling in with their gowns and chique armour, sipping glasses of champagne :

These are the little white men in action :

 

Then it moved on to the winning designers clothes trotting down the cat walk. I liked the gradation from dark to light.

 

 

And now , wait for it ! The suprise element ....

Wait for it .....






Tadaaaaaa!

Ok , that's enough of silliness, now onto the real stuff :
 

Here in the next image  you can witness original czech vintage cotton padded coats , in czech they are called watta ,
which means cotton padded, padded nicely with a crunchy sound effect of waxed water proof style !
 And warm ! How warm !

 

Keep warm and stylish dear sisters ! 

Keep it real ! 

Peace and Love , S3 

Beautiful Bonkers clouds somewhere in Czech Land

Greetings from S3

A review of the audience at a Kim Wilde concert

 Dear sisters

A week ago I went to Kim - eighties pop princess- Wilde’s concert. She is doing a greatest hits tour of Europe. She might come to your town too.

I suppose I thought it would be a fun ironic event to do with my girlfriends. As I walked into the hall I saw a middle-aged lady on stage, who had put on a few pounds. She wore black tight jeans, red lipstick and let her peroxide hair blow softly in the wind blower, just like in this video.

I wondered why we had come. Buying tickets is one thing. Actually having to sit through an evening of irony is another.

But I am glad to say Kim proved me wrong. Thank goodness for British self-depreciative humor. I left with warmer feelings for Ms Wilde than I came in with. Her voice has stood the test of time and nostalgia was conjured within our innards as we sang along to ‘Cambodia’, ‘Don’t leave me hanging on’ and the grand finale; with no hands left by the sides, “Kids of America.” Who oh!

Besides the audience was an eclectic mix, worth viewing.

I will give you a brief summary.

Sitting in the corner on the right two scrawny school kids hunched up, with ear plugs in their ears and heads stuck between their pulled up knees, waiting for it to end, for god’s sake. We imagined their mother going crazy on the dance floor, although we did not identify her.

On the balcony; an extended family, with a tomboy kid standing and singing along to each Kim Wilde song. She knew all the words. We imagined her parents introducing her to Wilde at an early age; a whole family of Kim Wilde fans. It struck us as funny. You may not think so.

There was a friendly looking couple on the balcony of at least seventy, wearing plaid shirts, reading glasses and trouser braces; hair: gray, long and fuzzy, as if they had walked out of a hill-billy country western movie.

They carried binoculars, which they passed to each other in turn. The strange thing was, they kept making notes in a little notebook each time they finished looking through the looking glass. What were they writing? What did they see? When they were not writing, they jigged along to the music.

The front standing rows were dominated by balding heterosexual men passing flowers to the stage. One balding gentleman however sat on the balcony, his beer belly resting softly under his pinstriped shirt. He leaned over the balustrade and did not move, looking angry throughout the show. What had Kim done to him?

Did they have posters of the young Kim on their walls when they were younger themselves, and did they dream of close encounters? Did they still see that girl in the woman on stage, with the blowing peroxide hair?

Maybe Kim Wilde’s niece, the backing singer, who whipped her hips from left to right, showing off her midriff under her leather jacket, helped them to remember. Her youth was obviously a reference to the younger Kim Wilde, projected in images on the overhead screens.

The rest of the audience was made up of the young fit and gay and work colleagues drinking too many beers for a Wednesday night, dancing unsteadily and shouting: “this is so funny, isn’t it?”

The evening made me happy and sad all in one. And that was a good thing.

Love,

S1

Toilet training

Dear sisters,

I spend a lot of time upside down looking at my dog’s bottom. I realize it may look ridiculous, seeing me like that on the strip of muddy grass stuck against our building, but it is important for me to know what comes out, before I can go back in.

As a dog-owner I have learned to be observant. When the dog comes out like a wind-up toy, whizzing from side to side, nose to the ground, success will not be far. On the other hand, I have found, if the dog nestles himself in the middle of the road in a leisurely fashion and starts chewing a stick, it might not happen just yet.

After a successful session, with the nr. 2 included (always a high-pitched, praiseworthy moment), I do not hesitate to pick up the result with my hand dipped in a little plastic bag; it is a swift motion, down, up and around and voila!, it is gone, as if it was never there; inspection of substance as it goes into the bag. Is it green and slimy? Maybe his new diet of raw cow gut with tender heart pieces has not settled well into the bowels yet. We will have to keep watch. 

After three weeks, we have had exactly two days of no accidents in the house. But then, I no longer have qualms about the inside clean-up either; basic household vinegar and speed are of the essence.

I need a little more training as dog-owner, so we go to puppy school on Sunday. The puppy trainer is a remarkable woman with thunder thighs, wellies and a thick chin. She speaks loudly, with affectation. She is quite famous in this part of town. She does not want to be on Facebook, and taking pictures of her is an indecent act in her opinion. She sometimes chases passersby who dare to raise their i-phone in her direction.

A dog is toilet trained if it does everything where it should for three weeks running, the trainer says, so we have a few more weeks to go. At least it is all more structured now. S3, you should have no problems, when you come to dog-sit at the end of the month. 

Here is a comic about the paradox of the dog which was sent us and made us laugh, as we have found it to be accurate.

Love to you all,

S1