Walk through the rainbow: San Francisco visit cont.

In a way, the day fit together ingeniously, like a Chinese puzzle should do. After dropping Rosie off at school, S1 and I went to meet my friend S. at the Opera House where she was working, to meet her happy recently born son F. over a cup of coffee (having failed to do so in Brussels for the last many months, San Francisco seemed a good place to finally meet). We had a glimpse in the rehearsal, then left S. to her finetuning, and we tuned into an exhibition at the Asian Art Museum as curated by and with work by Hiroshi Sugimoto entitled History of History. It was a masterpiece in understatement, and of just the kind of finetuning I imagined S. to be doing a couple of blocks away in the big orchestra run-through with the singers, in tandem with our viewing. I realised (perhaps a little late in life) that I would never fit in in the classical music world. Must be something to do with its formality, although I do think it is a prerequisite for getting great works of music on the road. S. on the other hand has great patience and insight at many degrees, as well as a vivid poetic imagination and a profound sense of beauty, and that's why I think she is good at her job. But I am still studying my friend and hope to come up with a more comprehensive description of her sometime soon. As I do of her sister who also does extraordinary things.

After the Asian Art Museum (boy, if the US was as hugely sensitive and together on the world stage as it is in museology, what kind of a world would we be living in?)we headed for SF Moma. There, Jeff Wall revealed himself to be much more of a romantic, absurdist with an art historical bent turning photography in its end, than I expected. The audioguide helped significantly in accessing the works, although I had no idea his work was so diverse and that it looks so different from the reproductions I have seen of it. Size does matter...when it comes to art in any case.

S1, you then scooted away in time for picking up Rosie. I stayed. I went to Joseph Cornell's exhibit; it was almost too much: room after room after room after room of his universe. While I thought the Jeff Wall show was just right, let's say even modestly sized, Cornell's had me saturated with his vision. This is not a bad thing, and I can understand the curators' desire for offering something comprehensive. After I don't know how many rooms of his boxes I just needed to get out for some air. Stendhal syndrome no doubt.

After having the strange experience of having someone ask me if I preferred my green tea "grassy or flowery?" (I wanted grassy and it was grassy) I went back in for more, this time for Olafur Eliasson's exhibition. One optical phenomenon after another. What I liked very much is that he did not hide the means by which these phenomena were created. Naked truths as it were: it's sheer trickery, but such beautiful trickery.
One room, black, and dark but for a spotlight, had a curtain of fine droplets descending, creating a diagonal rainbow. I noticed not many people walked through it, because they didn't want to get wet. I am glad I did, because I got the present: as you walk through it, the rainbow becomes whole: a perfect circle. This is another rainbow showing the same effect since I was not allowed to take pictures in the museum.





Later I hit the streets and realised that all the Joseph Cornell boxes with their glitter had spilled out onto the street and followed me.

A final little treat: I did not know that Cornell had made films. He had. Here, in part one and part two, is one of the most mesmerising, ahead of its time films I have ever seen. He originally projected it through a piece of blue glass, and Dali is said to have knocked over the projector during the screening..so aghast was he that Cornell was doing something that seemed to him to be JUST RIGHT.
Cornell has often been described as an "outsider artist"; but what I learned in the exhibition, is that he assisted Marcel Duchamp in making his suitcases, and was a sort of protégé of his (Duchamp is said to have called him a genius) and that he frequented many other artists throughout his life. So whatever denegrating undertone is held in that term, outsider, is plainly untrue. I also found the works to have great coherence. I shall be reading more about the man, but the work really does speak for itself; I would venture to say that it was simply, to use a worn phrase, misunderstood and ahead of its time. In a wholly refreshening way. Or, before I slip into hagiography, let's just say I really enjoyed discovering the work even though the volume of it was a bit daunting.

Ok I shall leave it at this. I think I shall have some tea to soothe my second brain. This has become a url-packed posting, it does not even start to describe the inspiration of a friday in San Francisco. I had written this a couple of weeks ago and thought it had not been saved. Thank goodness for autosave!
love from s2

The elders have arrived and I waited some more this week.

Dear sisters,

Yes, the parents have arrived. They came in giggling about a little incident on the plane, in which a young man dared to refer to them as 'THE ELDERLY', as in: " I always like to help THE ELDERLY", after lending the parents his headphones. And it hasn't stopped since then. Each program is assessed to see if it is suitable for geriatrics. It is getting rather boring.

In reality, they have settled into their basement suite quite nicely, my fridge is now stocked up with organic foods and I have not been allowed in the kitchen much, which in the meantime has also been rearranged. And yes, dear sisters, mother brought her own pinny! We have been eating lots of dishes with beans, vegetables and a wonder spice called turmeric, which aside from their cancer fighting properties, have, I am sorry to say, less pleasurable side effects, resulting in involuntary movements within the body. You can't find a quiet corner in the house.

Jip has been introduced to the art of knitting and is in rugby training. Both grandparents have personally demonstrated the somersault, which I am not sure was wise, but Jip and Rosie are practising hard to get up to their level.

Grandparents and grandchildren left this morning for two nights away. This means TWO NIGHTs alone in our own home! The idea of this luxury confused us so much, that Allard and I resorted to the one thing we can fall back on when in doubt: retail therapy. And yes, they look pretty cool.



You could nearly forget there is that other litttle matter. That little matter is being surgically removed on Tuesday, I am glad to say. We are getting started.

I also volunteered to participate in a study program which involves three MRI scans over the course of my treatment. I had the first one last week. I had forgotten how claustrophobic I am. You glide into a very narrow tube, head and all. I kept my eyes tight shut, but my arms touched the side, so I was, at all times, fully aware I had nowhere to go. My breathing inmediately became faster; my chest was going up and down like mad. The whole idea is to lie absolutely still as the machine is so sensitive, so I hope my 45 minutes of torture were not for nothing and they managed to get some usable pictures. It did get better after a while. When you are inside you hear drumming sounds at different intervals. I tried to imagine I was in the desert at Burning Man, WHERE WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THIS WEEKEND, and there was someone drumming in the background. I will have to practice. I kept being jolted back to the very narrow tube, being absloutely unable to move, with my boobs hanging down through two openings in the bed. I am probably dreading the next time more than my surgery on Tuesday.

All in the name of science.



Love S1

Lake Tahoe and Burger King

Dear sisters,


Last Tuesday, I drove up to Lake Tahoe with the kids. Our friend Laura had invited us to come and stay with her and her two kids for the Fourth of July week. The men joined us for the weekend.
For those of you who know not of Lake Tahoe, it is a beautiful lake in the mountains, on the border of California and Nevada, to the NORTH EAST of San Francisco; a popular weekend destination for the people of San Francisco in winter and summer. I am making a point of the location, so when I say I was, at one point, following the signs to Los Angeles, you will know that was not good.




It took me more than seven hours to get there, instead of the three hours everyone tells you about. That is with stopping at a desolate Burger King somewhere in the middle of Califiornia, where it was hot. Jip was delighted (read: Transformer toy with kids's meal and play structure). I was pleased to find a map on the wall. I am not relying solely on a navigator again. There are, I know now, two Squaw Valleys in California, of which one, my exit, is not really a place but a resort.




Anyway we had a lovely week swimming in ponds surrounded by huge Redwood trees, just like I imagined an American childhood summer should be. The relay tantrum-throwing by our children did not throw us and the fact Laura and I could not keep our eyes open after ten 'o clock at night was due to the fresh air of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The drive home went smoothly, We played the Pokemon game which entailed guessing a Pokemon character on the basis of some well directed clues. As Allard and I are not familiar with the wretched Pokemon characters, Jip would first introduce us to one and then make him guess. Jip won - this time.
Unfortunately I have had to disown my son for declaring the Burger KIng to be his favorite place on earth. We made a bad exiting move (only Burger King, no Starbucks), so Jip got his second Transformer toy in a week.



I understand sister 2 has been to see sister 3 in Prague. I am waiting for the news.


With love,


sister 1 x

"I am wiggling my xxxxx", a part of the body my sisters do not wish to say out loud, and certainly not on the blog..

{BUT THAT IS WHAT BETTY SINGS ON HER CD, SO WHO AM I TO MISQUOTE AN ARTIST..updated 2 July 2007]

And that, sister no. 3, is just one of the inspiring lines to be found on a funky little cd I have sent your way, by this lady. Perfect for whooping to at all times.
Just six weeks overdue: happy birthday once again.

with love,
sister no.1

Just an average day in expat land (with pictures)

Dear sisters,

So what do I do all day? You may ask, and you have. As I, myself, have often wondered where my time goes. So for today's posting pretty much a minute by minute account of an average day: Tuesday 22 May 2007.

6.30 am: I get woken by the soft calling of my sweet daughter.
6.35 am: I stumble to next room and am greeted by a big grin, jumping up and down in crib. Jip is still sleeping, so we creep downstairs for hot milk.
6.40 am: we make a puzzle while drinking milk. I check my e-mail. No personal mails.
6.45 am: we return upstairs. Rosie hears her father in the shower and runs to him, shrieking with delight. I flop back onto bed and close my eyes. Get woken by two clumpy arms around my neck. Jip snuggles up to me for a few minutes. We discuss the quality of our sleep. It was good, but too short in my case. A leaves early.
6.55 am: I make breakfast for Jip and Rosie. I manage a conflict about the right to hold the Spiderman collection.
7.15 to 8.25 am: back upstairs Jip, Rosie and I get dressed in various stages. Slower than we usually do on a Tuesday, as we get distracted by things today.
8.25 We trundle down through the basement to garage and get in the car. We start on the rounds.



It is a bit of a drive every morning but it has, by now, a certain meditative quality. When we first moved to SF, I listened to National Public Radio in an attempt to keep in touch with world news, but I have shamelessly switched to 97.2 Energy Pure Dance, a station primarily catering to the vibrant gay community in SF, which means they play lots of Kylie and dance music from days when I was still destined for great things. I tend to play it rather loudly.

For the last few weeks Rosie and I have been swaying arhythmically to this song by Bananarama. Jip pretends to be unaffected by the catchy tune.

8.40 am: drop off Rosie at day care.
8.50 am: drop off Jip, who has a difficult morning, meaning he growls when I talk to him and blocks my way out. This means I will be late for boot camp.
9.13 am: arrive 13 minutes late for my boot camp in the Marina. Even with the shorter class, it is tough, after a weekend of wine and cheese in Napa Valley (of which you may hear more.)
10.15 am: the Tuesday after work-out coffee on Chestnut street with M, who expertly manages a conference call at same time.
11 am: pop into book shop across road to look at travel guides, oh and the shop next door for the shoes. Do not buy a thing, which may or may not have something to do with limit of credit card having been reached this month.
11.25 am: drive home.
11.45 am: back home, ring water company about very high bill and arrange for leakage inspection. Check e- mail (nope, nothing), shower, get dressed, eat something, call D in Amsterdam for long overdue chat.
1.45 pm drive to one of the schools that refused Jip admission to kindergarten, basically to beg. I get told to come back in half an hour as the Head of Admission is in a meeting.
2.00 pm drive to Safeway, get shouted at on parking lot because I make a perfectly innocent manoeuvre. Decide on the spinach, ham, nutmeg, pasta recipe for kid's dinner, one of the few dishes that still meet all round approval. Decide to come back later to buy crickets for Lizardy due to heat. It is hot today and I have too many clothes on. Drive back to the school.
2.30 p.m: The head of admission of school has fled the scene. I leave phone number, but decide to write a letter instead.
2.40 pm: drive back to buy crickets for Lizardy.






3.00 p.m: have one hour before pickup. Too short for something and too long for nothing. I make a detour to drive past the new hairdressers I have an appointment with on Thursday. I don't find it, because I cannot recall exact address, but enjoy new sights of the city. Must come back with camera. Make another detour for petrol. It is still very hot, the music is still playing. Drive past dry cleaners to drop off A's shirts.
3.30 pm: drive home to drop off crickets, check e-mail (I should know better by now). Make list of things to do. Watch mess in kitchen for a while.
4.00 p.m: leave for pick up. Run back to get two Oreo cookies for Jip and Rosie to give in the car.
4.10 p.m: pick up Rosie.
4.25 p.m: pick up Jip. As usual I ask "What did you have for lunch today? As usual he asks back " Before nap time?" "Yes", I say. "Pasta." Jip assures me he can eat more pasta for dinner tonight.




4.55 p.m: home again, make chocolate milk, turn on cartoons, cook dinner with Rosie on my arm.
6.30 p.m: feed the kids. Let them loose upstairs for free play.
6.45 p.m: I make a salad for myself (A. is coming home late) and sit down with New York Times. I read an article about Buenaventura, apparently the most dangerous city in Colombia, an article on legislation making it possible to issue birth certificate's for stillborns, an article about former President Carter calling Bush the worst government ever and an article about a website that lists informers and undercover cops.
7.10 p.m: happily load new dishwasher which has just been installed after the old one broke down two weeks ago. Put note on floor at bottom of stairs to remind myself to put garbage out later.
7.20 p.m. go upstairs and give Rosie a wash - in view of water bill, skip bath - put pyjama's on, give pyjama's to Jip to put on, make bedtime milk, read a book to Rosie, put Rosie to bed, give Jip ten more minutes of TV, listen to the story about Pompeii he heard at school today, which was rather scary he thought,get persuaded to quickly make a paper octopus before bed, read a story about pirates, brush teeth and sit by bedside.
8.20 p.m: go downstairs to collect things. Jip shouts down that he cannot get to sleep. I tell him to try harder and that I will be up in a few minutes.
8.40 p.m: I go upstairs with laptop, check on Jip who pretends to be sleeping but starts grinning when I inspect closely.
8.50 p.m: catch last ten minutes of American Idol, the first time I have watched television in weeks. In the meantime try and write this post. It is still very hot in our room. I cannot concentrate. Stare blankly at moving screen.
11.15 A. returns from his dinner. I ask him to put garbage out. We talk.
11.45 Lights out.

So, you see, my days are more about the details than the sweeping statements. Sometimes there is inspiration, sometimes a bit more cleaning, sometimes an e-mail or two, always the driving through the city.

Now, if I had described the next day, I could have given you a full description of the mother of all tantrums, had by Jip on 24th street, our local shopping street, climaxing in him screaming that he HATED everything in the whole wide world, EVEN HIS TOYS!. I stood for twenty minutes next to our car, with one child screaming and shouting hysterically for no apparent reason (we were on our way to get an ice cream, after all) and the other one on my arm screaming because she is upset by the screaming. I got many sympathetic looks from passers by, while I smiled feebly, trying to think of a new tactic. Sympathy, anger, back rubbing, ignoring him, eventually it was an ice cream WITH DVD rental that did it. An obvious highlight of the week.

So for any of you who were worried that my many years of education are not being put to their full use, you may rest assured.

What do your days look like?


Love,

the one obviously on the verge of an artistic breakthrough

2 reasons why I know my son is headed for great things.

1. After listening to a mother talk about her job as firefighter at school, Jip concluded she did a job that helped other people:

Would you like to do a job like that when you grow up?"
Neh, I want to be pizzamaker".


2. After talking about the pyramids:

"I will take you to Egypt one day to see them in real life."
"I don't want to go to Egypt. I have already seen the pyramids in a book."

Postcard well received in SF

Thank you sister. That is 9385 km well travelled. From absynthe drinkers to latte sippers.

Please don't talk to me just now; I am following a program

After bearing two large children and adhering to a strict diet of wine and cheese, my body mysteriously transformed itself into a blob with two rather sturdy legs under it.
I hoped that moving to California, well known for its fit people, would encourage me to recover a body, finally enabling me to buy cheaper clothes. My first strategy: 'eat less, excercise more' only got meagre results. Maybe because I didn't eat less. The American brunches took a while adjusting to, and the wine and cheeese just kept popping up in my diet.

Anyway, in SF it was enough. The diet cynic has joined a program. It is very good. Basically you eat nothing in a healthy way. THEY monitor you every other day, and motivate you to keep up the good work by letting you hold mounds of fat to show you how much you've lost. When you have had a bad few days, basically every weekend, THEY look very dissapointed, but speak words of encouragement.


I've lost two of these and my goal is to cradle this lump in my arms.



I sometimes cheat a bit at the weekends, because it gets a little boring eating nothing, but we are going in the right direction. Now, if I breathe in and you squint, you may actually see a waist and the fantasies about big, smelly cheeses, sitting on a plate right in front of me, are perfectly controllable.

And then there's my bootcamp.




Love from California,


T.E.O

A few things I learned after hosting a party for eight five year old boys

After weeks (okay, maybe one week) of meticulous planning for the big event, it actually only took about five minutes for complete chaos to ensue. You could call it not having complete control over the situation, but I like to think we gave our son the bithday party he wanted. He does not like party games, we found, or do you think we misread the signal of stomping off upstairs, shouting: "I am going to bed NOW", half way through the party? Blind man buff, we will keep for next year. Or we just might consider hiring professionals to entertain in a confined environment.
When the party was over, we put Rosie down for her nap, Jip in front of Cartoon Network en we both fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Did you have a relaxing weekend?

With love,


The elder sister

LIZARDY: and now we are five

"Of course you can have a lizard for your birthday": I said, somehow envisaging a shoe box under Jip's bed with a few lettuce leaves thrown in, when he asked for one. But apparently a lizard is not a silk worm. We now have an albino leopard gecko lizard, named Lizardy by Jip, complete with tank, sand, rock, artificial driftwood, heating pad, heating lamp, temperature gage, vitamin dust, a water bowl, a feeding bowl for the worms Lizardy likes to snack on, and a box to keep the live crickets in; of which Lizardy eats about six a day.
After only two days, Lizardy is already a full member of the family and, as I like to remind myself when shaking the fidgety crickets into the tank, a lot less hard work, in many, many ways, than a baby brother, which was the other thing Jip considered asking for his birthday.

A house, a house

Dear sisters,

It is very quiet on the eastern front. I must assume the sister in Antwerp is painting a picture, so I will jump in and tell you all about our new house. Yes, we have moved and by golly, this is a good home. You should come and visit some time.

I will show you some of the more intereresting details:


First of all, it is big and blue and there is a palm tree growing in front of it.



We have a kitchen we can live in and a study with lots of cubby holes so we can organize our papers, just the way we like them.



Only the best from Ikea.



The owners left a grill which makes melted cheese on toast just the way it should be.


We cannot agree on the era in which this kitchen was built, but we agree it has got that special something.


Luckily we have a potion to stop bad guys in the house. What you do when a bad guy comes into your house is: you give him the potion, which he then will drink and 'voila', he will no longer be a bad guy!
Note wire to stop objects falling during earthquake. Note lack of decorative objects on shelves.


For now, this is the dancing room.


Upstairs we have wall to wall carpeting and a 55" plasma television screen, where Jip watches his educational programs. We also have a pipe to throw the dirty washing in, which then comes out in the basement. Much fun. The dirty washing now only has to come back up.



Last but not least, the doors in the master bedroom lead to an atrium with a non-functioning hot tub, but with functioning fairy lights for that all year round xmas feeling.

A grown up house. Very easy to get used to.

Love from Cx

CHEETAHBAT AND SOCKS

Dear sisters,

Yesterday I saw Chinatown for the second time in two days. The first time had left a few blackholes, after I dropped off somewhere in the middle. This is not an unusual course of events in this stage of my life. Anyway, Faye Dunaway plays an important role in this film and looks pretty good throughout. Once I was told I looked like her. Unfortunately this was not for her role in Chinatown but for her role in the film Barfly with Mickey Rourke, in which she plays an admirable drunk. At the time it was meant as a compliment, an outing of awe; a compliment which I took in good grace. That is a long time ago, in days when I was younger and even more pasty faced than I am now. No longer do I linger at the bar. I am now Jip and Rosie's MOTHER and spend many hours peddling to and from different destinations, discussing, fully sober, the merits of various super heroes and their weapon arsenal. Did you know that CHEETAHBAT (who?) has a disk that he throws, and that this disk emits laser beams at the same time? Cheetahbat is in fact on the same (good) team as CLAWFAKE (?). Uhh? Well did you know that?

Now Rosie hasn't fully entered the conversation yet. She has, for the time being, developed a unique and very effective high pitched shriek, which she likes to throw in at opportune moments. It is particularly fun in the supermarket, when she catches her mother momentarily(!) distracted by the gossip magazines at the check-out counter. In fact any public space is fun to experiment with a high pitched shriek.

On the days my lovely children are away for some hours, I panick slightly. What to do with my time? What do I talk about? To whom? What do I take pictures of and what should I go and see to get insipired?
WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING IS LOOKING FOR SOCKS.
These are the socks that are currently missing a partner in our household. And the matching ones are NOWHERE to be found. The American washing machines appear to be more vicious than the European ones.





Greetings,

the Roman Nosed one.