Red, White, and Blue Dog

Our house is pretty much the only one on the block sans flag. (Father said, "too bad you don't have a Dutch flag to wave. Better yet, why not British?"). White wine, mango sorbet, and summer breezes were enjoyed on the front porch in the afternoon. Haven't had alcohol so early in the day since...I don't even know, fourth year? Then last minute packing for overnight in Mount Vernon.

Daughter to mother conversation inside train station as they walked toward the stairs to platform:
"Why can't we stay inside?"
"What difference does it make?"
"This girl I know fell on the tracks here."
"She what?"
"Well, she jumped. And it wasn't here, it was on that side [points to opposite platform]."
....

Coffee then Q-S-2-1-car w/story rounds (Gregor the ankylosaurus and Sandra the pterodactyl) and limericks (...). Everything green! Fresher air! No sirens! No honking! Stars! Twas splendid. A crowd of people, some familiar, and some not. Delicious edibles (delectable tomatoes), white sheets on the grass displaying images of what looked like lifeforms under a microscope. MJ in pixels. Life stories shared. Cookies ingested. Music played and Hide and Go Seek. A Twilight Zone marathon. Awoke to poor thirsty Blue Dog. Breakfast. Caffeine, please! Exquisite Corpse. My camera unused and left behind.

summertime II

So the rest of the summer is formulating itself. Numerous (countless) trips are in the works or at least to be planned shortly. Oregon, Chicago, DC, Amsterdam, France, maybe even Germany (not in that order per se). Not to mention my Dutch "cousin" visiting in July (the daughter of my "uncle," who is really just one of my father's best friends from childhood that masquerade under the guise of "uncle such-and-so" i.e. Roland, Robert, Adrian, Satinder, etc.). V excited to see her, we always get along well, and it's an opportunity to play tour guide while I show her and her beau the city. Too bad Mandana isn't around, I think it would be ridiculous if we all got together and chatted Dads (though really, I have only to go to Holland to accomplish that). Anywho, this summer is quickly becoming full, which is just lovely.

updated

Been very busy lately. Too busy. When things happen, it seems as if I have to do everything at once. Projects, classes, homework, friends, family, installations, cleaning, unpacking, etc! It's still going to be busy. Don't get me wrong, I thrive on busy, having things to do, but I hardly have time to do the other things I need to do, like a doctor's appt for my mac and myself. I had one for today, in about an hour, but the bloody carpet people called today instead of yesterday and so are coming 20 mins after my appt is supposed to start, so I just hope my computer won't die. I also have barely any time to go out anymore. It feels like college again, when my weekends more often than not went towards working than playing.

Gerstensuppe

Switzerland was wonderful. All white and clean. We stayed in a small town called Flims, but it didn't really feel like Switzerland there. It was just overrun by all the wintersports tourists, (mostly Dutch snowboarders there for some competition incidentally, which irked my Dutch relatives a smidge, how can they talk in private now?) and just didn't feel authentic. I mean, it felt like Switzerland, just not how I experienced it the last time when I was in Mürren and Wengen. Maybe it was because most of the buildings were built in the last century. Falera, on the other hand, was the exact taste of Switzerland I needed. Tiny little town, crooked cobbled streets, mountains peeking through the houses, and old wooden buildings dating back well over a century. 

I must have had gerstensuppe at least three times. My favorite was after the circular hike that had several forks and shortcuts through the forest (oh how I wanted to amble through, but I was not alone, and those I was with prefer not to go off the beaten path). I forget the name of the restaurant, but it translated to something along the lines of the Ostrich Nest. In any case. This was the most delicious soup I've ever tasted. Delicate herbs, barley, tiny legumes, ham, and the finishing touch: freshly shaved horseradish. I bought a Graubünden cookbook that incidentally has this very recipe (not that I bought it just for that of course). Ugh. All the food was so good. I ate so much pig it's ridiculous (I'm so bad). Every morning I'd wake up nice and early, and get a ridiculous amount of food to eat: scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, nutty bread, salami, prosciutto, emmentaler, gruyere, brie, tea, and two kinds of juice. Now that's a breakfast. Spaetzle, gerstensuppe, fondue, pizokels, goulash, and so much else for lunch and dinner I can't even remember it all, but everything was delectable. The Swiss know my palate. 

Hours were spent winter-hiking, going up mountains, going down mountains, at one point crawling up a mountain, and every evening with my Dutch relatives (Uncle Rob & Aunt Beatrice, Uncle Cees & Aunt Josine, their friends, and my own mother and father). It was lovely to see them all, I hadn't seen Aunt Beatrice since Eileen got married five years ago, and I'd forgotten how much more she's like my father than their older sister (i.e. fantastic sense of humour). The only unfortunate thing about the trip was that I did not have my camera. Would have if I could have, but it was being held captive in DC. 

It ended with an overnight in Zurich, where I'd never been, but my parents have been traveling to for years. I adored Zurich. I would love to go back there when it's not so blistery out, but I thoroughly enjoyed my hours-long meander through the city. Topped it off with fondue and fingerlings. 

umleiten

Everything is in German or French when I load up my internet browser here. Facebook's in French, this page in German, etc, and then it suddenly switches to English.

I'll write a better entry on my trip later. I shouldn't be writing now anyway, but I just wanted to say, that even though this vacation has thrown me some pretty nasty punches, it's all good in the end.

Die Schweiz

Leaving on a jet plane for Switzerland tomorrow. So excited! Get in Saturday, just in time to celebrate mother's birthday. I'm so looking forward to skiing once more! (I haven't since...well...that time I fell off the chairlift). 

Snowier World

Flight canceled again. 

Tomorrow so they say, I will be flying out. So they say. Weather predicts no snow in Portland for tomorrow. So they say.

*update 4:19 PM*

Flying out Thursday now. Get in at 11 pm. Lovely. We'll be pretending Friday is Christmas this year.

Snow World

Originally I was supposed to fly out on Sunday at 7:15 JFK to PDX, but there was no more room for pets and so obviously I had to change that flight. And so I changed it to Saturday, same flight number and everything, and got all packed and ready to go. At around noon the Delta site said the flight was canceled. So I had to reschedule again to today. Money goes down the drain.

Overnight in Portland it snowed half a foot. That's 1 1/2 feet of snow. Which means I might have to walk a mile to get home in the snow after midnight, with the backpack, the suitcase, and the cat. So I am bringing nothing but the essentials (i.e. presents).

Fuck the FAA and their stupid computer

This is redunkulous. Complete horse manure. "Malfunction," "computer glitch," blah blah blah, all bloody flights across the bloody country are at a standstill. Sitting on the plane for hours, without any information to go on, and finally they let us off only to find out no, it wasn't terrorism, but a computer crash. And still they're going to charge us to watch a movie. I need a cigarette. I am sick of Florida, and death, and misery, and over-humidity, and people that work slow as molasses, and hot damn is this ridiculous. Who the hell do they have working these computers, anyway? Incompetent fools that must use Dells. Those Pieces of Crap.

Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

The sky! The sky! Oh my word, the sky! The clouds parted for a brief spell today, brief spells, rather, and in the evening the sky was just absolutely breath-taking. Stars and stars, as far as the eye could see, and full constellations, not this bit of that and smidge of this, but full ones. All of Ophiuchus, all of Scorpius and Sagittarius, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Eagle, Ursa Major, Pegasus, Andromeda, and so on, and on and on. Lightning in the distance, lightning to the left and to the right, and now the rains are back on top of us again and the sky is hidden once more beneath a thick atmospheric blanket.

The sky is the cherry of this trip. It is wonderful to see Josine and Cees again, and I look forward to seeing John as well. I really love Josine and Cees, I just wish I spoke Dutch. But that's my guilt-complex talking, and that I feel guilty that they have to speak English around me. Of course learning Dutch is something I greatly want to do, and have wanted to do, and will want to do until it is done, but for now I shall converse with my Dutch family in English.

ps. Santa Fe's as cute as a button.

Nothing like Florida to make you feel young and pretty.

summer.
in florida.
this heat and humidity reminds me of summer 2002. maybe it's the smell of tuna in the air mixing with aforementioned heat and humidity. In any case, it brings me back to Brooklyn, when Daisy and I would eat at the corner diner across from Pratt, she with her tuna sandwich and me with my tomato cheese, and both with coffee respectively. Maybe I'm hungry. I am hungry. This place has scary food in it. I'm going to see if I can't manage to eat out while I'm here. No leftovers for me, please.

I am a Gobbler of Books

I returned from Florida last night, and I must say I would be quite happy not to fly again for at least a year. BUT this will not be the case, as I shall be flying to Florida in two months time on a one-way ticket, and will be returning by Toyota Corolla, c. 2001, courtesy of Mama Toby. It's big, and tan, and my granny glasses match it perfectly. That's right, I'm gettin' a car.

I was in Florida for four days and finished two books while I was there. It would have been three, but my Autobiography of a Geisha was in the mail as I left it in Seattle. Sedaris' "Dress your Family in Corduroy" was quite amusing, laugh out loud in some parts. I liked his nonlinear story telling. The other one was H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," which definitely burned its imagery in my brain so that on the drive home form the airport I kept envisioning a burning red sky. Really vivid imagery, that one. Beautifully told, "ahead of its time," etc. The movie failed I feel to drive home the whole factor of solitude felt by the narrator during the course of his tale, as well as the main point of our connection to "lesser" animals (i.e. rabbits).

And now to turn my attention back to the geisha.