english

The first project of 2007: We’re going to paint the hall and the living and dining room. But before we do that we decided to install some spotlights along the hallway and a dimmer switch on either side. Our hallway is very dark, and being the owners of the house we can change that now.
In order to do that I have to run cable through the ceiling, a process that isn’t as easy as I would have liked. There are a lot of joists and other obstructions on my path and it took quite some effort to overcome all of them. But after many hours of finicking with cut of coat hangers and steel fishing hooks, I’m getting quite good in the noble art of fishing wires.

The job is nearly done and now the ceiling looks like Swiss cheese with lots of holes with wires hanging out of some of them. Applying a liberal amount of plaster will take care of that later though, after I’ve installed all the light fixtures.

I’ve been tagged by Christelle to tell you 5 of my secrets.

1. Our chihuahua Pepe poops in the kitchen. Not sometimes, by accident, but nearly everyday/night. This happens especially in the winter when it’s too cold for the frail dog to go outside. He usually manages to poop on his wee-wee pad and his poop doesn’t stink so it could be worse.
2. I sometimes French kiss Poupoune. Or actually, she French-kisses me. She’s very good at it, so it could be worse.
3. I’m bipolar. But I take meds that help to keep me more or less balanced, so it could be worse.
4. When I was young I used to steal a lot. Yesterday I saw a TV-show by Stephen Fry who is also bipolar and made a TV-show/docium about it. He also was a thief, it apparently is quite common among bipolar sufferers, and even did some jail time. When I was caught once I only had to undergo family therapy so it could be worse.
5. I regularly pick my nose. Alison hates the sound of it and thinks it cannot be worse.

I’ll stop now. I probably lost my last three readers now. Happy New Year!

I won’t tag anybody, but if you want to spill some secrets, please do. If you don’t have a weblog you can do it in the comments. Nobody reads those so your secrets will remain between us.

Boxing Day (“Second Christmas Day” in the Netherlands) brought us some snow and we went out for a nice winter walk with Poupoune and friends on the Mountain. Poupoune wore her doggy socks and didn’t lose one of them. She desperately wanted me to throw the ball, but I forgot to bring the ball so she had to run on her own. She was very tired however when we arrived at the top of the mountain so Alison put her in the backpack and carried her down. She’s getting old. Poupoune I mean, Alison still looks like she’s in her 30-ies. Alison fell on the icy stairs, and the backpack was squished a little underneath her, but both she and Poupoune were still intact.

VIA is the railway company that runs the train service from Montréal to Ottawa. They also offered wireless service in the train, and the rail attendant broadcasted over the intercom that it was free today. But it doesn’t work. I asked her and she said she was sooooo sorry but that there where technical difficulties. Bummer.

I’m back in Canada after a long travel day. First by car from Nijmegen to the airport of D¸sseldorf in Germany where I took a flight to Paris. In Paris there were 5 flights leaving all at the same time and all passengers’ luggage had to be rechecked so I was still in that line when my plane was supposed to leave. Since I was surrounded by people who also needed to be on that flight I figured that they would wait for us. And they did. It turned out that the engine was broken too so the plane wasn’t ready to take-off yet after they had fixed it. So we took of almost one hour late. After an enjoyable flight (I had a nice girl sitting next to me and we had a very pleasant conversation) we arrived late in a Montréal without snow. My bags were late but going through immigration went fast and I managed to just get my train to Ottawa to celebrate Christmas with my family in law.

Christmas dinner, lovely presents and now I’m toast and really need to go to bed.

It’s time again to say good-bye to my mother. Or farewell. The likelihood of her being alive the next time I come to the Netherlands is pretty slim. But I don’t make any predictions concerning her health anymore. She proved repeatedly she’s a tough person.
Right now I don’t even know if I will go back again when she will become very ill again. Or even for her funeral. It’s getting harder and harder to be to the Netherlands for me. I don’t know why exactly, but it is.

Still it’s very hard to say farewell, even though I’ve done it many times now. Too many times. There’s not so much to be said, and of course there is still a lot to be said that doesn’t get said. Fortunately she’s lying alone in her room, since the other three people that were lying in the other beds left to celebrate Christmas at home, but also because it doesn’t really matter anymore. She is there, in her bed, and I’m here, next to her but also very far away. I cry, softly, she doesn’t.

Dag mama.

[geek alert!]
The train I’m traveling in as wireless internet access. So I upload this post from within a riding train.

It’s quite fast too. Woot!

Together with a friend I went to have supper at someone I had never actually met, but only know from an Internet newsgroup. He prepared a copious, 5 course meal, well worthy to be a Christmas dinner, only two days early.

We wined and dined into the wee hours and it was very pleasant. Thanks Rick!

After lunch with another friend I encountered this building, right next to the river Maas, that flows through Rotterdam just before culminating into the North Sea. I expected this building to be the head office of a multinational company, but no, my friend told me it was actually a sort of technical middle school, for students between 12 and 16 years.
In Montréal I always mistake schools for prisons, because of their lack of windows. Alison says that’s because windows would distract the students too much. Can you imagine the distraction those students will experience in this building, looking out over the river with its huge ships passing by?

Rotterdam is a dream city for architects, and Montréal isn’t. The amount of building that takes place in Rotterdam, and actually in the whole of the Netherlands is staggering. The Dutch are building on every square metre of free land. Housing, schools, offices, railway stations, roads, high speed railroads, it’s amazing what gets build. Being an architect or engineer must be a very rewarding job. I’m afraid though, that, in a couple of decades when the Dutch population will rapidly decline (unless they start to admit immigrants again, right now the Netherlands is one of the most inhospitable countries in the world), all those new buildings and houses will be empty and there will be Dutch ghost towns, just like in Canada after the gold and silver rush.
My personal reaction to the Netherlands is complicated. I’m sad (and maybe jealous too) that I left all this prosperity, but at the same time I’m also glad I did. Although I never was rich I still benefited from the nice public buildings and the hugely efficient transport system, even though it is clogged at times.
Canada, and certainly Montréal is comparatively very poor and unorganized. But the social climate (and the weather too) is so much nicer that in that respect I don’t miss the Netherlands at all. Nevertheless, being in the Netherlands still causes a great deal of confusion within me. I’d like to not visit for a couple of years and see if I then can look at it as a real tourist and just enjoy it as such. If I still can afford to visit by then, because all prices have risen considerably the last couple of years. After my mother has died, which will probably not take many years, I’d like to visit other parts of the world, like the western parts of Canada, Mexico, Cuba; places I only know from pretty pictures.

To combine business with pleasure I go to the other side of the Netherlands to visit some friends. My best friend Marijn had planned to go to a music festival and drags me along. This is the first time in many, many years that I attend a live concert and I immediately know why. Even though I was wearing earplugs it was very loud. I can’t envision the hearing damage people must have suffered who didn’t wear earplugs. Very late to bed, so my jet-lag gets pampered well.

I finally booked my flight today, and will be flying home on Christmas morning and will arrive just in time for the turkey. I probably won’t eat the turkey, but at least I’ll be there.
Finding a flight was not easy. It’s the holiday season right now and flights are full and prices high. So instead of my usual route, flying with British Airways from Amsterdam over Heathrow, I’ll be flying from D¸sseldorf in Germany via Paris with Air France. That was about 200 euro (300 CAD) cheaper. Strange thing was that if I booked the flight on the German site of Air France, the exact same flight was 50 euro more expensive. And if I would have flown from Paris, and not from Germany, I would have paid even more.
Welcome to the strange world of airfares.