english

Alison went with her team from work to a pool hall. It might be the last time her team is together since there a big layoffs ahead.

(I wasn’t there, but she had borrowed my camera. A fact that I now gratuitously use to publish this picture.)

When she came home she said to me: “We have to practise!”
Note the “we”.

Thousands of people went outside in the bitter cold to demonstrate against Global warming. I was one of them. When I was marching in the cold wind I thought I should have made a sign with the words “Je gËle” on it. But I hadn’t.

It’s amazing what they can do these days. Resurrect the master of Pop Art himself.

(Of course it was not Andy himself who was performing, but the Dandy Warhols. The concert was apparently not sold out, because a scalper tried to sell us tickets below the ticket price. We graciously declined because I was tired from dancing and Alison from working late the night before.)

Even though it was quite cold I got so warm from hiking in a forest near Tully (South of Syracuse) that I opened up my armpit zippers and put my arms through it. It looks silly, like I have four arms, but it was quite practical too cool off a bit.

On our way to celebrate American Thanksgiving with Alison’s family in upstate New York, we stop for a hike in a bird sanctuary just North of the Canadian-American border. Alison wanted to see migrating birds flock on the banks of the Saint Lawrence river, but the only migrating birds we saw were high up in the sky, dashing South and thus fleeing the upcoming Canadian winter. We saw some small birds, that we fed some of our cashew nuts. Since the nuts were way too big for them to handle we pre-chewed them, just like birds do when they feed their chicks. They didn’t eat out of our mouth though!

Our planned hike wasn’t a big success either. The hiking paths were all flooded because of the high water level, and the ice on the water was not yet strong enough to support our weight. So after trying all possible entries we returned to our car. On the deserted parking lot I gave Alison her first ever driving lesson. I had her making some figure-of-8 turns and shift gear and she did quite well.

Then we saw a deer crossing the road a bit further away, and we changed seats and I drove up to it. A foal fawn joined its mother and even when I got out of the car to take a picture they just stared at me from maybe 3 metres away.

For her work Alison needs to wear pantyhoses (I still sometimes call it panties, because that’s the Dutch word for it. Wrong!). However it doesn’t look very nice if you see dark hairs (and Alison has dark hairs) through them. So she regularly gets her legs waxed. In order to save some money I today tried to wax Alison’s legs myself. The results exceeds both our expectations. What certainly helps is that Alison is the person with the highest pain tolerance that I know. She didn’t even wince once. I already almost cry when I remove a band-aid. Her high tolerance helps me with doing this too. If she would show how painful it is (and believe me, it is painful) I probably couldn’t have done it at all. The sadist in me is not very well developed. I might sometimes hate her, but tonight was not one of these times.

My best friend got a baby. Well, actually another friend of mine got a baby, together with her girlfriend. But my best friend was their sperm donor, so he deserves to have a little party himself.

I sent both of them this card. Fortunately they both share my kind of humour, so they both appreciated it very much.

His name is Kiran and he is a very big baby. Four and a half kilogram, if I’m well informed.

Congratulations to the two mothers and the father!

It’s getting colder and today we had our first day of snow that didn’t immediately melt. So a good day to protect our house against the harsh elements. The kitchen is our coldest room, because it has a door to the garden and a window that is a bit leaky and drafty. Last year I installed a piece of plastic in front of it, basically sealing it of completely. It’s a kit you buy (it was hard to find though) and it consists of a roll of thin plastic and double sided tape. You attach the double sided tape to the window frame, press the plastic more or less straight on it and then you use a hair blower to get rid of the creases. The plastic is of a special kind and it shrinks when it gets warm. Even if you don’t have a hair-blower, like us, but use a little space heater instead it works fabulous. It’s virtually invisible and it keeps the kitchen much warmer.

So this year I did it again and the result was even better than last year.

I only forgot one thing. Can you spot it in this picture?

Alison and I had a big fight today so tonight I’m sleeping on the fold out bed in the guest room. Tomorrow we’ll probably make it up again but these fights are exhausting for both of us. Still they keep happening. Alison is stressed, I’m stressed and before we know it we attack each other. Only verbally, but still…

We’re working on it with a counsellor, but it’s still early and so far we have made little progress.

In the winter, when we go for walks in the snow, Poupoune gets snow between her toes. Often this snow turns into ice which hurts her and she sometimes even starts bleeding. To prevent this from happening she has to wear socks over her paws, but we tried that but she always gets rid of them in no-time. She can’t stand the feeling of something around her paws, she even gets very grumpy if you touch her paws with your hand. But now we try to desensitise her by having her wear these doggy socks every day for 5 minutes. After that we take them off and she gets a special treat. Even after only a couple of days it seems to work: She is less nervous, doesn’t constantly try to shed them and even walks on her feet, without holding at least one leg, and sometimes two, in the air. Maybe when she really needs them, when the big snow arrives, she is actually ready to wear those pesky socks.