Wrapping up

I left work for the last time today, and much as I loved my job and enjoyed my time there and appreciated all the dear people with whom I worked, I have the most glorious end-of-term feeling! Not that I anticipate any long stretch of sleeping in of mornings or anything like that, but it's a very buoyant and free sensation.

I have only the best things to say about the place I've worked for the past almost-year. And I've so enjoyed the friendships I've made while there. This past week has been a perfect capstone to a satisfying career. Yesterday Amy in HR asked me what I wanted for my going-away party. There's not so much turnover that this is a real issue, but it just happened that one lady left just last Friday, and we had cake for her party. Then of course we had pie and ice cream for Monica's and my party on Monday (fortunately I shared a birthday with someone who was up for a creative alternative to store-bought cake and cardboard icing), and after agreeing that everyone was probably caked-out by now, we decided to have a going-away brunch instead. So we had bagels and orange juice in the kitchen this morning, and it was all so pleasant and cheery. Also I found out that they've started an office pool on when Baby comes, how much Baby weighs, and whether Baby is a boy or a girl! The funniest part is that all the guys in the back warehouse have all gotten on board most excitedly with this pool, happy to have something to bet money on even if they don't really have much of an idea. It's so cute - they're guessing like 15 lbs. and random days that are probably notgoing to come true, but it's all in good fun...plus Jennifer told me they want to give me half of the money in the end! Isn't that sweet? And gambling is actually against the rules in the employee handbook, and dear Mr. W, the owner, apparently put up one of the biggest stakes of all. Yes, I'm sad to leave, but I can't think of a better reason to do so.

Storks and storms

Overheard on last night’s walk:

Me: So do you think it would be a worthwhile investment to spend, say, $5 on a plastic stork for our yard in the hopes of eliciting free cookies and maybe other food from the neighbours?
Michael (horrified): What a mercenary idea! Where do you come up with these things?
Me: Okay, okay, I was just kidding! We don’t have to do it.
Michael: It’s pretty scary the way your mind works sometimes. I mean, you would think they would have to send people away to training camps to indoctrinate them to think like that.

So last night we were watching a show when this background tune came on. The only line I caught was, ‘“Come in,” she said; “I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”’ It was very catchy, and I liked it so much that I looked up the lyrics online afterwards, only to discover that it was a Bob Marley song! Now, I don’t know anything about Bob Marley except that I am supposed to hate his music; I’ve heard so many bad things about his voice and style that I’m totally prejudiced against him, and here the only song of his that I’ve actually heard I find that I like very much indeed! This is a pretty kettle of fish.

‘Twas the eighteenth of April in 2005…

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
How Paul Revere drank all the beer.

Thus began one of our poems from the inimitable Poem Game, a Penney family tradition wherein all the participants write the first line of a famous poem, then pass the paper one person to the left, rhyme the line and write a new one, and pass it on. There are several variations, including the four-line doggerel, the eight-line poem, or simply passing the paper around until it ends up back with the person who starts it. Terribly fun, even in circles of people who protest themselves not literary. (Actually, when it involves those without the writing bug, the results can be even sillier than ever.) My personal favourite and a Penney family classic:

The windshield factor was fifteen below;
On that frigid terrain only real men could go.
Did they venture for fortune, for love, or for fame?
Or did they attempt to rescue a dame?
Yes, the rains came down and the winds did blow
And all they could cry was, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’
They wondered why they’d ever left
(Their jaws were square and their chins were cleft.)
They faced the challenge with derring-do;
Their motor-bikes in a circle they drew
Not giving the villains a single clue
As to what they were doing; I leave it to you.

So anyway, it’s now been 230 years since the midnight ride of Paul Revere, although according to Paul Harvey, it was really Israel Bissel who deserves the credit for spreading the alarm. We were trying to remember at breakfast if the alarm was the night of the 18th and therefore it the morning of the 19th when the battle of Concord happened. And we just finished reading Johnny Tremain, so we should know! Alas, we’re still stranded halfway through The Great Impersonation; need to get cracking if we’re to finish that before Baby arrives.

It was such a nice weekend, though not nearly so restful as it should have been. I had the girls I’ve been mentoring over for a slumber party on Friday night, and after a lesson, pizza and Pepsi, a movie, and a rousing game of spoons, I was falling asleep by 11:00. The girls, not being old and boring yet, stayed up until who knows when, and still got up early the next morning for bacon and eggs. Saturday was lovely; Michael mowed the lawn and assembled the stroller while I organised the nursery a tiny bit more and ran hundreds of loads of laundry. We took a chicken out of the freezer and determined to go to church the next morning with the explicit intention of inviting someone over for dinner (the fun thing about hospitality is that Michael really enjoys it too, and half the time it’s his idea – ‘We don’t have anything planned for Sunday, do we? We should really have someone over’). Benjamin and Amanda came over, and we showed them The Court Jester, which they had never seen before. Plot we’ve got – quite a lot.

And now we’re trying to keep the schedule gloriously unfree because we know not what the morrow may bring!

Living and Dyeing

On New Year’s Eve 2003 we had several friends over to celebrate. We were all newly married, and we drank sparkling cider and enjoyed a sit-down dinner in our formal dining room, which to this day remains bereft of furniture, since we’re still saving up for a nice dining room set. All this information is incidental to the point of this post, and merely sets the stage for the astounding events to follow. The party left us with tablecloths and napkins to launder, most of which were fresh from the wedding registry (sad to admit that this was the first time I’d used this tablecloth since we were married in August? Well, at any rate, it was the first time it needed washing). It was a blue-and-white checkered print, and since it was sort of fuzzy and soft, much like our master bath towels, I blithely tossed them all in the laundry together. Our towels, previously a lovely warm vanilla colour, ended up a rather dingy blue-grey, while the tablecloth and napkins escaped apparently unscathed. Michael expressed some surprise at this apparent lapse of common sense – washing un-like colours, especially on a first washing (Me: ‘But I washed it on the cold cycle! I thought nothing bad could happen in cold water!’) – but was generally forbearing and understanding of the situation, and hasn’t complained at all in the past year-plus about our master bath towels not looking quite so sprightly as they ought.

So this last weekend I thought I had spotted a brilliant solution. I picked up a few really cute maternity tops at the local upscale Goodwill (all Motherhood or Mimi brand names, except for like $5 each instead of $45) and brought them proudly home to wash. One was a rather bright red top, and I was seized with the notion of tossing it in with the unfortunate towels, to compensate for the blue hue with a good red shift. Of course I didn’t really expect it to work, because of course colours don’t bleed in cold water, only hot, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to try.

Well. Michael pulled the towels out of the washer, clean and fresh and complete with random pink spots on them. It reminds me a bit of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, with an inexorable pink stain that just gets progressively worse and worse. It actually doesn’t look bad, and I’m trying to look on the bright side: it’s sort of like one step away from having monogrammed towels! Now Michael and I can have our own personalised towels without having our initials sewn on to them. But I have now officially given up on the towels and will try no further attempts at rectifying the situation.

By the way

Now that I'm about to quit my job, here is where I work:

http://www.colonial-lighting.com/home.htm

Pictures and Conversation, Part 2

We have been getting dreadfully erratic about our Sunday Pregnant Picture of late. This time around it was well into the week before we got to take it. (We forgot on Sunday and then it was many days before I felt pretty enough to document my condition.) So in addition to our standard pose, I also wanted a couple of free-standing, carefully scripted candid shots, to give the appearance of breezy elegance and casual, carefree ease and happiness.

The first picture I relaxed completely, to allow the full effects of the expansion to be visible. ‘This will be the “Wow, I can’t believe how pregnant I looked then!” picture,’ I explained to Michael, who was patiently working the camera. ‘It will be a curiosity piece, because I’m never going to be this big again, except under similar circumstances.’

Next I wanted one a bit more controlled, for the exact opposite effect, to prove how non-pregnant it is possible to look at 8+ months along. ‘Now I’m going to suck it up a bit, so I can look back and think, “And that’s how I looked at 8+ months pregnant!”’ And held the pose (with some difficulty. It reminded me a bit of those corset-tying scenes in old Victorian novels. ‘Don’t breathe, Mabel! Don’t breathe!’)

Michael peered through the viewfinder. ‘Okay,’ he called. ‘Go ahead and suck it up!’ Distressed yelps resulted from me and evil cackles from Michael. Funny, funny man.

(This is all very silly and I readily admit it. I don’t know why it’s so important to me to prove by pictures how un-pregnant I look when I’m perfectly happy being pregnant, feel great, and wouldn’t wish a thing otherwise. Sigh.)

Further thoughts on Holland

And yet, for all that, there are some things that the Dutch (possibly Europeans in general) do better (or, shall we say, we could take a page from them):

-European hospitality. You can’t enter someone’s house without being offered coffee or tea. You always linger around the table after dinner sipping drinks, laughing, and talking. Sure, I know we drink coffee here, and when you go over to someone’s house for dinner you usually get offered water or juice or coke or something, but for the most part people don’t keep their tea sets and coffee creamers always at the ready here. It’s a social ritual over there. And it’s GOOD stuff!

-European diet. The bread you buy in the bakery is generally far better quality than your typical sandwich bread here. Even the cheapest run-of-the-mill sandwich bread there is hearty and nutritious. Breakfast often consists of yogurt, bread and cheese, bread and meat, jam, and of course the classic chocolate sprinkle sandwiches! Overall, the foods seem far less processed, possibly one reason why Europeans manage to look so thin compared to their American counterparts (either that or the fact that everyone smokes like crazy over there).

-European roundabouts! I fell in love with these in England and still adore the notion of not having to come to a dead stop when it’s perfectly obvious that no one’s coming from all directions. Plus if you’re scrambling to decipher a map (NOT lost, just momentarily confused of bearings) it’s so convenient to be able to circle without having to make a snap decision and end up heading off to the wrong corner of the country.

I must say, the Euro was a big disappointment. We took a trip into Germany one day since the border was so nearby. Wandering around the fairy-talish city of Bremen, I was delighted to see a coin glittering at me from the ground, and went through the great effort of bending over and picking it up (no mean feat at my current girth), delighted with the prospect of adding a German coin to my collection, only to realize that, of course, it was just a common 1-cent Euro piece, like I had tons of already. Blah.

Pictures and Conversation, Part 1

‘And what,’ thought Alice, ‘is the use of a book without any pictures or conversation?’

Overhead at the dinner table:

Michael: This is really good. What is it?
Me: ‘Hearty Chicken and Rice Soup.’
Michael: Hmm, that’s funny. It looks and tastes like it has barley in it.
Me: Well, actually it does. That was just the soup’s name in the cookbook.
Michael: What a funny cookbook! I wonder why it would call for barley in a rice dish!
Me: Ummm…actually, it did call for rice, but I thought barley would be better.
Michael: Ah. And did you actually use chicken for the chicken part, or maybe some leftover quail that you had lying around?

Later:

Me: What would you like, a cinnamon roll or a slice of peach cobbler?
Michael: I’ll take a cinnamon roll.
Me: What! You’d rather have a cinnamon roll than a slice of juicy peach cobbler fresh from the oven, all crunchy and crisp, with ice cream melting over it??
Michael: Oh, boy! I’ll take peach cobbler then. Silly me!

Overheard on the nightly walk:

Me (breathing deeply): Ah, the fresh scent of spring!
Michael (sniffing): Actually, it smells a lot like a dryer vent.
Me: Well, maybe it’s Spring Fresh fabric softener.

America for me!

There's a poem somewhere beginning, 'Oh, the old world...' and goes on to describe the wonders and delights of Greece and Rome and all that, but winds up each verse with '...America for me!' After two weeks of touring on the continent, I am delighted with all that I saw and ate but immensely glad to be back on home soil once more and incredibly proud to be an American!

Fortunately daylight savings time works right into the whole jetlag thing, so we're so zombied-out with the time change anyway that we won't even feel the injustice of waking up an hour earlier tomorrow. Baby already makes me feel hungry all the time, so the meal weirdness isn't as much of an issue as it usually is with travel.

Well, what can I say about Holland? Wonderful food, fabulous chocolate sprinkles (I ate a chocolate sprinkle sandwich for breakfast every day), incredibly warm and friendly people, and really uncharacteristically good weather for us the two weeks we were there. It was really too fabulous of a trip - and so much better than expected, considering my apprehensions about timeframe, pregnant travel, expense of the euro, etc. - to complain about anything, so let's just briefly catalogue the ways in which I come away with an improved opinion of America (the following are sweeping generalisations):

-American plumbing. In America you usually have warm water in the powder rooms. The sinks are usually big enough to fit both hands under the faucet at once. The towels are usually big and folded over a rack rather than hung from a rivet on a hook on the wall. The toilet paper is usually white (not brown, except in some environmentally nutty stores where they sell recycled toilet paper) and actually soft.

-American cuisine. In America, if you order water in a restaurant, it is usually a good way of indulging your cheapness and acknowledging that you don't want to pay for a drink. It is not common to order water, explicitly specify that it be tap water and not bottled, and be brought bottled water (and charged a hefty price in Euros for it). It is furthermore not common in America, should such a situation befall you, to be told by the waiter, after you are caught sneaking off to the WC with the bottle to covertly fill it up because you are dying of thirst, that you are not allowed to help yourself to water from the WC.

-American customer service. In America, there are signs everywhere. There are people in the airports to direct you if you are confused. Now, in all fairness, not everyone in America can speak a foreign language for the assistance of any hapless tourist who happens by. But at least we try. And we generally have good, prompt, and attentive service in public places. This may be because, without a minimum wage of 8-10 euros/hour, many people in the service-oriented industry are working for tips and actually have a vested interest in keeping the customers happy.

Hmm, that should do it for the basic observations. In general, Holland is still a country of windmills and canals (most without railings and many with narrow, cobbled streets directly adjoining along which it is a harrowing nightmare to parallel park) and tulips (although it wasn't tulip season yet when we went). Because most of the country is polder (reclaimed from the sea), meaning it was dyked (sp?) in and pumped dry across the centuries, its architecture isn't nearly as old as that in England. No castles, and the charming stone churches don't go back much beyond the 1600s. But there are thatched cottages and farms aplenty.

It was never meant to be a sight-seeing vacation; it was always about the people and the family that my Oma (Dutch word for grandmother) wanted us to visit. That was our expectation, and everything else that happened was a bonus. That being said, it was a bonus - full of serendipity and happiness.

But I'm glad to be back!

(Observation: Baby is a very helpful traveling companion. Owing to Baby's presence, we got to skip the long line at check-in and got a whole extra meal on the flight back.)