Hello dear friends!
Can you believe it's almost Christmas? Besides looking
at my calendar, I know this is true because our living room is now
adorned with a sparkling, colorful, gaudy and whopping five foot tall
tree and we only decorate in that fashion once a year. Yes, the
ceilings in this house are so low (6 feet/2 meters) that we no longer
enjoy the ginormous Christmas trees from our past. We're stuck with a
tree which would certainly have been cause for awe on the island of
Lilliput but here, it just makes us giggle and snort. The sole benefit
of having a tree this small is there is no room for big, expensive
gifts i.e. a 60" HDTV, stainless steel eight burner gas stove,
SubZero frigo or even a huge, stone water fountain adorned with angels.
(No offense, Mom.) Definitely a bonus. Lucky us, we have to stick to
smaller and more important gifts such as socks, chocolates and pajamas.
If Henk wore ties with any kind of regularity, I imagine they would
also fit nicely under our shrub.
Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I had a fairly uneventful yet
cozy day with Sjaantje and Henk. Since Henko is a better cook than
most restaurant chefs around here, I opted to let him create a menu for
me. Wise call - a perfectly cooked rack of lamb, sweet potato
croquettes, glazed small carrots (with the green tops still attached;
quite pretty) and spinach. Dessert is none of your business. Henk
also rented a film for our viewing after dinner. He was so thoughtful
to find a movie starring my favorite actress, Helen Mirren, and
co-starring with our favorite pinky-ring mafioso, Joe Pesce. Hey
friends, this movie was so awful it only adds fondness to the memory.
Which brings me to this story...
Henk had rented the movie from one of those "Movie Box" things outside
of most grocery stores and McDo's here in the States. These boxes are
really a treat because for only $1.00, you can rent a movie for 24
hours. When Henk returned the movie, the screen on the rental box
said, "Thank you for returning your movie. Five Dollars a Day."
Coming home all flabbergasted, Henk immediately called the number on
the "box" to ask why the movie was $5.00 a day when the "box" itself is
emblazoned with "$1.00!!!" stickers. After 5 or so minutes of Henk
questioning the poor operator/receptionist at the other end of the
line, I heard "Oh. My. God. Forget this call ever happened. Was this
recorded?"
"What what what?!", I asked. Come to find out the movie itself was
called, "Five Dollars a Day". Had nothing to do with the charge.
Since then, we've had some major appliance issues: the dishwasher decided it was much
more fun to spray soap all over the dishes than to rinse them, the wanna-be-a-French oven
Can you believe it's almost Christmas? Besides looking
at my calendar, I know this is true because our living room is now
adorned with a sparkling, colorful, gaudy and whopping five foot tall
tree and we only decorate in that fashion once a year. Yes, the
ceilings in this house are so low (6 feet/2 meters) that we no longer
enjoy the ginormous Christmas trees from our past. We're stuck with a
tree which would certainly have been cause for awe on the island of
Lilliput but here, it just makes us giggle and snort. The sole benefit
of having a tree this small is there is no room for big, expensive
gifts i.e. a 60" HDTV, stainless steel eight burner gas stove,
SubZero frigo or even a huge, stone water fountain adorned with angels.
(No offense, Mom.) Definitely a bonus. Lucky us, we have to stick to
smaller and more important gifts such as socks, chocolates and pajamas.
If Henk wore ties with any kind of regularity, I imagine they would
also fit nicely under our shrub.
Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I had a fairly uneventful yet
cozy day with Sjaantje and Henk. Since Henko is a better cook than
most restaurant chefs around here, I opted to let him create a menu for
me. Wise call - a perfectly cooked rack of lamb, sweet potato
croquettes, glazed small carrots (with the green tops still attached;
quite pretty) and spinach. Dessert is none of your business. Henk
also rented a film for our viewing after dinner. He was so thoughtful
to find a movie starring my favorite actress, Helen Mirren, and
co-starring with our favorite pinky-ring mafioso, Joe Pesce. Hey
friends, this movie was so awful it only adds fondness to the memory.
Which brings me to this story...
Henk had rented the movie from one of those "Movie Box" things outside
of most grocery stores and McDo's here in the States. These boxes are
really a treat because for only $1.00, you can rent a movie for 24
hours. When Henk returned the movie, the screen on the rental box
said, "Thank you for returning your movie. Five Dollars a Day."
Coming home all flabbergasted, Henk immediately called the number on
the "box" to ask why the movie was $5.00 a day when the "box" itself is
emblazoned with "$1.00!!!" stickers. After 5 or so minutes of Henk
questioning the poor operator/receptionist at the other end of the
line, I heard "Oh. My. God. Forget this call ever happened. Was this
recorded?"
"What what what?!", I asked. Come to find out the movie itself was
called, "Five Dollars a Day". Had nothing to do with the charge.
Since then, we've had some major appliance issues: the dishwasher decided it was much
more fun to spray soap all over the dishes than to rinse them, the wanna-be-a-French oven
went on strike, our vacuum stopped sucking and then the screen on our laptop turned irreversibly
over to the dark black side. So that has all been super fun.
To top that off, the new vacuum cleaner busted it's belt after 2 weeks of use and then I, having an
allergy fit, promptly smarfed wine on the new computer's keyboard - thereby making the keys stick
and resulting in us buying yet another new keyboard apparatus.
Then there were the phone and email issues. I don't even want to go there. So I won't.
Aside from that, I fell down the stairs (twice!) and then stepped into a hole during our nightly walk-the-dog
ceremony. (Apparently Henk, Sjaantje and Wuz knew the hole was there but for some reason I didn't.)
When I remember to wear it, I'm now sporting a really cool knee brace. Looks great with my holiday
dress! I am a sexy goddess.
About one week ago, Wuzzy was doing his thing (relaxing almost comatose on the back patio, watching the stars
and no doubt finding certain constellations), Sjaantje was just leaving the guest house to come inside for the
night and I was cleaning up the kitchen. Like a charging lion (in one motion which lasted
less than 0.5 seconds), Wuzzy was suddenly and literally climbing the fence. Sjaantje screamed just as I came
outside...Wuzzy was busy catching an opossum who, unfortunately for him, was last seen walking along the top of
the fence. Wuzzy caught him, gently extracted himself from the fence and let the opossum go. Imagine this, the opossum played possum
just before he scurried off, up the fence and away. That is probably the most excitement our dear Wuz has had for a long time.
Knowing Wuz as you do (either personally or through this blog), of course he didn't hurt the opossum. But try to tell
that to Sjaantje. It took about 45 minutes for her to calm down. She still relives that episode in France when the bull
mastiff attacked Wuzzy. Bless her heart, she thought the little critter was attacking Wuz. No.
That's most of my news. I wish all of you a very happy holiday!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Happy 2011!
Big kiss-
Wend
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