Cat man cometh

We don't talk about it much on this James D.-centred blog (tending to focus on the easy positive aspects of an adorable and generally entertaining subject) but life in a little provincial Dutch town can get boring and lonesome at times. Don't get me wrong, we have made good friends here that transcend the cultural gaps easily and who make life enjoyable. I guess the difference is with other places we've lived in our own culture; after a couple of years you expect to feel pretty comfortable and set in some sort of social scene. The general feeling you get with most people here (and I mean in the region we are in- Amsterdam and the east are quite different) is that maybe you have something weird on your face, or your pants are on inside-out. Not immediately friendly, lets say. We've tried to get past this- its not a fair comparison to living in the sometimes overdone, outward friendliness in the American South, and I'll repeat that its not everyone but its just still weird. The expression here is that 'you have to watch the cat out of the tree', which confused us for quite a long time but means basically you can't go up to the locals and expect them to jump at the chance to meet a stranger; you have to be patient enough until they decide to trust you. The longer we are here, the more irritating this expression becomes to me- we may be leaving in six months- will we wave goodbye to the cat still in the tree?
We went to a party at a friend's house the other night (only the second time James has had a babysitter) and had a great time until exceptionally late. We talked to a Dutch man there who worked for Heineken and had lived in Africa for seven years and other places in the world. I though it was really interesting that he considerd it much more difficult to adapt to a culture that was seemingly similar to your own than one vastly different. He said in Africa there was no choice- you loved it or hated it; but that here where most people assume that differences are minor because of the apparent similarities (wealthy, mostly white, Western, Anglo Saxon based) there are more misunderstandings because the really fundamental differences are below the surface of society. What are they? We didn't quite work that out.
What prompted this whole entry though, was something hopeful that happened last week on our little block. Its taken a while here, but some of the neighbors are pretty interesting, if not wild about actual interaction. There is of course our neighbor to the left, an Indonesian man who cranks his moped up at 4am every morning to go to work. We often get Reader's Digest books to give to him from the mailman- we call him the Troll because he is always hiding in his backyard and he has a poster from the movie on his front door. There are also the people across the street whose dogs HATE our dogs, making random street conversations difficult. They also have two cats that the wife occasionally hangs out the top half of their 'Dutch' door for some fresh air. But the real cat man is down the street on the right. I often felt a little sorry for him- every time I walk the dogs by he is in there by himself, feeding the 15 cats that are always crowded around him.
Last week it rained really hard for a couple of days in a row; I'm always meaning to clean out our gutter but just haven't managed the time since the spring. Well, about the third day that it was pouring down, I came home from the gym to find the cat man, covered in filth, on a ladder leaning against our house. He had gone down the street cleaning gutters because, well because he apparantly has a heretofore unknown streak of niceness. When I thanked him profusely, he just said it was no problem and laughed when I told him of my best intentions for house maintenance. Does this mean the cat has been watched out of the tree?

Dog war

Keska wins.



Ghost wins.

Fiets vervangt en een nieuwe ezel

Katharine went with a little sportier model for her replacement bike; its lighter and rides smoother than the stylish 'oma' fiets and even has the light dynamo integrated into the hub (this makes me much more excited than her).



It does fit better and we were lucky we have insurance. I don't know if I've mentioned this before but they are absolutely mad about insurance here- we have about six different kinds- if someone steals something from our house, if you spill wine on the carpet at someone's party (that's the example they use), if your dog bites somebody, if your bike falls and dents your neighbor's car (happened to us- the damage was 1000 euros just to fix a little dent; another reason we have no car).
Buying a bike, used or second hand is quite the event here; the whole process took us 4 hours on a Saturday- though that included biking 30 minutes to the store where our insurance counted (we had bought the bike in the town where we used to live). Everything involves a lot of discussion of pros and cons and many cups of coffee. Luckily they had a big table full of toys for James.

In other big news, the donkey family at the local 'petting zoo'- I like the Dutch name better- it's literally 'Children's Farm' - anyway we go there pretty much twice a day because James loves the animals and it's by the dog park (let me just stop here and apologise to the donkeys and our readers for this terrible sentence)- the point is the donkey family has a new addition. I'd never thought I'd get excited about a baby donkey, but James loves the thing and it is pretty @#* adorable.



Even Keska was charmed.




In other, other news we have been slammed here with preparations for a possible early exit. Katharine found out about an opportunity to teach next year at Albright College in PA. It would be too good a job to pass on at this point and would mean that she would finish her thesis early (impressive considering the 4 months off for the pregnancy) and that we may move to PA sometime June/July 2007. I have felt increasingly like a spinning wheel here in Enschede so its pretty exciting just to think of coming back to the States and being closer to friends and family- there is also a green build/timberframe company in Reading- luckily. Not to throw out the chicken with the bathwater- or is that count the baby before it hatches? , but we are waiting to hear if they even want to fly her over for an interview; should be within the next 2 weeks that we get the word.

Here is James with his favorite flavor (fish risotto- is that not weird? it smells terrible, like that flake stuff you feed goldfish- but we still get it because he loves it so much and the ingredients don't list anything frightening...) prepared food all over his face:


He is walking all over the place now- it is pretty hilarious...

Classic bath photos

Everybody gets this, not just the first kid- the classic bathtime photos:





We also recently dug deep and bought some new 'real' shoes that fit for James. We tried to guess (going between European and US sizes) last Christmas in Target but the ones we picked out are still too big. James is really standing up from sitting and walking all over, when he feels like it- his favorite thing now is to get chased around by anyone who is willing...

Pech

It rhymes with our slang 'blech' (like, gross!) and its been the overarching sentiment of the past few weeks. It means bad luck or misfortune- the opposite of 'mazzel' or for all you linguists out there, and well, I guess everyone gets their string of it.
I'll blame the unusually long delay in posting on it without hesitation. Before I go into my litany I have to remind myself that others have it, and are having it oh so much worse, and our little complaints and temporary setbacks shrink in comparison to real problems, but...
I'm hoping that a little bitching will at least end the streak.
I find it personified in this picture of poor James.



It all started at Heleen's birthday party almost 2 weeks ago. It was one of the other little attendees that was brought sniffling to the party that gave James the flu, but Heleen did her best to hug (wrestle) him into submission. The day after the party he had his first fever, a pretty scary experience for us- he was totally limp and listless and super-crabby and burning up for almost 24 hours. Then it was gone and he was cranky and runny nosed and disatisfied for the next week which made me so exhausted I easily picked up the same bug the next weekend and spent a miserable 24 hours hot and cold and desperately trying to rest. When this all happened, I was still inwardly fuming about missing my flight, then Katharine's bike gets stolen, and then to top off our transportation woes, somebody backs their car into my bike locked to the tree in front of our house and tacos the front wheel (I don't remember when that happened, but I think it was the day I was finally beginning to feel a little better...). Oh, and one of the dogs (okay, my dog) had diarhea for four days.
As James was finally beginning to feel better, it was time for his consultatie bureau visit and two (2!) nice big vaccine shots. We forgot it was this visit but I gamely held him down (I even had to keep his thumb out of his mouth because one of the shots was going in the arm) while the doctor got everything ready. I thought, great she's really taking her time to have it all in order so she can just do both quickly- of course after the needle in the leg, she putters around aimlessly looking for something while I try to hold squirmy still so she can get the second one in his arm.
Anyway, it has to be getting better- James actually did okay today till the late afternoon which is fine after 2 shots. I however, smell burning milk coming from the kitchen and the now sad beginnings of my au gratin...