So Written

Writes, cooks, yaps, loves

Monthly Archives: January 2012

A conversation at the dinner table.

Today I helped out the neighbours by walking their vacuum cleaner Puppy, while one was at work and the other skiing in Italy.
Somehow during dinner the conversation turned to this and Tweedle Dee got a bit confused. For this blog I’ll name the neighbours Jack and Johnny. Yes, our neighbours are gay.

Without further ado here is an outline of the conversation as I remember it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tweedle Dee; “Mom, is Jack a man or a woman?”

I; “Jack is a Man. Why?”

Tweedle Dee; “And Johnny?”

I; “So is Johnny.”

Tweedle Dee; “So Jack is a man and Johnny is a man?”

I; “Yes sweetie.”

*Insert a confused look in her eyes*

Tweedle Dee; “But that’s not possible. How can they both be a man?”

I; “Well because sometimes two men or two women love each other.”

Tweedle Dee; “No they can’t. One of them is a woman in secret. Right mom?”

 *Insert huge questioning eyes staring at me*

I; “No dear, if people love each other it doesn’t always matter if they are a man or a woman.”

Tweedle Dee; “But you and dad love each other? Right?”

I; “Yes.”

Tweedle Dee; “And you are a woman and dad is a man?”

*Insert mischievous grin on her face*

I; “Yeeeeeees…” (Getting kind of nervous about what is to come, knowing my four year old daughter.)

Tweedle Dee; “And I am a girl and Tweedle Dum is a boy.”

I; “Yeeeeeeeeeees…” (Still a bit…worried…)

Tweedle Dee takes another bite and chews her food, a pensive look on her face, swallows and looks The Man straight in the eye.

“Dad, are you sure you are a man? Because if our neighbours are two men, you and mom should be two women and then everything would be fine.”

The look on The Man’s face? PRICE-LESS!!!

*So Written

This is how we do it!

Right, so… I live in a big city, the second largest city in the N.etherlands also home to one of the worlds biggest harbours (3rd after Shanghai and Singapore).

Anyway, the D.utch love bicycles. Some of my international friends actually mock me for living in a country where people are so fond of a two-wheeled transportation device.

But so am I. When living in a huge city (okay, for the N.etherlands) that is by no means made for heavy traffic (car wise) having a car is more of a burden than it is a convenience. Add the high taxes, ridiculous insurance costs and exorbitant high fuel costs to that and having a car is not fun. So, in August, we got rid of our car. Mostly because we hardly ever used it, as – Oh yes! – we favoured the bicycle over being stuck in traffic all the time.

So how do we do it? Groceries, transporting two kids, traveling to friends?

Well, we have an excellent public transportation network here and the D.utch… Well they have re-invented a thing called ‘bakfiets‘. When translated literally you’d get ‘Boxbike’, a more liberal translation more or less nears delivery bike, or cargo bike.

Anyway, we own one of those precious little (not so) things. So when I go to the market, supermarket AND pick up TD2 we come home and it looks like this;

Mind you, TD2 don’t look too happy. But hey, I usually don’t stuff this much into the bike. Usually they can still move their legs around… #LOL

*So Written

Shawesomeness

So, by now you must realise that I have fallen in love with Rookie Blue from the first minute of the first episode. I was, no am, hooked. But hey, the show is on hiatus and all we have now is reruns of season 1&2 and spoilers from the set of season 3.

Now this show is full of great actors, and that is an understatement. And were I am obviously rooting for ‘McSwarek’ I am head over heels in love with the character Oliver Shaw. His timing, his actions, his words, his eating habits. Everything. Impeccable!  Matty B Gordon does a great job portraying Officer Oliver Shaw. There isn’t an episode I don’t laugh at something Oliver does or says.

This fall, while watching a rerun with a couple of other fans, I came up with the idea that we need a ‘Shaw greatest moments’ extra on the season 2 DVD/Blu Ray. Which we did pitch to both Tassie Cameron (executive producer of Rookie Blue) and Matty B Gordon himself through Twitter.

Anyway, this week I ran into a video made by another fan (and she makes great vids, just saying), full of Shawesomeness (I’m taking my liberties with words again…) and I thought I’d just share it with you. It’s kind of what I picture the bonus feature to be like (only shorter, because she could only use so many clips in the vid.)

Full of #Shawesomeness (and yes, I also gave it a hash tag on Twitter… Obviously…)! And to be honest, there are many more clips that could have been used!

(And in case you aren’t following Matty B Gordon on Twitter, you really should! He’s hilarious. After all it was his #shawisfighterpilot tweet that inspired GrownupPhan to make the video.)

H.olland vs the N.etherlands

As my bio states, I am currently living in GMT+1. Although I’d rather not, I still make my time here as pleasant as possible. To be honest, I am managing and I am proud of it. But…

There is one thing that really frustrates me! (Even though I am a real D.utchwoman!) And I don’t mind it when tourists do it. But when you live here (whether it’s permanent or not), when you are a citizen of this flat, boring, country, at least have the decency to use the correct name for it.

It’s called the N.etherlands people. Just that and nothing else! It honestly, truly disgusts annoys me when Dutchies call it H.olland, because technically H.olland is just a small part of this tiny country. Two provinces (North- and South H.olland) to be precise and nothing more.

(It’s a bit like when people call the United States of America, North America or something…)

So dear Dutchies, do me a favour and call your godforsaken country the N.etherlands and not H.olland. I’m begging you! It’s just the decent thing to do.

*So Written

PS) Just to eliminate a couple of other ‘facts’ about this country;

  • No, they don’t all wear wooden shoes/clogs.
  • There was not really a boy with the finger in the dike for hours to save the country.
  • They have more than windmills here.
  • Not everybody is high on whatever all the time.
  • And, you know before you get confused, A.msterdam is not in D.enmark.

A little (less) conversation please!

A little conversation between my four year old and I…

Me; “Tweedle Dee, why don’t you go and play in your room so I can work?”

TD; “Because it’s messy.”

Me; “So tidy it up than.”

TD; “I don’t have time for that.”

Me; “Make time for it.”

TD; “Don’t have time to make time for it too.”

Me; [sighs]

*So Written