Of course the desk is mine. I put a book where my tablet is, in order to make it less obvious. I very much doubt that the average woman into online dating has such a gigantic screen, but who knows. And I can totally recommend that chair. You are probably wondering where I find the peace and quiet to work on a Sunday afternoon. Well, Michiel and the nephew went to see the Toronto Blue Jays play the Texas Rangers!
It feels like I have illustrated this topic at least ten times already. But I don't even think I have really. I did speed dating, I did online therapy, but I'd have to think hard about online dating. Don't think I did. And I never tried either. Not as not the drawing topic I mean. I'm from way before online dating.
A look behind the scenes at the Duvekot residency. I really wanted to show you a work of art we found on Ward's Island today, a piece we believe to be a Lawrence Weiner. Or at least it looked like it could be a Lawrence Weiner. Something about hope becoming possibility. Found it in a wild overgrown remote corner of the island, where we were looking for beavers. We didn't find beavers, just a lot of trees they cut down. And I can't show you the artwork because the nephew took that photo, which he can't download because he forgot to take the cable. Just the everyday problems.
We went to see Much Ado About Nothing in High Park. We were not allowed to take photographs, so this is a scene from a different rendering. Apart from our sore backs from lying on an awry slope, it was a delightful evening. Even the nephew enjoyed it. This week seems to be haunted by art reflecting life. Much ado about nothing indeed. Her wit values itself so highly, that to her all matter else seems weak.
The kids rented some DVD's again. This one bore some strange similarity with something that happened earlier today. Or has been happening over the course of the last months to be more precise. A Yahoo mailinglist I subscribe to blew up. I have actually been trying to prevent that from happening, but my attempts have only led to the result that some of the other subscribers now see a sort of Tyler in me. Too much honour I'm afraid, but I should have seen it coming, and I didn't. So busy finding out who was trying to manipulate who, that I never even thought about being accused of the very thing. Clever too, to put the blame on me. And a shame, I'll miss my little interactive novel on the side while I'm working.
In the heat of the day, the kids were wise. They went to see a movie in a cool theatre. And even the nephew was wise. He arrived in Toronto wearing black jeans, boots and a down jacket. But after the movie, he went to the store with Piffin and bought a pair of swimming trunks. Clare wants to take us tubing in Elora. I wonder whether I count as a legal guardian for the nephew...
OOOOmygoddd, they have put a gigantic thumbnail on the frontpage of the paper. This will not go unnoticed. Haha, I'll probably get paid some extra money for re-use in a couple of weeks, when they'll reprint it with some letters-to-the-editor. Fortunately I'm not on the section's frontpage. Here's the big version. Now breakfast, and then off to the airport.
The nephew must be checking in right now, this very instant. Why on earth he wanted to fly Air Transat beats me. I did that once, they're real cheap. But then you get tromboses from sitting too cramped and god knows what if you eat the food. Which I didn't. And I actually like airplane junkfood. But there is junkfood and there is junkfood, and Air Transat has junkfood. And you have to pay for all drinks except water. But the nephew was afraid the service on a Martinair plane would be too good, and he would get treated like a child. Maybe he had a point. I can't wait to see him. I booked a car for tomorrow morning at eight.
This is the church across the street. It's a massive lump of brick, and sitting on my porch I have learned to imagine a lake where this ugly church is. It has a huge congregation. No lake on Sundays, Sundays are a steady coming and going of cars. The sheer busyness of this business has even got my kids interested in religion. And if there is a god for these people, he is most certainly tone deaf. If children would sing to Santa this much out of tune, I think they could forget their presents.
My editor asked me to be not too objectionable. It's a thin line, and the story is totally objectionable, so. And Tarzan and Jane must have done it like this, and they're not objectionable. And you can hardly see what the peepers are doing, now can you? Maybe if they print it this size?
Rush job for the newspaper. I can do it sketchy. If only I could sketch like uncle Pablo. It's about sex on the beach, don't google that at home. It's getting out of hand in Holland, strange little country. Orgies in Bussloo of all places. My parents-in-law live near there, I used to often swim there myself. Never saw any orgies. Local authorities are now calling for a national debate about open air sex. Illustrating is a fun job.
I went out to get more fans today. The fast turning kind. But just as I got there, they closed the mall due to a blackout. I guess they spent their lifetime share of hydro in there. Must be boring for you to read about the weather all the time, but it's kind of overpowering these days. No relief this week: "The forecast predicts another stretch of temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, and Toronto started the week under another humidex advisory and extreme heat alert."
About Dutch rock & roll (for Canadians only):
A neighbour in my street suddenly produced THREE records of Gruppo Sportivo. Canadian, not even imported. I didn't even know Gruppo made more than one record. My memory stops at beep, beep, love. A girl in the house where my first boyfriend lived had that record. So with my mind still on Gruppo, I find a TV tribute to Herman Brood today! Brood was a little after Gruppo, but unlike them (IMO) he was a classic rockstar. He slept with half the country, and also with my friend Stella. Not with me. As soon as my traffic is really really low, I will maybe write some about the guys I slept with in my time. Should keep me busy for a while. Herman Brood was wild, he had a long affair with Nina Hagen, my neighbour has her records too. He has a wall of records. Herman Brood was wild, he was a drug addict, and he jumped to his death off the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam, the one in which John and Yoko held their sleep-in. And Herman Brood had a son, his fans (the other kind of fans) bought him a baby carriage. An orange one. Another friend of mine -who did not sleep with Herman- inherited the thing for her son.
I promised you to show a picture of our camping trip last weekend, as soon as Martin mailed me some. So here you go. Now would you think we would trust Otger on that air matress if he really did not know how to swim?!
We're down to 27 celcius. My energy is back. From the bottom of my toes I hope this will have been the last heat wave for some time, my recycling bin was full of maggots this morning, yuk. But I turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows. And poor poor Otger. Because of the low (LOL) temperature the pool wasn't as crowded, so he got called out and was made to graduate for the damned bracelet. And he failed. He fucking learned how to swim six years ago!
At least I am looking for inspiration again. All the different merry-go-round features will go through their own adventures in the course of the story. Something vaguely like the above. No pool today, threatening thunderstorms. They say temperatures will be down to the high twenties this weekend, I can't wait. Off to the beer store now, before the storm hits. Or the migraine, for that matter. Calm. Calm. Slow.
IJsbrand suggested a different swimming pool. Very convenient, now I don't have to come up with something myself, although I must say I get a stomache ache looking at that deformed hand. Anybody out there with more suggestions on pools in art? We were so lucky today. We arrived at the pool just when they reopened after a half hour closure due to too much sunscreen in the water. And we stayed for an hour or so until again the lifeguards were unable to see the bottom of the pool. How dangerous indeed. And how sweet, all that sunscreen. Our pool is a panorama of gorgeous looking lounging young men, I just never know where to put my towel. It's a small pool, I can't help overhearing their gabble. About working out, about dieting, tanning, clothes, decorating ideas, I can't think of a cliché I did not hear. No doubt all that sunscreen was theirs.
The mercury exploded last month – the hottest June on record. July’s poised to do the same. I can't work, maybe if I adapt a little. We turned on the airconditioning, we had no choice. I hate it to sit in the house with the doors and windows closed. The street is silent except for the buzzing of the air conditioners, empty and boring, everybody indoors. Fortunately there's a pool just around the corner. There are lots of pools throughout Toronto, and they are all free. This is a great city. No bags, shoes, food, or drinks allowed around the pool, and none for sale. Keeps everything clean. And lifeguards on all sides, grabbing their megaphones for the tiniest offences. Paradise. And they didn't even say anything about Otger swimming in the deep end! Otger was nervous, last year they called him out and made him graduate for a bracelet. He has graduated in every country he lived in (or didn't, namely Holland). This is the first Summer in which he remembers how to swim, our little athlete.
I didn't blog for a couple of days, we went camping. We took the liberty to remove the image above from the campground's notice board. This is the flip side, judge for yourself. We also had a lot of fun with the G-forces. But no batteries for the camera, so I'll have to wait till Martin mails me some of his photo's before I can show anything.
There is a big problem with the comments. If you want to comment on something, you can email me for now.
Piffin is babysitting the children of a fellow illustrator neighbour, she just brought them home with her. They thought this drawing is very cool, and I guess they should know. Done early today, but I can't go out, the junk removal company is coming to take a look at my back yard and give me an estimate. We're animals.
Does anybody out there want to marry me? I might need a new husband one of these days, the current one is renovating the guest room you see. The room has to be in some sort of usable state when our guest arrives on the 23rd. I don't know in what state the current husband will be by then, I fear the worst. I bought really good liverwurst by the way, mmm. Liverwurst is such a strange English word, and I won't say it. I just asked the butcher for leverworst, and he didn't even notice.
My stats showed an all time high. And only because I wrote an entry about the word "oma" being one of the last Dutch words still common among third generation Dutch immigrants. I would never have guessed this would arouse so much interest. It's become a freaking meme, all sorts of language blogs in Holland have picked it up. So I'll tell you some more, since you're so interested. About the corner store in little Portugal that sells "stoepkrijtjes". They can even pronounce it. (Much unlike the beerstores selling Grolsch and Hoegaarden) The Portuguese shop sells all sorts of Dutch products, griotjes, hagelslag... One day I asked them why. The answer was very profanic, there are enough people to buy the stuff, so they sell it. I think they buy it off Niemeyer, the only official Albert Heyn importer, who has a store in the suburbs where you can eat Tom Poezen and broodjes haring. There's approximately 70.000 Dutch descendants living in Toronto alone, so you really would expect a little more than one shop in the suburbs. But Dutch immigrants have allways been known for having spoken their last Dutch word before getting off the plane that got them here. Unlike any other immigrating nationality. So nobody should be amazed that the Dutch expect all immigrants to their country to assimilate immediately. Some things are stubborn though. The words oma and opa, and fooooood. Boerenkool! It's called kale here, but I have seen labels with some strange phonetically spelled distorted I don't remember how "boerenkool". Once a Chinese woman asked me what it was and how to cook it. I explained and the disgusted look on her face! She didn't buy it. My Dutch friend Bianca -she's a professor at the university of Scarborough for god's sake- did not know she could buy boerenkool in Canada. Why? She didn't recognize it in the uncut version. OMG. We had some Dutch friends over for dinner tonight. Real Dutch Canadians, they can't even pronounce their own last names, now isn't that tragic. Verheul, try say that if you're not Dutch. Not possible. I asked her if she knew of some surviving Dutch vocabulary. Sure, she remembered her mother saying "ouwehoer" all the time. For the longest time she didn't know it meant old whore. And when going back to Holland for holidays her mother used to warn her to not say "vuile klootzak" like she often did. I tell ye, the old days. Nowadays the "f" word gets children suspended from school. My dear father-in-law the chess champion still remembers the first English words he ever heard. From a Canadian soldier, at the end of world war II. With an unwilling motorcycle: "Fuck! The fucking fucker won't fuck!"
Oh Ineke, if you read this, do you know if they sell tuinbonen in the St Lawrence market?
