October 2006 Archives

There were pictures taken, but they were done by neighbour Jeff on old fashioned film, so that'll have to wait. In the meanwhile our Dutch pride and joy Carel Struycken will have to do. It was a very happy Halloween. We fed all of China, as usual. Best act was the grim reaper on a tandem, with a skeleton on the back seat. Best outfits were two gigantic dogs, one dressed as a rapper, and the other in an Elvis in Las Vegas suit. We stopped them in the middle of the cross walk on Gerrard street and trickortreated dog treats. Best sweater was Clare. (Hi Clare) And all the neighbours gathered at the house next door, straight guys dancing. That was very special according to some. Although I have seen more than a few straight guys dance in my time. Not Canadian ones though, maybe there's a difference.

I was thinking of writing something about this drawing in relation to yesterday's entry plus comments, but I am too tired to be clever. Did this one in one day, *and* went to the dentist again. I think the root canal nightmare is finally over.

I put them in a car, because that is about the only place possible where a woman my age can find herself alone with an interesting man. I imagine. But I don't have much of an imagination in those matters. I could just as well vote GPV, the Dutch reformed political party. They totally represent the way I live. Except maybe for the gay daughter. Anyway, I had to draw a woman my age in love with another man. And she doesn't know what to do, because she realises this may well be the last time something like this happens to her. Now isn't that the saddest part! The last time! Think about that! I think that is worse than just staying boringly faithful. The last time...

I knew it, I knew it. The deadline for these two illustrations (other one not done yet) was November 30. I had a hunch this was a mistake. And indeed, October it was. Now they love me even more there, at Care. The magazine for women over forty. Yes, I am the targeted audience. Yes, I am also a housewife. Yes, I have also given up on that. Housekeeping is a bore and a drag. The laundry for instance. Oh, I have given up on ironing years ago, have never really started it, to be honest. A little bit, back when my parents did a divorce attempt, and my dad and I had taken off. I suddenly had to iron his shirts, but that was an adventure. No, I don't iron. For a long time though, I at least sorted our clothes. A pile of T-shirts, a pile of shirts, etc. But every time Michiel was looking for a T-shirt, he put the ones he didn't want back on the shirt pile, or on the pants pile. And then I had to start over again sorting clothes. Done with that! For a while now, I have been putting everything in the closet randomly. I do try to devide his & hers, but that's all. Nobody complains.

Intermezzo, there was a retake on the root canal. Today without freezing, to make sure he hit the hot spot. And he did, five or six times. I much rather give birth. So enjoy Drew Friedman, I found him through Cartoon Brew. Drew Brew.

The scan is not great. I have to scan the drawing in pieces because it's too big. If I feel like it tomorrow, I'll try and make a better one. I am only a step away from the models while drawing them, I think that shows in the drawing. Maybe I'll have to work at exaggerating that effect. Some time ago I proposed to all draw from one side of the room, and thus create some distance between us and the models. But the other people actually like to be this up close, mmm. I do get better and better at drawing toes, I have to give them that.

Yes thank you, I still hurt. Guess I'll call the dentist tomorrow, but life goes on. This is a sketch for a far away deadline, November 30. But I hate drawings that haunt me for too long, and who knows how busy I'll be end of November. And this art director loves changes, so this way she has plenty of time too. Michiel is hammering away in the basement. I found a beautiful Thonet chair while walking Orbit. The Vietnamese bakery had thrown it out, only one part missing. Which is tricky of course, with bent wood. But still. Orbit is earning back the money he costs us, we keep finding stuff when we walk him!

Root canal after all. I survived the weekend on Advils and red wine, but I had sense enough to call the dentist this morning. I don't know what he was expecting, but he put me under a sheet that even covered my feet. Then he opened up the tooth, after trying once, but having had to put more lidocaine into me first. There he saw what had been bothering me. The pulp in my tooth was swollen or something. Fluids, pressure that was in the process of building up. If I had waited longer, it would have found its way out through the root and infected god knows what. We caught it before that happened. My whole head up to my eyes had already been hurting though. That was because I have long roots, roots up into my sinusses, the dentist said. He is such a flirt. Four roots to be canalled, that was nooooo fun. Then he put cotton in the tooth, and a thin soft filling. So that if my pulp is going to do it again, and I wake up in pain in the middle of the night, I can take a needle and drill a hole in my tooth myself, to release the pressure. I am so looking forward to having to do that. The dentist offered me another shot of lidocaine before going home, but I declined, I prefer my lovely Advils. Not before waiting for the streetcar in the freezing wind though, and having to stand up all the way home. I went straight to bed. I got up to tell you about this. And going back in straight away.

Otger had to do a music project for school. About a song with some real meaning and content, now that was not an easy choice. Bush, the Iraq war, global warming, he found all the meaning he wanted in After The Garden. I wish Otger would let me blog the video clip we made of his version, but he is terrified of ending up a youtube hype. Martin figured out the chords, Piffin found him a real Neil Young hat, Otger practised for a whole week, I held the spot light and Michiel the camera. I hope the teacher will provide the good mark.

Yra van Dijk complains that Leo Vroman doesn't show enough feeling in his diary. And that the lack of feeling makes it a boring read. That may well be so, I haven't read it. But still. I for myself, I very rarely like it, when people write about their feelings. I think a good author can bring feelings across by just writing whatever he or she has to say. Even in diaries. Although I imagine there are plenty of people lamenting away their feelings in their diaries. But they are probably all women. I don't like it in weblogs either. I haven't seen one such weblog that doesn't wind up in self pity and sentimentality. Mind you, on more than one occasion I have been accused of feelinglessness, probably because I don't wallow in self pity. So it'll be a personal frustration. Discard this blog entry. I am really a very sensitive person, sob. Here's Leo Vroman.

Not that Orbit has a sex life, he lost both his balls a long time ago. My tooth is only moderately painful, I did not go for a root canal. The dentist gave me his home phone number though, is that reassuring, I don't really know. I even worked, but nothing I care to show, just thinking on paper. Four illustrations in the pipeline. Michiel was chatting with one of the newspaper editors, pretending to be me. But he only kept that up for one sentence. Then he told her I was already having some great ideas for her assignment. Yeah right, he was looking at sketches for a whole different job, lying around the computer. We met some nice new people tonight, and they already knew my blog. I like that, when people know my blog. I didn't know theirs.

The receptionist was on the phone with a frightened patient. Telling him or her to just wash something down with a beer and then come over. I asked her about it, she told me the patient had said she might have to smoke something before her visit. The receptionis assured me that the dentist makes a lot of money, so he should be able to endure twenty minutes of bad smell. All rightie. My turn. My tooth that had been hurting for years, and no dentist ever really believed me, because the x-rays never showed anything. They finally showed something. Rot. Much. So I looked like this for an hour or so. I'm okay now, after two extra strong Advils and half a bottle of wine. If it still hurts tomorrow, I have to go back for a root canal. If I don't blog tomorrow, you know why.

Yes, yes, I am still here. Didn't blog yesterday, wasn't feeling too well. Today I drew Holland's oldest living poet. He must be, he's in his nineties. If you emailed me yesterday, I haven't received it. Nothing came through. It's alright now, but yesterday's mail is gone. Oh yeah, Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour has moved, click.

Michiel is building Otger a new bed. And because Otger, who is now twelve, will soon grow up to be as tall as his uncles and cousins, we decided to build him an extra long bed. With an extra long mattress. So we go mattress shopping. We already tried matress shopping once here in Canada, just before we moved here, and that was just in time to decide to buy our mattresses in Belgium and ship them, wise decision. Canadians still sleep the old English way, on half a kilometer of boxsprings. And expensive!! Sleep Country broadcasts radio commercials every fifteen minutes on every single Canadian radio station to brainwash us into believing that it is an act of irresponsibility to buy a matress anywhere else. But the only affordable (after visits to Sears and the Bay I was already brainwashed into thinking 400 dollars is affordable for a mattress for a twelve-year-old) mattress there felt terribly cheap. And I do think that if one spends 400 dollars on a single mattress, one may expect it to feel nice, not cheap. I gave up. Also because time flies, and it had almost become dinnertime. Supermarket time, in other words. On my way there I pass a mattress store in Chinatown, and I think why not. The people at Sleep Country will think this irresponsible of me, and a Chinese mattress store will never have an extra long mattress, but what the hell. Only a very old Chinese man is in the store. I tell him what I want, expecting a no, or an I don't speak English. But he sais Yes, I have. And he gestures me to follow him to the back of the store. Down a flight of stairs. Down a second flight of stairs, into a dark empty basement. Empty but for one very long mattress. Perfect! 180 dollars! I'll get my husband, how long are you open tonight? Till sickoloclock. Turns out the long mattress was a special order from somebody who had two of them made, but then only bought one. When I came back with the husband, a younger shop attendant had arrived, fluent in English. He told us. We'll buy the mattress tomorrow, we didn't have enough cash. Don't go there before us!

With caption this time, must be because I handed in this drawing real early: "Look. At least I had a reason for drinking on Monday. But he was just squandering our tax money with his flabby head. Now look at him sitting there. Too lazy to go for a haircut, and too bohemian to comb his hair. Moustache and goatee to really make it. All very Rembrandt. But then overweight. A shabby aristocrat who tips waitresses so he can pinch their asses in his mind"

Bigger Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer.

It's just flurries, but I drove and walked through three of them, so it counts. Last year it was November 18, and the year before that it was November 24. Safe to say it's early this year. Early enough for Willem to see it while on our way to the airport. Good thing he's left, it suddenly is way to cold to sit in a wheelchair with just a pair of jeans on. Electrical blankets time it is, goodnight.

Update: Wow, I just read in TheStar that southwestern Ontario received 30 centimeters! "significant snowfalls of historic proportions."

There, we started doing the touristy things with Willem after all. Thanksgiving we had a wonderful day in London, yesterday we had the ladies Merison over for dinner, and today we went to see Andy. I also had to squeeze in a parental advise column drawing, as heart warming as ever, I might add. About the impossibility of talking with teenagers. I don't know, I have two of them, we talk all the time. Maybe I am just not your everyday mother. Anyway, to spice things up, I tried doing it in a sort of interesting way. With a little bit of meaning, for me at least. I liked the Troy diptych in the Warhol exhibit. And since Donahue was this teen-idol, I decided to use him to go with the parental advise column. The Warhol exhibition in the AGO was a bit weird by the way, I found. Visitors get a sort of telephone device, in which you have to type in the number of the work of art you're looking at, and you hear the explanation. I quite dislike that. Information, information, information, so much information keeps you from getting into the visual experience, I think. Although seeing all of these autistic beings standing around listening was quite the visual experience. And coming out of the gallery a group of three or four attendants awaited us, there was no escape from them: "Were you at all familiar with Andy Warhol?" Why do I never have a quick-witted knock-'m-dead wisecrack response to bullshit questions like that? What would you have said?

We may not be doing spectacular touristy excursions with opa, but the everyday routine we are offering is not without entertainment value. We are touring the street, getting ourselves invited almost every night. We found an especially full house tonight, as it's Thanksgiving, children, grandparents, everything. Dutch grandparents from Detroit. I love our street. Only the dead cat we found on our way back, gruesome. We rang the doorbell at where we feared the cat lived, but noone was home. I will have to show you our porch some time, it too has great entertainment value. Michiel painted the front door. Pink. We are thinking about opening a candy store. It does look very happy. Not the kind of place where second lieutenant Ferdinand Boep would live. Oh and saying goodbye at our neighbours, we received a fantastic compliment. The neighbour's mother is 87 and still a TV celebrity, but of course we didn't know that, we don't watch TV. She said: "It was very nice meeting you crazy people. I like crazy people, normal people are boring. There isn't a thing they can tell me that I haven't heard before".

I went to Peter for expert advice on this one. I couldn't figure out how exactly a couch like this is constructed. And further, this weekend is hectic. I am drawing second lieutenant Ferdinand Boep, I'll show you tomorrow. Still rushing to have at least Thanksgiving off. While listening to wonderful music, of course. Check this out, click. I had heard about Bob Dylan hosting a radio show, but it's a station you have to subscribe to. I found this link through Avondlog. And now I know Bob shops at Home Depot. To get woooood.

They couldn't print this one any smaller. Good thing there is the blog, click here. Maybe they would have wanted me to draw Gerard Reve in a wolfe suit, but they never tell me these things. Meanwhile on our side of the ocean, we had a lobster feast with our Korean friends. With ginger and black bean I think it was. It was a very early dinner, because Ben works the early shift at Autodesk. I feel a bit jetlagged now, still early and done eating and drinking. The kids aren't even home yet. As if that should keep me from going to bed. Do other parents still set curfews for seventeen year olds? Oh, I shouldn't nag, the little darling is across the street, babysitting Zanny. And the other one is nextdoor. Totally harmless, my kids. No dancing wolves here.

There was a bit of sensation today. Orbit was playing with a nice black staffordhire bull terrier. Ouch. In not even the blink of a second playing became fighting. And not just the two of them, all the other dogpark dogs (yes, we live in the film district) didn't know how fast to get involved. Seconds later the united owners regained control over the pack, but Orbits eye was bleeding quite bad. The owner of the staffordshire felt terrible, and I (stupid) offered to hold her dog so she could go take a look at Orbit's eye. The staffordshire was very calm, and I could pet him, which I did, to keep him calm. A German shepherd came up to have a friendly sniff. The Staffordshire exploded, tried to bite the German shepherd, but got my leg. Ouch. Not really bad, but I was also bleeding, I have about eight teeth marks, I counted them at home. I called Health Canada, and the nurse told me I should get a tetanus shot within 24 hours, I'll do that tomorrow. We took Orbit to a vet, just to be sure his eye wasn't damaged. And it wasn't. And the owner of the staffordshire will pay the bill.

O, and I also bought a really cool bicycle today, from our very cool fietsenmaker.

Maybe it's not the best drawing, but it sure was the funniest pose from my perspective. Another funny thing happened today. A man came up to me in the street and asked, are you a psychiatrist in East General hospital? Ladies and gentlemen, it's official. I look like a shrink.

About laziness. I couldn't be lazy anymore if I wanted to. Not enough hours in the day, we even went to the dentist with the whole family. And cooked dinner. I did that, not the whole family. Otger did the dishes. I found broad/horse/windsor beans, what are they called, tuinbonen. I think there was a different word on the sign in the grocery shop. Very exquisite in Canada, tuinbonen. It was a grocery shop in The Village, that's where the dentist is. I noticed they were not exactly fresh, but the idea of tuinbonen was mouthwatering. So I ended up throwing half of them out, and having paid four dollars for a small handfull.

The autumn issue of Care for Women. Came in the mail today. That's all I have to say, the morning radio program has already started. I shall turn back the blog date to last night and go to bed.

I worked through the weekend, because there is a heavy workload in front of me this whole week. Poor opa, I should be doing nice touristy things with him. But Willem has been an NRC reader for over fifty years, so he granted me yet another author. I asked him when he first subscribed, and he told me his older brother bought him a subscription when he was nineteen! Anyway, we did walk Orbit on the Beaches boardwalk today, and I am keeping Thanksgiving free. There's a fenced off leash area on the beach and we had Orbit run free for the first time. And he didn't even try to get away! And sat down quietky as I put his leash back on, this dog is not for real. Oh yeah, and IJsbrand, rest assure. Of course I don't believe in an afterlife either. But I am certain Gerard Reve is in heaven.