October 2008 Archives

Every year there is a terrific Halloween show a couple of streets away from us. Totally professional, with blasting sound, and blinding light. The stage covers two front yards, and dozens of actors play, really no small game this. Many people around here work in film or theatre, and on days like this that really pays off for the neighbourhood. A thousand times better than the effing Chinese church across the street from our house. Painstakingly avoiding the word Halloween in their flyers, they do "glow and treat". Their happy youth dressed up as angels, all in white. Luring kids into the church yard to get glow sticks and candy, and tricking the parents into leaving their names and addresses for a raffle. Those missionaries have been way too successful back in the day.

Sorry about the photo-week, I will get back to it. But I wanted to be done with this one today, because tomorrow it'll be seventeen degrees! Most probably for the very last time this year, so I will have to enjoy that. I enjoyed a little today. It was minus six this morning, but around noon it was lovely and sunny, and I did my run. A lunch run. I wrote a comment on some blog today. Dutch expats were commenting. Oh no, I am not a Democrat, Oh no, me neither, the idea. Dutch expats are strange people. I wrote, I think Obama is the best thing that happened to the US since Mickey Mouse. Ha, I was proud of myself.

See, I rewarded two requests at the same time. A view from a window (Zezunja), and the garden fence (Pom). We don't have a fence in front, so I had to choose the view from the back, which is more interesting than the front anyway. At the bottom of the picture you can see our tiny back yard, with a table for eating out. The barbecue is a little too close to the house to be visible from the guestroom window. The yellow bike is Otger's. The car belongs to our Vietnamese neighbour Patrick. He has a lovely back yard, full of flowers in summer. His parents are living in with them, and they work in that garden tirelessly. Not much else to do, since they don't speak English. The driveway belongs to Patrick too, but we, and a bunch of other neighbours, have right of way. Behind Patrick's yard, there is one other one, and behind that one you can see parking spots in the alley that serves all the Chinatown restaurants and supermarkets. The tiny houses all the way in the back are in a bigger street, where we can take the streetcar. And if the photo showed a little more detail, you would be able to see my cable, dancing loosely over all of those backyards, all the way to that alley, where it hooks up with others, and is my internet life line. I will try to fill another request tomorrow. There you go, photo-week is a lot easier like this!

I'll try my best for a photo tomorrow, sorry. You know what would be easier? An assignment! Just tell me something you want me to take a picture of, and I'll do it. As long as you're reasonable. I really wasn't photographically inspired today. Michiel was inspired, he did his civic duty. He turned an aspiring McCain voter around. Michiel said that by the time he was done with him, the poor guy was ready to vote for Ralph Nader. He had asked him what is wrong with you people. Do you make more than a quarter million? No. You live in Lala Land, man. You're going to vote for McCain because you have this hope that some day you might make a quarter million and you may have to pay taxes? You're willing to vote against your own interest now? People and bicycle pumps. Bring on some more Americans, we'll do some campaigning here. I don't get what people have against Sweden anyway. Don't republicans go to Ikea?

Dammit, I thought of this first!

I'll have to do better at this photo-week thing, or you'll see us passed out in front of the computer every night, watching Dutch TV. Now that is already boring IRL, so why document that. I could also have taken pictures of pouring autumn rain, which doesn't look bad at all, with all of the coloured leaves. Or the guy that kept following me around in the supermarket, but I wouldn't have had the nerve. He had asked me if I had seen the mayonnaise, but I hadn't. And every aisle I went through after that, he was there too. And he didn't miss a single opportunity of telling me he still didn't have his mayonnaise. And then of course, yes, I end up right behind him at the cash. And he proudly showed me his mayonnaise. Light, I believe.

Those Chinese are so tiny compared to me!

I have decided to do a photo blog week. I'll post only photo's all week, drawings will have to wait. I just feel I need some fun back in the blog, before it becomes a drag. And I don't take pictures enough, in fact I hardly ever take pictures, so this is also meant to remind myself to take the camera. And I start with tonight's dinner. I made cornbread, tasted really good. This was the recipe:

Cheddar Cornbread (I love to make things that Piffin can eat cold when she comes home from work at 10:30 PM)

* 1 1/2 cups (350 ml) cornmeal
* 1 cup (240 ml) flour
* 1/4 cup (60 ml) brown sugar
* 1 tbsp baking powder (Isn't tbsp short for tablespoon? Surely they mean teaspoon!)
* Pinch salt
* 1 tbsp chili powder (Isn't tbsp short for tablespoon? Surely they mean teaspoon!)
* 1 cup (240 ml) milk
* 4 x eggs
* 1 cup (240 ml) frozen corn
* 1/2 cup (120 ml) corn oil
* 1 cup (240 ml) grated cheddar (Interesting, sugar and cheese. And chili powder)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
2. Oil and flour an 8" x 8" (20 x 20 cm) pan. (My pan is way bigger, that's why I doubled) (Don't you just love cast iron pans?)
3. Place cornmeal, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and chili powder in a large bowl and whisk well to combine.
4. Blend together the milk, eggs, corn and corn oil.
5. Pour into the dry ingredients and add the cheese.
6. Stir just until combined.
7. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake until golden on top and cornbread springs back when touched, about 20 to 25 minutes. (Mine took twice this time, maybe because I doubled the recipe)

I made a stupid mixing mistake, wasn't thinking. I poured all of the milk into the flour, just like that. Ouch. I had to strain the whole big bowl (I doubled the recipe) of sticky dough to get the lumps out.

I am doing something with this painting, and as you can see I am not the first to do so. And since otherwise some sweet but ignorant soul is going to ask, yes, the bottom one is Picasso. And ladies and gentlemen, it is official, I am a 5K runner, I finished all the podcasts, congratulate me! I am going to do the 5 to 10K ones too, but I promised Michiel I would wait until his injury is healed. Until then I'll just run 5K every other day. 5K feels easy peasy, I am sure I can do a lot more. Takes up much time though. But it's nice, especially all this supportive attention. My dog walking friends in the park see me sweating, and almost cheer me. And neighbours see me, and go, oh I should do that too! Even Michiel's physiotherapist is proud of me, and he doesn't even know me. Michiel's injury, you ask?

Now that I have almost finished my C25K course, it is time to start thinking about my outfit. Evi tells me I am a real athlete now, so my Value Village jogging gear won't do anymore. I like the blue and yellow ones, don't you? The ones with the holes may be a tad too risqué, for now. Once I build some more muscle, who knows. I wouldn't want to be found dead in the third ones, they are a teenage trauma. In highschool, when everybody else was wearing jeans, my stepmother made me wear these. With straps underneath my feet, that was so uncool, I can't even begin to tell you how uncool. Extremely unfashionable. I might go for the Olivia Newton John look, I could even sew this outfit myself, how very creative! The ones with the tire print, I don't know. It's probably just me, but I don't see it. A big trend on the menswear catwalks and set to break onto the high street next summer. O phew, they're for men, I don't have to wear them. Reduced from £205 to £153.75. Jesus, that is 312.79 $! I think I'll go for the simple Armani look for just 275$. Come to think of it, those look an awful lot like my Value Village ones...

I haven't blogged my parental advice thingies for ages, so here they are. I had to do them in between everything else that was going on over the summer, so mostly I did them in an absolute minimal time frame. And I didn't miss a single one! Bottom right is today. After my run. My first really cold run. (I went and bought gloves this afternoon.) I didn't even take off my running jacket, and I ran more than Evi wanted me to, because it was too cold to walk home. I had to run to stay warm. And another stupid thing, the sound from my iPod was all wrong. The thing was maybe just cold, I don't know, but I thought my headphones had died. So I not only bought gloves, I also bought a new pair of headphones. And when I tried them out, I got the same wrong sound as with the old ones. I changed them around a few times, frustrated, and now they both work fine. Which would be very handy if I had four ears.

We didn't try any of your tearjerkers yet, but thank you. We haven't, because we didn't want to go to the video store, much to Orbit's dismay. We didn't want to go because an ice cold wind is howling around the house. I headed out for milk around five, and there was s n o w. Freaking bloody blowing snow. Not much, but hey, it's October. Good thing we bought all those sweaters last weekend. (I always feel this weird sense of pride when the whole family is dressed well.) And Otger's new winter coat, in which he looks like a young Bob Dylan. But don't tell him that.

I had been planning on being done with this today, but no such luck. I won't even think about the hourly rate this project is paying me, the horror. And about horror. Help us out here. Michiel has decided to watch tearjerkers. To test himself, he wants to know if he can still cry over movies. Don't ask. Now the internet is full of tearjerker top tens and top hundreds (here's a Washington Post one), but he doesn't like any of them. So that's where you guys come in, give us tearjerkers. Artistically responsible ones. Preferably about dead or lost children. We found Oliver Twist on YouTube, full version. Quite wonderful, but it doesn't make us cry. Michiel fell asleep.

Sometimes my husband reads me poetry. He can be like that. I had never heard of Frank o'Hara, maybe I am too European, but it is beautiful. Sounds like a nice guy too: "Known throughout his life for his extreme sociability, passion, and warmth, O'Hara had hundreds of friends and lovers []"

I only run every other day, today I didn't go running. Because apparently it is good to give the muscles recovery time. To prevent injuries. At the beginning of the course, I was glad with the days off. Now on the days off, I really look forward to the next day's run, the addiction has got hold of me. Evi makes me run almost half an hour now, non stop. And I don't even run out of breath anymore, it's amazing. And in the shower this morning I thought hey, didn't I have a tummy before? (Don't worry, I still have one, but it's certainly shrinking)

I'm back on track. I hate doing changes, it's just yuck. Makes me have really yuck moods. Yuck moods not good for drawing. But now all I have to do is happy colours, and that will make me happy. And I bought four gigantic salmon steaks today, Bill's Lobster around the corner had them on sale. Fifteen bucks! It was so much, there was even a big chunk left for Orbit. Orbit is very happy now. He snores in his chair. I am going to chase him out of it, I want to sit in it. And I am the boss.

I must have played this song a thousand times on my walkman, cycling to and from the remote and tiny old village school outside Enschede that harboured the artschool's painting department. Especially from could be hairy, on moonless nights without street lights. Without bike lights it was impossible to get home alone. I still remember where the tape sounded wobbly. Of course I prefer Nina Simone's version, but this one was on my tape. And sorry, no sketches worth showing today.

Not easy to get back into a drawing that I started before. I redid some faces. Nobody at the publisher's recognized Els Pelgrom, I think she is better now. They sent me a DVD with an interview on it, only the interview is eighteen years ago, and she aged quite bit in that time. Fortunately they also sent me another recent photo, but she is not an easy woman to draw. Some people are a different person in every shot, she is like that. Unlike for example Toon Tellegen, he is a dream to draw. And I bought three pairs of jeans today.

To anyone who tried to email me today, I am really sorry, there seems to be something wrong. I can send, but I can't receive. Please try again tomorrow, I have mailed a complaint to my provider, I hope they will solve the problem soon. It was nice to suddenly receive so many phone calls from the home country.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready for the magic treatment tomorrow. And I also did a beach run, I got sun burnt. In October! Was lovely. Two times ten minutes, and one time twelve. No problem at all. Unfortunately, Michiel gets bad cramps, bummer. I am already searching for inspiring music for when we're through with the training podcasts, which will be soon. This one will run excellent. And this one.

Well, at least I know what I'll be doing for thanksgiving. Good thing auntie Clare invited us. She dropped by on her way to the tattoo supplies store. She'll be doing her first live person this weekend. Anyone here in for a tattoo? A nice cityscape maybe? Auntie Clare's got a waiting list already!

I ran four times eight minutes this morning, almost effortlessly. Not bad after six or so weeks huh? Next time it'll be twelve minutes, we're on our way to continuous, I can't wait. (And I can't wait running with my own music, god, this podcast...) It does make me awful tired though, at two this afternoon I made myself coffee, I never do that. And now it's a quarter to nine and Michiel is snoring on the couch behind me. Neighbour Paul complained about that too the other day, the early nights after a morning run. But all my muscles start to feel nice and tight, and I am imagining it is visible.

Michiel thought we had a picture of how Donald Duck on LSD saw Ducktown, in a book somewhere. But we couldn't find it. Any of you able to dig up that picture? Or a different fun cartoon cityscape? Just doing some thorough research here.

Update: Evert found them (see comments) thank you so much, Evert!

I wish somebody would have told me I could make a living off drawing. As a child, I mean. And I still see proud parents praise their children's drawing abilities, but they never really mean business. I was going to be a nurse, or a fashion designer, I simply had no clue drawing was an option. It just was a very neat quality for a girl, being creative. I was always told I had golden hands, or that I had a gift. I knew that a gift was a rare thing, about as rare as a calling, and both of these were brought about through divine intervention, and how often does that happen.

In case you're wondering, it is the next batch of editors at Wegener publishers turning 50. Remember the first batch?

Done with the slow start after my little break. Work is pouring in, no time to lose. I can finish this one tomorrow, and start the next one. Sjoebiedoewa. Everybody around me is very productive, in their own little ways. I don't mean that in a condescending way. We went to our friends M&M yesterday, they live on Algonquin island for the winter, I will go visit them so often, they'll get sick of me. Martin showed me his commercial work, click, the clarinet is him. And Willem is very productive too, look (plenty of room one the blog because of my break):

I've really only worked on the room yet, the faces are ultra quick & dirty, I'll concentrate on those tomorrow. Sketching at the table at the window, the new window I can actually look out of, which almost feels like sitting on the porch. Very nice now that Fall really seems to have arrived. Snow up in Sudberry today, in Parry Sound tomorrow they say. Bring it on. Neighbour Toba said it is tweed weather, but that she didn't have any tweed. A shopping opportunity I said, but she was going to check her house first, to make sure there wasn't any. I wore tweed today, in fact I possess two tweed coats. When it gets colder, I wear them on top of each other.

This was day before yesterday, last Monday. In the meanwhile the NRC editorial desk has left the building, we had a great week together. Now the AGO is closed until its grand opening in November, but visiting journalists from overseas know how to go about these things. And I told them not to email me, but to call, because I wasn't going to be at my computer, so when Ms. de B. and Mr. S. went for their private viewing in the AGO, I was at Loblaws getting them food, damn. I came home, saw their email, thought about forgetting about it, because I was a full hour late, abandoned that thought, ran out of the house, waved down a taxi, and was in the AGO moments later. Almost. (The taxi was driven by a different cabby than the one showed on the picture, that's illegal isn't it?) I had a long pleasant chat with the concierge at the AGO, waiting for the assistant curator to come and fetch me. He remembered queen Juliana visiting the AGO. But then finally, all the way at the other end of the museum, some white gloves were waiting for me, and I got to rummage through boxes full of original Walter Trier drawings. Wow. Wow. Wow. I didn't know a single one, they were all new to me. Real gouache, real ink, real pencil, as if done yesterday. If the paper hadn't been so yellow. I have rarely seen drawings showing so much visible pleasure. And so up close. I should hang out with journalists more.