Baby It's Cold Outside

The 99th Western Stock Show is going on in Denver this week. With it came what we call "Stock Show Weather." The polar express that always roars through the area when the Stock Show begins has arrived. The temps for the last three days have been in the low teens during the day and in the single digits (on either side of zero) at night.

Also with the Stock Show comes the Stock Show stories in the newspapers. Two of my favorite this week are below:

The first is a story connected to the 11th Annual Mexican Rodeo, an event that runs concurrent with the Stock Show, Mexican rodeo a dazzling show.

The second is the kind of story you only see during the Stock Show, Whoa there, little lady, eyes forward.

Re-entry

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again
-Elton John, Rocket Man

On Monday after 12 hours of sitting in airplanes and four hours of waiting in airports I arrived in Denver. Two hours later I was sitting at a table in a pizza place and for a moment I had the strangest feeling that I was in two places at once. I had traveled so fast and so far in one day some part of me was still back in Amsterdam. The feeling only lasted for a few seconds but it was a little disconcerting.

Only two weeks away and things look different. The cars are too big, the streets too wide, the sun too bright, the ground too brown, the refrigerator too cold, and my computer screen font too large. Things are just starting to look "normal" again but I still have that disconnected feeling. I guess I'm not ready to jump back into my regular life yet. I am slowly catching up on the blogs I read and hope to get back into the rhythm of writing entries in my own blog very soon.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Typing this at the airport. Going home after a wonderful two weeks. I am already missing my sister here and at the same time looking forward to seeing my other sister as I missed her while I was here. Will write soon.

You Say It's Your Birthday!

You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.
Birrrth Day, du, du, du-du, du-da
Birrrth Day, du, du, du-du, du-da.
-The Beatles

Today is my sister's birthday. I am happy to write I am spending it with her.

Travel Notes 7

Yesterday was a very productive day. We went to the Anne Frank house and did not go in. We went to the Nieuwe Kerk for the Morroco exhibit and did not go in. Then we went to a gallery that was showing glamor photos of Hollywood movie stars and did not go in. One of the reasons we passed on all these places was because it was a beautiful day with blue skies and sunshine- watery sunshine and cloud streaked skies but better than gray skies and rain. Being inside on a day like that seemed wrong.

There were other reasons we did not go inside at any of these stops. At Anne Frank's house the line was long but moved fast and the closer we got to the entrance the more uncomfortable I felt. We bailed out of the line right inside the doorway. As we walked away I felt a great sense of relief. The sadness of the place got to me. At the Nieuwe Kerk the line was just too long and when we got to the gallery it was not open. But we did have a good time walking around.

A Lament For Lost Souls

I have not written anything about the disaster in Asia because the magnitude of it has been so...I can't even think of a word for how it makes me feel. Yesterday I looked at the list of blogs I read and clicked on Sharp Sand: Joseph Duemer Reads & Writes (http://chujoe.net) and scrolled back through his entries written after Christmas. I found this, lines from a poem called Chieu Hon or A Lament For Lost Souls:


In many Asian cultures, those who die without relatives to mourn for them & perform the ritse for the dead are thought to wander for eternity. In Vietnam, there is a day in Autumn dedicated to honoring those wandering souls:


Those persons bound for separate destinies,
stray souls and vagrant ghosts—where are they now?
They crouch against a dike, behind a bush.
They dwell where rivers spring, where earth meets sky.
They lurk in clumps of grass, in shade of trees.
They hover near this hostel, haunt that bridge.
They find asylum at some shrine, some church.
They make abode in market towns and ports. [ . . . ]
All creatures of ten classes, are you there?
Women and men, you young and old, all come!
All enter Buddha’s house and hear his word!
This life is just a bubble or a flash. [ . . . ]
At [Buddha’s] behest, we set a bowl of soup
and incense candles on the hallowed board.
We offer paper gold and paper clothes
to help you speed your heavenward ascent.
All who have come, be seated and partake:
spurn not these trifles, gifts of our goodwill. [ . . . ]
To all, he brings compassion and release:
no longer fear the curse of life and death . . . .

I don't know how long these lost souls will haunt me but I wish them a speedy ascent to heaven and peace.

Travel Notes 6

I guess it is good that I am going home on Monday. Things are getting down right mean at home. I have received these two messages from my husband about our dogs since Sunday :

Sunday, Jan 2nd
Yesterday "Emma" was being a little butthead out hunting, so I left her in her crate at one place while just "Kate" and I went.  Emma was crying and yipping in her crate.  Even Kate got tired of her.  Then I shot a pheasant and Kate picked it up, but wouldn't bring it to me.  Instead she ran back to the truck and up the ramp and sat holding it in front of Emma's crate.  Emma went nuts.  Then Kate took it into her crate and lied down with it. The next field Emma did much better. Love,...


Monday, Jan 3rd
Just to let you know that Kate has a new joy in life --- tormenting Emma.    She had so much fun teasing her with the pheasant that she has discovered a way to torment Emma with a Greenie.(A Greenie is a healthly dog treat that my dogs love more than almost anything else to eat).  Kate gets her Greenie along with Emma, as you know, but Kate just sits with hers as Emma devours hers.  When Emma is done Kate sits holding her Greenie in front of Emma and acts like she just got a second one.  Emma barks and goes nuts.  Kate is happy since I won't give Emma another Greenie and really enjoys slowly eating hers in front of Emma.  I need you home soon to help with all this. 
Love,...

Travel Notes 5

Yesterday we did the one thing I planned on doing while I was here in Amesterdam. We went to the Van Gogh Museum. In addition to over 200 hundred paintings by Van Gogh there are some by Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet, Gauguin, Picasso, Seurat, and other artists. I was thrilled to see one sculpture by Camille Claudel in the Bing exhibit. The museum discribes the Bing exhibit as, "a major exhibition on the emergence of the French Art Nouveau movement viewed from the perspective of art dealer and collector Siegfried Bing (1838-1905)." That exhibit was an extra treat.

I have seen most of these works in art books but seeing them in person is just a different experience. It's like the difference between going to the zoo and and seeing a live wolf as compared to seeing a stuffed one at a natural history museum. I was so excited by what I had seen that I sat down and wrote my husband the following e-mail:

Good morning, honey.
We just got back from the Van Gogh Museum, it was worth the wait. Can we buy one of his paintings? It is 5:00pm and I am a little tired. I am still not sleeping well. I went to bed at 9:30pm and woke up at around 2:00am and could not get back to sleep until after 4:00am. I will be adjusted to Amsterdam time about the day I leave to come home. Still having a great time and wish you were here.

Later in the day I got the following message in reply:

Of course we may NOT buy a Van Gogh.  They must be stolen.  Get (your sister) to do it just in case.

Travel Notes 4

The three things that I will think about when ever I think of Amsterdam are, bikes, canals, and bricks. Almost all the houses are built of bricks. The streets are made of bricks and the sidewalks are made of bricks pavers. This may sound a bit monotonus but it isn't. The houses use different color bricks for trim and decorative accents and the streets and sidewalks use different color bricks for bike paths and parking areas.

The area my sister lives in is called Oud-Zuid (Old-South), an area developed in the 1920's and 1930's. There is one section of Oud-Zuid that is an island formed by the splitting of the Amsterlkanall into two different canals called the Noorder-Amstel-kanaal and the Zuider-Amstel-kannaal. There some of the streets are named after artists; Michelangelostraaat (Michelangelo Street), Botticellistraat, Leonardostraat, Raphaelstraat, Watteaustraat, Rubensstraat, Beethovenstraat, Schubertstraat, and Brahmsstraat are some of them. Other streets have been given names out of Greek mythology because the stadium (still standing) for the 1928 Olympics was built there. Street names include; Apollolaan (Apollo Lane), Marathonweg (Marathon Way), Herculesstraat, Amazonestraat, Achillesstraat, Minervialaan, and Jasonstraat. Walking on streets with the above names is somehow magical for me. Being able to answer Botticelli Street or Minerva Lane when asked your street address would make me feel special in a way that having to answer with something like 34th Street or a tree name does not.

I think I am falling in love with Amsterdam.

Travel Notes 3

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Everyone feeling good this morning? I must say my first New Year in the Netherlands was not what I expected. The Dutch celebrate New Year's by some getting drunk (just like home) and some watching a cheesy variety show on TV waiting for the countdown till midnight (just like home), but then at midnight the fireworks that have been exploding off-and-on all day and night really intensify. At midnight it sounded like every firework in the world was set off. When I looked out the front window I saw all the neighbors gathered on the street corner at the end of my sister's block so she and I put on our coats and went down to join the fun.

When we got there the Christmas tree we had put out to be picked up on trash day (which is Monday) was in the middle of the intersection and burnt to a crisp but still smoldering. Now I understood why the recycle bins and the post boxes had been locked yesterday. Blue smoke from hundreds of firecrackers and other fireworks hung in the air and was drifting into the side streets. When I stepped into the intersection and looked both ways I could see each street intersection had someone shooting off great numbers of fireworks. My sister described the noise as "sound confetti," the overlap of explosions was deafening. There were so many being shot off I could not jerk my head around fast enough to see all of them. There were rockets that exploded into green, red, yellow, or blue starburst. There were whistlers that streaked into the sky and popped loudly. There were roman candles that shot great balls of fire. There were children holding large sparklers. And there were the millions of firecrackers, some set off one by one and others set off in groups of hundreds. After a half-hour the neighborhood quieted down compared to the noise level at midnight but when we went to bed at 1:30AM fireworks were still being set off, just not in such great numbers.

Amsterdam knows how to celebrate the New Year. I hope your New Year's Eve was just as exciting.