Makes you wonder
I grew up in a very non-traditional household (waiting for the *GASP* of surprise........ waiting....... waiting..........) (jerks) where snippets of traditional Dutch culture were woven in with questionable assumptions of American culture and real-life oddities that were brought about by living in a bizarre little logging town and attending a church where old people yelled at no one in an unintelligible language and the only reaction from the congregation was to slow the music down.
I'm sure other people have experienced this too, though - where you go about your business, living life and doing things according to how you were raised, and then all of a sudden someone from outside your immediate family stops you and says "Ummm, I'm not sure if you know this but Spanish Rice is actually not made by combining plain white rice and ketchup."
Right?
My parents decided to not teach us the Dutch language as children, I think for fear that we would stand out even more than we already did in our tiny little adopted community. Both of them remained fluent, but they would only speak the language when they were discussing our Christmas presents in front of us (yes, mean). My sister took German in high school to try to break the code, but unfortunately the differences were too great. The only Dutch they taught us came in the form of my mother refusing to say "I have to go to the bathroom" while in public and therefore teaching us the Dutch phrase (something like "Ich neech nada vey say"), some food names (Hagelslacht! Woo!)(Hagelslacht = probably misspelled, but it's chocolate sprinkles made of GOOD stuff and usually served with butter on warm toast)(mmm), and two children's chant/songs which I will now share with the e-world even though I have no idea how to spell the things or if I'm even remembering them right.
The first one was sung whenever we were road-tripping and they sensed that the youngin's were antsy. It's very sing-songy, and goes thus:
"A-saint-a baaaay-nah, a-saint a baaaaay-nah
Ma-nocht neeeecht HAY-le-maaaah (echo: HAY-le-mah!)
A-saint-a baaaay-nah, a-saint a baaaay-nah
Ma-nocht neecht HAY-LE-MAH. (echo: hay-le-mah!)"
I'm not sure if we were really supposed to do the echoes, but they sure were catchy once you got started. It translates to: "We're almost there, we're almost there, but not quite all way (all the way!)".
I'm sure it's a big hit in the Netherlands.
The second is what really got me thinking. I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to hear this one, and I can't really remember which family member it was that taught it to us (certainly not my father or mother). It was stuck in my head all last weekend, and has disturbed me since then.
It goes:
"Melk es goot ver elk, et nyet ver Jan, e peester van"
Translation:
"Milk is good for everyone, but not for John, he pees from it."
I'm probably mangling the original Dutch, but I swear on all that is holy that the translation is exactly what I learned as a child.
This is kind of why I'm a little frightened to take a vacation to the family's origins in Holland. Who on earth WERE these people and why is all that came with us to America cheese, chocolate, plates, and a warning about lactose intolerance?
ahhhhhh...
Got a massage last night for the first time in close to a year, and am now (still) a barely functional pile of human goo. It's almost scary how relaxed I can get with those things, and how much of a difference it makes just to have a stranger knead at me for an hour or so. Here's an example of the internal dialogue I was throwing about last night:
"My shoulder itches."
(minutes go by with no movement besides the steady flow of the massage)
"I should scratch it."
(happy zen blackout)
"Huh. Still itches. ARM. MOVE UPWARD."
(drooling a bit now)
"Crap. I wonder if I had a stroke?" (I was reading an article about strokes in the waiting room, which makes one wonder why the massage school thought literature about strokes would inspire relaxation and also why on earth do I assume that whatever I read about will happen to me?) (Don't get me started about the time I read "The Girl With The Silver Eyes" in junior high and assumed that I was an undiscovered telekinetic. I still catch myself trying to will a spoon to move when bored and in the presence of a spoon.)
"ARM. MOVE."
"That's it, I'm dead."
(trying to stop the drooling before the masseuse notices)
"Maybe I can move a finger"
(after five minutes, one finger twitches)
"Whew."
(distracted by carpet pattern. undetermined length of time later)
"Waitasecond, what if I had a stroke on the other side of my brain? OTHER FINGER, TWITCH!"
(......)
(finger on other hand twitches very slightly)
(drool resurfaces despite best attempts to cease)
"Is there a stroke that only paralyzes your lower half? I think I read about that somewhere. Wait, that's paraplegics or something. They need an accident or major trauma and not just a random blood clot. I think."
"FEET, TWITCH!"
(the clock gently ticks while the masseuse does her magic)
"Eh, whatever. Wheelchairs are cool."
The article listed "Ways you can tell that you've had a stroke", which included smiling to see if the sides of your mouth raise evenly, and raising your arms to see if they go to the same height. I swear I'm not a hypochondriac, but ask me how many times I smiled last night... (I bet some of you are smiling right now, you sickos)
whoops
I brought the hairballs out for a hike this past weekend with a bunch of strangers, which is always an adventure. What makes it more so is that two little girls (ages 6 and 8, I think) were along, and the combined weight of the dogs was greater than the combined weight of the children. The hike up to alpine lake #1 was brisk and fairly uneventful (save for the gorgeous fall scenery and general happy hiking-ness), and the jog to beautiful alpine lake #2 was similarly so, except that the girls decided that they were a little tired after walking 3+ miles uphill and they wanted to use my pups to tow them up the rest of the way.
(if you look closely, you can see that it appears as though Rooster's head is erupting out of the little girl's neck area)
Beautiful alpine lake #2 is also known as Ollalie (oh-lolly) Lake, which I have purposefully worked into at least 5 conversations since the hike. Ollalie ollalie ollalie.
The girl/pup combo worked out really well going uphill, since the dogs naturally pull a bit when someone other than me is holding their leash. We tarried by the lake (OLLALIE!) for a while, and Rooster tried to find the Loch Ness Monster (or, failing that, to become Nessie part deux)
Of course we couldn't just rest on our laurels and be happy with the accident-free ascent with multi-species harmony. The girls wanted more, and neither their parental figure nor I were prepared to debate the issue (they were tiny, their eyes were huge, their proportions were designed to lure all nearby adults into believing that nothing bad could ever happen to them) (or come from them, but that's another matter). The problem was that the dogs, Rooster in particular, gain momentum when pointed down a mountain. Partially because of weight, partially because of excitement, and almost entirely because when he sees a difficult patch of trail, he prefers to barrel through/over it instead of using his pea-sized brain to pick open places to put his gargantuan feet. The girls had no chance. Knees were scraped, hands were twisted, children were dragged. They kept wanting to try again after being pulled over, but after a few times (hey, it was the giant eyes - they mess with your brain) the adults finally took over leash duty. Then their dad was almost pulled over. I ended up with one pup on each arm and a headache, but it was worth it to see this on the last hike of the season:
What a weekend
Canby, OR (site of dried fruits and nuts)
Canby reflected
University of Washington (site of peeing baby pictures and, apparently, aliens)
Puget Sound off of the Golden Gardens Park shore (site of sea lions doing their "ork ork ork" dance and home of my happy place)
(can't you just hear them? No they're not trapped - the cage looked like it operated at one point, but now everything is rusted and the door is missing)
