Hi There!

(For my Dutch-English translating and proofreading business, please go to D-E Translating. You can also go to my D-E Translating WordPress site. Thank you.)

Welcome to my blog.

I’m an energetic, slim, reasonably pretty thirty-year-old. However, I reside in a rather shocking, obese, aching, apathetic 52-year-old body. I love living in Austin but I’m chock-full of criticism of America in general. The Rockies bring me to tears, but so does the health care system. I’ve adopted Thanksgiving, but not the Pledge of Allegiance. If I seem elated and unbearably grouchy in sometimes schizophrenically quick succession, this is why.

I love the usual: my husband, my children, my friends and our pets. I hate heat, stupidity, shoulder spurs, spiders and walking, cycling and stair-stepping in place.

I collect raft books and I’m currently developing a weird obsession with the bottoms of bridges.

When I lived in the Netherlands, eighteen years ago, I loved hot tea, wild camping in Great Britain, gardening, reading for days on end, and I walked and cycled everywhere. Now that I live in a pretty darn hot part of the US, with kids that have to be driven everywhere by car, I love reminiscing about hot tea, wild camping in Great Britain, gardening, reading for days on end and walking and cycling everywhere…

My blog is a crazy—some might say completely unhinged–collection of posts about any of the above-mentioned issues and then some. Nothing is sacred. I blatantly ignore all American no-nos. Which means I talk politics, religion, I don’t idolize  teachers and I swear (but not that much).

As you read my posts you might laugh, seethe, weep or shrug your shoulders. If you like a post, great. Let me know. If you hate a post, great, let me know. It’s all good. I’d like to think I’m always right, but don’t let that stop you from telling me if you disagree. We Dutch love a good argument.

If you want to know more about how I ended up in America and an overview of how that’s been, visit my Reading Guide.

Otherwise, have at it!

(In my posts, I refer to my husband as T, my 16-year-old son as B, and my 13-year-old daughter as R.)

Sixth Street on a Saturday Morning

And Justice For...

Reblogged from ipledgeafallegiance:

The United States with only about 5% of the world's population has over 24% of the world's prisoners. One of the basic principles that our nation was founded on and what many of our founding fathers thought was the most fundamental principal necessary for a free and democratic society to function properly was the rule of law...but only if it were applied equally to everyone, with no one, not even kings or royals or presidents or wealthy citizens, exempt from the nations laws.

Read more… 226 more words

I just had to share this. Kort maar krachtig, is what we call that--brief and to the point.

Barton Springs Road Bridge

It’s high time for the bottom of another bridge. This time the small bridge across Barton Springs Road.

I’ve been keeping this one and I find it hard to give it up. I don’t know when I’ll come across anything I like as much. Because it’s short and low above the water, and even lower above the path, it’s almost cozy, intimate even,  in a concrete bridge-bottom kind of way.

None of Your Business!

image from nbclatino.com

In my last post I voiced my disgust with the liberties police take on a daily basis in regular, unthreatening situations, and I wrote that nobody seems to have a problem with it. Not enough to do anything about it, anyway. This, of course, is not completely true.

Reese and the Police

image from foxnews.com

So last week “America’s sweetheart” Reese Witherspoon’s husband was arrested because he was driving while drunk. Bad. Badbadbadbadbad. You get no argument from me there.

But Reese herself was arrested, as well. Why? She got out of her car. Not only that, but when the police officer told her to get back in the car, she drunkenly told him she had a right to stand on American soil. Gasp! The horror! How dare she!?!

Queen's Day(s) Later

Reblogged from A Flamingo in Utrecht:

• 
• 
• 

Although there was a great deal of celebrating this week for the last Queen's Day, my silence hasn't been the result of the world's largest hangover. With a break in work for a few days, I decided to take a bit of an impromptu vacation, even it there was no travel. Since I write for a living, it was kind of nice to take a short break from blogging, as well.

Read more… 438 more words

The Netherlands in WWII: More Aftermath

image from wikipedia

An American Facebook acquaintance recently posted this video with the comment: “Just for the record”. I watched it and I found it to be a strange hodgepodge of information, rumor and images without commentary. It’s in Dutch, so let me briefly tell you what it’s about.

It begins with  KLM, the Dutch airline, and its role in helping Nazis