Introducing the Bakfiets

I don’t have inspiration for anything right now, at least not for anything upbeat, which it is time for after a few rants. But here’s an amazing woman in Portland who cycles around six kids in a bakfiets. (Yep, apparently they’ve adopted the Dutch word. So much better than apartheid!)

Most of those kiddos would be cycling on their own by now in Holland, but I wouldn’t let my kid cycle in American traffic either. But to then get a bakfiets instead of a minivan? Wow! That takes guts, and a hell of a lot of muscle!

Hey, It Wasn’t Me

For those of you who think I’m just a disgruntled anti-americanDutch immigrant who makes stuff up, click here for a great post by a fellow countryman.

A Little Rant About Bikes

There’s nothing quite as aggravating as buying a bike in this country when you’re Dutch. The kids needed new bikes and I kind of wanted a bike, too. I had bought one at Goodwill a few years ago, but it didn’t feel right.

The Kids on the Bus

It’s summer vacation again. Schools are closed for about three months. A quarter of the year. No, this is not a post about the ridiculous length of American school vacations.

Let’s Quash This Rich, Arsenic, Vaginal Sea Level Uprising

Two female democrat representatives for Michigan, Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum,  were barred from participating in a debate about abortion because Lisa Brown said the following in her statement: “I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”

Someone Get This Woman a “Stupid” T-Shirt

Photo: spreadshirt.com

I have no patience with stupidity.

Ignorance I can tolerate to a certain degree. It comes from lack of education, and it doesn’t tend to occur to uneducated people to look things up. Especially because many uneducated people don’t realize they are. And so they can remain relatively ignorant the rest of their lives. I get that.

Let Me Spell It Out

Photo: zazzle.com

My mother-in-law got her first breakfast in bed when she was almost eighty years old. She was staying with us on Mother’s Day weekend, and when T and the kids made breakfast in bed for me, they also did it for T’s mom. She was very pleasantly surprised, and that’s when I learned this was a first for her.

I was shocked.

T will never hear the end of it, and

The Gay Civil Rights Movement

photo: Seeingfaith.com

Okay America, here’s what I don’t get about the national gay marriage debate. (Apart from the fact that Obama could have said he was for it a few days earlier, to help the North Carolina LGTB community, that is.)

You’ve been here before.

Remember the Civil Rights Movement? Remember how

The Gap

 The first time I visited America, at age 18, I visited my great aunt and her husband in Bakersfield, California.

The evening I arrived, we went out to dinner at an Elk Lodge and at some point after we had finished our meal, my great aunt asked me if I wanted to join her in the restroom. I replied that I wasn’t really tired, but she insisted.

So I followed her, fully expecting a room with lots of couches and chairs

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.)