The elderly-ward at the mental health facility.

"What I did to deserve this punishment, I do not know." Today is the first time I hear this woman speak in a full month, besides her occasional desperate whisper, "Help me...". Usually she sits in a chair sighing loudly as if short of breath, ignoring the goings-on around her. Today she is actually speaking when spoken to, pausing from her gasps, looking confused before resting her eyes on you and answering the question.
"Nice out today, isn't it?" I ask.
Sigh.
"The sun is so warm." I watch her through the corner of my eye; she looks around trying to find whatever it is that I seem to admire so much. "Don't you just enjoy a nice walk out in the sunshine?"
"Nee, verschrikkelijk. It's horrible."
"Ah." What else could I answer? She told me earlier that she was afraid. I do not know what of. But she's afraid. Her world is so far from my own. Sunshine does not reach it. "We can go back if you wish."
Her pace slows as we near the building. I can't tell if she is tired from the walk or dreading the return to her prison.
Back in the living area I manage to start a game of Rummikub, no small feat of it's own. Her face is turned in our direction but her eyes do not see us. "Do you want to join?" I ask. To my surprise she stands up and shuffles to our table.
"I don't know how."
"No problem, we'll go over the rules first." The well-meaning intern who smiles too much and talks to everyone like she is offering candy to a child sits next to her and watches over her shoulder.
"Ah, look, you can use that four right there. Yes, just put it there. Good job!"
"Pff, good job. I didn't do anything special."
"Well, but, well, that's how the game goes, and you are learning."
Sigh.
The game continues. My tiles are not working in my favor. A player next to me manages to play all her tiles but one in one single turn. My sighing friend watches in interest. The final tile cannot be placed. "Ah, such a shame." I say. I look up across the table, and for a brief second I think I catch a hint of an upward turn at the sides of her mouth, her eyes alive for one moment. And then it's gone.
Bari has come smiling in to hand out meal tickets. "Five-minutes till lunch! Finish up ladies!"
Her eyes are dimmed again and her breathing is long and heavy.
"Until next week!" I say. She sighs and does not look up.
I get my coat and bike home, the sun shines on my face, and I smile. It was a good day.

f-ing cat.

found out: smearing cheese on the cat makes her lick herself more than usual which creates more hairballs than usual which makes her throw up more than usual.

of course she never throws up on the easy-to-clean-laminate but prefers spots two centimeters next to it on the scrub-for-half-and-hour-and-still-never-look-quite-the-same rugs, carpets and furniture.

both paws

i think Schatje is ambidextrous. ambi-pawed?

when i prepare to eat crackers and brie or this wonderful mixture of marscapone and gorgonzola, she sits at my feet meowing and whining, occasionally pawing me (nails out) to hint strongly that she wants some too. she doesn't leave me alone till i give her some, which of course i don't. well, cept for this little trick i found that works really well to keep her occupied for a good 15min: swipe some on her nose, face, paws, ears, or anywhere slightly difficult to reach. she cleans every last crumb off, ignoring my plateful and leaving me in peace.

anyway, i thought she was right-handed...right-pawed cause i only saw her rub her nose with her right paw. but today she used her left paw too.

so she must be ambi-pawed. ambidextrous...

sawadee ka!

got back from Thailand on Saturday. it was a good trip, though I'm not sure I feel Thailand is worth a second visit. I bet its a nice place to live. but tourism is a booming business, bringing with it some inevitable annoyances and the invasions into the "authenticity". the food is still authentic though, and delicious. and the Thai people themselves are charming and friendly; in no other country have people just come up to us for no reason other than to say hello, offer suggestions of good places to see and the directions thereto, or simply to practice their English, as they did in Thailand. and Thai massages, sigh...how I miss them. the Thai massage is a wonderful mix of of pain and pleasure that turns you into a limp noodle under the hands (and feet, elbows, knees) of a tiny Thai lady who stretches and twists and kneads your tired and sore body, forcing you into positions you did not know you were capable of and finding every painful place you were and weren't aware of, all the while smiling and nodding to you while chatting to her fellow masseurs. on second thought, perhaps a second visit would not be unwelcome.

while there I finished "Of Human Bondage" (Somerset Maughaun...any suggestions on how to pronounce that?). I feel I know Phillip, who spends almost thirty years trying to find the meaning to life and where he fits in it all, fighting toward wonderful goals only to be disappointed when reached, finding life and himself to be other than what he had expected and rationally defined, and eventually figuring out that what he really wanted was so much simpler than anything he had dreamed up beforehand. his story gives me hope.

time to finish up those errands and chores I planned to do today. next up, vaccuum the car. it's a blemish on the fine face of our street. I hate to be the trashy ones in the neighborhood; must keep up appearances!

wednesday is that inbetween place.

i'm feeling a general lack of direction and control. i suppose it comes with the territory. the approaching status of "graduate".
at least i can control some things. like the order in this house. cept i am not particularly successful in that area at the moment. the weekend full of cleaning for two separate parties and then cleaning up after each of those has dampended my enthusiasm for maintaining order.
hmm. maybe it's motivation i lack. if i really wanted a job, i'd have had one months ago. or maybe, really, the problem is that i haven't seen one that i really want. yes, that's it. of course, it would help if i were looking more thoroughly and consistently...
in the meantime, i have surrounded myself with old people and spent much of my time drinking coffee, talking about the weather, classical music and the war, and occasionally playing the odd game of Bingo. and i do enjoy it.
and probably i would enjoy it more if i didn't have that little voice in the back of my head whispering "but this doesn't make any money...".

too slow for me...

my brilliant plan is not so brilliant. well, it doesn't feel brilliant any more. i didn't know what i could do or wanted to do with my masters degree; it's soooo broad, i could work anywhere if only i could define my abilities and sell them well enough. which i can't, cause i don't know for sure what i actually can do. i'm telling myself that it's more than i think it is. anyway... so to help figure myself out, i decided to do some volunteer work in an area i think i might be interested in, namely elderly-care. so i applied at four different organizations (2 volunteer, 2 actual money making places) for a day a week at each, interviewed with a bunch of people, was signed up, and now i'm hanging out with alot of old ladies (not alot of old men around...they seem to die out younger). and these are old ladies, i'm talking late 80-90's. well, actually, one place has some men, they are in heir 70's.
been interesting so far, but really just started, so we'll see where it goes from here.
but see, my brilliant idea was to get experience, that i can of course put on a resume, scope out the lay of the elderly-care land, see how things work, see if i like it, and hopefully make some useful connections that might help me get a job at one of these places. and probably, this is still working. but right now it doesn't feel to impressive or successful. i just sit around and drink coffee and talk weather, knitting trick, and 'good ole days' with the old folks. maybe walk around a bit if it's sunny. don't get me wrong, i'm enjoying it. old folks are such interesting people. but the whole "building career prospects" part seems to be moving slowly...and as for experience, not sure how useful this all is. but then again, maybe it's all more educational than i realize, and when i come out of this phase (hopefully into the new interviewing/hiring phase) i will have learned so much more than i think i am learning right now. that's usually how it goes, right?
aegh. patience, amanda. patience.

pray much.

I was looking at some quotes on prayer and thought about how my approach to prayer has changed. I have ceased to feel guilty about not praying regularly. Guilt is not the proper response in that case, it only gets in the way of approaching Him again when I finally do feel the urge again to reconnect. I enjoy it now so much more as a result, and probably talk to God more often as well.
It's funny (or sad or interesting...or well, not funny) how several quotes in the trend of "God helps those who help themselves" were in the list. "Pray to Allah, but tie your camel too", or "Pray to God, but stear away from the rocks", etc., though the intention is clear, pray but don't sit on your ass and expect things to come to you, can go a bit further to the "Try it yourself and if that fails, then pray" kind of approach, which inevitably leads to "If you prayed and it didn't work out, it means you didn't do enough work for it yourself".... I've been a bit more confronted with this attitude lately, as my parents, just like they have for the past 27+ years have been doing, pray for guidance in the big moves and changes in their lives and sometimes the decisions they make don't make alot of sense from a rational/normal kind of perspective, which is met with some scepticism or even criticism by some people around me. I haven't quite reached the same level of trust that they seem to have, but I'm slowly working in that direction, I think.
And I came across a quote (can't find it now, it's somewhere in the list, and the list is impressively long), not sure by who, about how even Jesus got "no" as an answer, when he prayed that the cup would pass from him. For some reason I had never really looked at that bit of the story in this light before. I just assumed that, of course he died anyway cause that was the plan from the start and Jesus' prayer was just an expression of how difficult it all was for him. But he really was praying that he wouldn't have to do it, and he really did get a "no". And he is the son of God. My "no's" couldn't possibly compare. A bit of a humbling thought. So my prayers will probably look a bit more like "your will be done" than before.
In the meantime, I am gonna agree with Kierkegaard that "prayer does not change God but changes him who prays...".

this sort of stuff is why i like psychology.

we all know that time flies when having fun and slows down when you least wish it to. and we all wonder (or maybe it's just me) how that really works. obviously, the clock only ticks at one notch per second, 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 2 times around 12.... so obviously our perception of time is subjective. and some brilliant scientists are testing how and why that works as it does.
turns out that when doing an activity that is not particularly fun and not particularly un-fun, one's perception of how fun or un-fun it was is influenced by how much time you think it took. so if you are told it took 5 min (when in reality it took 10), you'll think it more fun than if you were told it took 20 min (when again, it only took 10). in fact, you'll think that the "20min" activity was slow and boring and you disliked it very much. funny.
it could be that different parts of your brain are activated for different activities. when the parts that focus on your body and physical experience are activated, you'll experience time as slower than if these parts are not activated. makes sense, if you think about it. when doing activities that take the focus off yourself/your body, and are more focused on whats going on around and outside of yourself, distracted and absorbed by something other than yourself, you forget your position in the time/space continuum....
hmm. explains certain elements of the experience of certain activities...

Curious what y'all think of this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8500285.stm

Trut.

The Den Haag - Enschede train was full this afternoon. I found, already ten minutes before departure, only with difficulty a free seat, luckily facing the direction we'd be traveling in. As the clock moved closer to 17:08, people walking passed the window toward train cars further down the line started moving faster, then running to get to the furthest possible car before the whistle blew. In the train, people shuffled past down the aisle, looking for any over-looked seats still available, bumping elbows with their briefcases and trying to catch their breath. A girl walked past against the stream wearing a rather short skirt covered by an oversized colorful sweater that I immediately envied. I wonder where she bought it? Maybe they have it in blue? Minutes later she rushed passed in the other direction, probably looking for the bathroom.
The aisle started to fill with standing passengers. A tall lady with long, greying blonde hair pulled back in an unkempt low pony-tail, draped in a large faux-fur coat the color of her hair stopped at an empty seat further down the aisle. She picked up the coat resting there and looked around. A woman sitting next to the coat said "Someone is sitting here already", to which the lady in fur responded with something most definately disagreeable, judging by the look on her face. She dropped the coat on the floor and took a seat next to the surprised woman, removed her gloves, and made herself comfortable, ignoring the protesting, shocked and amused looks of those around her. The poor coat lay in the middle of the floor as people attempted to step over, managing only to dirty either end of the sleeves and edges, the step was too big. A man sitting across from the lady in fur finally got up and bent down, his red face close to the lady in fur, mutter something about "rude" and "common decency" before picking the dusty coat off the floor and putting it up on the racks above the seats. Glances up and down the aisle looked for the unsuspecting victim who had just lost his or her seat to this unsociable assuming woman. A mini-skirt and oversized sweater made their way down the aisle, squeezing passed the standing passengers. She came to the seat where her coat had been and smiled at the lady sitting there. "I was sitting there," she must have said. "Yes, but you are not any more. You left, and you can't expect to keep your seat when the train is this full" was the probable answer, given in a quiet, determined, self-rightous tone that requires no understanding of the words to catch her meaning. All eyes were directed secretly toward or purposely away while ears strained to hear this unusual conversation. The words "bathroom" "impolite" "my coat" were heard before the girl turned to look at other passengers and ask "don't you think?". Fur lady sat stiffly, unshifting, searching through her purse with jerky movements, avoiding eye contact with the girl. More inaudible words, a look of exasperation from the girl, and then mini skirt took her coat and turn to walk the few feet away from the lady in fur that the full train would allow.
I wondered what had turned this lady so bitter. I imagined that she must be lonely, perhaps hurt in some dramatic story of love scorned or lost. But then, you never know. She may be a well-loved grandma, with dear friends from her childhood that she still visits regularly and enjoys. But today, she sat alone in her seat, pretending dignity and right.
The train stopped in Gouda, where I get out. The lady in fur put her gloves back on and closed her purse. The girl moved determinedly toward her, waiting for her moment. As the lady stood up she found herself staring into a sweet smile with angry eyes, "Have a good evening, ma'am." The lady looked up, she must have asked what she said. "Have a good evening, ma'am", the girl repeated more loudly this time. The lady muttered something in a bitter tone. "Trut", I heard her say as she turned toward me. I smiled at her and raised an eyebrow. Trut. A word akin to "bitch," I suppose, if translated loosely. Not nice, anyway.
All eyes returned to the girl to impart sympathy, avoiding any possible contact with the eyes of lady in fur who stood tall and straight under her large coat, waiting impatiently for the line to move toward the door. I wondered again how she had become as she was. I wished I had the nerve to ask her out for coffee. She must be interesting. She must be lonely. In need of a friend. But before my Pollyanna instincts could out themselves, the line moved and she was gone. She passed my window before I stood up and walked away with stiff determined steps.
A girl at the exit held the door open for people walking out. I smiled at her and said thank you before walking through the door. It is cold out tonight, I thought, as I headed down the street toward my new little home where I would wait for Luuk. Maybe we'll play another game tonight, or watch a movie.

re-goals.

my goal to finish my thesis two weeks ago has not be realized. nor my real goal, to finish last week. my new goal is to finish this week. but SPSS is against me. how can one analysis lead to so many interactions? how am i supposed to write about this in one concise paper that makes sense and says something interesting? egh. i can't wait to be done. i'll settle for a lesser grade, just to be done. february 24 is coming too soon. i'm starting to worry that i won't have the paper and my grades in on time to graduate then. but, there is an upside: as long as i am enrolled as a student (not yet graduated thus) i get money from the government. :)

identity

i was asked to videotape myself saying "my name is____and i am____". i found it surprisingly difficult. how to choose what "...i am___" to record for other's to see? what am i comfortable with them knowing i am? and do i even know, anyway?

"my name is amanda and i am___"
- a psychologist.
- an unemployed psychologist.
- an unemployed psychologist who doesn't know where to go from here.
- a bit lost.
- not a morning person.
- a listener.
- dutch.
- dutch with an identity crisis.
- not dutch, canadian-american-mexican-dutch.
- amused by life.
- avoiding my thesis project.
- procrastinating.
- graduating soon. i hope.
- strong.
- hmm, ok, sometimes not so strong.
- having a bad hair day.
- married.
- secretly enjoying playing housewife.
- worried.
- (temporarily) in the middle of a not-so-positive funk but generally actually quite happy, really.
- all of the above, for now. we'll talk next year again.

"sons and lovers"

finished "sons and lovers" yesterday while sitting around waiting for luuk's surgery (for carpal tunnel, simple procedure, still took all day with recovery and check ups and paperwork...). i enjoyed the way characters were described and developed. i found particularly interesting the relationship between the mother and father, the slow move from passion to coldness to resolute commitment and eventual tolerance. how often does that not happen in real life! (not to me of course, we have a perfect relationship). i had a hard time, however, relating to and empathizing with the constant battling love-hate relationships of young paul. or the painful dedication to his mother. i trudged through the last half of the book, hoping for at least some hot love scene to at least make it slightly more exciting only to be treated to less than explicit descriptions of any such behavior and the constant back-and-forth of "he hates her, he loves her, he wants her, he detests her...she hates him, loves him, wants him, detests him...". egh. the focus was on the inward struggle, never resolved, quite frustrating really, and eventually somewhat boring. poor lawrence. he must have had a difficult and un-necessarily complicated life. so much import given to emotions. had he, paul, only been more like his mother, willing at least to choose a route and stick with it, come what may. instead he allowed himself to be led by the lesser, unsteady rule of feelings, passion, desire.
i suppose, at some point, i have experience this struggle myself to some extent, "do i want him, he has some power over me, but i don't really love him, what to do, what to do?", and so on. but i never really stayed in such a position long enough for it to become a real problem. perhaps the one element of the story that i could relate to was the feeling of trapped-ness (is that a proper word?) accompanied with being with someone to whom you do not feel equal. one will always have power over the other, and the other will always suffocate the first. happily, i do not find myself in that situation now. perhaps partly due to resolute commitment, accompanied with steady sense and choice. passion comes in bouts, and affection is constant. love has many forms. i suppose that is all easier when the relationship started with is equal to begin with. i guess, after thinking about it a bit, that that was lawrence's greatest struggle. but i still think he was too emotional. ah, but so it is with all them artist types, no?
cheers.

ha! the g-spot does not exist!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8439000.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8443465.stm

so we have all been fooled by Cosmo magazine and Redbook and Sex in the City and all those other "how to be a modern woman" media. bastards.

what is it with people and the obsession with sex anyway? it's great and fun, sure, but it's not the "be all and end all" that everyone seems to think it is, as one wise sex expert put it. people do the most silly things trying to get it, spend so much time and money and effort, in so many different ways, some kosher some not so kosher, to find it, achieve it, improve it, to reach this glorious end, this top of the mountain experience that yet never satisfies and keeps people going back for more and continuing their hunt for the elusive climax of all climaxes, which btw we should all have had, preferably before 30 and as often as possible.
but we (and i mean just people in general, no one in particular, and definately not myself of course)...we are so confused about sex, cause on the one hand its this grand thing that we must have, on the other hand we want to think its the most normal thing in the world, it's no big deal. and on the one hand it is the ultimate expression of love between a man and a woman (or a man and a man or woman and woman, if thats your preference), and on the other hand we pretend we can do it with some stranger and walk away unaffected. we even like the idea of fuck-buddies, for goodness sake, as if emotionless sex is good and scar-free.
woe to you if you have but one partner your whole life, just think of the experiences you are missing out on! "say what? you got married at 24? you never did it with anyone else? why the hell would you do that?! you haven't had the chance to live yet! to explore! to get out there and discover yourself! and now you are stuck, and so young too, with the same person for the rest of your life!"
but i prefer my choice, to pick one person with whom i can do all that, be free, open, safe, close with, sexually and not, than to spend my life looking for that perfect experience that never satisfies.
sex in and of itself its not so glamourous. its all the other stuff around it, the person, the commitment, the relationship, that makes it great.
that's my random two bits for the day.
cheers.

a hooter of a new year to you too!

i've been sleeping badly again. maybe it's from the move; takes time to readjust to a house, bedroom, ceiling... or maybe it's subconscious stress outing itself in my sleep rythms. anyway. it's annoying. sleep sucks and i'm tired. how to fix this?

the cats hate each other. they've had a couple of fights. both walk away with claw-fulls of each others fur. lovely. so far no blood though. i've decided i won't separate them until absolutely necessary. cept at night; no need to add yowling cats to my sleep issues. one more week and Schatje can go back to being the queen of the house. spoiled little puss. (edit: we are cat-sitting for a french friend who is galavanting through cambodia for a couple weeks; the cat [Kitty] is a big fat ball of white fuzzy fur; the cat we now officially own [Schatje] is a slightly less big ball of red fur...there is alot of fur floating around our place these days...if i yawn to big, i tend to get a mouthful of floaties, even after vaccuuming everyother day...)

taking the car for a checkup today. Bob is a little sick, it seems. he wouldn't start up the other day, and after a rescue by our local AAA-sort-of-thing, he choked alive but is holding on by a thin thread.

and i'm back to trudging through my thesis. my goal: finish it this week. my real goal: finish it next week. we'll see which goal wins.

procrastination = another word for that "not ready-to-work-terrified-of-interviews-in-Dutch-afraid-i'll-never-find-a-proper-job" feeling

i wondered to myself this morning if i am subconsiously avoiding finishing my thesis so i don't have to start thinking about finding a job. there is really no reason for me to not be done yet. this is ridiculous.
but today i am going to finish painting the bookshelf, hang up a mirror in the hallway, do some laundry, clean the house, do some shopping, mail some christmas/newyears cards (late, i know), and then see if i have time to work on stats before Froukje comes over for dinner.
i'm not avoiding. just bad at planning.

morning folks!

the move is over. everything we own has been sorted, boxed, bagged, thrown out, given away, moved, unboxed, slowly but surely placed in a semi-permanent spot on a shelf or in a drawer or on a wall. (weird, major de ja vu moment, this blog post here...). anywho, we are beginning to settle, almost all rooms are organized and looking normal, the smell of paint is slowly being replaced by the smells of a lived-in house. and i am starting to remember where i put things which is cutting down on the number of turns i make and number of drawers i open when trying to cook a simple meal.
so, what else is up, you wonder... (cause, yes, admit it, my life and goings-on are up there on your list of sites to check every morning while you drink your coffee... "email, facebook, own blog, Amanda's blog, news..."). well, not much, i answer. thesis writing is going slow, it's hard to get back into it, especially when the interest in the topic has gone from the original "low-but-high-enough-to-get-me-to-graduation" to "practically-non-existant-never-gonna-finish-this-thing-graduation-so-far-away". egh. nuff about that.
i gave a workshop with my supervisor at the company where i did my internship. i was convinced it would be a total disaster, given the amount of prep time involved (none) and the amount of fear i have for public speaking (too much) and the language it was in (dutch!) and the fact that i have never led a workshop before. but, it was a great success, my nerves calmed quickly, my dutch didn't suck, they understood me, and i even really enjoyed it. ah, and the bonus was that after the workshop, my supervisor raised my grade a full point! ha!
oh, one fun event, Morgan was here for a couple days. she's off to den haag with another friend, but will be back maybe saturday maybe sunday before going on her way to other interesting lands far away. she's our first official guest in our new house with new guest room and new guest bed (yes, a whole bed!). cept i forgot to buy sheets. so she slept in a sleeping bag. i figured she needed to start roughing it before getting to bahrain and all those other strangely named countries on her list of places to go. so suck it up Morgan!... nah, she was perfectly happy with the bag. and i can't speak for her, but i've enjoyed our wanderings through Gouda, Delft, Amsterdam, stuffing her with my favorite Dutch foods and forcing all my favorite Dutch and Belgian beers on her. poor girl. she's probably relieved to be gone a couple days, just to recover from my over-enthusiastic hosting. but at least she'll have some extra meat on her bones before heading off to deserts and who knows what.
and as a final bit of news to share, i think our cat has worms. she stepped out of her kitty litter box this morning only to start running around like the devil was after her and then stop in the kitchen where she dropped her butt to the floor and dragged it around till the turd that had been hanging off her behind had been successfully smeared all over the floor and detached from her asshole. yes, this is a picture i want you to start your morning with. cause i had to clean this up and i deem it necessary to share this with others and reduce somehow the misery that is taking care of cat shit.
cheers!

time for bigger house, less stuff.

there is nothing like moving to confront you with your own pack-ratting habits, useless collections, and the "oh, I'll definately use that thing some day" objects. we have way too much shit.

Lately

October is almost done and it feels like it just started. Time is strange, it flies and it's slow, all at the same time. Not a whole lot has happened since September. We are still waiting on the keys to our house (6 days!). We've been preping for the big move, have ordered a new kitchen, are meeting up with handyman's (handymen? that just doesn't sound right), packing boxes, choosing paint colours, looking at furniture... This is the part where time feels like it slows down.

Some sad news: our pet rat Lucy died. It all happened within a week. We noticed one weekend that she was walking funny, sort of limping. We thought it was from when we accidently closed the door on her...but then she started sleeping more and eating less, even falling asleep in the most random places, like next to the tv or on the floor under the table. Very un-rat-like. Very un-Lucy-like. Then she started falling from things. She always fell before, but not as often and not as hard. It was like she couldn't hold herself up properly any more. Then, one day I let her out to run around and by the end of the day her back legs stopped moving and the only way for her to move around was to pull herself with her front legs and roll around. She stopped eating and drinking and just slept. We expected her to die that night, but every morning she was still there, half alive. Finally, on Monday, after three days of waiting I took her to the vet to have her put down. I expected to just hand her over and leave, and they'd take care of her. But the vet was a kindly man, very sensative and knowing that some people who love their pets like to be there for the last few moments, assumed I would too. I stood there as he stuck a needle as long as her body into her leg to numb her, then he gave me the box and in a quiet funerary voice sent me to the garden greenhouse in the back so I could say goodbye. I was unprepared for this. I sat there for ten minutes with Lucy on my lap, tears dripping off my chin, watching her breathing slow down till it was hard to see without focusing on her little chest moving up and down. I kept telling myself, this is silly, she's just a rat. But I couldn't help myself. The vet came back after a while and said it was time. Embarassed, I followed him, expecting to be sent away. But instead he offered me a seat next to the examining table where I watched as he checked her reactions before putting a large needle full of an orange fluid straight into her heart. Then we waited. And she kept breathing. All I wanted was to leave the room but I stood there staring, unable to move away and trying so hard not to cry again in front of this sensative vet. If I started, I couldn't stop again. I wanted it to be over so I could leave. But she wouldn't die! Her little chest shuddered and heaved, then her breathing seemed to stop, then it shuddered again. The vet tapped her on her eye and she did not react. He said she was braindead and that her body was just fighting for the last bit of life in it. He asked if I wanted to go back to the garden with her to wait. No, I really didn't want to! I asked if it was ok to just leave her, he said that was fine, they'd take care of her. So I paid and left as quickly as I could, and tried not to think of my little rat the whole way home.

It's been a couple of weeks now. I am throwing away the cage and her stuff. I have an almost full back of rat food that I don't know what to do with... Feels like a waste to throw that out. Maybe I can feed it to the neighborhood pigeons.

We are babysitting a cat, a sort of test trial at the same time. We might keep her. The associate pastor got her from the previous pastor who got her from some lady at church; they all know she's old but not sure how old... Anyway, he got married and his new wife isn't too fond of cats, so they want to find a new home. But I talked to her yesterday and she seemed suddenly reluctant when I told her 'yes, we'll keep her'. Maybe she feels guilty. Anyway, if we can't keep the cat, I'm gonna work on Luuk to convince him that dogs are actually awesome and we should have one. If that doesn't work, mini-pigs are the new trend.

I had lunch with a friend today who I've seen once in the past year, and that was over three months ago. That happens sometimes... Time goes by quickly, before you know it, it's been half a year since you last called each other and then you know that that "quick call" to catch up won't be quick at all so you put it off until an evening when you do have the time to talk but then you never have time and it's been another three months... So we finally made plans and met up. I had to ask for her address again because I couldn't remember what number it was and wasn't sure I'd recognize it if I passed it. The usual re-connecting questions and answers covered the first hour as we prepared lunch together.
'Where you been these days? Used to being in Holland again?'
'How's life? Enjoying med school?'
'What's new? Really, a new house?!'
'Any news in the relationship area?'
'No. Any news in the baby area? Ha!'
Then a brief silence.
'Amanda, my dad died. Two months ago. Complications with the chemo. Leukemia. He was 61. Now my mom is alone. We went out for her birthday last month but it was not a happy occasion. He wasn't there. I love my mom, she's sweet. But my dad was my friend. And he's gone. I've lost a friend. I miss him. But it's strange, I feel like he isn't really gone yet, it isn't real. I went to a funeral last week for a friend who's cousin killed himself; I cried more at that funeral then at my own father's. Christmas will be hard.'
I stayed for another hour; I'll make sure I call before three months. Too much happens when you wait too long, and I wasn't there with her.

On the way home I rushed into the train to get a seat facing the direction of travel, bypassing the seat next to a young teen sitting across from her mother, chewing loudly on chips, laughing and talking as if she was the only one in the cabin or onstage and with something actually important and funny to say. Her mother asked her to move her bags and put her feet on the floor so others could sit next to her.
Her answer was a flat "Nee". I could hear in her voice the challenging look she surely gave her mother.
No one sat next to her.
"See," she said.
I took a seat across the aisle, one row ahead of her. The woman in the seat across from me look up, glanced at me and rolled her eyes, then went back to her book. A boy sitting one seat ahead of me watched the girl through the space between the seats. She was very pretty. But he looked displeased.
"Mama, do you know that I hate you?"
A muffled response, probably "What?"
"Do you know that I hate you?"
Silence.
Everyone in the cabin waited for a response, but nothing.
"I'm just teasing, mama. I don't really hate you. "