Blast from the Past
K. wants ot be friends with you on Facebook The message flashes in my mailbox on this cold, rainy Monday afternoon. It is a long holiday weekend and although the garden looks beautiful, the cold and...
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Party Garmin
Yesterday I went to visit Tante Jet in Steenwijk, which is approximately 112 km to the north east of Hengelo. My navigational skills are the stuff of legend but I refused Jet's offer to send me...
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What Would Buddha Do on a Friday Night in Hengelo?
Friday evening as I was getting dressed to go out to the live music benefit for the childrens' hospital in Kiev, I heard FOTI call my name in a tone of voice which told me there was either a frog...
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It May be Ugly, but We're a Part of This 'eah Swamp
The Bantry BayLast night I went for a pitjit massage to get all the kinks out of my neck. Ibu Cis, the wonderful masseuse opined that they weren't stress kinks this time, I probably should just...
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Goldbach Variations
Goldbach's Conjecture is an (as yet) unsolved mathematical problem which proposes that every integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers. Although I am a complete dunce at...
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Quilts
It has been one of those weekends that make you forget the long, long winter and the preceding five plus weeks of miserable weather. Summer is well and truly esconced in beautiful Twente. Of course...
View ArticleA Part Time Dixie Chick
I’m back. Did you miss me?The past week or so offline, I’ve been, as they say, “gathering material” with which to entertain you and my gathering has taken me to the American Deep South. So, grab an...
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Talkin' Hank
Because we'd planned a road trip to Chattanooga, Nashville along Mississippi on down to Louisiana, I spent some time considering my take-along reading material. Economy class flights are stringent...
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A Night At the Grand Ole Opry
We chuffed into Nashville around 6 pm. and managed to get the last 2 rooms at the La Quinta, or so the desk clerk would have us believe. All I wanted was a hot shower, some food and a chance to...
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10 Feet Off of Beale
Day 3 on the road found us in Memphis. The boys noticed that a number of cities along the Mississippi have names corresponding to cities in the ancient world, most notably Cairo and Memphis. “That's...
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Hisa Bo Man! New Orleans Part I
It is 1997 and the blackest night you can imagine except for the full moon peeking out from behind the clouds every now and again. We are marching with an enormous drum band along a torch lit road....
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The Voudou Queen: New Orleans Part II
Orléans has St. Jeanne d'Arc as its patron saint. Ancient Egypt had Cleopatra. New Orleans has Marie Laveau as patron “saint” and Voudou queen and to make things even more interesting, there were two...
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Iron Poet Challenge: My Brave New Life
This challenge made me think of a carnival barker, the proverbial snake oil salesman. I gave him the name Dr. Spudman because that covered part of the challenge. This Dr. Spudman has nothing to do with...
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Give it up for the Parsnip!
Yes. The parsnip. A more unfortunately visaged and monnikered vegetable would be hard to imagine. Much maligned, little loved in modern times, there they were, a large contingent in my bi-weekly bio...
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9 December, Winter is Coming!
9 December and it's a record: the greeting cards are out the door, the gifts are purchased and waiting to be wrapped, the front door wreath is hung with care, the tree is installed but won't be...
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Friday the 13th and First World Problems
Yesterday I got the third worst haircut of my life. The first being the pixie-cut my mom thought was a good idea in 1968, the second being the time I went to the “alternative” stylist in 1990 and had...
View ArticleRest in Peace, Madiba: A Playlist
Watching the funeral on TV. The Lion sleeps in Qunu Who would have dreamt in 1987... The best tribute yet
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Who do you think you Are? Hengelo Edition
Joe College came home from Leiden last night, excited to show me “something cool” he'd found on the net. He'd discovered ancestry.com and was doing a little research into the distaff side. My husband's...
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Holiday Hormones
Hells bells!My period came again. There was a time, I think it was when I was about 9 or 10 that I couldn't wait to get my period. “It means you're a teenager,” my mom said. Being a teenager was my...
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