Happy Birthday!

This morning shortly after 3AM I turned 28 years old. Liesbeth and I had a very romantic breakfast together. While I was in the bathroom, she lit some candles on the dining room table. I went to sit in my chair, only to discover a present there. Inside, I found a handsome new shirt. (Since I am beset by color blindness, I will not hazard a description of said shirt.) I had a nice walk this morning, and then sat down in my office to read my Bible and study some. I'm preaching this Friday evening, so I prepare for service each day. This evening, some of our family will come over to congratulate us (she has her birthday next week, on the 28th) on our long lives, and to eat the cake Liesbeth made last night. The latter reason may take precedence. At lunch today, I asked what happens at Dutch birthday parties. As already indicated, your friends/family come over on your birthday (even if you don't ask them too), and they bring a small present with them. They may sing, but they definitely eat snacks. In fact, there's even one Dutch birthday song to the effect, "Happy birthday to you, we're so happy you had a birthday, though really we just wanted to eat your snacks." (Pardon the loose, unpoetic translation.) The lyrics' practicality more than compensate for their limited sentimentality. But there is also the ubiquitous "Happy birthday to you," to which all ears are accustomed, though to fit the polysyllabic "Gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag" to the tune requires a tongue Peter Piper could be proud of!

Three-week anniversary

Yesterday marked our three-week anniversary. Liesbeth made a nice dinner, of chicken cordon bleu, with potatoes and salad. It was quite delicious. For dessert, we had a kind of yogurt they call kwark, with a fruit sauce. (The dictionary's translation of kwark is cream cheese, but it's not really what we think of cream cheese. It has the texture--that is, it's a quasi-liquid--but isn't as sweet as yogurt, hence the fruit sauce. Sometimes, we put a spoonful (or two) of jam into the kwark. Later last evening, Liesbeth's sister Suzanne, from Belgium, stopped by for a visit. Her husband is working in Germany this week, which provided her an opportunity to visit Holland without the guilt of having abandoned her husband. We had a nice time together; we especially enjoyed looking at the pictures of the wedding that Pamela Cupples from Scotland posted on her website (location unknown to me).

Mom and Dad sent a birthday package last week, and it arrived on Tuesday as Liesbeth was leaving for work. I intended to hide it and give Liesbeth the present on the 28th, but I forgot. So when she came home from work, there were the birthday bags on the table, and there was absolutely to bridling her curiosity. I was a bit embarrassed because I wanted to make a surprise of it, but that didn't work. We were very pleased with our presents. I got a large bag of Mom's homemade granola, and Liesbeth got a Willow figurine of man and wife. She really liked it, so much so that it was promptly positioned in the places of decorative honor, first on her china cupboard and then in the living room's front window, where it still stands. One can tell how highly a piece of, say, artwork ranks with her by where she places it. The living room and kitchen are the high regions of the scale, and my office is on the lower end. If it goes in the living room or kitchen, a person has hit a homerun. If it goes in my office, on the other hand, it's a sign she respects my style. It's a pretty useful compromise, because a lot of the things I like, I'm quite happy to have surround me in the office, whether perched above me on my desk or bookshelf, or looking up at me from my desk top.

Friday is market day in Waddinxveen. It's something like a miniature Square Fair, without the music and entertainment. I'm supposed to go down to the market this afternoon to buy apples, tomatoes, and waffles. (The waffles aren't the breakfast variety. They're about the diameter of a teacup with caramel syrup between the two circular waffle-like wafers. They are a great accompaniment to a cup of tea.) Shopping is becoming a good way to practice Dutch. I went out yesterday, to the City Hall to work on our documents, and then to the shops. I wanted some gloves, but I forgot the word. So I asked the clerk if they had clothes for cold hands, explaining that I didn't know the right word. Fortunately, the conversation stayed in Dutch (most everyone knows enough English that an emigre could get on pretty easily without learning Dutch. But I should be careful not to get too distracted, as the market closes in two hours.

I'm also on deck for dinner tonight, since it's a church night. We're having spaghetti, left over from when I cooked on Wednesday night. I'm just going to make some more meat sauce to go with it. She praised Wednesday's entree quite highly, but I know that food is usually better when someone else cooks it (just like the yard always looked best when Ashton mowed it!). She's going to have to get up earlier to fool me!

Now, I'd best be getting off to the market, as I have some waffles and tomatoes to buy!

Several thoughts of varying interest (for lack of a better title)

For our honeymoon, Liesbeth and I visited one of the beautiful state parks in northern Holland, in Drenthe province. (If you refer to a map of the Netherlands, we were near the town Diever, which is situated close to the city of Assen.) We cycled some most every day, and in the evenings we greatly enjoyed the fireplace, as we sat on the couch with Liesbeth's classic hot chocolate! Here's a picture of us taking a break from bicycling. I used the bicycle as a tripod:


We made the transition to "normal" life (whatever that is) after we returned home on Monday. On Tuesday, I finally purchased a bicycle, with which I am quite pleased. Liesbeth returned to work on Wednesday, and I then commenced my study of Dutch. One of the sisters in the church is a teacher of Dutch to foreigners, and she lent me a textbook. Her name in Nienke. After she saw that I could follow a church service, she suggested I try to teach myself beginning Dutch, and for the intermediate level, I could take classes. I think the idea is a good one. A two-week course costs about $1,000, and I did not relish the thought of spending a few days in such a course with folks who had absolutely no knowledge of Dutch at all. Liesbeth is a good language partner; when she comes home from work at noon and in the evening, we talk in Dutch for awhile, and then move to English. And Sis. Nienke is great for grammar questions. Just today, after service, she told me a rule about word order that shed much light on things for me. (In short, the verb always occupies the second position in the sentence in Dutch. So if a sentence begins with an adverb or adverbial phrase, the subject and verb are inverted; for example, Today, had we a good service. ... Just in case anyone was interested....:)

Yesterday, bought Liesbeth and I a bookshelf and desk chair for my office.=) At first, I thought the regular table chair would be sufficient, but after a few days of working at my desk, I knew I needed something better. Last evening, I put the chair and bookshelf together. Bro. Ab arranged for me to get a set of English Message books from VOG, and I enjoyed unpacking those and putting them and the books my parents brought me onto the shelves. Such great joy to have again a shelf of books at one's side! I enjoyed putting the books in order, and remembering when I had read various ones for the first time, and what they meant to me then. Many such books I'd read in high school, and it was special to recollect the memories they created in me.

Liesbeth is working on dinner now, so it's time to bring this post to a conclusion. I have thoroughly enjoyed Liesbeth's cooking. She warned me time and again that she really wasn't a cook at all, but her cooking belies her words. The fragrances are even now wafting through the hallway and into my office, tempting me to depart and sup with my beautiful wife....

Tot ziens!