mix-up

this is strange. i do not characteristically blog what i'm about to blog in this space; on the other hand, i just put up a rather.... "night-y" entry in jumba day. so things are pretty much screwed up today.

but i've ignored these pages for more than 2 weeks. actually, not. i put in an entry 3 days ago but it stayed for all of 2 hours before i made it private and published it in another (more private and personal) space. still internet, of course, but with very high restrictions on access.

i feel winter more acutely now. it wasn't this cold last month, and compared to last year, this month's (feb) cold beats last year's cold. or maybe i didn't notice because i was just burrowing in the flat last year, being newly-arrived and all that. not used to the latitudes, looking ugly, skin drying up, hair shedding like crazy... the entire gamut.

anyhow, i just came from a book sale and i had fun. not total mental fun because i avoided the literature section completely. instead, i concentrated on the kiddie section and the music/film section. i got some titles of calvin & hobbes (in memory of ronald, may he rest in peace), i myself mine by george harrison (interested mainly in his notes about song creation and chord progression), some musicology genre books (jazz, blues, and celtic), and art "kunst" books that seemed frightfully cheap for a museum-looking book. but i went crazy over the activity books for mikka, the multi-media approach incorporated in them (with hand puppets and stickers and crayons and little pouches and pop ups), plus cheap toys for his little fingers and ever expanding mind. i'm sure he'll love the train set we got him (wooden pieces for the track plus wooden trains too) and the bob the builder kit. totally hawt, man! can't wait til april to give the stuff to mikka. he'll be thrilled!

but what am i babbling about? that was pure recreation. i stayed home from dutch class for the third time this week. i have 6 hours of work to catch up on next week!!!

went to hanau last weekend. i didn't get to see much of the outdoors saturday, when the party of cheH's S took place, hoping to do it on sunday morning before we caught the train back to belgium. but as luck would have it, i twisted my ankle on the giant slide!!! so with my foot aching like hell the following morning, i could only watch mournfully as husband and son donned their winter coats and went traipsing in the snow with U, cheH's husband. it was a riot. i met ruth, anP, cheH, jing, thess, elaine, and justice. we spent more time sitting around cheH's dining room table, yakking off our heads, than on our feet. we were feeling each other out, measuring, weighing... and boy, in our unguarded moments, pigging out on the yummy spread before us!!! maybe that would be the star of the show, or the starS, i might say. check this out: thai salad (piping hot and spicy, the way it should be), barbecue with sate sauce, paksiw na isda with aubergines (ano raw? talong lang yon), embotido, lumpia (both nights!!), lots and lots of wine (red and white) and german pale pilsen beer (only 4.5%, a far cry from our now-normal beer of 8.5%). the scene stealer? thess' killer dessert!!! fit for fancy dining and the works.

this will be cut short. the memory of all those delectable delights is making my tummy churn. signing off to raid the cupboards... end.