Every year or so, when the stains on the shelves become too large or too tacky to ignore, I resign myself to cleaning out our fridge. And every year, I marvel at the seriously impressive amount of condiments we keep in our door. In fact, I am confident that there are few households that consist of two people the majority of the time, that have this many condiments.
Think I'm wrong? Let's take a closer look at the condiments in our fridge: tartar sauce, Newman's lite balsamic vinaigrette, Newman's lite honey mustard dressing, garlic-stuffed olives, bread-and-butter-chips (pickles), light mayonnaise, fat-free thousand island dressing, parmesan grated toppping, tabasco sauce. That was the first door-shelf. Second shelf in the door: ranch dressing, light creamy ceasear dressing, cocktail sauce, Thai green curry paste, creamy style horseradish, ketchup, classic yellow mustard, Gulden's spicy brown mustard, Grey Poupon mustard, and sweet Vidalia onion barbeque sauce. Third shelf: less-sodium soy sauce, sweet relish, red hot sweet chili sauce, A1 steak sauce, sweet midget pickles, garlic-dill cucumber slices, and golden peperoncini.
And you know what? They all get used. All of them, on a regular basis.
At any rate, what I have been wondering about is if this love for condiments is an American thing, or if all of my American friends just happen to love condiments as much as we do, while my Dutch friends just don't care to have a choice between five types of dressing, three types of pickles, and two types of mustard.
When I lived by myself, my fridge door was always depressingly empty. I think I had all of one salad dressing in my fridge, if I was lucky, a bottle of ketchup, and some mustard. When I met husband-dear, however, his fridge door was bulging with not only the above-mentioned bottles and jars, but augmented with more and different types of steak sauce, barbeque sauces, and a true cornucopia of stuffed olives, pickles, and peppers. When our two households merged, we found a happy medium, although out fridge door is still stuffed to the gills with, well, things that we eat, apparently.
So I guess my question is, is this an American thing? Do Americans have a strange obsession with dressings, sauces, and sides that Dutch people just don't care for? Or is this another example of the "if you've got the space, you'll use it" phenomenon which also explains Americans' love for large beds, large chairs, and large couches? Perhaps Americans love to have lots of different foods to choose from, as evidence by the endless cereal/cleaning supplies/juice aisles in the grocery store.
In all honesty, I don't know. So I'm looking to expand my sample, and am going to ask you, my dear readers, to open up your fridges, and take a quick inventory of your condiments. Do you have a lot? A little? Somewhere in between? And are you Dutch or Belgian? Or something else altogether? If you could report your findings back to me, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Miami Vice bathrooms
When we first bought our house, we were convinced it had been built sometime in the 1980s. If it weren't for the property taxes showing otherwise (namely late 2006), we would have never believed otherwise. I mean, had you walked into our house back in the summer of 2008, before husband-dear and I got our contemporary hands on it, you would have seriously remembered what made the 1980s such a failure of a decade. American interior-decorating-wise at least. You see, while the Netherlands was going through an, in my opinion, equally misguided white-gray-minimalist phase, the mid-1980s in the US were characterized by an abundance of flowers, paisley, wallpapers, and lots of curtains. And our house had it all.
First, there were flowered valences on each window. Flowered. Valences. I didn't even know they continued making those things after 1991. But they did, and every single window in our house had some. It was great, if you wanted to feel like you were living inside the Family Ties set, that is. Second, there were the golden knobs on every single kitchen and bathroom cabinet. And not just small, modest little knobs. Oh no, these were quarter-sized, round, shiny golden knobs. These were the cat's pajamas of the golden knobs. They were so hideous, in fact, that husband-dear and I thought we would have to completely redo the kitchen, which with its white cabinets and golden knobs looked like something out a 1986 Florida-based Lifetime movie. That is, until we though to replace the golden uglies with understated brushed nickel knobs, and we were suddenly looking at a brand new kitchen. Oh, and did I mention the wallpaper? I must have, as the kitchen was wallpapered in the most wonderful fruit-patterned motif. Gigantic, larger than life cherries, apples, and oranges adorned every single inch of our poor kitchen, and not only was the wallpaper just incredibly ugly, it also came off in pieces the size of my pinkie nail. Now it didn't happen overnight, but we managed to erase most of the vestiges of the 1980s before we moved into our new house. We spent three days peeling wallpaper, and then painted our kitchen a lovely monsoon-green-summer-white combination. The valences came down and were unceremoniously dumped in the trash, and the golden knobs were donated to Goodwill.
There were two things we didn't touch those first few weeks though: our light fixtures, and the bathrooms. The light fixtures, lovingly nicknamed "the hanging boobies" by our boys were just too expensive to replace, and after struggling with teeny-tiny pieces of wallpaper for over 48 hours, we were just not ready to tackle two bathrooms. So we just told ourselves that we'd get to the light fixtures eventually, and that having golden fixtures and flowered wallpaper in our bathrooms really wasn't that bad.
So, last year, we finally replaced the hanging boobs. The boudoir-look was starting to get old, as was the running commentary from children and visitors alike about our apparent love for tatas. It wasn't cheap, and I'm pretty sure balancing a five-pound glass and bronze metal fixture on top of my head while husband-dear did something important with the wiring took a year off my life, but we now have beautiful, understated, NON-gold lights throughout our house. Hallelujah.
The final thorn was, of course, the bathroom. Now we'd already come the decision that the kids'/guest bathroom wasn't too bad. The wallpaper in there is a light beige, and although the golden fixtures aren't my style, we've managed to make it work using a blue shower curtain, blue decorations, and blue guest towels. The main problem was our bathroom. Somehow the tiny, tiny, bright-colored flowers on the walls combined with the golden fixtures made our bathroom look like the love child of the Golden Girls and Miami Vice, which is, quite honestly, not our style. But our experience with the wallpaper in the kitchen was enough to make us slightly hesitant when it came to redoing our bathroom. Did we really want to spend at least a week dealing with tiny, tiny pieces of wallpaper?
Then came my trip to China. My five-week trip to China. Five weeks in which husband-dear would be home alone. And apparently, that got husband-dear thinking about all the spare time he would suddenly have on his hands. While most of us would ponder lazy Sunday mornings, leaving one's mess all over the house, and hogging the entire bed, he, clearly doesn't think like that. One morning, a few weeks ago, the dear announced that he'd decided to "tackle our bathroom" while I was in China.
"Are you sure?" I asked, uncertain of what I had just heard.
He was sure. So sure, in fact, he wanted to go pick up some sample paints with me that weekend. Not one to pass up on an opportunity to skip out on some really nasty work, I gladly obliged, even though I still found it hard to believe anyone would sacrifice their time to paint the bathroom by themselves. Well, not only was I wrong, I was very wrong. In the weeks since, husband-dear has told me he wants to do "it right", and so we've selected new light fixtures, new faucets, a new counter top, and we will be shopping for tiles this week. My husband, people, is the bees' knees of bathroom-fixer-uppers, and I am beyond excited. We will -finally- be getting ride of our Golden-Miami-Girls-Vice bathroom, and moving on up into the new millennium. And the best part? All I have to do is pick out the stuff.
Can we have a standing ovation for awesome husbands?
First, there were flowered valences on each window. Flowered. Valences. I didn't even know they continued making those things after 1991. But they did, and every single window in our house had some. It was great, if you wanted to feel like you were living inside the Family Ties set, that is. Second, there were the golden knobs on every single kitchen and bathroom cabinet. And not just small, modest little knobs. Oh no, these were quarter-sized, round, shiny golden knobs. These were the cat's pajamas of the golden knobs. They were so hideous, in fact, that husband-dear and I thought we would have to completely redo the kitchen, which with its white cabinets and golden knobs looked like something out a 1986 Florida-based Lifetime movie. That is, until we though to replace the golden uglies with understated brushed nickel knobs, and we were suddenly looking at a brand new kitchen. Oh, and did I mention the wallpaper? I must have, as the kitchen was wallpapered in the most wonderful fruit-patterned motif. Gigantic, larger than life cherries, apples, and oranges adorned every single inch of our poor kitchen, and not only was the wallpaper just incredibly ugly, it also came off in pieces the size of my pinkie nail. Now it didn't happen overnight, but we managed to erase most of the vestiges of the 1980s before we moved into our new house. We spent three days peeling wallpaper, and then painted our kitchen a lovely monsoon-green-summer-white combination. The valences came down and were unceremoniously dumped in the trash, and the golden knobs were donated to Goodwill.
There were two things we didn't touch those first few weeks though: our light fixtures, and the bathrooms. The light fixtures, lovingly nicknamed "the hanging boobies" by our boys were just too expensive to replace, and after struggling with teeny-tiny pieces of wallpaper for over 48 hours, we were just not ready to tackle two bathrooms. So we just told ourselves that we'd get to the light fixtures eventually, and that having golden fixtures and flowered wallpaper in our bathrooms really wasn't that bad.
So, last year, we finally replaced the hanging boobs. The boudoir-look was starting to get old, as was the running commentary from children and visitors alike about our apparent love for tatas. It wasn't cheap, and I'm pretty sure balancing a five-pound glass and bronze metal fixture on top of my head while husband-dear did something important with the wiring took a year off my life, but we now have beautiful, understated, NON-gold lights throughout our house. Hallelujah.
The final thorn was, of course, the bathroom. Now we'd already come the decision that the kids'/guest bathroom wasn't too bad. The wallpaper in there is a light beige, and although the golden fixtures aren't my style, we've managed to make it work using a blue shower curtain, blue decorations, and blue guest towels. The main problem was our bathroom. Somehow the tiny, tiny, bright-colored flowers on the walls combined with the golden fixtures made our bathroom look like the love child of the Golden Girls and Miami Vice, which is, quite honestly, not our style. But our experience with the wallpaper in the kitchen was enough to make us slightly hesitant when it came to redoing our bathroom. Did we really want to spend at least a week dealing with tiny, tiny pieces of wallpaper?
Then came my trip to China. My five-week trip to China. Five weeks in which husband-dear would be home alone. And apparently, that got husband-dear thinking about all the spare time he would suddenly have on his hands. While most of us would ponder lazy Sunday mornings, leaving one's mess all over the house, and hogging the entire bed, he, clearly doesn't think like that. One morning, a few weeks ago, the dear announced that he'd decided to "tackle our bathroom" while I was in China.
"Are you sure?" I asked, uncertain of what I had just heard.
He was sure. So sure, in fact, he wanted to go pick up some sample paints with me that weekend. Not one to pass up on an opportunity to skip out on some really nasty work, I gladly obliged, even though I still found it hard to believe anyone would sacrifice their time to paint the bathroom by themselves. Well, not only was I wrong, I was very wrong. In the weeks since, husband-dear has told me he wants to do "it right", and so we've selected new light fixtures, new faucets, a new counter top, and we will be shopping for tiles this week. My husband, people, is the bees' knees of bathroom-fixer-uppers, and I am beyond excited. We will -finally- be getting ride of our Golden-Miami-Girls-Vice bathroom, and moving on up into the new millennium. And the best part? All I have to do is pick out the stuff.
Can we have a standing ovation for awesome husbands?
Friday, May 25, 2012
Who shi...
...worried
Prepping for a study abroad to China is really like nothing I have ever done before*. Obviously part of that has to do with the fact that I've never been to China, and so really don't know what to expect in terms of, well, everything. Questions like, will we have central air? Do Chinese stores sell feminine products? Will we all have to carry our own toilet paper around? Will people speak English? Will they stare? pop up in my head (preferably in the middle of the night), making me feel like the most ignorant semi-tourist to ever get on a plane. A large part, however, has to do with the fact that China is just nothing like any other country I have ever been to.
For one thing, there is no access to Google products like blogger or wikis, and limited (or none at all, opinions are divided on this one) access to websites like Facebook and Youtube. That means that I've had to actually download all the videos I use as examples (hello semi-legal downloading website!), have my students complete their wiki assignments before we leave (goodbye free time!), and have had to install VPN on my pc, so I might possibly, assuming the Chinese IT gurus don't figure me out, write a blog every now and then, skype with husband-dear, and check my gmail.
Additionally, there's the whole food/language thing. Now I have visited Asia before, but this was when I was a student, and was very much used to eating lots and lots of rice (Go Ramen!), and not understanding the local people was an adventure! And a challenge! And not a potential roadblock standing between me and a lost student. Or, heavens forbid, me and a sick student.
Then, there is the thorny issue of teaching in a country where the concept "freedom" might not have the same meaning it does here in the US. While my Chinese co-workers will insist that China is just as free as the US, recent reports about friends and family-members of dissidents being harassed by local authority figures would prove otherwise. Laws limiting the number of bibles one can take into the country and prohibiting bible study also don't do much for the idea of a "free China". At any rate, the debriefing for the Professors participating in this study abroad included a warning about the fact that China is still a communist country, and therefore discussion about anything political should be avoided.
Now imagine having to teach a course on the history of the Chinese media. Media which, in the past, have been severely restricted by the ruling party, and at some points even completely suppressed. What do you do? Do you adopt the line touted by the books about media coming from mainland China, which call the China after 1949 "new China", and argue that the media were "guided" by experts put in place by the government? Or do you stick to the accounts written by non-mainland Chinese (it starts with a "T" and ends on "aiwan", and let's just say relations have been troubled), which talk about "suppression of media freedom" and "ideological pressure"? How do you decide who's right? And that's just the class on media history, I have yet to develop the chutzpah to think about my class on persuasive communication ("look at all these GREAT examples of Chinese propaganda" is probably not going to fly).
There's simply no telling what's OK and what's not. Based on my discussions with my Chinese co-workers (who argue that Chinese media is definitely free, only in a different way), I can't just put American/Western labels on a situation and leave it at that. But I also don't want to tout a party line when I believe it's wrong.
You know, I could just go and make it all up as I go along. Take my students to a tea house and talk about Confucius. Or, perhaps more up their alley, "Happy Girls" (the Chinese version of American Idol). Forget ideology, suppression, freedom, and make one big cultural experience instead. Hm. Not a bad idea. I'll let you know :)
*For those of you who missed the post, or can't read Dutch, I am going to be taking a dozen of our brightest students to China on a study abroad in a week or two.
Prepping for a study abroad to China is really like nothing I have ever done before*. Obviously part of that has to do with the fact that I've never been to China, and so really don't know what to expect in terms of, well, everything. Questions like, will we have central air? Do Chinese stores sell feminine products? Will we all have to carry our own toilet paper around? Will people speak English? Will they stare? pop up in my head (preferably in the middle of the night), making me feel like the most ignorant semi-tourist to ever get on a plane. A large part, however, has to do with the fact that China is just nothing like any other country I have ever been to.
For one thing, there is no access to Google products like blogger or wikis, and limited (or none at all, opinions are divided on this one) access to websites like Facebook and Youtube. That means that I've had to actually download all the videos I use as examples (hello semi-legal downloading website!), have my students complete their wiki assignments before we leave (goodbye free time!), and have had to install VPN on my pc, so I might possibly, assuming the Chinese IT gurus don't figure me out, write a blog every now and then, skype with husband-dear, and check my gmail.
Additionally, there's the whole food/language thing. Now I have visited Asia before, but this was when I was a student, and was very much used to eating lots and lots of rice (Go Ramen!), and not understanding the local people was an adventure! And a challenge! And not a potential roadblock standing between me and a lost student. Or, heavens forbid, me and a sick student.
Then, there is the thorny issue of teaching in a country where the concept "freedom" might not have the same meaning it does here in the US. While my Chinese co-workers will insist that China is just as free as the US, recent reports about friends and family-members of dissidents being harassed by local authority figures would prove otherwise. Laws limiting the number of bibles one can take into the country and prohibiting bible study also don't do much for the idea of a "free China". At any rate, the debriefing for the Professors participating in this study abroad included a warning about the fact that China is still a communist country, and therefore discussion about anything political should be avoided.
Now imagine having to teach a course on the history of the Chinese media. Media which, in the past, have been severely restricted by the ruling party, and at some points even completely suppressed. What do you do? Do you adopt the line touted by the books about media coming from mainland China, which call the China after 1949 "new China", and argue that the media were "guided" by experts put in place by the government? Or do you stick to the accounts written by non-mainland Chinese (it starts with a "T" and ends on "aiwan", and let's just say relations have been troubled), which talk about "suppression of media freedom" and "ideological pressure"? How do you decide who's right? And that's just the class on media history, I have yet to develop the chutzpah to think about my class on persuasive communication ("look at all these GREAT examples of Chinese propaganda" is probably not going to fly).
There's simply no telling what's OK and what's not. Based on my discussions with my Chinese co-workers (who argue that Chinese media is definitely free, only in a different way), I can't just put American/Western labels on a situation and leave it at that. But I also don't want to tout a party line when I believe it's wrong.
You know, I could just go and make it all up as I go along. Take my students to a tea house and talk about Confucius. Or, perhaps more up their alley, "Happy Girls" (the Chinese version of American Idol). Forget ideology, suppression, freedom, and make one big cultural experience instead. Hm. Not a bad idea. I'll let you know :)
*For those of you who missed the post, or can't read Dutch, I am going to be taking a dozen of our brightest students to China on a study abroad in a week or two.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Once upon a time...
Once upon a time there was a blue-eyed puppy. An adorable little stray, it wandered the streets of Georgia through rain and shine, mud and grass. Then one day, the fluffy-furred puppy was spotted by a local woman driving along the road. The dog-loving woman got out of the car, and took the dog to the local shelter in the hopes that its owners would come get it. After all, who would leave such a beautiful dog out in the wild?
But in the week after the dog had been picked up by animal control, no one came for the puppy. Instead, it sat in a crate at the local shelter, wondering what had happened to it. The woman would call every few days to see if the dog had been claimed yet, but no one did. Then the ladies at the shelter told the woman something that made her heart stop: They were full and had been euthanizing animals all week. Although she couldn't say for sure, chances were likely the little blue-eyed puppy would be one of them soon.
I think you all know how this fairytale continues. The dog-loving woman, a.k.a me, somehow decided that because she had picked up the dog, she would be responsible if it got put down. So it seemed only logical that she, or I, was now in charge of saving the poor stray. I called every humane society in the area, begged and pleaded with friends, and finally realized that the only way I could rescue this dog from a definitely unhappy ending would be to take it home myself and adopt it out.
Now for those of you who are not quite aware of my domestic situation, please know that this decision was one possibly bordering on insane. Not only do we have two rescues already, we have two teenage boys, we each have a full-time job, and I'm a few weeks away from going on a five-week long study abroad program to China. Was the decision smart, logical, and sensible? No. Did I do it anyway? Of course.
On Friday, the day before they were allegedly going to put the dog down, I drove down to the local shelter, paid $20, decided on the spot to name the pooch "Wednesday" (after the day of the week I found her), and took the blue-eyed dog home with me. I would love to tell you that our dogs loved Wednesday, and husband-dear's skepticism melted like snow when he saw Wednesday, but I can't. Our dogs, although not mean or hateful, were definitely less than thrilled, and Wednesday's incessant need for petting, and continuous panting drove husband-dear up the wall (and me too, but don't tell him I said that).
On Saturday, Dixiechick started on her semi-well thought out "adopt-a-dog" scheme. It started with a mandatory trip to the vet. The good news was that Wednesday is actually a full-bred Australian Shepherd. There. Take that previous owners! The bad news was that Wednesday tested positive for heart worms. For all my European friends out there: heart worms are bad. They're little parasites transferred to dogs through mosquito bites, that will, if not treated on time, literally "worm" their way into a dog's heart, and through enthusiastic reproduction, eventually kill it. Fortunately, Wednesday had not gotten that bad yet, although it did explain the panting. And luckily my vet, who is the coolest vet on the planet, gave me the first months' worth of medicine for free, and agreed to provide the rest at cost. I almost cried. Actually, I definitely cried. And I may have hugged the poor guy.
The second stop in my "adopt-a-dog" plan was PetSmart. Saturdays at PetSmart, at least here in Georgia, are adoption days. Days when all the local humane societies descend on the pet store with all of their adoptable dogs and cats, in the hopes that someone will take some of the abandoned animals off their hands. This step did not go well either. None of the humane societies were able to help me. None. One couldn't help because Wednesday was heart worm positive ("we don't adopt out sick dogs, even if your vet has agreed to work with the adopting family"). The other four were full, and had waiting lists. Yes, people. Humane societies have waiting lists. Apparently, people in this neck of the woods are so desperate to get rid of their animals, they will happily sign up for a spot on the waitlist. I got the names and numbers of several other humane societies who may be able to help, but no one was very hopeful.
With my heart somewhere in my shoes, I walked out of the store, not sure what to do next, when someone said, "Hey! Look at that pretty dog!"
I looked around, and realized that the person who was now petting Wednesday was actually a friend from church.
"Is this your dog?" She asked.
"Sort of." I explained Wednesday's life story so far, and my friend responded almost dreamily, "I've always wanted an Australian shepherd."
"You do?" Suddenly, life looked promising.
To make a long story short, later that night, Wednesday was picked up by her owners, who were tickled pink to have such a pretty and sweet dog as theirs. Pictures posted on Facebook show Wednesday as happy and beautiful as I have ever seen her.
In this case, the fairy tale has a happy ending.
In many cases, for many dogs and cats, it doesn't.
Our local shelter picks up close to 5000 animals per year. There are three shelters like it in our county. Only about a tenth of those get adopted. That means that thousands of animals are euthanized each year. Animals whose only mistake, in most cases, was ending up with the wrong people.
So I have a request for you. Actually three.
First, think before you get a pet. Dogs can live to be fifteen years old, and little puppies grow up. That six pound cutie you're holding at the pet store or at the local shelter will grow up, and might turn into an 80-pound canine who will live to a ripe old age of 16. It may tear up your curtains, your bedspread, or even your favorite shoes. It's a huge commitment. So consider that.
Second, whenever you don't know what to ask for your birthday, or mother's day, or Christmas, or your bar mitzah, or whatever holiday comes your way, think about your shelter. Many of them get limited to no government funding, and they really need your help. You can donate money, time, old towels and sheets.
And finally, don't abandon your dog just because it doesn't suit your life anymore. The dog deserves better than that. Dogs may not be humans, but they have feelings too.
But in the week after the dog had been picked up by animal control, no one came for the puppy. Instead, it sat in a crate at the local shelter, wondering what had happened to it. The woman would call every few days to see if the dog had been claimed yet, but no one did. Then the ladies at the shelter told the woman something that made her heart stop: They were full and had been euthanizing animals all week. Although she couldn't say for sure, chances were likely the little blue-eyed puppy would be one of them soon.
I think you all know how this fairytale continues. The dog-loving woman, a.k.a me, somehow decided that because she had picked up the dog, she would be responsible if it got put down. So it seemed only logical that she, or I, was now in charge of saving the poor stray. I called every humane society in the area, begged and pleaded with friends, and finally realized that the only way I could rescue this dog from a definitely unhappy ending would be to take it home myself and adopt it out.
Now for those of you who are not quite aware of my domestic situation, please know that this decision was one possibly bordering on insane. Not only do we have two rescues already, we have two teenage boys, we each have a full-time job, and I'm a few weeks away from going on a five-week long study abroad program to China. Was the decision smart, logical, and sensible? No. Did I do it anyway? Of course.
On Friday, the day before they were allegedly going to put the dog down, I drove down to the local shelter, paid $20, decided on the spot to name the pooch "Wednesday" (after the day of the week I found her), and took the blue-eyed dog home with me. I would love to tell you that our dogs loved Wednesday, and husband-dear's skepticism melted like snow when he saw Wednesday, but I can't. Our dogs, although not mean or hateful, were definitely less than thrilled, and Wednesday's incessant need for petting, and continuous panting drove husband-dear up the wall (and me too, but don't tell him I said that).
On Saturday, Dixiechick started on her semi-well thought out "adopt-a-dog" scheme. It started with a mandatory trip to the vet. The good news was that Wednesday is actually a full-bred Australian Shepherd. There. Take that previous owners! The bad news was that Wednesday tested positive for heart worms. For all my European friends out there: heart worms are bad. They're little parasites transferred to dogs through mosquito bites, that will, if not treated on time, literally "worm" their way into a dog's heart, and through enthusiastic reproduction, eventually kill it. Fortunately, Wednesday had not gotten that bad yet, although it did explain the panting. And luckily my vet, who is the coolest vet on the planet, gave me the first months' worth of medicine for free, and agreed to provide the rest at cost. I almost cried. Actually, I definitely cried. And I may have hugged the poor guy.
The second stop in my "adopt-a-dog" plan was PetSmart. Saturdays at PetSmart, at least here in Georgia, are adoption days. Days when all the local humane societies descend on the pet store with all of their adoptable dogs and cats, in the hopes that someone will take some of the abandoned animals off their hands. This step did not go well either. None of the humane societies were able to help me. None. One couldn't help because Wednesday was heart worm positive ("we don't adopt out sick dogs, even if your vet has agreed to work with the adopting family"). The other four were full, and had waiting lists. Yes, people. Humane societies have waiting lists. Apparently, people in this neck of the woods are so desperate to get rid of their animals, they will happily sign up for a spot on the waitlist. I got the names and numbers of several other humane societies who may be able to help, but no one was very hopeful.
With my heart somewhere in my shoes, I walked out of the store, not sure what to do next, when someone said, "Hey! Look at that pretty dog!"
I looked around, and realized that the person who was now petting Wednesday was actually a friend from church.
"Is this your dog?" She asked.
"Sort of." I explained Wednesday's life story so far, and my friend responded almost dreamily, "I've always wanted an Australian shepherd."
"You do?" Suddenly, life looked promising.
To make a long story short, later that night, Wednesday was picked up by her owners, who were tickled pink to have such a pretty and sweet dog as theirs. Pictures posted on Facebook show Wednesday as happy and beautiful as I have ever seen her.
In this case, the fairy tale has a happy ending.
In many cases, for many dogs and cats, it doesn't.
Our local shelter picks up close to 5000 animals per year. There are three shelters like it in our county. Only about a tenth of those get adopted. That means that thousands of animals are euthanized each year. Animals whose only mistake, in most cases, was ending up with the wrong people.
So I have a request for you. Actually three.
First, think before you get a pet. Dogs can live to be fifteen years old, and little puppies grow up. That six pound cutie you're holding at the pet store or at the local shelter will grow up, and might turn into an 80-pound canine who will live to a ripe old age of 16. It may tear up your curtains, your bedspread, or even your favorite shoes. It's a huge commitment. So consider that.
Second, whenever you don't know what to ask for your birthday, or mother's day, or Christmas, or your bar mitzah, or whatever holiday comes your way, think about your shelter. Many of them get limited to no government funding, and they really need your help. You can donate money, time, old towels and sheets.
And finally, don't abandon your dog just because it doesn't suit your life anymore. The dog deserves better than that. Dogs may not be humans, but they have feelings too.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Allalalalergic
Whenever husband-dear, several of my dearest friends, or any other random American used to complain about their allergies, I would always wonder what in the world they were talking about. Allergies? So what were they allergic to exactly? And why did it only come up every once in a while? Secretly, I used to always think this "allergy" thing was seriously
exaggerated. After all, they never specified what exactly they were
"allergic" to, but would always sniffle something about "the pollen",
the same pollen that I and all other non-sniffing, sneeze-free people
around them were exposed to. The same pollen that was in the air year-round, but apparently only affected them at set times. Who had ever heard of that?
Honestly, I used to think that Americans just had a very strange obsession with this vague "allergy" label they were always bandying about. Just like Dutch people simply MUST talk about the weather, American have to talk about their allergies, that's what I figured. Seriously, you can walk into any room in Georgia in the spring, throw the word "allergies" out there, and you will have a conversation that can last for hours.
Seeing the numerous ads for pills like Allegra-D. Aleve-D, and Zyrtec, which can be best compared to anti-histamines on speed (but not literally) made me wonder if perhaps this "allergy" label was yet another medical condition exploited by the pharmaceutical industry. A condition that does exist, for a handful of people, but that is advertised so aggressively that anyone with a minor itch in their left nostril is now convinced they are allergic. The fact that all these medications are available over the counter, without any interference from a physician only further underlined my conviction.
Until this year. Yes, people, as of this year, I too have started hunting through our bathroom drawers for some Aleve-D, have had random sneeze attacks that seem endless, and have used the previously much-despised word "allergies."
At first I was in denial, of course. When, a few weeks before my half ironman, my sinuses were suddenly completely blocked, I could not stop sneezing, and produced more snot than I thought was humanly possible, I told husband-dear I had a simple cold. A cold that was the result of over-training and under-sleeping. The fact that the "cold" coincided with all trees blossoming was just that, a coincidence.
Then, just a few days ago, I started sneezing and looking completely droopy-eyed again. This time, there is no over-training or under-sleeping to blame, and so I wondered what was going on. Until one of my students, a notorious "allergy" sufferer could not stop sneezing during our study abroad orientation, and told me her allergies had been acting up again, and a co-worker, who is also known for having really bad allergies, showed up to work teary-eyed and stuffy as well. This specific co-worker happens to be some sort of biological chemist or physical biologist or chemical physicist or something, and he told me that the large spiky pollen typical to Georgia (apparently, he put some under an electron microscope once) had come back just this week, which explained his allergies.
And so I put two and two together. A "cold" during our famous cherry blossom season. Teary eyes and sneezing when the infamous pollen have made a come-back. I think, and I hate to say this, but I think I have "allergies" too.
Fortunately, there is good news. Apparently, Georgia pollen is extremely nasty (and large and round, and spiky), which explains why most everyone who lives here long enough eventually breaks down and becomes overly sensitive to the little buggers. So it's not hay fever, or a chronic sinus infection, but it is something that will go away once we move away from Georgia. So now all we gotta do is figure out when that is.
Honestly, I used to think that Americans just had a very strange obsession with this vague "allergy" label they were always bandying about. Just like Dutch people simply MUST talk about the weather, American have to talk about their allergies, that's what I figured. Seriously, you can walk into any room in Georgia in the spring, throw the word "allergies" out there, and you will have a conversation that can last for hours.
Seeing the numerous ads for pills like Allegra-D. Aleve-D, and Zyrtec, which can be best compared to anti-histamines on speed (but not literally) made me wonder if perhaps this "allergy" label was yet another medical condition exploited by the pharmaceutical industry. A condition that does exist, for a handful of people, but that is advertised so aggressively that anyone with a minor itch in their left nostril is now convinced they are allergic. The fact that all these medications are available over the counter, without any interference from a physician only further underlined my conviction.
Until this year. Yes, people, as of this year, I too have started hunting through our bathroom drawers for some Aleve-D, have had random sneeze attacks that seem endless, and have used the previously much-despised word "allergies."
At first I was in denial, of course. When, a few weeks before my half ironman, my sinuses were suddenly completely blocked, I could not stop sneezing, and produced more snot than I thought was humanly possible, I told husband-dear I had a simple cold. A cold that was the result of over-training and under-sleeping. The fact that the "cold" coincided with all trees blossoming was just that, a coincidence.
Then, just a few days ago, I started sneezing and looking completely droopy-eyed again. This time, there is no over-training or under-sleeping to blame, and so I wondered what was going on. Until one of my students, a notorious "allergy" sufferer could not stop sneezing during our study abroad orientation, and told me her allergies had been acting up again, and a co-worker, who is also known for having really bad allergies, showed up to work teary-eyed and stuffy as well. This specific co-worker happens to be some sort of biological chemist or physical biologist or chemical physicist or something, and he told me that the large spiky pollen typical to Georgia (apparently, he put some under an electron microscope once) had come back just this week, which explained his allergies.
And so I put two and two together. A "cold" during our famous cherry blossom season. Teary eyes and sneezing when the infamous pollen have made a come-back. I think, and I hate to say this, but I think I have "allergies" too.
Fortunately, there is good news. Apparently, Georgia pollen is extremely nasty (and large and round, and spiky), which explains why most everyone who lives here long enough eventually breaks down and becomes overly sensitive to the little buggers. So it's not hay fever, or a chronic sinus infection, but it is something that will go away once we move away from Georgia. So now all we gotta do is figure out when that is.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Wo shi a lucky bug
Er zijn heel veel dingen beter aan Nederlandse universiteiten dan in het Amerikaanse hoger onderwijs. Zo denk ik bijvoorbeeld aan betaald verlof. Of het concept "vast contract". Of het volledige gebrek aan zoiets onhandigs als "advisement and registration". Maar als er een ding is dat Amerikaanse universiteiten veel beter kunnen dan hun Nederlandse zusjes, dan is het wel het internationaliseren van de opleiding. Waar men in Nederland dit probeert te realiseren door oerhollandse docenten te dwingen in steenkolen Engels college te geven, of door het jaarlijkse studiereisje van de studievereniging te sponsoren, vertrekken in Amerika gewoon hele vakgroepen met hun programmas voor een zomer naar het buitenland. Wil een student die zomer vakken volgen, dan zal hij of zij dat dus in Costa Rica moeten doen. Of Nigeria. Of Rusland. Of Engeland. Of, zoals in ons geval dit jaar, China.
Jawel, China.
Het heeft wat voeten in aarde gehad, maar deze zomer vertrekt mijn hele afdeling naar China om daar summer school te houden. Dat is even wat anders dan online lesgeven. Of in een gekoeld, donker college les te staan geven aan een groep studenten die net als jij liever bij het zwembad ligt. In plaats daarvan vertrekken drie docenten, waaronder ikzelf, samen met twaalf studenten over niet al te lange tijd, via Detroit, Tokyo, en Bejing naar onze bestemming in Zuid-China. Tussen de excursies en "cultural experiences" door zullen er colleges over Persuasieve communicatie (in China!), Journalistiek in de hedendaagse samenleving (de Chinese!), Het medialandschap (in China!) gegeven worden, en zullen de studenten hopelijk geleerd en cultureel verlicht terug komen.
Natuurlijk is zo'n reisje naar China uberhaupt enorm spannend (wat neem ik mee? wat doe ik aan? en hoe zit dat met internet? geld?), maar als een van drie "echte" volwassenen met de verantwoording over twaalf studenten waarvan het merendeel speciaal voor deze reis een paspoort moest aanvragen, is het vele malen spannender. Want China is geen Amerika, en hoe eerder ze zich dat realiseren, hoe beter.
En daarom hebben we deze week een weeklange orientatie. Van negen tot vier zitten de twaalf studenten en hun docenten in een gekoelde, donkere collegezaal te luisteren naar colleges over de Chinese cultuur, geschiedenis, de do's and don'ts van reizen naar het buitenland (neem genoeg geld mee! zet de roaming van je smartphone uit! draag geen kleding met grote Amerikaanse vlaggen erop! Roep niet bij alles dat het raar/vreemd/stom is!). En leren we Chinees. Elke middag komt er een allerschattigste Chinese vrouw langs om ons de beginselen van de Chinese taal bij te brengen. En mensenkinderen, wat is dat lastig. Er zijn tonen, karakters, en ontzettend veel "z", "sh" ,"ts", en "tch" klanken, en een simpele "slow down" wordt vertaald naar ni ge yi shuo man yi dian ma. Ik verwacht niet dat ook maar een van ons verder gaat komen dan "wo shi kele" (ik wil een cola) in China, maar het beginnetje is er.
En nu, duibuqi, we gaan weer beginnen.
Zaijian!
Jawel, China.
Het heeft wat voeten in aarde gehad, maar deze zomer vertrekt mijn hele afdeling naar China om daar summer school te houden. Dat is even wat anders dan online lesgeven. Of in een gekoeld, donker college les te staan geven aan een groep studenten die net als jij liever bij het zwembad ligt. In plaats daarvan vertrekken drie docenten, waaronder ikzelf, samen met twaalf studenten over niet al te lange tijd, via Detroit, Tokyo, en Bejing naar onze bestemming in Zuid-China. Tussen de excursies en "cultural experiences" door zullen er colleges over Persuasieve communicatie (in China!), Journalistiek in de hedendaagse samenleving (de Chinese!), Het medialandschap (in China!) gegeven worden, en zullen de studenten hopelijk geleerd en cultureel verlicht terug komen.
Natuurlijk is zo'n reisje naar China uberhaupt enorm spannend (wat neem ik mee? wat doe ik aan? en hoe zit dat met internet? geld?), maar als een van drie "echte" volwassenen met de verantwoording over twaalf studenten waarvan het merendeel speciaal voor deze reis een paspoort moest aanvragen, is het vele malen spannender. Want China is geen Amerika, en hoe eerder ze zich dat realiseren, hoe beter.
En daarom hebben we deze week een weeklange orientatie. Van negen tot vier zitten de twaalf studenten en hun docenten in een gekoelde, donkere collegezaal te luisteren naar colleges over de Chinese cultuur, geschiedenis, de do's and don'ts van reizen naar het buitenland (neem genoeg geld mee! zet de roaming van je smartphone uit! draag geen kleding met grote Amerikaanse vlaggen erop! Roep niet bij alles dat het raar/vreemd/stom is!). En leren we Chinees. Elke middag komt er een allerschattigste Chinese vrouw langs om ons de beginselen van de Chinese taal bij te brengen. En mensenkinderen, wat is dat lastig. Er zijn tonen, karakters, en ontzettend veel "z", "sh" ,"ts", en "tch" klanken, en een simpele "slow down" wordt vertaald naar ni ge yi shuo man yi dian ma. Ik verwacht niet dat ook maar een van ons verder gaat komen dan "wo shi kele" (ik wil een cola) in China, maar het beginnetje is er.
En nu, duibuqi, we gaan weer beginnen.
Zaijian!
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
A blue-eyed puppy
I don't know about your house, but at ours, any one of Animal Planet's "Animal Cops" series are a guaranteed hit. The boys, myself, and if he's really honest, husband-dear as well, are all suckers for sad, lost, abandoned, or just really cute animals.
Here in Georgia we, unfortunately, get our fill of sad, abandoned, lost, and abused animals. Maybe I'm just the Caroline Channing of animal-lovers, but I just cannot get used to seeing dogs chained up in 90F heat under a tree the size of a hatstand, strays covered in mud wandering out in the road, and the crates and crates of puppies waiting for a new home on PetSmart's Adoption Days. Which, if you live in middle Georgia, are held every Saturday.
This is of course, no bueno for my dog-loving-heart. In fact, if it were up to me, I would have been known as the crazy dog lady years ago, as I would have easily adopted every single dog that gets left behind on the weekly Adoption Day. Fortunately, husband-dear's heart is made of sturdier stuff, which leads him to saying common-sensical things like "Honey, we already have two adoptees at home", and "Where would you put the third crate?", and of course, "How would we pay to move them when we do?". So far, he's always won, and so I've instead been donating bags and bags of dog food, paper bags, old towels and sheets, and lamented the fact that we don't live on a farm with ten acres of land for all the needy puppies.
So this morning, when I spotted a very wet and muddy yellow dog wandering around by the side of the road, looking sad and definitely very lost, my doggie-adoring heart leaped, and without considering the possibility of other cars, cyclists, or runners on the road (because, well, who does around here), pulled over on to the shoulder. The dog didn't quite know what to make of the "Here puppy! Come here! Come here, sweetie!" , and keeping his bright blue eyes fixed on me, meandered from yard to yard, narrowly missed by two inattentive drivers, and finally turned into a driveway filled with trucks and vans. Relieved that the dog had apparently found his home, I bounded up the driveway, only to be confronted with the lady of the house and a crew of painters asking me if the dog that has just laid down next to one of the cars was mine. Well, no, and so much for a happy ending. But at least we were in the south, which meant that the woman not only brought out a phone book, but looked up the number of the shelter for me, and then brought the pup some water and kibble.
Four phone calls later, the county animal control was on the way, and the blue eyed puppy was seriously starting to warm up to me, and well, I to her. Or him. I'm not sure. She rolled on her back, pushed her nose up against me, and watched me like a hawk. Whenever I would get up to see if animal control was pulling up, she would follow. If I would sit down, so would she. And when animal control finally did turn into the driveway, little miss puppy stuck by my side.
As the pup turned out to be un-chipped (and collar-less), the animal control officers had no choice but to take her with them. The kicker? The three (three!) county shelters are so full of lost dogs, they have no choice but to euthanize those dogs that are not picked up by their owners or set aside for adoption. Oh, and how long before this decision is made? Four business days. Four! Let me tell you, I felt just great as I sat on the tailgate of the truck so the little stray would follow me, jump up on the tailgate, and could be guided into the crate in the back without the use of a net and a rope. Oh yeah, what a confidence booster that was.
Once I got home, I immediately texted my mother-in-law with a picture of the dog, to see if she would take her in. But as they are moving, that was a no go. I called some of the non-profit shelters in the area, as well as our vet, and our kennel, but no one has heard about a lost husky-mix, has room, or knows of any one who wants to adopt a dog either. It's just heart breaking.
Friends on Facebook have already begun waging bets on whether or not husband-dear and I will be buying a third crate, dog bed, and dog bowl on Sunday night. The odds are looking pretty good right now, in case one of you all want to jump in.
Here in Georgia we, unfortunately, get our fill of sad, abandoned, lost, and abused animals. Maybe I'm just the Caroline Channing of animal-lovers, but I just cannot get used to seeing dogs chained up in 90F heat under a tree the size of a hatstand, strays covered in mud wandering out in the road, and the crates and crates of puppies waiting for a new home on PetSmart's Adoption Days. Which, if you live in middle Georgia, are held every Saturday.
This is of course, no bueno for my dog-loving-heart. In fact, if it were up to me, I would have been known as the crazy dog lady years ago, as I would have easily adopted every single dog that gets left behind on the weekly Adoption Day. Fortunately, husband-dear's heart is made of sturdier stuff, which leads him to saying common-sensical things like "Honey, we already have two adoptees at home", and "Where would you put the third crate?", and of course, "How would we pay to move them when we do?". So far, he's always won, and so I've instead been donating bags and bags of dog food, paper bags, old towels and sheets, and lamented the fact that we don't live on a farm with ten acres of land for all the needy puppies.
So this morning, when I spotted a very wet and muddy yellow dog wandering around by the side of the road, looking sad and definitely very lost, my doggie-adoring heart leaped, and without considering the possibility of other cars, cyclists, or runners on the road (because, well, who does around here), pulled over on to the shoulder. The dog didn't quite know what to make of the "Here puppy! Come here! Come here, sweetie!" , and keeping his bright blue eyes fixed on me, meandered from yard to yard, narrowly missed by two inattentive drivers, and finally turned into a driveway filled with trucks and vans. Relieved that the dog had apparently found his home, I bounded up the driveway, only to be confronted with the lady of the house and a crew of painters asking me if the dog that has just laid down next to one of the cars was mine. Well, no, and so much for a happy ending. But at least we were in the south, which meant that the woman not only brought out a phone book, but looked up the number of the shelter for me, and then brought the pup some water and kibble.
Four phone calls later, the county animal control was on the way, and the blue eyed puppy was seriously starting to warm up to me, and well, I to her. Or him. I'm not sure. She rolled on her back, pushed her nose up against me, and watched me like a hawk. Whenever I would get up to see if animal control was pulling up, she would follow. If I would sit down, so would she. And when animal control finally did turn into the driveway, little miss puppy stuck by my side.
As the pup turned out to be un-chipped (and collar-less), the animal control officers had no choice but to take her with them. The kicker? The three (three!) county shelters are so full of lost dogs, they have no choice but to euthanize those dogs that are not picked up by their owners or set aside for adoption. Oh, and how long before this decision is made? Four business days. Four! Let me tell you, I felt just great as I sat on the tailgate of the truck so the little stray would follow me, jump up on the tailgate, and could be guided into the crate in the back without the use of a net and a rope. Oh yeah, what a confidence booster that was.
Once I got home, I immediately texted my mother-in-law with a picture of the dog, to see if she would take her in. But as they are moving, that was a no go. I called some of the non-profit shelters in the area, as well as our vet, and our kennel, but no one has heard about a lost husky-mix, has room, or knows of any one who wants to adopt a dog either. It's just heart breaking.
Friends on Facebook have already begun waging bets on whether or not husband-dear and I will be buying a third crate, dog bed, and dog bowl on Sunday night. The odds are looking pretty good right now, in case one of you all want to jump in.
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