Slogging and Blogging

Congratulations to Lauren H from PA!

Lauren wins a signed copy of Confessions of a Serial Dater.

I’m giving away another copy at the end of this month, so don’t forget to enter my contest.

Michelle

Is it a plane?

Last Saturday it was such a lovely day here in the Netherlands that Oh Patient One and I decided to get the train to Utrecht and play tourist. On the train there was an odd graphic on the door between our carriage and the next, so, of course, I decided to take a photo of it. Just for fun. Here it is. . .

I’m referring to the little figure with its arms outstretched with a red line through it. Obviously it was telling us not to do something, but what was that something? And might we do it without realizing and get dragged off to The Hague and thrown into prison for ever and ever and ever? Oh noes!

To entertain ourselves on the journey Oh Patient One and I came up with some possibilities.

1. No flying on the train (yes, we’re talking to you, Superman).

2. No emotive holding-out-of-arms while singing on the train. I’m all in favor of that, except if it happens to be Robert Plant doing the singing (sigh, I share that with Emma from 32AA - he really is one of my gods among men).

3. No hugging? I mean, that could represent a person in a pre-hug position. But the Dutch are good at hugging. And kissing. They kiss each other on alternate cheeks three times when greeting or saying goodbye to friends or family members. So it couldn’t be the hugging thing.

4. No karate on the train?

5. No holding out of arms while walking through the door to the next carriage? That kind of made sense, we don’t want people breaking their arms, or something, while walking through a door. But obviously this was a bit worrying - do people really need to be reminded not to do this? Then I thought about the time I was doing research for Confessions of a Serial Dater and discovered that some people need to be reminded not to iron their clothes while wearing them (it’s true!).

So we puzzled, and we puzzled, and we puzzled. Then we puzzled some more. When the train inspector arrived to check our tickets, we asked him, and guess what he told us?

It means no standing on the train.

I broke that rule taking the photo in the first place. Oh, well, I was obviously born to be a rebel!

Edit for clarity: The inspector meant, of course, no standing on the train while it is in motion.

Michelle the Rebel

Rewind back to ten years ago when we first moved to New Jersey.

Oh Patient One and I went to buy me a car. After some research we decided to go for a Saturn. Nice safety features (I’m a safety kind of gal), not too expensive, good mileage per tank of gas, yadda yadda.

So we went to the Pompton Lakes dealership, chose the model I liked, and were told we’d have to wait a week because I wanted a stick shift (not that I am a control freak but I just prefer manual transmission). I could wait a week.

Back we went the following week to collect my shiny new car. The staff were lovely. They gave me flowers. They sang me the Saturn song. They took a photo of Oh Patient One and me with my shiny new car and flowers (alas I cannot find the photo). I loved that car. When I left America I missed that car. I still miss that car (it went to a good home).

Fast forward to the present day. Oh Patient One decided that he needed a new car. He spends a lot more time in it than he used to, on account of having to travel further to work each day, so two weeks ago we went to test-drive a Fiat Grand Punto.

Oh Patient One really liked it, it was comfy, it had a bigger engine, it was a smoother ride, he decided to take the car. Only thing was that he would have to wait for two weeks before all the appropriate paperwork and red tape could be sorted, etc. It was the norm. It seemed like a long time, but if two weeks was the norm then two weeks it would have to be.

Because we are due to pick it up tomorrow, Oh Patient One called the dealership yesterday to make sure all of the red tape had, in fact, been sorted out.

Guess, what? There was a problem. Oh, really? I hear you all ask rhetorically. Who’da thunk?

The rep who Oh Patient One had been dealing with had gone on vacation, and nobody seemed to know anything about us picking up the car on Saturday, but promised to pass on the message to Vacation Rep when he gets back on Monday. Oh Patient One put his foot down and insisted that somebody else help him. He’d been promised the car by Saturday, and taking time out of work during the week was just not an option. Vacation Rep’s co-worker agreed to sort it all out and call Oh Patient One back.

Vacation Rep’s co-worker didn’t call Oh Patient One back yesterday.  Vacation Rep’s co-worker called me this afternoon.

It would seem that the new car was accidentally loaded onto a truck this morning and accidentally shipped to South Holland and there was no way it could be back in Rotterdam before Tuesday next week.

Sigh.

When Oh Patient One got back from work about half an hour later and I broke the news to him, he said he’d called again this morning and Another Rep had told him the car was there, it was being buffed up to a nice, shiny buffyness, but they were having problems locating the paperwork.

So here’s the question. Did the lost paperwork get accidentally shipped to South Holland along with the car?

Friend Cindy Holby thinks that I have a little red “red tape” demon sitting above my head laughing joyously and tangling things up for me. I am not a superstitious woman, but I’m giving that hypothesis some serious consideration.

All I can say is that when Oh Patient One finally gets to pick up his new car, there had better be flowers, songs and photos involved. And champagne.

So on Friday night we went to watch Teenager #2 receive his International Baccalaureate. Oh, me is teh proud mommy!. Teenager #2 studied really hard for his exams, I was thrilled for him when he received his diploma, the ceremony was lovely, it brought a tear to my eye!

Anyway.

Thinking of how hard Teenager #2 had worked, I remembered something really embarrassing that happened to me when I was studying for my A Levels (kind of like the US equivalent of AP exams, and kind of like the International Baccalaureate equivalent. Except not).

For French A level we were required to study several works of literature by French authors, and we were encouraged to read other books by the same authors as background material (we could score more points on our final exams if we could quote phrases and meanings from other works, too).

One of the required books was La bete Humaine (The Human Beast) by Emile Zola. It was a pretty violent tale of murder and passion, and on another level it reflected France’s rush to the future like a locomotive train out of control (and, I seem to remember, about France’s rush toward the Franco Prussian war in 1870).

I really didn’t like this book. Perhaps it was because reading it in French made it slower and harder to understand Zola’s more nuanced phrases, but let me tell you it nearly turned me into a bete humaine, myself. I wanted to fling that book at the wall, repeatedly. So as you can imagine, I wasn’t really looking forward to reading anything else by him.

I put it off, and put it off, and put it off, and finally, I was in the video rental store one day (the dark ages before DVD) and spotted a movie entitled Nana - based on the book by Emile Zola. It was a sign!

Although I knew that movies quite often depart from the original books I thought I’d give it a try to see what Nana was about, then find the CliffNotes and get all the pertinent info I’d need to tie it in with La bete Humaine. Owkey, mebbe that was cheating just a little bit. If I liked the movie I’d get the actual novel, too.

My grandfather lived with us back then, and, because he was always keen to help me with school work (he was a lovely old gent) I invited him to watch it with me. Of course, he accepted. I put the movie on. It featured a young poor woman in Paris, and seemed to be about how she was going to make good on the stage.

Then I went to make a cup of tea for us both before the movie really got going; I told Granddad not to bother pausing the video, I could always rewind if I missed an important bit.

Anyway, five minutes later I come back into the living room and. . .

Teh nekkid peeples. Doing naughty things in teh woodlands!

Yes, I had chosen a porno movie and invited my grandfather to watch it with me.

“Sorry, Granddad, this can’t be Zola’s Nana - I must have made a mistake in the video library,” I gabbled, as I frantically pulled the video out of the machine. I couldn’t even look at my granddad, so red was my face.

“It’s not really our kind of thing, is it?” he asked me in a comforting voice. Then, “How about a nice chocolate digestive biscuit to go with this cup of tea?”

He was so sweet to try to make me feel better!

Anyway, I got over the embarrassment, as you do. But I did buy a copy of the book, and guess what?

*Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, please scroll down.*

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

Nana is about a poor woman from Paris who becomes an actress-slash-high-class prostitute, destroys all the men she gets involved with, then she dies a really nasty, horrible death from smallpox. I didn’t like that book much, either.

PS. All of these years later with a better knowledge of French history I feel I should give Zola another go. Maybe his work improves with age?

“What, more?” I hear you all cry.

Sigh. Of course more. Because I obviously have loads and loads of time to waste, and my life wouldn’t be complete without a mound of ineptitude or bureaucracy to deal with, now, would it?

Over here in the Netherlands, when you move you have to register your new address at your local town hall. It’s the law, and if you don’t do it within a specific period of time then the address police hunt you down and drag you off to prison in The Hague for a gazillion years and you’re never heard from again. No, not really. The police here are very nice and polite, and I have no clue what the authorities do to you if you don’t register at the town hall, but I’m guessing that it would include a strict talking to and a hefty fine (you can get arrested and fined for jay walking over here - it happens more than you’d think).

So, let’s wind back a few weeks to when we signed the lease for the new apartment with the management company. Nice Rep (before she became Ms. Hyde Rep) gave us an official piece of paper with our names on (including Teenager #2’s name) and told us that it was vital that all three of us took this to the town hall with us. Fine. We could do that.

Wind forward to a couple of weeks ago when Oh Patient One took a day off work so that we could go to the town hall en famille and do our legal duty. First, we go to the reception desk, explain our business, and Nice Receptionist checks our ID cards (everyone has to carry one by law), and looks at our paperwork.

“I’m sorry,” she tells us. “You also need to provide a copy of your lease agreement before I can give you an appointment.”

There was bound to be something!

But no problem. The town hall opens until 8pm on Friday evenings, so we duly trot back to see Nice Receptionist on the aforementioned evening, this time with the copy of our lease. We hold our breaths as Nice Receptionist checks our paperwork.

“Fine,” she says, hands us a ticket, and tells us to take a seat with the gazillion other people in the vast hall. Our ticket number will be flashed on the various screens around the hall, along with the appropriate desk we should go to when it was our turn. We wait. And then we wait some more. And then we wait some more.

An hour later it is our turn. Finally! So we find the appropriate desk, present our documentation, and. . .

“I’m sorry,” Nice Admin Person tells us. “This copy of your lease is not signed by your management company. I need to see another copy with signatures before I can change your address.”

Oh Patient One and I collectively hit our heads with the base of our hands. Of course it isn’t signed. The management company hasn’t sent us the signed copy of the lease, as promised, so you know what that means, don’t you? I have to go to see Ms. Hyde Rep and get a copy of the signed lease. Oh joy!

“I’m sorry you waited an hour for no reason,” Nice Admin Person adds as we turn to leave. “I can make you an appointment to come back if you’d like. You wouldn’t have to wait in line next time. Oh, and you don’t all have to come. Let me take a copy of your passports and give you an official document.”

Great. This means that Oh Patient One doesn’t to take even more time off work. We make an appointment for the following Tuesday at 8.30 am (the first appointment of the day).

The following Monday I steel myself and trek to the management company HQ. Oh Patient One suggests that I call first, but after my last experience with Ms. Hyde Rep I am not prepared to be fobbed off and hung up on. I am ready to do battle. As per with the key problem, I am not leaving the building without a signed copy of the lease and. . .

“No problem,” the nice reception person tells me.

I am pleasantly surprised. I’d forgotten how helpful she’d been last time about the key situation. I am even more pleasantly surprised when getting a copy of the signed lease does not involve Ms. Hyde Rep. Whew. Five minutes later I leave with a signed copy of the lease. Success! We’re very nearly legal! Nothing can possibly go wrong, now.

So I go to the town hall the following morning. I arrive at 8.15 bright and early, but by 8.45 there is still no sign of Nice Admin Person at her desk, and I am questioning my euphoria of the day before. Will we ever be legal? Do I have to go back to reception and get a ticket and wait an hour before I can see someone? Will there be Yet Another Problem when I finally get to see someone? I’ve wasted enough time. I decide to take action.

I go to speak to another rep who currently doesn’t have a member of the public with her, explain the problem to her, she apologizes profusely for her colleague’s absence and sorts out the paperwork for me on the spot.

Five minutes later, ta dah! Whew! Yay! Legal again!