Fluidinsanity

A few weeks ago I was fed up with it.

I KNEW I needed to move from Holland to some place better.

For years I’ve been thinking about it or mention it to people every time I heard or saw something in the news about Holland that was just too outrageous to bear.

Things that where so much against my nature and the way I was brought up in, I just felt ashamed to be a Dutch person.

As most know to other countries, the Dutch are a bit typical in their way of thinking. Things like gay marriage, euthanasia, legality of softdrugs,

abortion are "not done" in most countries. Also Our freedom of speech is something thats been rooted in our culture in every way possible.

Especially the freedom of speech is part of our core, its formed our characters, our way of thinking and how we view the world, handle situations etc.

People that know Dutch people will have noticed we do not let ourselves be shut up. We say what we feel and we can be kind of harsh in the things we say to others, but we are just as harsh towards ourselves. This attitude comes from the freedom of speech. We grew up with it and it has formed us.

Lately things are happening that go straight against this core of Dutch society.

Just a small fraction of my grievances:

It started of course with the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, killed for his right to freedom of speech. Then Ayaan Hirschi ali had to be shut up, because she stirred the Muslim pot.

Cartoonist "gregorius Nekschot" was lifted from his bed by a squad of policemen because he drew his opinion a bit to loudly, independent news blog "geenstijl.nl" (well known for their criticism on the government) was summoned to come to the police station for questioning, a blogger on web-log.nl (a blog hoster from Holland) was also summoned to the station for questioning. All this was personally initiated by our minister of defence. A politician announced he was making a movie about his views on islam, and his colleagues where apologizing to Muslims worldwide beforehand for a movie that no one had ever even seen. They also conspired to have him arrested for it. The christian democrats (yes we did choose them in the election ourselves) are working to resurrect the law against blasphemy. I can go on and on, but frankly I’m sick of it.

Sick of reading that a child raping cop gets 200 hours of community services while a civilian who chatted to young girls gets 2 years in prison. A judge who was caught collecting child porn gets a sentence but NO time while a civilian gets E150,- fine for running over a frikkin pigeon!

Sick of paying 52% (!!) of income taxes while our politicians sign a presentation register and then cruise the beach but still collect E14.000 a month!

Sick of a government that wants to decide what’s good for me and healthy for me and if I don’t comply makes me out to be a criminal.

A country where there’s been more phone taps in a month then USA does in a year, where there are cameras everywhere and where they are implementing to take DNA from every newborn. Its not exactly 1984, but its the first thing that comes to mind.

So lately Bateman and I have  been looking into moving to Australia. Its nothing definitive yet, but I’m seriously checking stuff out. I’ve read numerous sites about Australian live, about what to do to get a visa, trying to determine what impact it would have on my live, my sons and boyfriends live etc. Just a bit of general orientation.

Its hard finding out stuff though about the general way of aussie thinking. The media is not a very reliable source to find out what the Australian citizen really thinks about the important stuff.

But generally I’ve only found pro's on this idea of moving there. The weather is nice all year round, the houses are big , the people are generally very positive and open minded, there’s plenty of work for us (I’m a Unix admin and Bateman is an ICT service manager) and what I find very important... It would be nice to get out of the crowds here. Holland is so small with so much people in it. Just the idea you could be someplace where you could disappear in the wilds and not be found if you don’t want to is very appealing. That in a few hours drive you would not be driving into another concrete idea of beauty, but to be driving in real nature, nature that’s just been allowed to grow. Trees that don’t follow a straight line like they do here, but have been allowed to grow in whichever direction they want. A place where my cat is not on top of the food chain sounds exciting to my adventure depraved mind.

In this world where my whole future has been laid out, every safety precaution taken and every edge smoothed I can not be happy. I hope Australia is different.

Ive decided to keep a list of books I'm reading. just for fun and maybe to share with others.

Yesterday I started reading Towing yehovah by james morrow
I only read the first chapter and a few paragraphs, but basically it seems to boil down to this:
An oiltanker captain has been asked by the archangel Gabriel to tow god's 2 mile long dead body that fell into the ocean, to the northpole for a proper burial. The vatican, through archangel Michael ,is also involved and they sent a priest physicist along while giving a vague idea of having other self-indulgent plans.

Very very amusing and wonderfully weird, I cant wait to get home and read more!

A few days ago 

nalora

As sometimes happens, I remember I have a lj and wondered what was happening with it.
Nothing much as it seems. I even wonder if people ever stumble upon it.
Probably not, but who cares ;) I see my LJ as a logbook where I can look back upon my live when Im "crazy cat lady", the crazy old woman that feeds all the cats in the neighbourhod :)

Bateman and I have been quite busy the last year, not only did we go and see Prince in london for 2 weekends, but we also saw bjork, peter gabriel, damien rice, bruce springsteen and a bunch of dutch standup comedians (click for pictures we took). We had 2 HUGE garden parties last summer, where the biggest was 50 ppl stuffed into our medium sized city garden and we had a relaxing weekend in luxembourg. anything else was just work and work and work., oh and getting the house in order. so lots of painting and sanding and stuff while trying to avoid the whole zoo of cats we have from walking through wet paint. Still it has been a really good year :)

A few weeks back I bought an e-sigaret, an electronic sigaret which provides the so craved nicotine, but not the 300 other nasty components the tobacco in an ordinairy sigaret contains. I must say Im quite pleased with it. Its a bit of gettung used to it, but once you get over the differnet taste and that craziness in your head telling you its still not a REAL sigaret it gets to be pretty damn good.
Every once in a while Ido smoke a "real sigaret" and cant get over the fact it tastes disgusting! its sour and bitter and your tongue feels like its covered in cobweb. Although thats only for the first few drags and then it gets to be good again heheheh. Im not sure if after 20 years of smoking I could ever REALLY quit. But then I dont really want to quit anyway. I bought the e-sigaret mainly because Im tired of the stench in my house and clothes and ofcourse because I was tired of the lack of breath the chemicals in an ordinairy sigaret gives me. Other than that I love smoking :)

I also finally have my hair in the right color, slaughterhouse red! heheh. I visited the hairdresser a lot of times before he actually understood that I didnt want it to look natural, I just wanted it RED. And it looks awesome! :)

Bateman and I have decided that instead of a weddingring we are going to get tattoos when we get married. So we've been searching for the things that define us and how we feel about each other and how to mold that into a tattoo. We have some ideas, but we aren't quite there yet. When we do, and when we have them, ill post some pictures here. We did decide though that for every year we love each other we are going to get a "tree-ring" around our wrist. Much like a tree grows a ring every year it lives, we want to get a ring for every year we love each other. So within a few weeks we will be going to a tattoo artist to have the first 2 rings tattooed.

So kewl! nalora stared writing her journal again.
Ive SO missed that in the mornings. Just to turn on my pc and have a coffee and a smoke and read her entries.
but she's back!

Below a list of things to do before I die. I made a list like this on paper about 15 years ago, but I los it. So Im trying to recreate it by memory.
Some of it Ive already done :) Those are striped through. Ofcourse there are also some new things on there.
It isnt finished yet though, the original list was named 100 things to do before I die. So it will become bigger over time.
Some stuff on here is just plain impossible, like having a dragon, BUT I still want it on the list. Who knows what will happen ;)

1 To touch an elephant
2 To touch a crocodile
3 To have travelled from north to south africa by any means
4 2 months of austrailia by caravan
5 celebrate summer solstice in iceland
6 see all the stone circles in great brittain
7 Become crazy cat lady when im old
8 To have painted a masterpiece
9 To own and grow a herb garden
10 Visit the moon
11 have stuff pierced
12 skydiving
13 learn how to fly one of those planes without engines
14 Learn how to speak an write danish without sounding like a foreigner
15 Write a fantasy novel
16 a week on a holodeck
17 Write a cookbook
18 To sit on a mountain by myself for 2 weeks in total sollitude
19 invent or find a device to talk to dolphins and find out what they are all about
20 watch bjork making music
21 have sparrows live in my garden
22 Own a farm where there are all these animals: a pig named einstein, a scottish higland cow, lots of chicken,a goat named betty who   follows me around everywhere i go,a dragon and a pond with lots of fish and where pixies live, a reindeer.
23 have kodama live in my trees in the garden
24 To watch a vulcano errupt
25 Learn how to use a sword
26 Set up a restaurant formula for someone
27 Travel the rainforrest
28 visit Japan
29 Grow a flower just by willpower
30 Find my relatives in Lapland
31 talk to my father as a young man
32 Find the love of my live
33 Lie on the beach with someone I love and watch a comet rain
34 Find dinosaur skeletons
35 talk to Lestat de lioncourt
36 Live in Paris
37 See the piramids in Egypt by night  without the view being ruined by 1000 of tourists
38

Just browsing around (I was actually gonna order some food in)I came to nalora 's Livejournal (which I visit every once in a while)
Note on that ->  As much as I enjoy the videologs which she sometimes links to from the err....crap...whats the name....I have an account there...YOU TUBE! yes! anyway, which she links from the you tube site I sorta miss the written postings. When she posted a lot of written stuff  before the videolog kicked in , I user to sit at my screen at work with my first cup of coffee and read through them, sometimes make a comment and it just felt really like my day was starting.

Anyway, I was browsing nalora's livejournal and thought  "what happened to my livejournal?" So I checked it out and it was all sad...All the great Paris pic's turned to big red x's, The cool Userpics where reverted to the stoopid first pic I ever uploaded. 
Reading through our last Paris posts made me remember the good times we had there and the fun we had posting from our hotelroom, or from my mobile phone while cruisin' the city and it made me really sad to see it go to waste. So I payed :) And restored the LJ to its full glory heheheh.

So I payed...looked again and found the last posting to be from September last year (WTF?) Which is kinda silly...cos I just payed....There should be something new on there...I just payed...know what I mean? :P

Lotsa stuff has happened since the last posting :) Beau is going to a maritime school to become a...erm...well from his grumpiness I think a pirat really. Which means he stays at school al weekdays and comes home for weekends and holidays. That really sucked in the beginning. I missed him so much and I felt like a really bad parent. 
Its a tad better now, but I'm still glad when he comes home on friday. (although the puberty grumpiness is kinda hard to take sometimes ;) )

We opened our own website www.koejehuis.com which is really cool! 
If you register (and we approve of your registering heheh) you get to see lots of pics AND download lotsa cool stuff.

I started working as a freelancer for IBM and My work is only 10 minutes away YAY!

And most important..Bateman asked me to marry him!! And who would say No to the most sexy, gorgeous and sweet hunk of a man like that! (sorry bout that zip, algy and the rest, but its just too late. We are taken...lol)

We actaully both said we would never ever get married to anyone...marrage is for nerds...Marriage is just plain stoopid. Every wedding invitations I got I have turned down cos i makes me curl my toes and makes the hair everywhere stand up. BUT...we felt it was right..Bateman is truly the love of my life and I want him to be mine. So I said yes :) Oh for those wondering, He asked me via MSN heheheh

As toe curling as we feel weddings are, we decided we are NOT gonna invite people we really dont want to see anyway. (you know, the relatives you wish you never had, the co-workers which u think stink anyway but you cant tell em cos they are ..like your boss or something) So we just asked the witnesses (which ARE cool people we would want to see every day) If they want to be..well... our witnesses ;)
We want to get married in Paris, since we fell in love there, but the Parisian major is a biggot...you can only get married there if your french.Assholes.
We dont really know what to do  now, but we will think of something (suggestions are welcome)

What else...OH yah! we bought two kittens last xmas and they are tooo cute :) *rumbles around in folder searching for pics....* 


They are brothers and the red one is called Hiro Nakamura, Hiro in short and Richard P Riddick, Riddick in short They are a lot bigger now ofcourse but the pic is just too cute :)
Riddick is HUGE btw, He is 9 months old but already bigger then the fullgrown cats we have. Hiro is still a small one, but not afraid of anything. And he has a thing for straws. I posted a small movie when we just got them on youtube. *fumbles with the menu, trying to figure out how to post youtube movies*  Crap I dunno how to post that...anyone? Heres the link though lol

So thats about it for now...I think its enuff..;)

SALMON WITH WARM POTATO AND DILL SALAD
Serves 4

Prep: 20 mins
Cook: 20 mins

750g waxy potatoes, peeled (I prefer potatoes boiled in their skins and peeling them after)
2 small bunches watercress (I couldnt find any watercress, since we are in the wrong season, so used rucola instead)
4 150g fillets of salmon
1 tbsp olive oil
seasalt and pepper

Dressing:

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar (Instead I used balsamico, but it does make the dressing look kinda funny)
1 tsp mustard (here I used mustard with the seeds still in them)
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 spring onions, finely chopped
2 tbsp finely chopped dill or chives (Fresh dill tastes best, if its not available you can always get it frozen)
1 tbsp small capers, rinsed

METHOD

Cook the potatoes in simmering, salted water until tender but still firm — about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the dressing. Whisk olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, sea salt and pepper in a large bowl until thickened. Add the spring onions, dill and capers. Wash and trim the cress.

In the meantime, heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan, and sear the salmon, skin-side-down, until the skin is crisp. Turn to finish cooking briefly on the other side, leaving the inside pink. Season well.

Drain the potatoes and slice them thickly as soon as you can handle them.

Toss them carefully in the dressing, making sure the slices are well coated, and arrange on four warmed dinner plates. Place the salmon on top, toss the watercress in any remaining dressing and serve (because I used balsamico, the dressing was kinda thick, so it all stuck to the potatoes, so I added a little oliveoil after scooping out the potatoes)

Summer forever!

FluidInsanity

Gary Jules - Mad World


All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places ,Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going no where ,Going no where 

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression,  No expression
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow,  No tomorrow 

And I find it kind of funny ,  find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you,I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world ,Mad world 

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, Happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, Sit and listen 

Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me,No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, Look right through me 

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, Mad world
Enlarging your world, Mad world...

Download it here: Gary Jules - Mad World

Making a post when you are really tired from having too much to eat... Quickie. 

We started off with having coffee at Hotel Regina, a place with special memoires from the last time we where in Paris. Then, we did some shopping again... At the Virgin megastore under Le Louvre. There we satisfied in yet another fetish we have, we bought everything Bjork.

Made a stop at The Notre Dame, and went out to Rue Saint Michel to find a "Steak Roquefort" for Fluidinsanity. We didn't find any, BUT we did find a GREAT GREAT GREAT out of this world posh, art nouveau restaurant... "Bouillon Racine". The food was excellent (best foie gras we had all week, and we had some at least once a day..) so was the wine,the IIlly coffee and the Miles Davis music, all in all our perfect restaurant :)

If you ever visit Paris you HAVE to have diner here at least once!


 When we get home tomorrow we'll post all the pics of the Dali museum,Notre dame and all other stuff, unless we decide  we will never come back ofcourse .....;)

Bateman&FluidInsanity