4.29.2008

Albert est arrivee


And he brought the two lightboxes from the lab. Since these will form a major part of my presentation this weekend, I am very happy that they are here. I plugged them in and they work. They look good too.

Albert is our hero.

Juan Sanchez Cotan - "Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber "

Quince, Cabbage, Melon, Cucumber

It's a long story

So, Mary was going to get the Aardbei milkshake. That actually sounded quite good to me, and I think I'll have to get one before I leave here. I resolved to get the Hazelnoot, because I figured it was a good day for it, what with the rain and the sun and the trip into town and the TV and well, the emotional turmoil underneath it all.

Long story short, they were out of milk (?) and couldn't make a milk shake. Don't ask me. I know it's a dairy. I have seen the cows. They even make their own ice cream. Still, now that I think if it, it was the son that told us last time they were out of milk. Does he not want to make them? Seems strange because they get 3 times as much for a milkshake...
Mary got the Hazelnoot and so I got the Aardbei. It was good. Maybe next time though I'll have to order first.

Oh, right, TV Drenthe

Buy the time I got back I had completely forgotten about the fellow from TV Drenthe. It's good he was still here because otherwise I would have missed my chance to be famous on Dutch Television. He turned out to be really nice and sincere, and everybody had the same good feelings for him. He was here for 2-3 hours and talked to each of us. It was as if he actually was interested in what we were doing here, which given the previous intermittent attention we've gotten was sort of a surprise. He asked me to set up and shoot something, which I did. We tried to get him to stay and drink with us, but he had to get back to Assen, which is some number of kilometers away. The spot will run on Thursday, he said, and will be approximately 4 minutes long. It's very exciting.


After that we celebrated with a bottle of Prosecco that I got at Aldi for 3Eu: a dry white Italian wine that, having bubbles in it, is fizzy. It's perfect for an afternoon that is sunny, was sunny, or you wish had been sunny.

TV Drenthe

The fellow from TV Drenthe came today.

It rained all morning. In fact it has been raining since Sunday and I don't think I have really left the house (Ok there was the mini-museum but other than that) for days. The light is bad for shooting, and I have been a bit despondent with most of the photos I shot and got back on Saturday because the lighting was uninspiring so the last thing I could do was shoot more film in the face of defeat.

The sun came out after one and I rallied enough to go to Meppel. I did several things I enjoy doing. I went to the Thrift Store briefly. I debated getting the Delftware stein that said "Heineken"on it because it was (still) 5 Euro. I like to drink black tea in a large ceramic vessel because I don't have the patience to fiddle with the stuff every 4 ounces or so, which I have to do here because the cups are small (at home I toss a teabag into a stein). I resolved a while back to get a large mug the next time I went to the store, and I keep balking at the 5 Eu price tag. Today they had a stein that was very dirty (50 E cents) and another stein that, while clean, had a Russian cartoon on it that didn't translate as funny, but it was only 1 Eu. I got 5 shot glasses with little stars on them.

Next I went to return the power converter Jason and I got when we first got here for use with the wireless router. Since the power supply I bought at the Thrift Store that same day for 1EU worked fine, I have been meaning to get back to that store under the 2 week limit and return the item, saving 12Eu, which I planned to use to buy a bottle of Havana Club Rum, which, being Cuban, you can't get in the States, and which, the last time I encountered was in San Francisco in 2000 on a big road trip. The rum happened to be in my friend's possession, and I happened to fall in love with it, and we happened to put the bottle to rest during my stay and I have always meant to replace the bottle, because it was A) good and B) mostly my fault that it didn't survive my visit. I went to a liquor store who only had the white, and who tried to sell me 6 different fabulous Rums, but since I wasn't in the mood I bailed when another customer made their selection. I went to another liquor store that did have the HC (all three: the White, the Anejo and the Especial. It's the medium priced one you want). I decided that because he lives in London he can probably get it all the time so I decide to check with him in case he preferred something different (like that lovely 15yo Methusela Rhum the other guy tried to sell me).

I agonized for a while over the bottle of Bols Jong Genever that comes in a Delft-ware gin bottle complete with a handle, a cork and a picture of a Windmill on it. I don't think I am much of a Genever man (I did get a bottle of Alt when I was going through Amsterdam on my way back from studying for the summer in Paris and fell in love with the two girls at the pizza parlor, but I don't remember liking it much) and the bottle was twice the price of the same thing without the bottle (and I just wanted the bottle anyway) so I didn't get it, but I thought it would make a nice souvenir of my trip to Holland. As if one couldn't have enough souvenirs, one had to have so many that one couldn't return home with them all and had to leave some memories behind for next time (maybe that's what turns the wheel of reincarnation).

I still can't tell if I will go back and get it.

Is this the part where I talk about spiraling into depair for no apparant reason?