I have discovered the missing link between the abacus and computers as we know them today : it’s sitting here, in my Dad’s office, on his desk. His computer is so slow that going on line has become a study in masochism, so I won’t be posting here again until I am home on the fifth. A pity, as I’ve had many thoughts and impressions arise during this trip.

Much to my surprise, we are packed and ready to go. All of the kid’s ‘can’t live withouts’, all papers, bottles and diapers…we are actually ready to hit the road. Even the kitchen is all in boxes, so that Mr.Jo and Mr.Henk can begin tearing down the last walls and digging up the floors.

What did I pack ? 2 black T-shirts, 2 pairs of black levi’s, a ( yes, you have guessed it) black linen dress with the mikimoto’s to go with it and three pairs of socks. Morbid little thing that I am.

The Father came home from his meeting at 9.20 in a perfectly fine holiday mood. Top Gear came on at 9.30, and surprisingly brought a host of forgotten memories to the surface.

Both of my parents grew up in Detroit. Friends and relatives worked in the car factories and were obsessed with cars. Both Mom and Dad could do all kinds of fancy stuff with engines, a terribly American trait.

Mom always drove the perfect family car : a Spitfire. Her dream car ? A Mercedes SL.

Isn’t it appalling that I have a drive-a-car-phobia ?

Perhaps Mondays should be banned. I am noting a definite trend here of perfectly foul Mondays. Today I am supposed to attack the mountain of laundry upstairs and pack up the kitchen. Jan has turned the water off , and Mr.Jo has made it abundantly clear that my presence is not appreciated in the kitchen.

On the plus side, the Christmas cards are done. Reading around, I’ve noticed another trend : large sighs being emitted after saying ” And the Christmas cards are done.” Makes me wonder if anyone actually enjoys the process, or if it is just ‘one of those things’, like worming your pets,’ that has to be done’.

The other evening, with Ted and Cecile, the general consensus of opinion was that this was a major plus point in the arrival of the Euro : one would always have the appropriate coinage to leave in the porcelain dishes of the aggressively intimidating attendants at the rest rooms on the German autobahn.

Last night we went to rik with Ted and Cecile in The Big City. As I have mentioned before, an essential element in living successfully in Brabant is to know how to and to enjoy playing the card game rik.

It was a totally agreeable evening, colored heavily by the arrival of the euro yesterday. In fact, we even played ‘euro-can-you-top-this’. Which I lost. I had cleverly exchanged all of the coins in our card kitty ( actually a washed out jar that once held apple sauce) with the glamorous euros, but Cecile, the wretch, had a handful of Belgian euros ( do monarchs ever smile ? ) and FOLDING money ! She had three blue bank notes, which I believe were the 10 euro notes and it was simply neat, neat, neat to see them.

We agreed, before we began to play, that we would play for euros, but, as the evening wore on and Ted did worser and worser – as the saying goes- we converted back to guilders. It always amazes me that a man who designs java applets cannot see the logic behind ‘3 Aces’.

As a side bar on our mutual agreeableness, Cecile and I agreed that if The Father could call his grey car ’silver’, she could call her grey cat ‘blue’ ( a beautiful Burmese which reminded me terribly of Korat cats and aroused the desire to have a Korat once again in the future).

When I came home after this euro tinted evening, I went to check my e-mail and found one from eurotrash, asking me if I would like to be their ‘correspondent’ in the Netherlands. My reaction ? Does a bear…

* A note to Catherine : ’serendipity’ is also on my list of words I dislike. It leaves the odor of eau-de 70’s in it’s wake, don’t you think ?

I just bought a bag of euros at the grocery store ! It looks for all of the world like a bag of that foil covered chocolate money ! I suppose it’s because it’s brand new, but it really glitters in an almost garish fashion.

This afternoon I shall have the kids dump their piggy banks of change and take them to the grocery store to change it all into tinkling euros.

There are plus points in being the dominant female. There are, of course, the obvious charms, that of being the lucky chump who gets to scrape the petrified bits of human excrement off of the toilet bowl. But then there are the subtle ones : being Queen Bee means that you get to decide what is for dinner.

It means that I can nix the option of various nasty dutch delicacies, like zult, or bloedworst ( gee, the butcher was fresh out. haha. Like saying Hershey’s is out of cocoa beans). And it also means that I can decide to have a summer dish in the middle of this grizzly weather, which is really perfect for rookworst, or pea soup.

And that’s what I did yesterday. To accompany our penne with salmon, I brought in a whiff of summer and Viareggio. Sliced Roma tomatoes, a large handful of fresh basil, thin slices from a lovely ball of mozzarella Han picked up last week, a drizzle of the excellent olive oil we brought back from our summer vacation and a few twists of freshly ground pepper. I could almost imagine that I was back at Buffolino’s, eating ( ok, stuffing ) under a summer sky.

Should anyone want a translation of the recipes. just let me know. I suppose zult is one solution for that pig’s head one simply doesn’t know what to do with.

I never realized what a bore I am when I’m stressed. I almost put myself to sleep. Next Wednesday cannot come soon enough for me.

With less than a week to go before we take off, each day is now filled with far too many trivial and vital matters which have to be dealt with before we can go.

Yesterday was a zoo, for as well as beginning to pack up the kitchen and play room, The Boy had his physical therapy ( for his left-handed vs right-handed problems), then we had to take him to the next town , for P.’s birthday party. That turned out to be a nice walk, as The Girl knew a short cut home, which led us through some cow pastures, which were filled with migrating birds.

We arrived home to find that The Father was already there ( I thought that I would have an hour at home before he arrived) so into the car and off we went. We dropped the girls at Oma and Opa’s , then went to see our let-me-give-you-a-hug try-to-stop-smoking place, but, well, that was a waste of time. We have both lost faith in it, and as we came out of the office, looked at each other and said ‘Want a smoke ?’.

We didn’t, but on the way home a rock hit our windshield, leaving a huge crack in it- another thing to be dealt with. We arrived home a bit after 6, and The Girl had talked Opa into driving her to her horse riding lesson, so The Father went and picked up The Baby at the Manege, dropped her at home, and he and The Boy went to do the ‘big’ shopping , picking The Girl up on their way home.

I, in the meantime, spent 20 minutes on hold with the travel agency, listening to the Doobie Brothers, as I attempted to confirm our plane tickets, which oddly enough went up in price. We ordered them in April, and , well, I would have thought that the price would have gone down, given the events of Sept.11.

Everyone was finally home at 7, a long day.

Checking my e-mail, I had a charming note from C., but my mind became side-tracked by memories of the James Bulger case. What an odd turn I’m taking as I deal with stress in my usual, lame way.

I certainly must reply to her today. She sent me a lovely photo of her brawny brother, C., with his latest flame- the oh-so-vixenish Kylie ! What a dark horse he is !