INVITATION / UITNODIGING / INVITO / ZAPROSZENIE

pour assister a ma soutenance de these :
to attend the viva voce of my thesis :
tot het bijwonen van de verdediging van mijn proefschrift :
ad assistere alla discussione della mia tesi :
mam zaszczyt zaprosic na rozprawe doktorska nt . :

A La Recherche du Sens Perdu : l’OEuvre de John McGahern

vendredi 29 mars 2002 ( 14h30 )
Friday 29 March 2002 ( 2.30 p.m.)
vrijdag 29 maart 2002 ( 14.30 )
venerdi 29 marzo 2002 ( h 14:30 )
ktora rozpocznie sie 29 marca 2002 roku o godzinie 14.30

Universite de Rennes II – Haute- Bretagne
Campus Villejean
Salle des Theses
6 Avenue Gaston Berger
35043 Rennes
France / Frankrijk / Francia / Francja

ensuite pour feter avec moi l’obtention de mon doctorat, je vous invite a diner au
afterwards, to celebrate my doctorate, I should like to invite you for dinner at
aansluitend nodig ik U uit voor een maaltijd om mijn promotie met mij te vieren in
di seguito per celebrare it mio dottorato, ho il piacere di invitaria all cena preso
Po obronie doktoratu mam przyjemnosc zaprosic na kolacje do restauracji

Restaurant ‘ Le Troquet ‘
19 Quai Gambetta
35260 Cancale

It depends on how I’m a-feelin’.
…Bob Dylan, Boots Of Spanish Leather

Last Thursday was only the second time in 10 years that The Father and I have taken off for more then a few hours alone. In the morning, I made bag lunches for The Boy and The Girl and had arranged for Oma and Opa to pick them up at 3.30 from school. All that was left to do was to drive The Baby and all of the paraphernalia needed for a three day stay to Loon, and we were off for Rennes. As we pulled out of Oma and Opa’s driveway, I felt amazingly relaxed : there was nothing and no one I had to take into consideration for the next three days, we could just do what we wanted without fussing about the availability of fresh milk, diaper changes and trying to figure out how long was a reasonable time to expect the kids to sit in the car.

The Fther’s car has a navigation system , named Jane, as in ‘Tarzan’.( Here I have to make a small digression. Saying ” The Father’s car” seems to imply that we have more then one car. Not true. It’s just one of those ‘ boy ‘ things. Our family car, our one and only car is in no way ‘ our’ car. It is “The Father’s car”. ) As we drove out of Loon, he punched in our destination, and Jane gave us the most expeditious route to follow. As one could predict, it was basically banging south in a straight line, and making a right after Paris.

Although Jane has made my job as navigator redundant, I still enjoy following our progress on a map, so shortly before we hit Lille, I pulled out my map. ‘Armentieres‘, I read. St. Omer. Dunkerque. Abbeville.

And being the highly overindulged housewife that I am, The Father ignored Jane’s advice and took a right, so that I could read road signs like ‘ Armentieres’, could scan the scenery for vestiges of trenches ( although I wouldn’t know a drainage ditch from a real trench ), look for old bunkers ( I saw two) and some of those tiny cemeteries – like those around Ypres – which usually sprinkle the landscape of WWI battle sites ( I didn’t spot any on the way down).

We arrived in Rennes at 6.30, hours later then Jane would have brought us, and spent the next hour looking for our hotel : Mummy forgot to bring the address of the Novotel. The Novotel, by the way, was just as I expected : about the only good thing I can say about it was that the beds didn’t have any cooties.

A La Recherche du Sens Perdu : l’OEuvre de John McGahern

All of these months with Mr.Jo have paid off : I was able to keep a polite, interested look on my face for 2.5 hours while Win defended his thesis on a writer I have never read, in a language I don’t understand.

Babel

19 of us had gathered to hear Win defend his thesis : an Italian, an Englishman, a Frenchman , his wife from Senegal and their three children, two Polish women, an American ( that’s me), and 8 people from the Netherlands. Once we had ‘hurrahed’ for Win, we climbed into 4 cars and took off for the coast, to party. Hearty.

And we did. After dropping our things off at our hotel in Cancale ( a beautiful fishing village, packed with restaurants and small bed and breakfast type hotels) , we walked over to the restaurant. We had three large booths, and after some shuffling around ( because of the various languages) we had an excellent seafood dinner, accompanied by much red and white wine. The Father and I sat with the guy from England ( who spoke french and english), the Frenchman ( who, it should almost go without saying, spoke only french), his wife from Senegal ( who spoke a small amount of english), and two of their daughters. Win changed tables with each course, so we were able to bullshit with him as well. It was one of those perfect evenings, great food and great conversation.

After we closed down the restaurant, around 10 all of us headed for a bar. It was rather small, but they scooted three tables together for us, behind the ‘dance floor’. We continued our talks, well oiled by calvados or beer or wine until we were the only customers left. All evening they had been playing music oddly reminiscent of disco, and when we realized that we were the only clients left, we called out for different music, for ’something old’ . What could have been more perfect ? They put on Dylan’s The Freewheeling Bob Dylan.

How I suffered



Did I mention that our room had a sea view, and that in the morning we could see Mont St. Michel ? It was a large attic room, complete with a shower and toilet, and while it wasn’t a Sheraton, it certainly was nicer than the Novotel. And half of the price ( at 45 euro).

Although Friday night had been very late, we decided to get up early: we could lie around in bed for a few hours more or use those extra hours for a slight detour to Omaha Beach on the way home. Waving goodbye to all, we began our trip home. We drove past St.Malo and agreed that it’s stunning walled city was certainly worth a trip back to see.

Omaha Beach

Han and I were hoping to use our ’saved’ hours to go to Omaha Beach, as Han had never been there. Jane only knows the highways in France, so it was up to me to get us there. My map of France only had the major roads on it as well, so we had to rely upon my memories of 20 years ago, which had been based upon a trip I took there as a child. Then, our family went to Arromanches, and I was told that that was Omaha Beach. It would indeed be too simple for the french to put up a sign that said ‘Omaha Beach’, so we ended up in Arromanches, at Gold Beach ( what do you know). It was a bit disappointing for Han, but we didn’t have enough time to head down to Port-en-Bessin, so we stopped at a butcher’s and bought some sandwiches and headed home, following the most expeditious route- heading for Paris and then shooting up north.

Euro

Han : There’s another toll coming up.
Sue : Well, you’re just going to have to break a fifty, I’m not using anymore of my euros.
Han : How many do you have to have ?
Sue : That’s not the point. I just used 4 of them to pay the last toll, if I keep paying, I won’t have any left.

On the first day of the trip, I made a point of cleaning all of my dutch euro ( coins) out of my wallet and collecting the french ones that we received as change in Han’s wallet. I wanted to come home with a shit load of french euros to spread around town, and I did. I must have 70 euro in coins, making my wallet a lethal weapon at the moment.

That’s My Boy

Shortly before we reached Lille, we were stopped by the police and given a speeding ticket. We were driving 176 in a 130 area. Oh well, I suppose it could have been worse.

As Han went through the procedure for paying the ticket, he engaged in polite chit-chat with the officers of the law ( Han can chit-chat with anyone. He is very good at it.) He asked them if it had been a busy day. Mwah, so-so, he was the biggest one they had caught today. Then one of the cops told Han what a great car he had.

That’s my boy.

Yes, I confess : Mummy had a blast. In France, of all places.

This is something I have to read when I have more time .( Found via Diana.) While The Girl and I both have dual citizenship, I’ve been pussy footing around for almost 7 years now about The Boye. I guess the reason is that I’m afraid that if I get The Boy a US passport, some dark day in the future he might be drafted into the US Army. One of my grimmer memories is that of taking my little brother to the post office in Concord to register him for the draft. How ’60’s of me.

The Father:” Well, let’s try to make the best of it.”

Yet another book about Rasputin. I’m not going to give a review of the book : I’m far too lazy for that, but I did realize something while I was reading it.

For years, I have been reading and re-reading books about this time period , about Nicholas and Alexandra and the last years of Imperial Russia. There always seemed to be some piece missing, something that I didn’t quite understand. There was the mystery ( now solved) of Anastasia, the riddle of the true nature of Rasputin and the ambiguity which surrounded the death of the family. Now that all of these questions seemed to have been answered, I find one glaring question left : who was Alexandra ? Each writer that I have read seems to have a slightly different idea of who she was, what she was like, although they all seem to agree that ‘ it was all her fault’. A quick search through Amazon
shows that there are now many books out about her.

Dear Sara,

One way to piss away a perfectly good morning is to enter the world of Airmiles and Starpoints.

Does anyone else find the idea of a two year old having a frequent flyer card to be vaguely decadent ?

I guess that today will be remembered in our family as ‘The first time we tried to have The Boy’s ‘bump’ removed’.

When he was 2, a small red bump appeared one day, right on top of The Boys’s left nostril. Slowly it grew until it was about the size of a large lentil, or half of a dried bean. We took him in to GP to have it examined, but were told it was nothing nasty, so not to worry about it.

We’ve always known that one day it would have to be removed, that sooner or later the other kids would start teasing him about it. Plus it rather has the look of something that a revolutionary leader from a third world country would have on his face. We decided that we would wait until the actual removal was what The Boy wanted.

He has never really been teased about it, maybe twice by an older boy who is a vicious cur and teases everyone, and has always accepted his ‘bump’ ( as he calls it) in a very natural way, as a part of himself, like his ears or toes. In fact, up until about 6 months ago, when he would talk about having it removed, he would usually ask if he could keep it then, in a little box like the box that he keeps his baby teeth in after they fall out . ( Heaven forbid, a rotting mole in a box.)

Last week I took him to the dermatologist. She looked at it and said it wasn’t anything nasty, then spoke a few words to The Boy. She asked him if he was bothered by how ugly it was. ( Here I could see The Boy trying to give the ‘right’ answer, when the truth is, he has never found his bump any more or less attractive then his toes or elbow.) Taking the diplomatic course, The Boy replied “Sometimes. A little”.

She then leaned back in her chair and began talking aloud to herself, going over the various methods that could be used to remove the mole. The Boy’s eyes grew large when she said ” Laser”, as he only knows of lasers from ‘Star Wars’, and he grew a bit pale when she said ” or we can burn it off”.

It was decided that burning it off would give the nicest results, so I was given a tube of lidocaine/ prilocaine cream and some very sticky bandages. One hour before the procedure, I was to put half a tube of this cream on his nose and then cover it with the bandage. This would be his painkiller.

So that is what I did this morning at 10am. The Father came to take him, as someone had to remain behind to take care of The BABY and pick tHE gIRL up for lunch. I spent the next two hours being surprisingly nervous. At around 12.30, they came home, a very pale Boywith a somewhat ravaged bump on his nose. The painkilling cream had not worked. They then attempted to give him an injection, but that hurt so much that it took three people to hold him down, and afterwards he was so hysterical that nothing could be done. The Father said it was terrible to see. The only way the bump can be removed, is if The Boy is knocked out, totally under.

The Boy was exhausted from the stress. I sat here at the computer, working on some drawings for the company and every 10-15 minutes we would talk. At first, he just kept telling me how much it had hurt. I told him how sorry I was. Then he said that Papa was a liar, with a very betrayed look on his face. I told him that Papa wasn’t a liar, that the Dr. was a liar : Papa had simply believed her when she said that it wouldn’t hurt. He asked me what an operation would be like and I told him. He said that he didn’t want one and I told him it would always be his choice. Then he said he didn’t want his bump anymore, was that the only way ? Yes.

After about an hour on the couch, he went outside to play with his football. He had asked me to come and get him if anything good came on TV, like Inspector Gadget ( The Boy loves Inspector Gadget), so when it came on I went out into the yard and told him. He came inside and said to me ” You feel bad about what happened, don’t you ?.” I told him that I felt terrible, they shouldn’t have hurt him like that. He told me it was ok and not to feel bad, it wasn’t my fault. Then he went over to watch Inspector Gadget.

I am terrified by the idea of The Boy being put totally under . There is no way around it, there is just always a risk. When The girl was a baby, she a double strangulated hernia and had to be operated on. She had an adverse reaction the the anesthesia and stopped breathing for a few moments.

All of this for a mole.

I am definitely going to stop grumbling and moaning about having to go to The Boy’s football games at 9.30 on Saturday morning. Since The Girl has joined the Scouts, The Father and I now take turns going to The Boy’s games : The Father goes to the ‘out’ games, I go to the ‘home’ games. To tell the truth, I have really enjoyed the two games I have gone to.

One reason is that The Boy is either the best or second best player on his team ( I won’t get too puffed up with pride here, they lost their last game 1- 11. In fact, they have only won one game, and that was because the other team didn’t show up. So The Boy is a big fish in a very small pond). I was pleasantly surprised to see how well he played ( he is one of two forwards) and what a good attitude he has towards the game.

The team has 8 players between 5 and 6 years old, and at their level, added inches really make a difference in how quickly they can run. The Boy is quite fast, and the same rather uncoordinated movements that have landed him in physical therapy are an asset on the field : he doesn’t run in a straight line, but rather stumbles and flails about, looking like he is going to trip any moment so he is given a wider than usual berth. The team does have one very tall boy, Ruud, who should be an asset, but he isn’t. Twice last Saturday, he was standing alone in an area of the field when a pass was made to him, moments with brilliant possibilities. The first time, he was busy inspecting something he had picked out of his nose and didn’t even see the ball there in front of him, the second time he was looking at the bottom of his shoe and therefore failed to see the ball.

The Boy says Ruud is afraid of the ball.

I really enjoyed last Saturday. After the other team had scored about 8 times, the fervent supporters of the Herptse Boys were heard to cheer wildly when the team simply managed to avoid yet another goal by Rosmalen. I was cheering wildly as well.

There are times when they remind me of nothing so much as those little graphic fluffies you see , you know the ones where when you move your cursor around , a flock of butterflies follows in it’s wake : 14 little kids running after a ball.

The Girl watches MTV for the first time : a Britney Spears Special.

Politiek-digitaal invites us to rate dutch politician’s physical charms. Later ( during opinion polls and after the elections), they will be going over the results to see if there is a correlation between charm and success.