A nice site on fortified cities in the Netherlands- in Dutch.

I only clicked off the computer a few minutes ago. I then took The Baby upstairs to tuck her into bed. As I was doing this, a thought came to mind and I ran back down here and checked out that Southern Dictionary again. But no, it did not give me any explanation.

An explanation for what ? Well, a few weeks ago I was listening to a speech W. was giving in Alabama. One of the many topics that he covered was improving the quality of public education for all children. Somewhere within this very long speech, I was startled to hear the word ‘dudn’t’ being used by this Harvard lad, son of a Smith mother, a Yale father. I wondered briefly if perhaps Barb had proof- read all of his term papers, possibly typed them for him and then pushed that aside as being too silly for words.

Tonight it crossed my mind that perhaps he was just trying to be folksy- you know, try some fried okra, drink sun-tea and throw out a few good-old-boy words. But no, ‘dudn’t’ is not in that dictionary of Southern words.

Then, out of curiosity, I did a Google search on it. Is ‘dudn’t’ one of those things like ‘Where’s the beef ‘ – you know, a catchy little political turn of phrase, an affectation ?

I hope so. I was quite appalled to think that the level of education here might have sunk so low that ‘dudn’t’ was now an acceptable word in the American language.

With only days left here, I find The Southern Word Homepage.

AIGS (noun). Preborn chickens.
Usage: “Honey … git me another play-it of beckon and aigs.”

MAYTER (noun). A red vegetable used as the primary ingredient in ketchup.
Usage: “I’m hungry. Fix me a mayter sandwich!”

The Baby : Whassat ?
Mummy Dearest : That’s a cross.
The Baby : Wheresa lady’s shoes ?

Eliz and Steph both have started weblogs .

Most afternoons Dad and I throw the kids in his truck and head out to Smith Lake, where Jim and Patsy ( Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Patsy to the kids) have a house and the kids can splash around for an hour or two in the lake. Driving through the countryside the other day, Dad pointed out some trees in the woods to me. According to Dad, whenever you see an Oak, a Magnolia and a Cedar growing together that marks the site of an old homestead. It passes the time, searching for that little group among all of the trees and it also left me feeling homesick for Massachusetts.

Which surprised the pants off of me – I haven’t been homesick for years. Perhaps I’ve just tanked up on the ubiquitous I was missing ( Walmart, fast food, junk food, books in English) and now that that is out of the way the specific things rise to the surface. I miss changing lanes on I- 495, I miss route 2 and 2A, the trees on the way to Quabbin, the beaches on the North Shore. I miss driving through Concord and boring the hell out of anyone else in the car by pointing out the homes I used to live in, the places friends used to live, my old high school, if I’m desperate enough ( which I find hard to believe) perhaps driving out to my old college.

How odd.

It really isn’t the trees or the traffic, neither the flora nor the fauna. I simply miss hearing people say ‘wicked this ‘ and ‘wicked that ‘.

We return to the Netherlands on Friday. Oh Delta, what have you in store for me now ? Oh, a run of three seats in row 36 and 1 seat in row 42. Is there a Solomon out there somewhere ? Who do I put in the single seat ?

I had a great time in New York. This doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly fallen in love with NYC, I just would have had a great time in any place where I met up with my brother again. I hadn’t seen him in almost 8 years, due to a number of factors , including the fact that he won’t fly and until last year I really wasn’t up to flying with The Boy.

My brother Tut is the funniest person I have ever met, and we spent two days laughing and going down our own peculiar memory lane as we criss-crossed Manhattan. He had cab drivers laughing, people in elevators snorting in surprise- no one wanted Monday night to end.

Outside of seeing Ground Zero and a business appointment that The Father had Monday afternoon, we really didn’t have an agenda of things that we wanted to see, so we followed Tut’s interests. It turns out that Tut is fascinated by and very knowledgeable about skyscrapers and their history, and so we spent most of our trip looking up in the air at tall buildings.

The first evening, we went for drinks at the revolving lounge on the top floor of Marriott Marquis Hotel , where handy- dandy little cocktail napkins had a map printed on them, letting us know what buildings we were looking at. We ended up admiring The Flatiron Building , going up The Empire State Building ( which lights up red-white and blue at night) , we had a great steak at Grand Central Station , and everywhere we went, we had to turn and admire my brother’s favorite building -The Chrysler Building.

He also has a deep admiration for firemen, so we went to various memorials dedicated to them and to a fire station, to admire the trucks.

We had only met Laura once before- that was at least 10 years ago and for only a few hours, so it was nice to get to know her better. I liked her fine, even though she is still on the lookout for Elvis. She has moved to Westford and now lives on a lake ( or a large pond) , looks like a lovely place to visit. And perhaps we shall, next summer.

I never did get to have my corned beef sandwich in NYC, but I had some fine Indian food so I’m not complaining. The corned beef sandwich was actually never really number one on my list of things that I ‘must have ‘ or ‘ must do ‘ in NYC. Number one on my list was to see Ground Zero , which we did on Monday morning. What was it like ? It was a sad, sad sight and one that I am glad I got to see. I stood there for a long time and it certainly hushed my mouth.

It seems that there are already a number of plans for the eventual rebuilding of the area so I wanted to see the site, see the damage, feel the palpable sense of absence before it was gone forever.

I very rarely give my opinion on national matters. Doesn’t mean that I don’t have any opinions , just means that I have found that the simple fact of me uttering an opinion on a topic of national importance – whatever it might be- tends to offend people easily. The Dutch feel that I’m ‘not Dutch’, Americans feel that I ‘ don’t live here ‘, so I just sit quietly in the background with my well honed oh-silly-me smile on my face.

But I do know what my opinion on the rebuilding of the WTC would have been- if I had lived all of my life in the States : I would have wanted it to be rebuilt exactly as it was before. But then, I am also tediously fond of Churchill’s speeches, I’ve been known to say ‘Up yours !’ to rude strangers and I’ve always had a soft spot for Beau Geste.

This morning at La Guardia Airport, I couldn’t help but notice all of the soldiers dressed in camouflage, M16’s casually swinging on their backs , walking around the airport terminal. I have traveled a lot in my time, so this isn’t the first airport I’ve been in which has used military personnel for security reasons, but this was the first time that I had seen it at home-sweet and I found it a bit unsettling. Perhaps because sightings of soldiers at airports in the past had always found me with a rather smug attitude, like a character out of a Len Deighton novel stepping behind the Iron Curtain.

As I sat in my seat, flying towards Alabama, I found my thoughts drifting over to the camouflage uniforms the soldiers were wearing. It was a rather small pattern of green and beige and I settled upon this pattern as being perhaps most effective in a deciduous forest. Deciduous forest ?

In the past few years, I have begun to find the concept of ‘ form follows function ‘ rather appealing, for the most part as it applies to the Internet, but also in other areas of life , so I really can’t help but wonder why these fine lads are wearing camouflage. Camouflage is supposed to – well, camouflage one- make one blend into the background. One would assume that one chooses to wear camouflage in order to blend into a background. Why then would anyone decide that looking like a deciduous forest was the most appropriate attire to wear in order to blend into an airport terminal? Or perhaps because camouflage is rather redolent of those scary guys in Apocalypse Now ( you know, ‘The Horror ! The Horror ! ‘) it is worn to seem more powerfully threatening. I really can’t think of one logical reason for it.

I have since found out that the soldiers are members of the National Guard so I could be wrong about every other item in this post as well. Perhaps the camouflage is not for a deciduous forest at all, but for a pine forest. And perhaps the Joint Chiefs of Staff have assigned top designers to prepare a camouflage uniform especially for use in airport terminals. I have been thinking quite a bit upon what attire would blend in well and so far have come up with the ubiquitous T-shirt with a print on it . I’m now working on what sort of pants and shoes would be most appropriate.

Someone out there have any idea why these guys are in camo ?