Tomorrow, The Girl takes the bus for the very first time by herself. It’s not like she will be taking off for Amsterdam , Paris or some place terribly exotic- no, she will simply be going a few villages over, to the town where she rides. It’s not that far away at all- in fact, I once worked in that town and biked to work every day. Not with any pleasure , mind you, ( stinkin’ winds that blow over the polder once actually blew me sideways into an irrigation canal -), but it’s a do-able bike ride, a few minutes on the bus.

And I certainly wouldn’t sit her precious fanny on any bus ride that I thought was the least bit threatening. You see, she wants to ride twice a week. Ok, I said, that’s fine, pick a day, arrange it all. Well, she did just that, last Tuesday. But with The Father ( and access to the businessmobil) gone, our little family unit must now rely upon the kindness of family.

And so The Girl received her first lessons in tit- for- tat- ness this week. Fact : she wants to go riding on Saturday. Fact : we have no car. Fact : I can’t take her there as that would mean The Boy and The Girl would be alone for around two hours- not an option. Fact : her Grandparents miss her very much and wonder why she doesn’t spend weekends with them anymore. Fact : her Grandparents have promised to come and watch her ride one day…. see where this is going ?

And so it is arranged : The Girl will take the bus- alone- to the stables on Saturday, at 11. At 2.30, her proud Oma and Opa will watch her lesson. After which they will all drive here and pick up her 80 pound survival- kit- for-24- hours- away- from- home- just the basic must- haves, dontcha know. Then off for an evening and a day in Loon.

They are planning a rather festive dinner for her, if reports can be believed.

And me ? My fingers are calloused from drawing intricate maps of all the bus stops ( 4) between Casa kitchen and the manege.

Like many other people who have lived together for a long time, The Father and I usually enjoy the same sort of movie. Makes life easy- I remember being absolutely horrified and disappointed when Sgt. Rock actually laughed during Rebecca. I knew that I had found my true partner in life when Han did not.

But every now and then, we really disagree upon a film. Like he just love,love, loves Ocean’s 11 which leaves me cold, cold, cold. And much to my surprise, he really disliked Memento .

And now Friday night is coming up. Have to make the best of everything, don’t I ? Now, if The Father were here, we would be watching football tonight. But he isn’t here, is he and I have custody of the clicker. I do believe that I shall buy something decadent to munch on and watch Memento once again.

Or find a really sobby chick flick and pass the evening dampening hankies and blowing my nose.

One of the pages that I put together today for the school memorial site was this one .

Once I received the initial information, I did a quick Google search, looking for a recent photo. It was then that I learned that there was also a film of what happened to Robert Jacobs ‘on the internet’. Once again , I found owners of blogs who mentioned how their stats had just flown through the roof when they published the link to this footage. They did not sound unhappy. Once again, I found this sort of behavior to be so very repugnant.

But I did other things today as well, stained a cabinet that Mr.Jo made in the master bathroom, took The Baby to the market for a bag of kibbling, felt very sorry for The Fatherwhen he called me and said that his first flight had been delayed, and so he would be missing his further connections and be in transit almost 24 hours longer than planned.

But during the day, as I went through the rather pleasant things that I did, I thought of that man.

And of how people seem to be becoming inured to seeing real live ( as Mig put it) ‘snuff’ films.

After all, did you hear about Robert Jacobs ?

The Netherlands goes on to the next round.

How can a game like this one not be exciting ?

Modern gladiators-

( the crowd roared…)

Back when I took that ( it was free ! I couldn’t say no !) fool class on web design- a thousand years ago- the guy teaching it said that the most important thing to remember was never to volunteer for anything. Now, this sounded familiar to me, my dad- as a soldier- was always sitting me upon his knee and telling me to never , ever volunteer for anything.

But I have actually spent the last few days updating a small web site- one in FrontPage no less, can you believe that ?- which belongs to the school that I went to in Bangkok. It’s a memorial page, for students and faculty members who have died.

Luckily, I didn’t have to do anything creative, seeing that I haven’t a creative bone in my body, just update it. In a way, it was a very, very sad thing to do. And despite what my teacher said, despite what my father preached, I’m glad that I did it.

It was the right thing to do.

Even though it was in stinkin’ FrontPage.

In a certain way, I’m almost looking forward to Thursday, The Father being gone. The last few days I have been so utterly overwhelmed by the feeling that I don’t have two weeks- on my own- in me. But I know- once he is gone- all of the switches will flip, slip into that make- the- best- of- it- mode which will make the two weeks go by…go by.

But for the moment, I’m simply wondering how on earth I shall get through this-

It’s that time of year again, that school- trip time of year. As I fold laundry up in the laundry room, I can hear groups of students going by, following that treasure- hunt sort of map provided by the VVV. A lot of schools make our town the destination for their school trip.

The Boy and The Girl’s school trip is on Thursday. They will board a double decker bus and a long line of mother’s and younger students will wave them off as they go to some amusement park God- knows- where.

And The Baby’s school trip was today. It was ‘A Fairy Tale Day’. The children were asked to dress up like some figure from a fairy tale and then they will be carted to some farmer’s field which has been all done up like a castle, for a day of fun, games and snacks.

Now The Baby is indeed a very ‘Princess’ sort of girl, she has tiaras, high heeled slippers, gown after gown but yesterday she announced that she was not going as a princess, no, she was going to wear her Scooby- doo outfit.

You know, after all of these years I’ve learned one true thing : pick your battles carefully.

Anyways, wasn’t there a dog in Cinderella ?

Today as the children and I were leaving the school yard, heading home for lunch, Geovar came running up to The Boy. He opened up the latest edition of The boy’s football club’s newsletter and flipping through the pages, pointed The Boy to the listing of this season’s teams.

The Boy has been promoted. Along with G.P.’s son, The Boy is finally- after 4 years- leaving his old, made- for- Disney football team behind him. Oh, The Boy has been promoted before, from F2 to F1, but the move to F1 included most of his F2 team. And while The Boy usually doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, he did comment to me that his nemesis, the goalie who was always telling The Boy what a shit player he was, was not promoted. And, The Boy added, he’s a year older than me.

As I looked over the list of The Boy’s new team mates, I found myself ticking off the strong points of the different players ( and wondering how on earth I knew their strong points). Boy, I said, you know, with Frenk and Patrick on the team, they’ll probably move you back to mid-field.

But The Boy doesn’t care. Any position is fine.

Except goalie.

As I walked from the butcher’s to the grocery store this afternoon, a man entering the opposite corner of the market square caught my attention.

He was wearing a fluorescent orange, one piece work suit and a guitar was hung from a strap around his neck. As he walked, he strummed his guitar and was singing ‘Nederland, oh, Nederland!’.

As he passed the crowded outdoor cafes surrounding the market square, the tourists drinking coffee and beer began to sing along with him.

But I needed some carrots for dinner, some cigarettes for the weekend and so continued on my way to the grocery store.

We begin preparing ourselves for The Father’s trip- picking up about 75 kilos of dog food, a crate of Coke Lite and Diet Fanta- those heavy things which are hard for me to bring home in my little AH shopping bag. I go with him to the GGD, for the injections that he must get before going over , and promise to pick up his malaria pills for him on Monday.

This is our last weekend before he goes- I know, it sounds a bit melodramatic, doesn’t it ? But I feel that these two weeks will be tougher than the last two.

In fact, this time, two weeks sounds like forever.