"Oh Beautiful for Specious Claims"

In 2010, the United States passed, for the first time, a universal health care bill. Known as the Affordable Care Act (aka "individual mandate"), it basically stipulated that everybody in the US was required to have some kind of health insurance, and it reformed the insurance industry so that they couldn't refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions and pull some of the recission crap that they had been, as seen in Sicko. If you were too poor for it, you could get your insurance subsidized. It was, in other words, hardly extraordinary. It did not put the federal government in charge of the hospitals, as in a single-payer system. It left people able to make the decision to go without insurance (an extra tax would have been added to their tax forms) if they so chose. People in the Netherlands might recognize it as the Dutch system, and I'd venture to guess that most of them/us thinks it works quite well. Or at least, it's not terrible, and certainly better than having no system at all.

And for some reason, it's being seen as the worst thing to happen to the US healthcare "system". What there was of one, to begin with. It is now in danger of being deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

A bit of a primer on US politics for the internationals: Their are two systems at work in the US, the federal system, and the state system. States have jurisdiction over whatever goes on within their borders, and the federal government has jurisidiction over whatever concerns the nations as a whole (waging war and international trade, that sort of thing). What sounds cut-and-dry has been debated since the nation was conceived 223 years ago, with Gibbons v. Ogden as the first substantive case in which the federal government was granted authority over and above the state governments.

The main gist of the argument against "Obamacare", as the ACA is called, is that the federal government simply doesn't have the authority to mandate that individuals must buy insurance (what is erroneously viewed as a private product), never mind that hurricane insurance is mandatory in areas like Florida. People kvetch and moan about how stupid it is that they, who are perfectly healthy (until they're not) must subsidize the care for the fat, lazy, and diseased. They completely ignore the fact that people with insurance already subsidize the care for those without, in one of the most expensive, unfair ways possible.

But logic makes for a poor argument, at least when the Constitutionality of a matter is at stake. No--far more impressive is to worry about the federal government mandating that you eat broccoli, and death panels denying care to granny (like they already do--in Texas and Arizona, of all states, no less--but apparently if it's a state government doing this it's perfectly okay). Never mind that none of these have any basis in reality, nor are they within the scope of the ACA.

But perhaps most ironic of all, is that the ACA, which essentially puts into law the requirement that you be a good (Christian) person and help out your fellow man, is being attacked by the very same Christians who would require transvaginal ultrasounds for abortions(state-mandated rape) and permission notes for birth control. If it weren't so sad, it'd be funny.

Wimp

Anybody who has had their wisdom teeth removed, or else knows someone who's had their wisdom teeth removed, has probably heard a horror story or two about broken roots and otherwise terribly nasty things that go wrong when wisdom teeth get extracted. Luckily, mine came out without a hitch. Thirty minutes was the total length of time it took for all three--I was back in our apartment within an hour--but even so, I was shaking so hard at the end that I had trouble with my bike lock.

Even though most of it was painless--honestly, the most painful part was the anesthesia--I was still on edge for the entire procedure. When I was little, I had terrible cavities in my baby teeth, which warranted their removal. Our dentist wouldn't believe me when, while he was yanking out my teeth, I started crying because it hurt so badly. He'd given me the anesthetic, and it wasn't supposed to hurt--so therefore, it had to be in my head. Fortunately, this time, they believed me when I said it still hurt, and they gave me an extra shot. Unfortunately, this time, it meant that the anesthesia took twice a long to wear off.

But I kept expecting it to hurt, and it wasn't until they took off the cloth covering my eyes (ostensibly to protect my eyes from sharp pointy objects, but also because dental patients are like birds--if you can't see it, it can't hurt you) that I was able to relax. Some things just don't get better, even twenty years later.

The Saga Begins

As wonderful as our dentist is, he's still a dentist, and charming though he may be, he's still the one poking at your mouth with a tiny ice pick and admonishing you to clean your teeth better. So it follows that we ignore, for the most part, his little cards that remind us that we should be getting checkups. Prior to my arrival in the Netherlands, my last visit to an oral hygienist (not even a "real" dentist) happened a good decade earlier, when I was 18. I don't even remember how old I was when we stopped seeing our family dentist in the US. I believe we stopped because our dental insurance ran out, or something like that. Suffice it to say that one of the first things we did when I finally got my health insurance (with dental coverage) here was to visit Karel's dentist. Romantic, right?

I have been unusually fortunate, in the sense that, until last month, I have not had any problems with my teeth at all--not with my wisdom teeth, nor have I had any cavities since childhood. Last month, one of my wisdom teeth, which hadn't yet broken the surface after two years of sitting just under the gum, decided to go for broke and try again, much to my dismay--and pain. The pain is only intermittent, but when it's there, it gives me referred headaches. And after two days of headaches and teething agony, I decided the damn thing needed to go.

And here's where the whole thing gets weird: I made an appointment with our dentist to rip the little f*cker out. Our dentist poked, he prodded, but because it wasn't out, he didn't have the ability to take it out. So he gave me a referral letter (no phone number, strangely--I had to look that one up myself) for the oral surgeon at the university hospital.

I made an apointment with the oral surgeon. ("Hello, my name is Jules, and I'd like to make an appointment." "All right, can I have your insurance information?" "[insurance information]" "So wait a minute--what's your first name again?") I was told that this was merely going to be for an x-ray, that they wouldn't be traumatizing me any further. Which was fine by me--like I said, the pain is only intermittent, and I wasn't in any rush to get another tooth extracted. I'd had the same procedure done as a child, and was in screaming agony for every minute of it.

The oral surgeon appointment went well enough. They poked, they prodded, and then they asked me to stand in this machine which whirred and went 'round and 'round, by which they obtained a panoramic view of my jaw. My little problematic wisdom tooth turned out to be stuck under a ridge of bone, and they also advocated that I take out my top wisdom teeth as well--"a simple procedure", they promised me, as they were not only all the way out, but nice and straight, as well. But because they are so difficult to keep clean, mine were in danger of developing cavities and other issues.

I made a third appointment for the surgery, so soon I will be blogging about lidocaine injections and squicky crunching noises.

You might be wondering what makes this whole thing so weird: not once was I asked to make a payment. Our dentist threw in a cleaning, but never presented me with a bill. The oral surgeon never asked me whether my insurance covered this procedure. Instead, I expect that I'll get an extra bill from my health insurance company next month for my deductible (which is what happened after I paid a visit to our huisarts). It almost felt wrong to not have to whip out my PIN and pay for something. I'm as much a fan of some kind of health care system for everybody, but it still feels weird.

Sugar and Spice

Despite my reputation in certain circles for calorically-dense baked goods, in my everyday cooking (what I do of it), I don't really pack fats or sugars into my food. Most days, I make it a point to avoid sugar, though I do enjoy a Milk Break during morning coffee breaks, and some cookies with my nightly dose of St. John's Wort (it's seriously vile stuff, otherwise). But Dutch cookies are, for the most part, not very sweet--two Milk Break biscuits have only two-thirds the sugar of three Oreos--and, perhaps more relevant to healthy eating, don't contain high-fructose corn syrup.

I see this as a confirmation of Robert Lustig's theory that fat (consumed in modest amounts) doesn't make you fat, fructose makes you fat. Most Americans who are reasonably educated about nutrition and good eating are appalled at the quantity of carbohydrates the Dutch consume: bread in the mornings, sandwiches for lunch, ontbijtkoek with coffee, and a stamppot loaded with bacon bits for dinner. The terrible nutritive state of your average cloggie is only emphasized by little news bits such as this one, saying that your average child manages to eat only one piece of fruit every week, while your average Jap eats one-and-a-half--while the recommended serving is two. That's two pieces of fruit per week. I don't know which is more appropriate, being shocked that it's so low, or amazed that scurvy isn't an issue any more.

Edit: Frank has now pointed out that the DutchNews site I referenced is a terrible source for facts and that the actual recommendations were for 2 pieces of fruit per day. So really, the Dutch don't do that badly. But it says a lot that I was willing to believe "per week", don't it?

But while most Dutch food is stacked to the ears with starches (simple or otherwise), there isn't any high-fructose corn syrup hidden away in most of it. I've tried to find a food that has high-fructose corn syrup in it, and despite my best efforts, I've failed. I'm certain that sodas, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, are fairly loaded with it, but the fact that I don't know for certain just goes to show how frequently it occurs to me to buy it (which is never). Even the fluffiest of fluffy white breads contains flour, water, yeast, and maybe a preservative and maybe a vitamin supplement--but no fructosestroop, as it's called in Dutch. The powdered soups that I have regularly for lunch, the sauces that you can buy for your patat frites, the cookies stuffed with marzipan and glazed with sugar--they might all have sugar, it is true, but they probably don't contain HFCS.

Of course diets and lifestyles and national trends and nutrition are more complicated than simply not having HFCS in anything. And who knows, maybe the Dutch would keep their elongated physiques even if HFCS were added to their diets (hell, I caught whooping cough here, and I've been vaccinated against it in the US). Genetics, environment--who knows? Our weekly pot of spaghetti, at any rate, hasn't seemed to do us any harm yet.

Hack Hack Wheeze

This post contains mentions of bodily fluids and functions that some people might prefer not to think about. Consider yourself warned:


It's always so clear to see in retrospect.

The sniffling, sneezing, and cough that I had been suffering for the past six weeks were not, in fact, the onset of allergies gone wrong (more on that later), but, as last night plainly and clearly showed, a case of Bordatella pertussis, better known by its common name, whooping cough.

"But only kids get that!" Of course, that's what I thought, too, when the diagnosis was offhandedly suggested by Karel. But the vomiting at the end of a bout of coughing a few nights ago negated any doubts I might have had about whooping cough. Of course, by then, it had been two weeks since I'd last slept through the night, and it was too late to do anything about it (antibiotics have to be given when you're in the sniffly-sneezy stage). And honestly, who thinks "whooping cough" when a grown woman has a drippy nose?

The doctor I went to see last week also missed it. He gave me codeine for the cough. Now--codeine is an interesting substance. Take one, and it's like having had a beer--slightly buzzed, very mellow. Take two (which was recommended), and it's like being on the edge of "buzzed" and "drunk". Both quantities proved powerless to stop the forces at play in my upper respiratory tract, though--it would suppress the cough for about an hour, only to let me be yanked out of the start of blissful sleep by the cough returning for its vengeance.

Seeing the doctor in the Netherlands is, depending on the doctor and the expat, either a wonderful experience, or hell in a white coat. In my case, it was the former: the doctor spoke excellent English (while I could have described what I'd wanted in Dutch, it would have opened the door for a terrible misunderstanding), listened patiently while I described what I had, and gave me exactly what I wanted: a steroid cream for my eczema, a packet of codeine for my cough, and a blood test for finding whether or not I was allergic to peanuts. The only downside was that I had to wait 15 minutes beyond my scheduled time, but honestly, what doctor's office doesn't have that? As a bonus, the guy was cute enough to have been a TV doctor, but I already have one of those ;-)

As he filled out the form for the blood test, he told me that the results wouldn't be in for a week, and to call back to discuss them. It sounded reasonable, so I called back a week later...

Only to be told that my test results were "too complicated" to explain over the telephone. I'm not entirely sure what that means...either I tested weakly positive for just about everything they test for, or maybe they discovered that I've got three blood type alleles and not the regular two. Or maybe they found out that I'm descended from Superman, or that my blood ate through the ELISA plate.

Either way, it was a most unsatisfactory end to a week's worth of waiting. And I have to make another appointment to see doctor. The truth is? Apparently I can't handle the truth....

The Best Medicine

When I started taking Saint John's Wort for depression, I accepted the fact that, since I was more or less taking an MAOI, I'd have to give up eating cheese, chocolate, and red wine. The only hard one to stop was chocolate: I've never been overly fond of cheese, and as my good friends know, drinking, in general, has never been my strong suit. Cheap chocolate--the kind that's more sugar than cacao--seems to be all right, so I make do with that.

A comparison of our medical histories is reminiscent of the tortoise-hare fable: Karel's is pocked with episodes of fantastic fevers and epic sessions of homage to the porcelain god. The viruses that render him incapable of more than flailing weakly about in bed, barely able to drag himself the two steps to the toilet, leave me feeling flu-ish for a day or two--if they affect me at all. On the other hand, my medical history is layered with years of dealing with eczema, allergies, nearsightedness, and depression. None of which actually bothered me too much (except for the depression). Life could be uncomfortable, sure (working in a mouse lab and then coming down with an allergy to the little buggers can be inconvenient), but it wasn't like I was ever in mortal danger or anything.

At least, that used to be the case. About two months ago, I was eating some peanuts, and I began to break out in hives. A T1 immune response (the same kind that gives people poison ivy) to cashews a few weeks later, resulting in a huge blister on my lips, confirmed that I could no longer eat nuts. But it didn't just stop at the whole nut, oh no: in the two months since the blister episode, the problem has worsened to the point that anything containing nut oils--which is just about every single packaged food out there--sets off another bout of the itchies.

So far, happily, I've only ever been itchy, and not anaphylactic. It means that mistakes--where I thoughtlessly pop a peanut M&M, for instance--aren't going to be the end of me, and "traces" of peanuts in foods amount to a tolerable amount of itchiness. It's a good thing, too, because getting used to such a huge dietary restriction...kinda sucks, actually.

Phat

Every now and again I get into a discussion with my sister or mother about the relative benefits of socialism (the Netherlands) versus the insane clown posse that is the US at this moment. It is a peculiarity of the Dutch that, while a lot of things are regulated (i.e., setting out your trash), because everybody does them at the same time, it doesn't feel like it's regulated. The flippant part of me says, "It's the hive mind at work," but on the other hand it's probably the main reason why the Dutch stand for as many regulations as they do.

Something that is common in Europe and the rest of the world, then, is to regulate the advertisements directed at kids, most especially for unhealthy foods. It seems like a common-sensical health measure: the less kids want sugary/fatty/salty foods, the less they'll eat, and the healthier they are. This is not the case in the US, as the film makes clear: and consequently kids grow up with an emotional attachment to a particular brand, basically guaranteeing a customer for life.

In the Netherlands, then, most food ads are geared at adults, and feature relatively healthy food: stamppot met worst, soups, or pasta. TV spots for foods like sweet breakfast cereal are nonexistent--the sole exception is the Nutella spot, but I don't think I've ever encountered a Dutch breakfast spread that included Nutella. It seems to be eaten at every other time of day except breakfast....And of course, you have McDonald's and Burger King ads. But I don't think you could escape those, unless you moved to Patagonia.

The ubiquity of tall skinny Dutch people would seem to indicate that these measures work. But on the other hand, Dutch food culture is extremely zuinig: breakfast is a slice or two of bread-and-something, with coffee, or a small cup of milk or juice. Lunch is a sandwich, and maybe a cup of soup if you're feeling very decadent. More typically, it's a sandwich with an apple or an orange. Dinner will include a starch and a protein and a vegetable--there may be a glass of wine or a beer, but dessert isn't typical.

So, which is the deciding factor in the battle against the bulge in the Netherlands? Culture, or law? It's hard to say, really. But it's easy--a little too easy, so easy I don't really believe it myself--to point at the US and say that that's what happens to people when they have neither.

"...you ain't juicy!"

The title comes from a Jeff Foxworthy skit in the series "You know you're a redneck when...." What, my international readers may ask, is a redneck? Hard to say, actually--it's more of a mentality. Sort of the way being Dutch is, except without the culture, the history, the engineering know-how, penchant for cleanliness, and prudence of almost 500 years of Reformed Church-ness. Offhand, I'd say anybody who likes barbecued opossum is a redneck, but that would be insulting the indignous tribes in weird countries that actually eat those funny animals.

I've never been much of a juice drinker--I like coffee in the mornings, tea in the afternoons, and a cold white with dinner (assuming, that is, we're eating something that should be accompanied by white wine). Occasionally I have a jones for Diet Coke, but basically I'm just not a fan of sugary drinks. I do buy lots of fruit drinks, though, because Karel likes them. But even most juices contain more sugar than I like, which is why it took me so long to realize that there is a difference, between fruit juices and fruit drinks:

In short, fruit juices are found in the produce section of supermarkets, while fruit drinks are found in the aisles next to or around the soda/wine. Even though both are nominally chock full of vitamins (nuts? only smoothies), a juice typically denotes something fresh-squeezed and threatening to go south if not consumed immediately. Next to the juices, you'll also find what Europeans call "smoothies". I'll grant you that they're better than that soured-yogurt concoction the barista at the Selexyz tried to serve me, but I also believe that the whole point of imbibing a liquid is to get more of the liquid inside you than is stuck to the sides of the flask.

A fruit drink, on the other hand, can be bought in large quantities with impunity, and stored away in your pantry for weeks--months, even. They sit in their TetraPak cartons and wait until Karel puts one in the fridge--two if we're having guests. I buy them whenever they go on sale, but they are a pain in the @$$ to lug home.

Fruit drinks, in turn, are a derivative of syrup mixes that used to be popular back in the day, when Karel was a little kid--thick fruit syrups (or thin jellies) that came in huge jars, and you'd add a spoonful to a glass and then add water to it. These are easier to carry, which explaines their popularity in families of Karel's generation. This, in essence, was the equivalent of Kool-Aid to kids--it remains debateable whether Roos Vicee is really as healthy as it says it is, but at least they didn't have a creepy pitcher mascot. These syrups are still sold, but given the popularity of the boxed drinks, it seems as though the trouble of adding water is a bit much.

Something that I do like, though, is mixing the syrup with carbonated water, which is also sold in supermarkets. These delightful bubbly mixes make the most amazing sodas, and even better is that you can adjust the water:syrup ratio to your own sweet tooth.

I actually like the distinction--you don't get any confusion as to which one is healthy and which one is not. Of course, we also don't have that many choices--orange juice is either pulpy or not, there's no added-calcium-vitamin-D-fortified confusion to add to your choice of juice. Or drink.

Campbell's

One of the quintessential school lunches that I loved as a kid was grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. The grilled cheese was white bread and Kraft's Singles (which has no business calling itself cheese, but makes a grilled cheese like none other), fried in butter. The tomato soup was red salt from a can. And to top it all off, it came with chocolate milk.

It was heaven.

It still is.

These days, I can't imagine that schools would dare serve this stuff to their students and call it a "lunch". More like a premature serving of hypertension. And yet, the combination of grilled cheese and tomato soup is still embedded in my mind as the equivalent of Mac 'n Cheese from a box, or whatever you think of when it comes to food that's terrible for you but hits all the right emotional chords.

I still make grilled cheese, and I still make tomato soup, but it's marginally healthier, in part because I rarely make them together, but also because the grilled cheese is usually made with whole wheat bread, real cheese, grilled in a sandwich press, and might even have a tomato slice or two melted in. The tomato soup is made with real tomatoes, fresh herbs, and one or two charred red peppers.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are called "tostis" by the Dutch, and oddly enough--or perhaps, it should be expected, as the Dutch are a people of sandwiches--they are more refined here. You can have brie-walnut-honey tostis, or salami-mozzerella tostis, with all kinds of fillings melted into the cheese. The bread is spread with butter before grilling, but it's not smothered, and if you're especially hungry, the Tosti World makes theirs with three slices of bread, and two layers of filling. They are not served with tomato soup, unless you're at a sit-down place. And in any case, Dutch tomato soup is sweet and contains meatballs (horrors!), and is all wrong for a tosti.

Hang Time

The hardest part about sustaining a blog is coming up with relevant topics and making them interesting. It gets even harder when, for whatever reason, your brain decides that clouds don't really count as daylight. I've been in a bit of a funk for the past two weeks, and a bit glum for the entire summer, so while I take care of that the blog will be on a bit of a hiatus as I start achieving functionality again.

I'm guessing it will be another week to ten days before everything starts working again. Until then, this is your host Jules, signing off.

"The world's a better place when it's upside down"

I am not a girly-girl, nor have my jobs encouraged me to be one: when you're running amok in a lab, high heels and expensive silks lose out to the more pragmatic jeans-and-t-shirt. Even so, in high school, a spate of hyperactive oil glands and a small crush on one of the guys (Matt, if you really want to know) encouraged me to venture beyond my geek-bubble and explore the world of prettifying things.

One of the somewhat more daunting things about moving across the pond is how the definitions for things like "cream" and "lotion" change. That "cleansing milk" is very different from "body milk", and that neither of them have a drop of dairy in them. A scrub, thankfully, is still a scrub--that is, if you're talking about the grainy stuff that supposedly exfoliates as it cleans.

Here, a "cream" is a moisturizer for your face, unless it specifies that it's intended for your hands. Trust me when I say that, given the prices of most of these products, you'll only be able to afford to use them on your face. Personally, I've never believed much in Q10-this and regenerate-that, so I stick with the most basic of generic moisturizers. A "lotion" is actually not a lotion as it's known in the US (for those of us who didn't frequent the Clinique counter, anyway), but a toner.

It gets a little more tricky with "cleansing milk" and "body milk". Even though they're both milks, cleansing milk is a cleaner. It doesn't foam up the way products in the US do, and it doesn't make your skin feel tingly and clean. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that it stops my breakouts, I wouldn't even know that it did anything--which is actually what dermatologists recommend in a soap. Body milk, on the other hand, is a moisturizer for the rest of you. Why the obsession with milk? Back in the day, women would soak their skin in milk (their hands, if they could, the rest of them if they could afford it) to get that radiant lush glow of youth.

These days, things are much easier, and a lot safer: belladonna is recognized for the poison it is. White lead is no longer found in makeup. One no longer needs to grind his own lapis lazuli (just as well, because where do you find it?), and the most complicated part of makeup is picking out the right shade of foundation. I sometimes wonder if we've made things too easy--if that might be the reason why beauty magazines would have you think that being gorgeous is a lifestyle more artificial than Splenda: morning and bedtime rituals of washing, moisturizing, toning, and scrubbing; an exfoliation/mask treatment/facial schedule as tight as the op that brought down Bin Laden; for the truly dedicated, a lifestyle that involves no caffeine, sugar, alcohol, fat, carbohydrates, red meat, or for that matter, anything that's not celery. Men purport to like "natural beauty", but one wonders if there ever was such a thing.

The Skinny on the FatBoy

I'm a bit of a meanie in real life: I get a kick out of shocking my mother with seemingly mundane aspects of my life when I call her. Things like having to vaccuum every day, for example, make her positively upset. Explaining how to make yogurt--you let a jar of warm milk sit under a blanket for six hours--makes her inner food-safety inspector positively ill. Perhaps the most fun comes from explaining just what is a boterkoek (cake made with butter, flour, sugar, and a bit of salt) and what goes into the pea soup that Karel makes every winter (lard, lard, bacon, and lard).

Dutch food, in short, is full of the stuff that makes food taste good--and perhaps more importantly, actually triggers your satiety centers, unlike, say, low-fat foods. (I link to the video because it's thought-provoking--it all makes sense, which is a little frightening. It's interesting, that's for sure.) In most other aspects, life in Europe is similar to life in the US: the government is trying to get people to eat more vegetables, while people are steadfastly sticking to their fries. But whereas dietary advice in the US starts with cutting back on fat, in the Netherlands it begins with increasing your veggies.

Ultimately, it's a balance between what you eat and how much you eat, and that's true even for cats. These days Noodle (because not-so-FatBoy is too long a name) is at a healthy weight (just shy of 5.5 kg, or 12 lbs) again, without the use of special diet foods or "indoor" cat diets. Noodle came to us a proper little butterball, tipping the scales at a little over 6 kgs. Losing one pound might not seem like much, but considering that a) this is a cat, who can spend up to 18 hours a day asleep, and b) that he had zero inclination to play and his arthritis was terrible, it's really a marvel that he is the goofball who skitters around with his toy mice these days.

It's worth mentioning this because so many people have fat cats (one of our friends had a cat who died, largely because it was obese) and they don't seem to realize that they can, in fact, do something about it. Noodle, granted, wasn't as badly-off as some, and it was simply a matter of restricting his food intake--same as Shadow's, who weighs 11 lbs on a good day. The health risks for obese pets mostly mirror those for obese humans, but you don't need a general anesthetic to see the dentist.

Life is hard for Noodle: just when he finally becomes active enough to play, he gets put under and taken for a dental.

Unknotted

About two years ago the muscles in my left shoulder, neck, and back went into one hell of a spasm, completely incapacitating me for the pain. Not even paracetamol and ibuprofen worked, and Karel, after several hours, gave me Tramadol. I can't remember whether it worked--I was that woozy from having a quarter dose, and then I had a rebound-anxiety attack later that night--but I haven't been in a biking accident yet, so I assume that I could turn my head to check for traffic the next day.

The aftermath of that unpleasant spasm was a sort of semi-permanent state of constant tightness on my left side. It's not always painful, but it is unpleasant and more often than not a source of grumpiness.

Enter Evert: last year, he got certified as a masseuse but had not yet built up a clientele. To stay in practice, he and Karel made an arrangement, which was that whenever he wanted to stay the night, he'd get a human guinea pig to practice with--namely me. Karel gets a chance to show off his cooking skills (and a night in which I'm not pestering him to rub my shoulder), and Evert makes a small fee. Win-win-win all around. All I can say is, there are worse ways to spend the night than tripping on your own endorphins, and few things better than having your neck-back-shoulders be completely relaxed, even if it's only for a few hours.

Evert lives in the Hague and can be reached at info at wellnessmassages dot nl. He comes with his own massage table and all the relevant accessories, including trippy new-age music (not my personal favorite, but surprisingly suited for a massage), massage oils, and clean towels. He charges €50 for an hour's worth of full-body massage, though there is also the bits-and-pieces option. If you can get over his physical appearance--this guy looks like he can eat linebackers as an after-school snack--you'll find that he's very professional and very, very, good at unknotting all those weird muscles you didn't even know you had.

Seeing Glass

My userpic is a lie. I wear glasses. I'd tried wearing contact lenses before, but putting them in and taking them out every single day turned out to be a bigger pain than expected. It's a little vanity of mine, being photographed without my glasses--people change, but a photograph is forever, so you might as well send forth your best image.

Amanda has detailed the experience of buying glasses on Maastricht Minutiae. My own 2009 experience was similar, except that I opted for the Eyes + More rather than Het Huis Opticiens--they had oval-esque frames. And yes, it really is that simple. Some small glasses stores in the US (Designer Eyes, in Philly, where I bought my silver pair that I wore for 5 years, even though I needed a new prescription about 2 years in) operate in a similar way, but price-wise the Dutch stores are much better, as "extras" like non-reflective coatings and thin lenses don't cost extra. I have a pretty strong prescription, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that yes, €85 glasses do, in fact, cost €85.

The other major benefit of buying from a store such as Eyes + More is that, when you do, all of your data ends up in the system--your prescription, the set of your eyes, distance between your pupils, etc--so that, if after a year or two, you want prescription sunglasses, you can just walk in, point to a frame, pick out a lens color, and two weeks later pick them up. Obviously this only works if your prescription hasn't changed noticeably, and mine hasn't. Most glasses can be made in one or two days if the store has the lens in stock, but sunglasses usually require special lenses that need to be ordered, hence the long wait time. You can also ask for sunglass lenses in any frame, including the daintier wire frames--I chose the sturdier plastic ones because I'd be carrying them in my purse.

It was a major revelation to ride home without squinting into the road glare. Being able to read a book in the sun without going blind was also nice, and having an extra pair of normal glasses lying around is nice for the days when the cats hide my normal pair I forget where I put my red ones. But mostly, it's a relief to know that I can afford glasses if I need them.

Airing out the Dirty Laundry

I'm sitting at home, just-changed into brand-spanking-newly-washed pajamas--and trying desperately not to claw off acres of skin. My boyfriend did the laundry earlier this week, and for some God-forsaken reason he insists on adding fabric softener to the wash, which aggravates my eczema. God-forsaken, because we line-dry our clothes, which completely cancels out the fabric softener.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm not allergic to fabric softener per se, but just to whatever the hell Robyn puts in their detergents. I'm perfectly fine using the generic supermarket-brand detergent, but I itch like I have fire ants down my pants when we use the fancy brand-name stuff. It's irritating, because for the most part, I've outgrown my eczema. I no longer need to use color-and-perfume-free soaps, and I can tolerate conventional moisturizers, which is a fortuitous development in my dermatological history because you're basically screwed if you have sensitive skin.

When I first came here, I was surprised to find that there were so few products for people with sensitive skin. My Dutch improved, but my assessment of products for the dermatologically challenged hadn't: there really isn't all that much stuff for people prone to the itchies, here. And this is doubly true if you're on the Generics Budget, because what there is--body washes, laundry detergents--can cost double the price of the ordinary stuff.

It's generally true that, in the Netherlands, you have fewer choices with respect to just about everything. The produce section of the local Whole Foods by my parents' house probably contains more vegetable matter than an entire Albert Heijn. Most of the time, the short list makes it easy to choose from--Trader Joe's makes a killing from understanding the principle that more choice isn't always better.

But every now and then, I do miss the fact that there are so few hypoallergenic options available. I suppose I could just tell my boyfriend not to use fabric softener, but that would be too difficult.

Lament to peanut butter

This post begins with a disclosure: I stopped eating the likes of Skippy and Jif at around the time my mom discovered Whole Foods, then known as Fresh Fields, and we realized how peanut-ty real peanut butter--you know, the stuff made with actual crushed peanuts--tastes. However, I have never lost my affection for peanut butter, which lives on in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I bring for lunch every day.

Although I really should write that in the past tense: "brought for lunch every day". Becauuse, you see, it's only been two weeks since I stopped bringing the ol' PB&J for lunch. The reason is far less interesting than the sudden development of anaphylactic shock at the mere mention of groundnut. No, it's because I did a calorie count and realized that the peanut butter had to go if I ever wanted to lose the *ahem* pounds that I'd actively been trying to get rid of for the past 6 months.

Admittedly, I wasn't trying very hard. I mean, I don't really do diets. I eat right 95% of the time and exercise almost every day, running at least 4 miles a day most days of the week and let the biking and grocery-hauling take care of all the other muscles. But after about six months of this and not losing an ounce, I realized that something was wrong. And I counted calories.

Calorie counts here are usually give per 100g of the food item, which is NOT the typical serving size for most things. For liquids, it's given per 100 mL, which is again NOT the typical serving size. It's annoying as hell because you'll look at the package, thinking, "ZOMG THIS HAS HOW MANY CALORIES?!" and then suddenly remember that it's for 100g of food. You'll think that 100g is about 1/3 of the package, and then decide that it's a reasonable calorie count after all, except that when you eat the chips (or whatever it is) you never eat just 1/3 of the package, and then you realize that you've overeaten, but then think, "Oh, it's not that bad." Rinse and repeat a few times and it's no wonder that I'd been eating more than I thought I had been for quite a while.

So I stopped making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day. I continue to make two sanwiches, but with either the vegetarian deli-meat (don't ask--actually I hate the stuff but every now and then I just get so tired of cheese) or a huge hulking slice of cheese divided between two sandwiches. Ever since I've been doing that I've lost *cough* pounds.

Even so, I miss the PB&J. It wasn't just a delicious lunch, or a nostalgic turn back to my childhood (which did not actually feature PB&J to any major extent). It was also a singular American oddity in a sea of very Dutch sandwiches.

See, the Dutch think they've got the whole sandwich thing down. They'll put anything between two slices of anything else and call it a sandwich--and people will eat it and love it. In Maastricht, thanks to the influence of those decadent Belgains, this makes for a recognizable sandwich: meat or cheese or tuna fish salad, some lettuce, maybe a tomato slice, but definitely something dressy, and the bread is usually a whole roll. In Leiden, host to the Puritans escaping the Church of England, you´ll get two slices of bread, meat or cheese, and maybe some lettuce and maybe something nice--but only if you pay extra for it. In Amsterdam, they will smear butter inside a soft squidgy raisin roll and call that a sandwich. I've seen people eating what appeared to be two slices of bread with mayonaise in between on the train. In other words, anything goes, sandwich-wise, in the Netherlands.

But not a single Dutch person (that I've met, anyway) seems capable of comprehending the classicPB&J. The looks I get when I've tried to introduce the concept range from amazement ("What is this flavor combination of which you speak?") to skepticism ("Are you sure that's not deadly?") to downright disgusted (*excuses and runs to the bathroom, from which vomiting noises ensue*). I don't understand why: there is peanut butter and there is jelly, but for some reason, as ingenious as the Dutch can be, building things like Neeltje Jans and persuading the world that tulips are the future, they seem to have completely missed out on what was once a staple of my existence.